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iphoto 08

W

Wayne s

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 12, 2007
242
0
UK
I have about 12000 photos that I want to put into iphoto, is there any way to create more than one library. One for each year or six months worth of pics so the whole lot is not viewed at once.

Seems like iphoto can not cope with that may pics at once so if I could have multiple libraries and then open and close them as needed it would be a lot more stable.

I have had a look in iphoto and can only see the option to make a new album or event.

Thank's in advance.
 
I've added 1000 photos to iPhoto '08 in the last couple of days with no problem, and I have 1627 in total. If you are having problems just add 400 or so at a time, once they are added all should be fine.
 
Not sure if you know this, but upon importing, iPhoto automatically categorizes them as best as it can by time and date into events... I have 10,000 pictures or so all imported from my leopard install and it handled it pretty well... but now I only view everything by "Event" (which is a fancy way of grouping hundreds of pictures into a single category).

Now, all i have to view is 30 or so pictures (each representing an "Event") and if i want to look further, i just double click on the event.
 
I don't believe it is possibel to create multiple libraries, however that being said iPhoto can easily handle 1200 photos - in fact, it can easily handle 12,000, so I don't think you should have any problems.
 
I know about events, so maybe it would be a good idea to make yearly events then.

How do you handle your photo events?
 
Yes, you can have multiple libraries, but I don't think that's going to be necessary in your case. Just import your photos into categorised albums. Certainly I have an awful lot more than 1200 photos in my main iPhoto library (more than ten times that, in fact - my library is around 16Gb).

If you import them all at once, you just need to leave iPhoto for a while to process them - it takes time, but it'll get there...
 
Great ,thanks,

What's the best way to handle video clips in iphoto?
When I first imported all my pics the videos went over as well and I was not sure that was the best way to import video.
 
Actually, I've had a related question: If my photos are separated into folders, is there any way to import them each folder into their own album? When I did it with the old iPhoto (prior to iLife 08), it ignored the folders and dumped all of my photos into one monolithic library- I never had the time to reorganize them and subsequently abandoned iphoto.
 
I leave my videos in the "Events" that they occurred. That way, when I'm looking for Events, everything related to the event is in one place. iMovie had no problems finding the videos and referencing them.

If you're looking for a quick way to find just your videos in iPhoto, try making a Smart Album with a rule that says "Keyword contains Movie".

FWIW, if you decide to go with multiple libraries, if you hold the OPTION key down when you launch iPhoto, it'll help you create and switch between libraries.
 
New Libraries

Hold the option button when you open iPhoto 08 and it will prompt you to either open a particular library or create a new library. You can change from one to another this way. I have over 16,000 photos in six libraries:eek:
 
walnuts,
I recently had a similar question. I just started using iphoto 08 on my new imac to replace my own folder system I had been using.
With my old system, I had everything organized in folders by year and then in subfolders with different trips or parties that happened that year.
When I got my new iMac last week, I tried dragging a years worth of pictures into iphoto and it automaticly took all my subfolders organized the photos into "events" as the program calls them.
I've found that iphoto's events system works really well for me, as it mirrors what I was doing manually with my folder system.
The photos even stay arranged this way when using imovie, which makes it really easy to find what you are looking for.
 
jacobluecke said:
walnuts,
I recently had a similar question. I just started using iphoto 08 on my new imac to replace my own folder system I had been using.
With my old system, I had everything organized in folders by year and then in subfolders with different trips or parties that happened that year.
When I got my new iMac last week, I tried dragging a years worth of pictures into iphoto and it automaticly took all my subfolders organized the photos into "events" as the program calls them.
I've found that iphoto's events system works really well for me, as it mirrors what I was doing manually with my folder system.
The photos even stay arranged this way when using imovie, which makes it really easy to find what you are looking for.
Click to expand...

Thanks- maybe I have to bite the bullet and update iLife. I don't think my version has "events".
 
Mac24 said:
Hold the option button when you open iPhoto 08 and it will prompt you to either open a particular library or create a new library. You can change from one to another this way. I have over 16,000 photos in six libraries:eek:
Click to expand...

Interesting, do you happen to know if there is any limitation on where the library needs to be stored. I mean, is it possible to create an iphoto library directly in an external HD, or even in a disk being shared over an Airport base station?

Thanks :apple:
 
nemex said:
Interesting, do you happen to know if there is any limitation on where the library needs to be stored. I mean, is it possible to create an iphoto library directly in an external HD, or even in a disk being shared over an Airport base station?

Thanks :apple:
Click to expand...

I was wondering this same thing. All my photos are stored on a external drive. I just moved from PC to Mac and I did not want to copy all my photos onto my hard drive, I have about 12,000 at full size 3,000 x 2,000 pix in size.

I take lots of photos during the racing season and I would fill up my hard drive quick..
 
iPhoto Libraries

I'm waiting for my first Mac, an iMac 24" 2.8GHz, and am wondering whether I can use iPhoto without having my photos in a single file/library.

At present, my photos are in folders named by place, with subfolders named for various things (people, holidays, houses, etc).

The idea of my precious photos being in a single file (like Outlook uses for email) horrifies me. (I save my emails as files to circumvent problems.)
 
Mac24 said:
Hold the option button when you open iPhoto 08 and it will prompt you to either open a particular library or create a new library. You can change from one to another this way. I have over 16,000 photos in six libraries:eek:
Click to expand...

That works great.
Can you change libraries when iphoto is running?

I made a typo when I first started this thread, should have said 12000 photos instead of 1200.
 
To me the more I play with iPhoto the less I like it. Compared to Adobe Photoshop Elements 6, it's still lacking features. No way to store photos on an external drive, no tags, very limited editing. I guess it's more of a basic program to have something to go with the os.
 
RaceJunkie said:
To me the more I play with iPhoto the less I like it. Compared to Adobe Photoshop Elements 6, it's still lacking features. No way to store photos on an external drive, no tags, very limited editing. I guess it's more of a basic program to have something to go with the os.
Click to expand...

There are tags in iPhoto. They are called key words.
 
RaceJunkie said:
To me the more I play with iPhoto the less I like it. Compared to Adobe Photoshop Elements 6, it's still lacking features. No way to store photos on an external drive, no tags, very limited editing. I guess it's more of a basic program to have something to go with the os.
Click to expand...

In my iPhoto06 I have different libraries on an external drive. Just gotta hold down OPTION when launching to choose which library to run. I wish they'd put a menu option for changing the library, but it's not all that bad really.
 
Eraserhead said:
But people are using iPhoto with over 12000 photos ;).
Click to expand...
I'm getting close to 12,000 and am impressed with how easily iPhoto '08 seems to be able to handle them all. :eek::D
 

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