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NickD

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 25, 2007
725
1
Colorado
I need some advice on organizing my library, because I have thousands of pictures and badly need a concrete way to organize them within iPhoto.

Please post tips or screenshots for me so I can get some ideas and hopefully better arrange my photos.

-NickD-
 

puckhead193

macrumors G3
May 25, 2004
9,570
852
NY
Everything important gets an album, If its just random pics at school i have an album called school pics which has all my drunk photos in...
 

pianoman

macrumors 68000
May 31, 2006
1,963
0
mine are divided into albums for events or places or things. a few examples are: Western Caribbean Cruise, Libby [my dog], Wallpapers, Labor Day '06 BBQ, etc.

good luck finding your method :)
 

TheAnswer

macrumors 68030
Jan 25, 2002
2,519
1
Orange County, CA
I do generally Folders for groups of people, then Albums for events/months or seasons (depending on # of pictures). Artistic stuff I group by a general subject Folders then Albums for each photo shoot. Then I have a "Found" folder with Desktops and etc.
 

NickD

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 25, 2007
725
1
Colorado
Thanks for the tips guys. Could someone post some screenshots just so I can see how the organization system actually looks in the program?

-NickD-
 

NickD

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 25, 2007
725
1
Colorado
This thread started to get lost in a deluge of threads, so . . .

unceremonial bump :)
 

gollum

macrumors regular
Jan 29, 2007
176
60
NKY
I use "iPhoto Library Manager" to create multiple iPhoto libraries for different categories of photos, ie. family, ebay, the junk you get in emails, etc.
 

skybolt

macrumors 6502a
Feb 20, 2005
900
0
Nashville, TN, USA
You don't need iPhoto buddy to have separate libraries -- iPhoto has the capability of handling multiple libraries. Just hold down the Option key when you start iPhoto and you will be prompted to indicate which library you want to open or do you want to create a new library. However, if you sort into multiple libraries, you will not have access to all your photos at one time. If this is important to you, a better way would be to go the folder/album route. I have folders for general titles -- Christmas, Vacation, etc. Then, within each of those I have separate albums for -- Christmas 2005, Christmas 2006, or for the vacation one, San Francisco 2005, New Orleans 2007, etc.

You can also rename your "rolls" to better indicate what is on each roll. Sort of a preliminary organization. And, with that in mind, you can move photos from one roll to another -- say you took some photos of your pet and they ended up in a roll with your vacation -- you can move the pet photos out to a different or even a new roll, allowing you to name one roll "pets" and one roll "vacation" or the like.

And by the way, stay out of the iPhoto library folder in finder. Making changes there will create havoc and you will be most unhappy. Do your organizing and anything else you want to do to your photos from within the iPhoto app itself -- NOT finder.


Good luck!
 

ChrisA

macrumors G5
Jan 5, 2006
12,555
1,666
Redondo Beach, California
I need some advice on organizing my library, because I have thousands of pictures and badly need a concrete way to organize them within iPhoto.

Please post tips or screenshots for me so I can get some ideas and hopefully better arrange my photos.

-NickD-

Think of a public library: They have subject, author and title card files but oly one tack of books. You can do the same. File yor phots as many ways as you like. iPhoto does not duplicate the files.

Make a small set of ketwords and aign these to each. I make keywords for generic types of photos. then I use the comments field for more specific info.

Next I can make a syustem of smart albums and put these in folders. S I can have a album of "five star rated under water invertibrates" that wwere taken over a three year period and also I can have another system that groups the photos be location. I keep other smart albums for family members like. The point here is that once you add the key words and comments and apply a rating to each then you can do a search and make a smart album. You don't really even need to "organize" photos if there are well tagges with keyword and comments
 

Coolnat2004

macrumors 6502
Jan 12, 2005
479
4
Here's my organization.. It works alright, I guess.
 

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NickD

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 25, 2007
725
1
Colorado
Thanks for the extra tips. What do you recommend I do with random photos that don't really fit into any category (ie, a friend comes over and I take pics)?

NickD
 

pianoman

macrumors 68000
May 31, 2006
1,963
0
Thanks for the extra tips. What do you recommend I do with random photos that don't really fit into any category (ie, a friend comes over and I take pics)?

what kind of pics? :eek:

seriously, though. just make an album titled "Other" or "Miscellaneous".
 

Vinnie_vw

macrumors 6502
Sep 16, 2005
291
0
the Netherlands
I use keywords in combination with smart folders. Using keyword-assistant (a free 3rd party app) makes it real simple to tag one or multiple pics with keywords like 'vacation', 'art', 'urban', 'nature', 'favourites', 'friends', etc. Keywords and smart folders seem more flexible than regular folders, as you can cross-post stuff that fits into multiple categories.
 

Coolnat2004

macrumors 6502
Jan 12, 2005
479
4
Thanks for the extra tips. What do you recommend I do with random photos that don't really fit into any category (ie, a friend comes over and I take pics)?

NickD

I use a smart album named 'Unfiled' that just gets any photo that isn't in any other album.
 
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