A couple of general comments:
1. iPhoto is not compulsory. You don't have to use it.
2. But if you do, then you're going to need to make a small conceptual leap, and learn just a little.
The Conceptual Leap: Your Files and your Photos are not the same thing. The illustration I use is as follows: In my iTunes Library I have a file called 'Let_it_Be_The_Beatles.mp3'. So what is that, exactly? It's not the song. The Beatles never wrote an mp3. They wrote a tune and lyrics. They recorded it and a copy of that recording is stored in the mp3 file. So the file is just a container for the recording. That container is designed in a specific way attuned to the characteristics and requirements of the data. Hence, mp3.
Similarly, that Jpeg is not your photo, it's a container designed to hold that kind of data. iPhoto is all about the data and not about the container. So, regardless of where you choose to store the file, iPhoto will manage the photo, edit the photo, add metadata to the Photo but never touch the file. If you choose to export - unless you specifically choose to export the original - iPhoto will export the Photo into a new container - a new file containing the photo.
The Learning: iPhoto replaces the Finder (or file browser) for everything to do with your Photo. And I do mean everything. Organising, Editing, sharing with other apps, printing, uploading, whatever are all done either with or via iPhoto. It's you "go-to" for anything to do with your Photos.
The upshot of that is that how (or where) the files are stored doesn't matter - as long as they are safe and backed up - because after importing to iPhoto you never directly access those files again.
So, you want to organise your Photos: do it in the iPhoto Window. Events, Albums, Keywords, and so on. You do all your work via that window or the media browsers that make the Library available in every app in the OS.
So: want to edit a photo, but not with iPhoto? You can set Photoshop (or any image editor) as an external editor in iPhoto. (Preferences -> General -> Edit Photo: Choose from the Drop Down Menu.) This way, when you double click a pic to edit in iPhoto it will open automatically in Photoshop or your Image Editor, and when you save it it's sent back to iPhoto automatically. This is the only way that edits made in another application will be displayed in iPhoto.
How to access the Photos for whatever reason you may need them see this user tip:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4491
For details of the Export dialogue: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4921
You can more or less recreate your folder tree in the iPhoto Window - start at the bottom of your tree and drag folder of images to the Albums Heading. iPhoto will import the images and make an album of them. Then File -> New Folder and drag the Album to that. Folders can hold nested folders and Albums. And so work from there.
But if your folder tree is date based that's a bit pointless, as the Calendar search and Smart Albums make it pretty redundant. With these you can find any photos from a specific day, week, month, year or date-range in the Library.
If the folder tree is theme based, then keywords will a more effective way of working.
And Albums are more flexible that folders in the Finder, as an image can be in any number of Albums and use no extra disk space whatever.
So, it's a whole new way of working with photos for you.
To your specific questions:
I am having an issue exporting the iphoto albums to an external drive. When I do it, it either just drops all the pictures in together or it separates them by events, but my iphotos are arranged in albums, not events so that doesn't help
Export them one album at a time.
This User Tip
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4921
has details of the options in the Export dialogue.
But given the above... why are you doing this? You're defeating the non-destructive workflow by doing it. Are you trying to back up?
.I can't save photos automatically to folders/albums in iphoto bc it doesnt show in the finder,
Not clear exactly what you're asking here, but does the above open some ideas?
I can't upload to facebook without doing it from iphoto
Yeah you can... For help accessing your photos in iPhoto see this user tip:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4491
It's the first one...
and I obviously can't save to external drive easily just yet.
Yeah you can but what exactly are you trying to save, and, again, why? Different purposes have different workflows.
Should I just be saving all of my photos in Pictures in the finder?
That's a personal choics, but not if you plan on using iPhoto. And as I started with iPhoto is not compulsory... As to why you shouldn't with iPhoto:
For more on iPhoto and file management see this User Tip:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6361
Reasons for bothering to learn...
I use Events simply as big buckets of Photos: Spring 08, July - Nov 06 are typical Events in my Library. I use keywords and Smart Albums extensively. I title the pics broadly.
I keyword on a
Who
What
Where basis (The When is in the photos's Exif metadata). I also rate the pics on a 1 - 5 star basis.
Using this system I can find pretty much find any pic in my 50k library in a couple of seconds.
So, for example, I have a batch of pics titled 'Seattle 08' and a typical keywording might include: John, Anne, Landscape, mountain, trees, snow. With a rating included it's so very easy to find the best pics we took at Mount Rainier.
File -> New Smart Album
set it to 'All"
title contains Seattle
keyword is mountain
keyword is snow
rating is 5 stars
Or, want a chronological album of John from birth to today?
New Smart Album
Keyword is John
Set the View options to Sort By Date Ascending
Want only the best pics?
add Rating is greater than 4 stars
The best thing about this system is that it's dynamic. If I add 50 more pics of John to the Library tomorrow, as I keyword and rate them they are added to the Smart Album.
In the end, organisation is about finding the pics. The point is to make locating that pic or batch of pics findable fast. This system works for me.
