iPhoto - Creating 'Events' within 'Events'?

Yes you can using Folders - from the File menu choose New Folder. It will probably place it in Albums towards the bottom. Make sure the Events folders are visible in the left sidebar by clicking show that appears by the side of Events when you mouse over it. You can then drag the folder that you created into Events in the sidebar. Tap the folder and tap again to rename the folder to a name that you want. Then drag the Event you want to see under the Folder. You are able to nest Folders if you want.

If you want to use this type of functionality it might be worth looking at Aperture, which makes this easier to do, and you can import photos directly into the folder that you want.

Steve, My apologies I think it is because I use Aperture, and have a shared Library for iPhoto and Aperture. This is maybe why I see Events as a list of folders in the left panel, and you don't.

However you can still do what you want in Albums. Create the Folder as before, and rename it under Albums, say Holidays. Then from the Events window in the top drag the event you want into Albums, It will create a default folder called Untitled Folder with an icon representing the Event underneath. Drag the event icon to the folder that you created and release the mouse button. Select unwanted Untitled folder and press the delete key to remove it. Rinse and repeat for the other Events. See Screenshot below.

Steve, glad I could help. Yes the website in my Sig is mine, glad you find it useful. I would recommend Aperture, I have used it for many years, and as an upgrade to iPhoto it is an excellent choice. You can even share the same Library now between iPhoto and Aperture.

Big Stevie said:

When I merge Events all the photos from each Event are displayed. But I would like to be able to open an Event, and then see further Event folders within it.

For example, say I created an Event called Holidays, could I then create sub-Events within called Spain, France Italy etc?

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James has given good advice. I'm going to give slightly different advice. Go with whatever works for you.

Forget about organizing your Events. Events are supposed to be about combining a single photo session into one place, imo. So other than merging and splitting them in those cases where iPhoto gets the session wrong, my advice is to mostly ignore Events.

Instead, create Albums to correspond to how you want to arrange your Events. Albums are designed to be nested into folders, and those folders can be nested.... so no extra steps. The other advantage is that a photo can appear in only one Event, but it can appear in as many Albums as you want. So you can have a photo in the Album for Spain, plus it can appear in the Album called Trains. You can pop a Smart Album next to an Album if you often only need a filtered view - for example the Album might be "Bermuda" but the Smart Album would only show the top rated images.

To my mind, the power of Events - if you have let iPhoto manage them itself - is to find the photos that you took at about the same time as one you are looking at in an Album. For example. An Event will be all the photos you took in one day, when you just happened to be vacationing in Bermuda, several years ago. However, one of those photos has subsequently been turned into a phenomenal BW image. You've cropped it into a banner for your website, and that version is currently sitting in an Album where you've tucked all of your website banner images.

Now you notice that there is a cool beach chair in the image.... do you have more images of that beach chair? If you have left the default Events grouping, you can simply choose to "Show Event" and you will see all the photos you took that day. You don't need to remember where or when it was taken, you are simply looking for images that were taken at about the same time.

Good Luck

Big Stevie said:

snberk103, thanks. So leave the Events alone and concentrate on creating Albums. Thats a very interesting point of view. I shall have to give some thought on how I want my photos arranged.

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I wouldn't say this is the only correct way to do it, simply that I believe there are some benefits to it.

Big Stevie said:

Coming from a Microsoft Windows laptop im used to creating various folders for my photos, each containing further folders such as..

Folder - Holidays

containing subfolders titled...
....
But I appreciate that iPhoto is a different piece of software and perhaps I should open my mind to alternative filing systems. ....
Thanks for your suggestion

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I think perhaps we need to go back one step. This is not specifically a Mac vs Windows thing.... What many people don't realize is that iPhoto is a Digital Asset Manager (DAM). So is Aperture and Adobe's Lightroom - which can used on either a Mac or Windows. What is a bit different is that iPhoto is so much cheaper than Lightroom, so more Mac users get a chance to use a DAM.

What a DAM, like iPhoto, does is create a database entry for each image. It doesn't really care, technically, where the actual image actually gets filed. However, because it is easy to corrupt the database if you muck about with the images outside of the DAM Apple has chosen to "hide" the photos inside a Library. All the images are there, inside the iPhoto Library, by default. Lightroom would prefer you allow it to move the images into it's default folder structure, but it doesn't really care. And Aperture is sort of in between.

This folder structure is on the HDD (hard-drive) itself. You should basically ignore it if you are going to use a DAM as it is supposed to be used. This is not the same Folder structure you see when you are using iPhoto ... more later...

When you import a photo the DAM it creates a record in it's database. It will also move or copy (or not) the image into it's HDD folder structure depending on your settings. It's the database entry that is critical. From this point on, whenever you do anything to the image in the application those changes are recorded in the database. Not just which Album, and what keywords you tag the image with, but also your edits. The original image is never altered ... it just sits there. The "change" are merely recorded in the database record. These edits are only applied to the new image that is created when you Export the image. This is called 'non-destructive' editing. It is why you can always go back to the original image.

If you muck about with the images outside of the DAM the database record is corrupted. If all you have done is moved the image, you can point the database record to its new location. If you have edited the image the database record is probably useless at that point.... the record of edits no longer apply to the image it started with. You will need to reimport the image to put it back into iPhoto properly.

Sticking with iPhoto... The Album and Folder structure you see in the sidebar are entirely virtual. They do not exist on your HDD. That is why you can have image in more than one Folder/Album... the Albums it is in are merely notes in a database record. And why the space savings are so great. You don't have a physical copy of an image for each Album ... it is merely an entry in the database.

When you start thinking this way... and it is a total mind shift ... you can begin to harness the power of the DAM. The key is start being organized. And to be thorough when you import a photo session. And to use the power of Smart Albums... whoo boy... they will make your life easier. All of you photos are tagged with a date by both your camera (most likely) and iPhoto. Keep your camera date accurate to make your life easier. When you import your photos (using your Holiday example) make sure you tag them with the keywords "Holiday" and "France", "Paris" .... for example. OK... Now you can create a Folder called Holidays. Inside this Folder create "Smart Albums". A Smart Album is a permanent search, essentially. So one SA (Smart Album) is set to search for the keywords "Holiday" and "Paris". Every photo tagged with those keywords will appear in this album. When you go back to Paris, as long as you keyword properly when you import the images those images will appear in this SA automatically. No extra work required. If you need to separate by year, SAs can do that too.

If you also like to keep all of your family photos in one place, simply add a keyword "Family" when you import, and create SA that searches on "Family". Perhaps you also like picture of trains, and you have a photo of your family standing in front of the train in Paris. Add the keyword "Train" to that photo, and it will appear in the SA you've created that searches on "Train". So... that one photo will automatically appear in the SAs for "Paris", "Family", & "Train".... as soon as you add those keywords.

Once your system is set-up the import will take longer than you are used to now. Simply because you are adding a multitude of keywords. Some keywords are common to a single import. For example, all the photos may be taken in Paris, but not every photo has your family or the train in it. But iPhoto has a built in Folder for "Last Import" (or something similar) which is meant to be used for this. You add keywords that are common to all, or almost all during the Import and then you go through this folder and clean up by deleting keywords from some photos and adding keywords to others. Once you've done it a few times it only takes a few minutes each time.

At this point, you are basically done. The Smart Albums will automatically update themselves so you just need to review them for errors perhaps.

When I used iPhoto extensively I reserved a regular Album for special events, or special projects. If I wanted to collect a number of images together that didn't have an easy to define commonality. Perhaps a slide show of the entire trip, using a few images from each location. One thing about Albums vs Smart Albums. You can't manually rearrange the order of the images in a Smart Album. To put images into a particular (and arbitrary) order you have to move them into an Album first. An image can be in as many Albums and Smart Albums as you want. And Albums and Smart Albums can be nested inside Folders. You just drag and drop them until you get the organization you want.

Really think about what you may do with your images. The absolute easiest time to add keywords is on Import, so have a good list to begin with. You can add keywords later, but it is a bit more cumbersome. For instance... you can keyword for colours, if you ever thought you might want to collect a bunch of green images for a project. You can keyword for Countryside and Urban. Etc Etc

Have a great New Year's... say hello to wife for us, tell her Canada wishes her the Best of the Season....

Big Stevie said:

Wow. Some useful info there Image

So once my brain has accepted that the original image on the HDD sits there hiding away, I can edit the image in iPhoto and place it in multiple albums without touching the original image. Interesting

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Can you tell I'm sitting at home, after a lovely holiday, with not a lot of other things happening? But - yes... that is the general idea. You are only dealing with virtual copies of the image. It's actually sort of like the old days of film based photography. Except in this case you have staff (You are the photographer, still.) You take pictures and hand the film to the staff. They do whatever they do, and file it somewhere in the back. They give you a print, and you put it into the client's file. Except you also want a copy for your project on trees, so you ask staff for another copy to put in your Tree Project file. You have no idea where the negative is, and you don't need to know. The staff need to know... but you don't. You just ask the staff for prints whenever you need one, plus you can ask for it to be darker, lighter, more contrasty, whatever. None of these copies changes the negative... it is always the original. Plus you have an admin assistant who keeps track of where all the negatives and prints have been filed. You ask for all the prints that were taken in Paris, and poof - they are delivered to your desk. You have no idea where they were... but the staff member did. A DAM is like having staff, vs doing it all yourself.

Big Stevie said:

And I assume from what you say, that making multiple changes to an image doesnt take up any more space on my macbooks HDD, as iPhoto is simply a tool to view the original image?

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Bingo. And it is important to remember that iPhoto should be the only tool you use (there are exceptions, but better to not go there yet.) Otherwise you risk corrupting the database.

Big Stevie said:

I think I need to perhaps forget how I used to store photos on my PC and start getting my head around doing things a different way.

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I agree - and I also know that it is a big step. When I had my epiphany (what a great word for the season, eh?) it totally changed not just how I organized my images, but my photography as well. It meant that when I noticed an interesting series of photos, I could very easily create a project Collection (I use Lightroom, which is Adobe's professional alternative to Apple's iPhoto. A Collection is the same as an Album in iPhoto) and pop those few images into it. And because I saw this Collection on a regular basis, I would remember to add photos to it - which means that good beginnings are now becoming completed projects and not just good intentions.

Big Stevie said:

Many thanks, and happy New Year to you also

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Thanks! May you take many many great photos in 2013....

Big Stevie said:

...
I guess my only question now is does deleting a photo in iPhoto actually delete the original on the HDD?

Im looking forward to getting my photos organised in a more useful way. Both James and yourself have helped me enormously and I thank you both for your time.

Seasons greetings Image

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Thanks. Regarding the Trash. Yes and No. Initially, it goes into iPhoto's Trash... which is separate from the OS X Trash. Look for the iPhoto Trash under 'Recent' in the sidebar. Before you empty the iPhoto Trash it is a good idea to browse it to make sure there are no keepers there by mistake. Once this Trash is emptied I think the only way to recover it is by using your backup. You are backing up, right?

Thank you snberk103 and james for your explaining on iPhoto apps. It make me understand better.
Happy holidays to all of you.

@Snberk103 - if photos are edited within iPhoto does this make a second copy of the photo? Would this then double the space taken up on the hard drive?

If I had say 50 photos using 20gb and edited them all would I then have 100 photos using 40gb or am I completely wrong?

Just want to make sure I know the basics before diving into iPhoto for the first time.

DarrenUK said:

@Snberk103 - if photos are edited within iPhoto does this make a second copy of the photo? Would this then double the space taken up on the hard drive?

If I had say 50 photos using 20gb and edited them all would I then have 100 photos using 40gb or am I completely wrong?

Just want to make sure I know the basics before diving into iPhoto for the first time.

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iPhoto will create a duplicate of the photo when you edit it, so that you can always revert to the original, so yes you will increase your storage space.

Aperture, Apples Pro photo management program handles changes to files a little differently and for RAW photo's will store all Aperture changes as an adjustment file, thus reducing the size of the photo database when you make changes.

Someone tell me if I'm off track, please?

I'm wondering if what I've been doing sorting my photos will lead to problems later on. Am I not using iphoto to its best and/or easiest?

My Library has 80 events, most of which are, well, an event. Some have hundreds of pics but some have only one or two pictures cause that's all I took that day; others are kinda compiled, like "Food," where I stash the shots of food from places we've eaten. Yeah, I do that. Events includes ALL the pics that I haven't deleted for being downright crappy and irredeemable, but not all are great. I figure that's the main storage, but it's not the best way to access pics.

Then I have Folders, that include various Events. Example, Folder "Disney Collectibles" has Events "Disney books," "Disney pins," etc. Folder "Vacations & trips" has individual Events of each of our vacations/trips plus a few Folders comprised of multiple Events from a single vacation/trip.

I also made a "Best of" Folder, comprised of "Best of" Albums, where each Album has the best pictures of whatever the subject is. These are what I usually look at, sort through, and use. These are the ones I load onto my iPad and iPhone, cause I don't want all 6300 Event pictures, just the 1200 good pics.

Does this make sense or am I being overly complicated or inefficient?

DarrenUK said:

@Snberk103 - if photos are edited within iPhoto does this make a second copy of the photo? Would this then double the space taken up on the hard drive?
....

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James Craner said:

iPhoto will create a duplicate of the photo when you edit it, so that you can always revert to the original, so yes you will increase your storage space.

Aperture, Apples Pro photo management program handles changes to files a little differently and for RAW photo's will store all Aperture changes as an adjustment file, thus reducing the size of the photo database when you make changes.

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@ James Are you sure about that? My familiarity is more with Lightroom and Aperture, but I assumed iPhoto would work the same. I will have to experiment a bit, it seems.....

UPDATE: It seems I am both right and wrong. I just created a new iPhoto Library, and dragged a single large TIFF image into it. I then cropped it and did few other other things to it and closed iPhoto. I checked the place that iPhoto parks its Master - the original image - and there is still just the one original. So far, I am correct that iPhoto does not make duplicates when you edit. However, I also noticed that the Library got much larger.... so I checked the Previews - and sitting in there is the edited version of the photo (but not the original). So, on that note - I would say I am incorrect... that iPhoto does create a new version (thus not saving any space). Sigh... I learn something new everyday. So... Point to James, and thank you for the correction.

propita said:

I'm wondering if what I've been doing sorting my photos will lead to problems later on. Am I not using iphoto to its best and/or easiest?

My Library has 80 events, most of which are, well, an event. Some have hundreds of pics but some have only one or two pictures cause that's all I took that day; others are kinda compiled, like "Food," where I stash the shots of food from places we've eaten. Yeah, I do that. Events includes ALL the pics that I haven't deleted for being downright crappy and irredeemable, but not all are great. I figure that's the main storage, but it's not the best way to access pics.

Then I have Folders, that include various Events. Example, Folder "Disney Collectibles" has Events "Disney books," "Disney pins," etc. Folder "Vacations & trips" has individual Events of each of our vacations/trips plus a few Folders comprised of multiple Events from a single vacation/trip.

I also made a "Best of" Folder, comprised of "Best of" Albums, where each Album has the best pictures of whatever the subject is. These are what I usually look at, sort through, and use. These are the ones I load onto my iPad and iPhone, cause I don't want all 6300 Event pictures, just the 1200 good pics.

Does this make sense or am I being overly complicated or inefficient?

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You are not doing anything wrong, although I suggest you take a look at Aperture, as I think you will like the extra organisational functionality that it has. iPhoto and Aperture can share a common library, so you can make a gradual transition. Aperture allows you to rate and tag photos, so you could say create a smart album that says 'show me all my 4* photos and above that have the tag 'Food''. I have a sneaking feeling you would love Aperture. I am sure Lightroom from Adobe has a similar feature set, but Aperture is a natural upgrade from iPhoto and you can continue to use both, with a common library.

backup for large library

Lots of great information for new and experienced iPhoto users in this thread. Thanks everyone that is contributing. here is another question:

What are the best practices people have for "archiving" old pictures from iPhoto library to create more disk space for new pictures? I will be importing over 30K pictures from Windows hard drive to iPhoto on my new imac this weekend and worried that over time, just the photos alone will take up large chunk of 1TB hard drive. Thanks in advance for any and all advice.

igoy said:

Lots of great information for new and experienced iPhoto users in this thread. Thanks everyone that is contributing. here is another question:

What are the best practices people have for "archiving" old pictures from iPhoto library to create more disk space for new pictures? I will be importing over 30K pictures from Windows hard drive to iPhoto on my new imac this weekend and worried that over time, just the photos alone will take up large chunk of 1TB hard drive. Thanks in advance for any and all advice.

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Are you shooting RAW or JPEG? If JPEG... you will not likely run out of space over the lifetime of the machine. If RAW... you should move to a program that easily lets you store the originals off-line... while still preserving previews on the machine. Aperture 3 or Lightroom would be good choices.

/Jim

igoy said:

Lots of great information for new and experienced iPhoto users in this thread. Thanks everyone that is contributing. here is another question:

What are the best practices people have for "archiving" old pictures from iPhoto library to create more disk space for new pictures? I will be importing over 30K pictures from Windows hard drive to iPhoto on my new imac this weekend and worried that over time, just the photos alone will take up large chunk of 1TB hard drive. Thanks in advance for any and all advice.

Click to expand...

If you have that many photos I would suggest you upgrade to Aperture as that is designed to manage large photo libraries. If you are a heavy photoshop user then Lightroom may be a better fit. With Aperture you can have up to 1,000,000 photos in a single library. However if you want to archive old photos off then you can export folders to create a new library on an archive hard disk. To do this with iPhoto you have to buy a 3rd party add-in and given the number of photos that you have I think you will be better off investing in Aperture or Lightroom.