I've not used iPhoto in the past because the storage and retrieval of files was not intuitive to my pea brain. I've always organized all images on both Macs & PCs in Picture Folders. I also have an external drive for saving multi-media files. So my question is where is the best place to store images? If I put them in iPhoto libraries it seems cumbersome to retrieve them for use in other applications. But if I don't then I have cumbersome use in other Mac apps (FCPro, DVD Studio, etc). I'm just learning to move from a novice into more intermediate use of Multi-Media projects. What's your advice? I am willing to learn iPhoto and storage if that's what seems best for image retrieval. I have lots of images. Thanx
2 GHz Inteo Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.7) 1.5GB RAM, beautiful monitor and machine
2 GHz Inteo Core Duo,
Mac OS X (10.4.7),
1.5GB RAM, beautiful monitor and machine
The first thing to remember is that iPhoto is not all things to all people, and may not be right for your needs. That said, it probably is
if - and for some it's a big if -
you can let go of your finder structure.
What do I mean? Well assuming you have folders for year - 2001 - and inside folders for month - Jan to Dec then it's a cinch to find a photo taken in June 2001. What's more difficult is to find a picture of your dog taken in Boston sometime in 2001, it just means looking at every pic until you find it.
If that works for you good and well.
You can do that in iPhoto too. But you can also tag the pictures with keywords - dog, boston - and search on the keywords. Now you have the pic first time. And of course you can have many more keywords per picture, and ratings and titles and you can search and using any, all, or any combination of these elements. And the smart albums - like picures of your dog, make a smart album and every pic you tag 'dog' gets added to it automatically
And then there's the (lightweight but useful) editing, emailing, books, slideshows etc.
The cost is that iPhoto needs to organise the photos in a very specific way, and that's the part that many people have trouble with. But of course it's strongly recommended that you change NOTHING in the iPhoto Library Folder - other wise the app won't work.
You can also choose to leave your originals as they are, but be careful, if you change anything in your existing folder structure, then iPhoto won't work, and throwing away photos is more cumbersome. Personally, I think you're best off to copy your originals into iPhoto and
when you're confident that they are all safe and sound in iPhoto throw away your original folders
The upside is that the app takes care of all your originals, in a single place, plus any modified versions. This makes back-up very easy. Just back up the iPhoto Library Folder. Job Done. You always work on a copy of your original file. Edit a pic, it saves it as a copy to preserve your original.
The downside?
If I put them in iPhoto libraries it seems cumbersome to retrieve them for use in other applications.
Actually no, it's as easy as drag the photo from the iPhoto window to the desktop, and there's a copy of your original, on the desktop. How cumbersome is that?
The first thing to remember is that iPhoto is not all things to all people, and may not be right for your needs. That said, it probably is
if - and for some it's a big if -
you can let go of your finder structure.
What do I mean? Well assuming you have folders for year - 2001 - and inside folders for month - Jan to Dec then it's a cinch to find a photo taken in June 2001. What's more difficult is to find a picture of your dog taken in Boston sometime in 2001, it just means looking at every pic until you find it.
If that works for you good and well.
You can do that in iPhoto too. But you can also tag the pictures with keywords - dog, boston - and search on the keywords. Now you have the pic first time. And of course you can have many more keywords per picture, and ratings and titles and you can search and using any, all, or any combination of these elements. And the smart albums - like picures of your dog, make a smart album and every pic you tag 'dog' gets added to it automatically
And then there's the (lightweight but useful) editing, emailing, books, slideshows etc.
The cost is that iPhoto needs to organise the photos in a very specific way, and that's the part that many people have trouble with. But of course it's strongly recommended that you change NOTHING in the iPhoto Library Folder - other wise the app won't work.
You can also choose to leave your originals as they are, but be careful, if you change anything in your existing folder structure, then iPhoto won't work, and throwing away photos is more cumbersome. Personally, I think you're best off to copy your originals into iPhoto and
when you're confident that they are all safe and sound in iPhoto throw away your original folders
The upside is that the app takes care of all your originals, in a single place, plus any modified versions. This makes back-up very easy. Just back up the iPhoto Library Folder. Job Done. You always work on a copy of your original file. Edit a pic, it saves it as a copy to preserve your original.
The downside?
If I put them in iPhoto libraries it seems cumbersome to retrieve them for use in other applications.
Actually no, it's as easy as drag the photo from the iPhoto window to the desktop, and there's a copy of your original, on the desktop. How cumbersome is that?
Thanx. I think I'll try to get more involved with iPhoto and use your suggestion of copying my images into iPhoto, and as you wisely advise, once I'm sure they're all there, then delete the originals.
Am I permitted 2 follow up questions? Here's #1: Every image is always in the Library and then aliai are plopped into the various albums, Yes? So when I downlaod images from the web or from email attachments - Can I save directly into the Library Originals folder via finder or should I save to desktop and then import?
#2 What's the fastest and/or easiest way to add keywords to an image? It seems I should be able to shift/click several keywords to add to an image. All I know now is to drag the image to each keyword - so three drags for 3 keywords. I'll bet I'm missing a shorter way. Thanx again for being so helpful.
Can I save directly into the Library Originals folder via finder or should I save to desktop and then import?
Save to the desktop and then import. If you put things into the Originals folder then iPhoto won't know they are there. (and what are you doing in the iPhoto Library anyway!!!) Use the File -> Import to Library Command
Personally, I think that the apple method of keywording is very clunky, but the faster way to do it is: Don't drag a single pic to a single keyword, select all the photos that you want to have that keyword (hold down the apple key and click for multiple select) and drag all of the pics to the Keyword, so you're not keywording single pic, but multiple pics with the same keyword.
My suggestion for storage is to Burn them to a DVD or CD. DVD's will store more inf. ( 4.7 GB's ) ,CD's (700 MB) . As i understand I-Photo is a viewing application not a storage . Your photo's are all in Photo Library , not the Library in I-Photo. You can transfer them to your external harddrive , however it could crash. The only true Back up is burning them , even then you could damage the DVD's. So then you would back up with another DVD. Burn your photo's in the time period you feel most comfortable with. You can than view the Disc in I-Photo. Good Luck P.S up grade to 10.4.7 and I-photo 6.0.4
