getting set up on iphoto

[estockme]

hi all- given the icloud and the fact that i'm probably with apple for the forseeable future i was considering switching to iphoto. in the past i've used picasa for most of my photo editing. my question is: is there an easy way to set up my albums? right now i have one giant stack of about 2000 pictures and i can't even find an easy keyboard shortcut for them. and how should i do the old photos? date? event? i realize this is subjective but basically i have nothing right now... i dont even want to pull pics off my phone.

oh, and fwiw i am talking iphoto 09. might pay to upgrade or go for aperture if i like it.

 

[Weaselboy]

I use iPhoto and have them sorted by date then I make events for major events like "Christmas 2011" or "Beach Trip 2011"... outside if that if they are just general photos I make an event for each month like "December 2011".

Like you said, it is very subjective.

 

[flynz4]

Aperture is a spectacular program!

/Jim

 

[bp1000]

I use iPhoto and have them sorted by date then I make events for major events like "Christmas 2011" or "Beach Trip 2011"... outside if that if they are just general photos I make an event for each month like "December 2011".

Like you said, it is very subjective.

Just to note, if you are copying photos from 1 event into another i believe this duplicates them. Where as if you add them to an album it doesn't. You can have the same photo from an event in many albums.

Just a more efficient way but ultimately do what you feel most comfortable with. That will give you the best work flow.

 

[flynz4]

I use iPhoto and have them sorted by date then I make events for major events like "Christmas 2011" or "Beach Trip 2011"... outside if that if they are just general photos I make an event for each month like "December 2011".

Like you said, it is very subjective.

In naming the "events"... I prefer going date first, in YYYY-MM-DD order to allow alphabetical sorting to be chronological.

Before doing that, I would get aggravated that "Summer Vacation" would come later than "Christmas".

I still create my A3 projects using the same naming scheme... but the strength of A3 come in how you "use" the pictures... rather than how you sort and store them.

/Jim

 

[Weaselboy]

Just to note, if you are copying photos from 1 event into another i believe this duplicates them. Where as if you add them to an album it doesn't. You can have the same photo from an event in many albums.

You are correct, but I am not copying them, I am either renaming the event or moving them to an event. For example, at the end of January 2012 I will move all photos from different unnamed events into a event called January 2012.

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In naming the "events"... I prefer going date first, in YYYY-MM-DD order to allow alphabetical sorting to be chronological.

Before doing that, I would get aggravated that "Summer Vacation" would come later than "Christmas".

I have sort by date set so it sorts by the date the photo was taken and ignores the event title for sorting.

 

[flynz4]

I have sort by date set so it sorts by the date the photo was taken and ignores the event title for sorting.

I have 10's of thousands of pictures that I am scanning from slides and negatives. The digital date of those is the scanning date, not the date the picture was taken. The naming scheme of "YYYY-MM-DD Event Name" works in those cases.

/Jim

 

[Weaselboy]

I have 10's of thousands of pictures that I am scanning from slides and negatives. The digital date of those is the scanning date, not the date the picture was taken. The naming scheme of "YYYY-MM-DD Event Name" works in those cases.

/Jim

I went through the same thing when I scanned a couple thousand family photos last year. I ended up using iPhoto to batch change the dates at least to the year of the original photo to allow the sorting I described.

 

[estockme]

Thanks everybody... For years my cameras either did keep their date set due to some bug or I didnt bother, so that is where I'm coming from. When I moved them into iPhoto I just got one big album and sorting them out has been a real chore. Are there any good shortcuts for breaking large selections out? As I recall I got frustrated with the workflow and couldn't find a way to make it less cumbersome. For example it would be nice to just scroll through making selections and hitting command-blah-etc and to come out the other side with a bunch of unnamed albums.

Again, thanks for your help. I haven had a chance to be home so I'll try to get this done.

One comment! I paid to upgrade lion expecint to get an iPhone with photo stream but got no iphoto11 with it. My mistake. But why can't I just drag photos in an out wirelessly like I do with music through iTunes? I have come to expect no more syncing via cable. That seems no fair. Ok thanks bye!

 

[Weaselboy]

Are there any good shortcuts for breaking large selections out?

Open iPhoto and select a photo then look under the Photos menu and you will see some KB shortcuts to mark photos. What I have done before is use command-period to "flag" photos then make an album that only shows photos marked flagged. Then you can select all those and make a new event from them. Then remove the flag from that group and go back to flag more for another event.

 

[flynz4]

I went through the same thing when I scanned a couple thousand family photos last year. I ended up using iPhoto to batch change the dates at least to the year of the original photo to allow the sorting I described.

We are scanning our negatives and slides now into a new dedicated "scan" A3 library. It is a multi-year process due to the volume of pictures we have... and that is with a $1500 very nice negative/slide scanner (Nikon CoolScan 5000 ED). I think this is the first piece of electronics gear I ever bought that increased in value (current used price is about $2500).

Once the scanning is complete... we will batch change each of the projects one at a time to re-set the metadata back to the correct date of the pictures. That will be an easy task.

Then we will merge the "scan A3 library" into our main A3 library which is already organized.... at which time we will have a complete conversion of all our photos (100's of thousands) all in digital format complete with ratings, stacks, metadata, geotag location, custom metadata.

/Jim

 

[Weaselboy]

We are scanning our negatives and slides now into a new dedicated "scan" A3 library.

Yikes. I don't envy you all the work that is going to be.