iPhoto 09-I can't decide on how I should let iPhoto handle my photos?

[Imola Ghost]

I like to keep my photos locally on my MBP [500gb]. I've been trying to understand how iPhoto handles the importing of them. It seems to me that iPhoto makes a copy of the original and thus allowing you to get the original back in case you edit it.

I don't do any photo editing and have wondered how I should let iphoto handle my photos. How do I keep iphoto from making a copy and just use the original so I don't have duplicates. I've always just put photos in folders and gave each folder a name according to the event. I believe in iPhoto I could just throw all of my photos in a folder without putting them in any folder, which I'm not sure or not if this is a good thing.

Maybe I'm unclear on this and if I am please shed some light on this so I can get my photos organized.

 

[Mal]

If you don't edit them, there will be no unnecessary copies. Until you make a change to the photo (moving it to another folder doesn't count), there no duplicates made. Just let iPhoto do it's thing and don't worry about it.

jW