Hello...new and need help? Please

[katdav]

Hi there, I am completely new to my beautiful new iMac...already had the iphone and iPad but always ran a windows pc, got a new windows 8 last year...hate it with a passion, so decided to get this iMac, love it with so much passion (no heart to add) ...anyway it is all new to me, there are lots of software I now need to get because I always worked with the Serif software for photos, pageplus, drawplus and most of all web plus...I am loathed to run horrid windows on this lovely imac so I will research the software similar but mac compatible..(anyone please feel free to advise)....anyway getting to my point, I have a WD My Passport, which contains all my photos from my pc, I always saved all my photos on this to access for the webpages I do for friends...I am afraid to just plug it into my iMac...can I access these photos into my imac if I do just plug it in via the usb? I am worried that if it asks to format the disk will I lose everything on My Passport? Thank you in advance, this imac is a huge learning curve for me...but I will get there....promise!!!

 

[gr8tfly]

It'll read it fine. The only restriction my be that it'll only mound NTFS read only.

You can import them into iPhoto from there, for example.

I would recommend getting another My Passport for backups using Time Machine (doesn't have to be a My Passport, especially with a desktop machine - any external will work, though those My Passports are very fast over USB 3). I have the 1TB version: it's single cable bus powered over USB 3 and 115 MB/s fast.

Note that in order to use a drive with Time Machine, you will need to format the WD My Passport in OS X's native file system (in Disk Utility, you would want to create a new GUID partition table (click Options... button from the Partition tab, then select the Mac OS Extended (journaled) format.)

 

[katdav]

thank you, will try!

Thank you, in the past with my pc I have selected photos from the 'My passport' to insert into the websites, will I still be able to do this if I want to insert a picture/photo, or will I have to import the photos to iPhoto first? I just don't find iPhoto that good for making folders for everything in order!!!

 

[drsox]

You can just copy/paste into any location on your Mac. For speed, see if the WD can use AFP to connect with, if not then use the regular Windows CIFS. The setup on the WD should tell you if there is an option.

 

[swerve147]

The only difference you will find is that, as mentioned previously, a Mac can only read the files from your Passport. As is you will not be able to write or save files to the Passport (due to it being in the NTFS file format, which OS X can only read natively).

Being as that the Mac can read the file, you can drag and drop the file into your applications on the Mac without risk of deletion. No harm, no foul. However if you want to start using the Passport as a full read/write external drive you will have to erase the Passport, format it and start from scratch (if you do make sure you copy all those files somewhere else beforehand).

As for iPhoto, it is completely different in concept and execution than anything you'll find in Windows. As a Windows user you're probably used to simply saving all your photos in a certain folder you can find in Explorer or My Computer.

iPhoto simply doesn't work that way. It's a self-contained app that organizes and houses your photos according to tags/descriptions, albums, dates, and life events. It's a more "humanized" way of organizing and editing photos. You'll find it difficult to simply locate a photo on the hard drive and edit the file directly because that's the way iPhoto was designed. You're not supposed to have direct access to the files themselves, you're supposed to work on the photos exclusively from within iPhoto, and let the app handle everything.

Bottom line is if direct file manipulation is what you're looking for, then iPhoto is absolutely the wrong app to use. You're much better off with a more traditional program like Photoshop Elements, which gives you the normal "Open File" option, allowing you to find a file on your hard drive or Passport via Finder.

That all said, iPhoto still gives you an "out" if you just want the file itself. Just click on the photo, then on the Menu Bar select File-->Export. That will allow you to make a copy of the file itself and put it wherever you want on your hard drive.