Another question about the iphoto library storage...

[Abbath]

Hi everyone, I hope someone has the answer to this strange thing iPhoto does...

From what I've read, when you rotate photos in iPhoto or Preview and then save them, either app doesn't change all the pixels into the other shape and save them. They just change the way the picture is viewed in the EXIF tag. I guess this is the smart way to do such things since you don't need to change the entire picture and there is no worry about quality loss etc. (So strange though that the Finder doesn't read this and still shows the pictures "wrong")

My question is then, why does iPhoto keep a "modified" copy of all pictures I've rotated in the "modified" folder? I should add that I've disabled the use of the iPhoto library and just imports them from my own catalog structure. I'm perfectably okay with the library storing originals and modified versions of the pictures i've edited, but if I rotate a picture in Preview (which then only change the EXIF info), then import it in iPhoto, WHY does it add it to the modified folder and thus putting another 1½ MByte of space to my HD. This will easily be around 4Gbyte if i import my entire photo collection. And isn't the entire advantage with the EXIF-tags that you shouldn't need to save it another time, take up more space etc?

I can't get any logic into this so i hope any of you out there have a possibility to enlight me... =)

I'm using OSX 10.4.10 and iPhoto '08 btw...

 

[M@lew]

This is pretty much how iPhoto works. Every little thing you do to your photo is added to the modified folder, so you can access the original at any time.

 

[Abbath]

Yes but if it's only information in the exif-tag that changes? The change should be 0.5kb not 1.5Mbyte (!)... And even more confusing is if I change the rotation (in the tag) in Preview, why is iPhoto storing that as a modification?

So do you all got like 1-5Gbyte of modified files in your library of all your pictured that you've rotated? It sound like a huuge waste of space IMO and it's really weird that Apple haven't thought of this and let the program just read the EXIF tag and not store it as a change...

Doesn't anyone agree to this?

 

[Cromulent]

Yes but if it's only information in the exif-tag that changes? The change should be 0.5kb not 1.5Mbyte (!)... And even more confusing is if I change the rotation (in the tag) in Preview, why is iPhoto storing that as a modification?

So do you all got like 1-5Gbyte of modified files in your library of all your pictured that you've rotated? It sound like a huuge waste of space IMO and it's really weird that Apple haven't thought of this and let the program just read the EXIF tag and not store it as a change...

Doesn't anyone agree to this?

iPhoto stores two copies of your photos. One is the original and one is the modified one.

Aperture on the other hand does work the way you describe above, just storing changes and not actually a complete copy of the photo.

I guess that is difference between a consumer application and a professional application (at least in Apples mind).