iPhoto - Creating 'Events' within 'Events'?

[igoy]

Originally Posted by James Craner

If you have that many photos I would suggest you upgrade to Aperture as that is designed to manage large photo libraries.

Thanks, it appears that Aperture is the way to go once needs grow beyond iPhoto. I believe, it is possible to start with iPhoto and than migrate to Aperture later. I can start with importing only recent last couple of years of pictures in iPhoto and than, as library grows, move to Aperture. Do you see any issues with that strategy?

[flynz4]

Originally Posted by igoy

Thanks, it appears that Aperture is the way to go once needs grow beyond iPhoto. I believe, it is possible to start with iPhoto and than migrate to Aperture later. I can start with importing only recent last couple of years of pictures in iPhoto and than, as library grows, move to Aperture. Do you see any issues with that strategy?

No issues... but if you think you will end up with Aperture... I'd just go to it right away to use the better features. There is a huge difference.

I'd also recommend Robert Boyer's ebooks. They are dirt cheap and extremely helpful. Nothing that I have seen has had so much info in such a concise and useful format. photo.rwboyer.com

/Jim

[Big Stevie]

igoy, Im still new to all this, but I purchased Aperture3 recently and it asked me if I wanted to merge with my iPhoto library. I clicked 'yes' and now when I open A3 everything is there as if I was looking at my iPhoto content.

Ive also purchased one of Robert Boyers ebooks on A3, not had time to read it yet as Im still reading the kindle iPhoto Missing Manuals book.

[James Craner]

Originally Posted by igoy

Thanks, it appears that Aperture is the way to go once needs grow beyond iPhoto. I believe, it is possible to start with iPhoto and than migrate to Aperture later. I can start with importing only recent last couple of years of pictures in iPhoto and than, as library grows, move to Aperture. Do you see any issues with that strategy?

Yep Aperture is a natural upgrade from iPhoto and in fact you can share a common library between iPhoto and Aperture if you want. As Big Stevie says it is a very simple and easy process to upgrade.

[flynz4]

Originally Posted by Big Stevie

igoy, Im still new to all this, but I purchased Aperture3 recently and it asked me if I wanted to merge with my iPhoto library. I clicked 'yes' and now when I open A3 everything is there as if I was looking at my iPhoto content.

Ive also purchased one of Robert Boyers ebooks on A3, not had time to read it yet as Im still reading the kindle iPhoto Missing Manuals book.

You can stop reading the iPhoto missing manual if you want. Once you get Aperture... there is little reason to use iPhoto. You will quickly find it frustrating after using A3 effectively.

/Jim

[Big Stevie]

Originally Posted by flynz4

You can stop reading the iPhoto missing manual if you want. Once you get Aperture... there is little reason to use iPhoto. You will quickly find it frustrating after using A3 effectively.

/Jim

Point taken . I figured I may as well learn iPhoto, before mastering A3. But perhaps I'll end up confusing myself?

[flynz4]

Originally Posted by Big Stevie

Point taken . I figured I may as well learn iPhoto, before mastering A3. But perhaps I'll end up confusing myself?

Not so much confusion. I just doubt that you will even want to bother with iPhoto anymore... except possibly for very limited purposes. For example... maybe making a book or card if you happen to like a particular template in iPhoto vs Aperture.

I think there is about a zero percent chance that you would use iPhoto for any photo management once you learn Aperture.

/Jim

[snberk103]

Lots of good answers above... this is a good reference thread, eh? I will just add the following....

Originally Posted by igoy

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? ....

Whatever you do, make sure you have at all times a minimum of 2 copies of the photos, not in the same machine or system. Ideally they will be separated by both distance (on-site & off-site, or on-site & on-line, for example), and format such as external HDD and DVD. The more paranoid you are about what can go wrong, the safer you are. Only you know how important these images are to you, and therefore how much effort they are worth. But imagine they all disappeared - how gutted would you be? Now think of that scenario in 20 years.

I was reading about a group of young professionals who live on different continents that courier hard-drives to each other so that in the event of a continental catastrophe (like an asteroid), their images would live on. I'm not suggesting you need to go that extreme.... just that most professionals would think this is only a little too over the top...

Originally Posted by flynz4

... I just doubt that you will even want to bother with iPhoto anymore... except possibly ... maybe making a book or card if you happen to like a particular template in iPhoto vs Aperture.

I think there is about a zero percent chance that you would use iPhoto for any photo management once you learn Aperture.

/Jim

I agree. The only thing I use iPhoto for is that there is a book template I like to use, and because I still have some images in it that I never moved to Lightroom. Plus, I occasionally help out with iPhoto questions, and it helps to be able to fire it up to get an accurate answer.

[snberk103]

Originally Posted by Big Stevie

Point taken . I figured I may as well learn iPhoto, before mastering A3. But perhaps I'll end up confusing myself?

Hello Big Stevie!

Just dive into Aperture... they are different enough that it is worth climbing the steeper learning curve with Aperture immediately.

One of things that helps me learn a new application is that I try to learn how to do task or how to use one tool. So instead of learning "how to edit my photos", I will concentrate on learning everything I can on How to Sharpen. Then, it will be How to Work With Tone Curves.

Or if I am refining my keywording, I will concentrate on building a good keyword library for just one project.

One of the benefits of editing with a DAM is that as your skills improve, you can start completely over with an image and apply new and better techniques. Sometimes you may just revert to the original and start again. Other times you may make a clone or variant to reset. Then you can compare your 1st and 2nd editing improvements.

[Big Stevie]

I'll take your advise and I think I'll ditch the Missing Manual book, and get stuck into the Robert Boyers ebook on A3.

Cheers

[Oldwood]

Originally Posted by James Craner

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.

Attachment 385864

Hi James,

I read this thread with interest as I've just transferred all my photos from my old pc to my new Mac and I'm trying to put them into some kind of order as I have quite a lot (26,000ish). Is there any way of completing the process you explain below without it creating a default folder with the folder in question underneath? In other words, why can't I simply drag a folder from Events straight into a folder in the sidebar or do I need Aperture for this?
Many thanks

Oldwood

[flynz4]

Originally Posted by Oldwood

Hi James,

I read this thread with interest as I've just transferred all my photos from my old pc to my new Mac and I'm trying to put them into some kind of order as I have quite a lot (26,000ish). Is there any way of completing the process you explain below without it creating a default folder with the folder in question underneath? In other words, why can't I simply drag a folder from Events straight into a folder in the sidebar or do I need Aperture for this?
Many thanks

Oldwood

With 26K photos... I would seriously consider Aperture. It is a fantastic program and you will be glad that you switched.

/Jim

[James Craner]

Originally Posted by Oldwood

Hi James,

I read this thread with interest as I've just transferred all my photos from my old pc to my new Mac and I'm trying to put them into some kind of order as I have quite a lot (26,000ish). Is there any way of completing the process you explain below without it creating a default folder with the folder in question underneath? In other words, why can't I simply drag a folder from Events straight into a folder in the sidebar or do I need Aperture for this?
Many thanks

Oldwood

I don't use iPhoto that much to be honest, but I have not found another way round it. As flynz4 suggests with 26k photos you should really be looking at Aperture or Lightroom as your photo management App, especially if you want more control over how you organise them.

snberk103 also gave some good advice on not getting too detailed with how your photos are organised.

[flynz4]

Originally Posted by James Craner

I don't use iPhoto that much to be honest, but I have not found another way round it. As flynz4 suggests with 26k photos you should really be looking at Aperture or Lightroom as your photo management App, especially if you want more control over how you organise them.

snberk103 also gave some good advice on not getting too detailed with how your photos are organised.

Another way of putting it... "Why fight with a lightweight tool"... when other much better programs are available and inexpensive.

/Jim

[Oldwood]

Good advice, thanks, Aperture it is then!

[Spikeywan]

I'm almost finished tidying up my photos from my PC, and will soon be ready to import them into iPhoto. Can you check that I'm going about the import the correct way, please?

I now have a series of individual folders. Stuff like 'Alps 2010', 'Alps 2011', 'Cervennes 2012', etc.

Initially, I was just going to throw them all into one folder, and let iPhoto import the lot in one go, but reading this thread makes me think I should leave them in discrete folders, and import them a folder at a time, so I can tag them with words like 'Holidays', 'Alps', 'Girls with nice bottoms' etc.

Will I get a series of dated events in iPhoto? I'm expecting to see an event for each day I was in the Alps in 2010 and also for 2011, etc.

Now... I understand the principle of splitting an event. i.e. You go to a village fete in the morning and take photos, then in the evening you go to a birthday party and take more. iPhoto will give one event for that day, which you split into two.

However, what do you do with your holiday photos? Do you leave them as discrete daily events, or do you merge all the photos from each day into 1 event?

Thanks for such an enlightening thread.

[Dooneywood]

Great thread! Lots of good ideas.

Originally Posted by James Craner

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.

The above is my issue. I've been enjoying iPhoto on my MacBook Air only to realize that after 2 years, about 1/4 of the drive is now full of photos and I really ought to make more room by moving older images out to my NAS, which has lots and lots of space. I've been organizing mostly by Events -- although that's going to change after reading this thread! Would Aperture would allow me to maintain a database of images regardless of whether they reside on the Mac or the NAS?

I'm an enthusiastic snapshot amateur shooting JPEG, not RAW. Thanks!

[James Craner]

Originally Posted by Dooneywood

Great thread! Lots of good ideas.



The above is my issue. I've been enjoying iPhoto on my MacBook Air only to realize that after 2 years, about 1/4 of the drive is now full of photos and I really ought to make more room by moving older images out to my NAS, which has lots and lots of space. I've been organizing mostly by Events -- although that's going to change after reading this thread! Would Aperture would allow me to maintain a database of images regardless of whether they reside on the Mac or the NAS?

I'm an enthusiastic snapshot amateur shooting JPEG, not RAW. Thanks!

Hi, Yes Aperture has some dedicated functionality to help you manage this. You can move your older original photo's to an external drive as referenced images in your main library. Just select the photo's you want to move and use the File>File Relocate... Command. In the pop up dialog you can even describe the folder structure that you want Aperture to use for your externally held images.

[ApfelKuchen]

Originally Posted by Big Stevie

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?

Just going back to the original question for a moment...

It helps to look upon Events, Photos, Faces, and Places as pre-defined search engine results (which is, in fact, exactly what they are). The same is true for Recent (Last 12 months, Last Import, etc.). They exist to make it easy to find your photos in predictable, easy-to-understand ways. Apple does not allow those structures to be modified, presumably so that their behavior is reliably consistent.

Albums (and folders containing albums) and Projects (Aperture-only) are user-created - that's where you organize your photos in ways that make the most sense to you.

[Big Stevie]

I haven checked into this thread for a while, but to anyone else reading it then I take my hat off to snberk103 & James Craner (and others), their advice is spot on and would advise anyone to just accept their explanations

When first using iPhoto I expected to be placing Events within other Events, just like I would place Folders within Folders on my windows pc. But following the advice on here I no longer see Events as particularly important. I just import my photos and let iPhoto create what ever Events it chooses. As long as I then immediately tag my photos with certain Key Words, I know I can find them within seconds. For me, tagging is crucial. It allows me to find any photo, or create an Album containing my chosen photos almost instantly.

I have upgraded to Aperture, but sadly I havent yet put the time into learning everything it has to offer, despite having reference books to hand. I havent yet amassed huge numbers of photos and as such I still find iPhoto to be perfect for me. But I WILL switch over to Aperture soon

[James Craner]

Originally Posted by Big Stevie

I have upgraded to Aperture, but sadly I havent yet put the time into learning everything it has to offer, despite having reference books to hand. I havent yet amassed huge numbers of photos and as such I still find iPhoto to be perfect for me. But I WILL switch over to Aperture soon

Steve, if you want an easy way to learn Aperture, can I suggest you take a look at Don McAlister's ScreencastsOnline Mac Tutorial service. He has a number of tutorials on there for Aperture. He also has a huge back catalog as well. For £14 a quarter it is very good value for money. You can always unsubscribe after the 1st quarter, but I suspect you will stay around.

[Big Stevie]

Thanks James, I'll take a look