Best iPhoto Workflow and other Questions

[MacUserSince87]

I've got a new iMac and have used Macs for some time but never used iPhoto, preferring to just organize thing myself and use Canon DPP and Photoshop for RAW conversion and editing so please bear with a few basic questions:

1) When "importing" photos into iPhoto is it necessary to copy the actual files into the iPhotos folder it use its various features or can I configure it to just create an index / thumbnails in iPhoto with the originals remaining on my current archiving drive?

2) Assuming I can just create a link index in iPhoto, what happens to the orginal if I delete it from the iPhoto Library? Does it get deleted too?

3) I've put together my first "book" project, using the iPhoto templates and uploaded it for printing. It's a very slick application, but:

A) What quality level should I expect in the book?

B) I see I can also run it as a slide show, but how can I save / burn it as a slideshow onto CD or DVD to run on PC? I first tried putting together using the iDVD application but the image quality was degraded by the NSTC encoding.

 

[DCBass]

Hey MacUser,

Congrats on the new iMac. To answer some of your questions...

1) It is not necessary to copy photos into the iPhoto library to take advantage of its features. I recently made a slideshow that I exported as a movie using photos that are not in the iPhoto library. In the Preferences panel, just deselect the option "Copy photos into iPhoto library when importing", or something like that. To put photos in iPhoto then, just drag them in when you're done organizing them in the Finder.

2) If you move/rename/delete one of your referenced photos, iPhoto will still have the thumbnail, but when you go to make any edits or work with the photo at all, a large exclamation mark will appear instead of your photo.

3) Can't help you there. I've only made a few photo books, and those were through photoworks.


Good luck.

DCBass

 

[MacUserSince87]

Hey MacUser,

Congrats on the new iMac. To answer some of your questions...

3) Can't help you there. I've only made a few photo books, and those were through photoworks.

DCBass

Thanks for the reply. Experimenting a bit I found I could either print the project album then save as PDF or save it as .mov file without any huge decrease in image quality. Both were about 1 MB per album page (total of 22MB for my project) which was the same size as the file I uploaded to have the album printed.