Porting iPhoto libraries to another software pkg?

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Level 1

4 points

Porting iPhoto libraries to another software pkg?

For many years, I have created separate iPhoto library for each year's 10K+ photos. Each library is organized by Events that are not date centric but subject centric. I am giving up on Photo as it translate everything into basically a flat file separated by dates. All the event classification is lost in translation.

Here is a list of 10 alternatives to iPhoto I found on the web.

http://www.wondershare.com/alternative/iphoto-alternatives.html

My question is: does anyone know which software will port iPhoto's Events properly?

Thanks.....EFS

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Nov 23, 2015 10:59 PM

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Answer 1

LarryHN

Level 10

106,110 points

Nov 23, 2015 11:04 PM in response to efshum1

There is no software that I've seen that can directly use the iPhoto library - You can export your library using the subfolder structure option to create a finder folder matching each event

As to capabilities of different packages you need to deal with that program's support forums - we can explain how to use iPhoto but are not users of all other photos programs

LN

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Answer 2

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,290 points

Nov 24, 2015 12:20 AM in response to efshum1

None of them do, as apart from Aperture on that list, none of them an parse the iPhoto Library.

If you are thinking of a flat file system forget Picasa and Lightroom too, as they are databases like iPhoto. Aperture is no longer developed.

Lightroom has an importer that gets closest.

At heart your problem is you're trying to go from a database with built in versioning to a flat file system. In apps like iPhoto the image is not just the file, it's the file+all the data entires in the db. In a flat file system it's just the file. So you have to device a method of dumping some data somewhere.

To do this you export from iPhoto and in doing so you choose between dumping the original file and instead exporting a version (that's the image plus the added data) or dumping the added data and exporting the original. Either way you lose something. You choose.

This User Tip

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4921

has details of the options in the Export dialogue.

Once they are in folders in the Finder work away at whatever app you prefer.

BTW this issue will always arise if you from a DB to a flat file system. You'd have the same issue with Picasa, Lightroom et al.

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Answer 3

Old Toad

Level 10

207,367 points

Nov 24, 2015 11:08 AM in response to efshum1

The closest you can get to porting your photos to another app and have it somewhat in the order you had in iPhoto is the following:

1 - select all photos in the library and use the Photos ➙ Revert to original menu option:

1 - select all of the Events in the library and export the originals to your hard drive or external hard drive via the File ➙ Export ➙ File Export menu option with the settings as shown in this screenshot:

This will produce a folder on your hard drive for each Event and with the same name as the event. The photos inside will the the maximum file sized jpegs possible and will include the title, description, keywords and GPS information embedded in the file itself.

This should let you use those folders/files with another application and retain some of the organization and metadata.

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