and I am trying to organize photos so there aren't duplicates and triples. I have photos in events, last import, photos and albums....I feel like they are all taking up space.
Sarah,
Only the photos you are seeing in the events and the Photo Stream will take up space. iPhoto stores each photo only one. After you import it, it will be assigned to one event.
Then you can use it in many albums and projects. Using the photo this way will only reference the one single copy of the photo in the event. The albums don't store the photos and do not require additional space. If you delete a photo from an event, it will be removed from all albums that have been using the this photos.
What you are seing are not actually duplicate photos but different ways to access the same photos.
The "Last event" is the same event as the last one you imported. It is there for a quick access to your recently imported photos. Photos is a quick access to all photos in your library as an endless stream of photos. These are also no duplicates.
So if you want to save space and delete photos, do that by browsing your events. Deleting a photo from an event will delete the original image file and remove the photo from all albums, books, and other products. You have only duplicate photos, if you are seing the same photo twice in an event.
Even more bizarre; I imported photos from my 4S, and only a fraction of them transferred over.
That is a different problem, but it may be related to to fact that you need to free space.
If you get a warning, that the system needs space, don't do anything but update the backup of your mac and move files to an external disk to free space.
It is not save to keep working, when the system is running out of space.
How much free space do you have? Anything below 15GB free space is really critical.
-- Léonie
