iPhoto backup question

[backstage]

I currently have 33GB in my iphoto and I'm looking to purge my harddrive down to a more manageable level by reducing that. I shoot in RAW so that accounts for much of the use plus the fact that its simply lots of photos.
What I'm considering doing is backing up the entire folder on an external drive, then making a copy of the photos in a folder (simple select all and dump in folder), then deleting everything in iphoto (how would I do that?) and reimporting the images in the folder. That way I've preserved my original and modified images on the external, and still have my finished images in iphoto. Its my understanding that simply removing the originals folder would mean that photos in my iphoto that were not modified would then disapear, so this seems like the only way to do it?

Does that make sense? Is there an easier way?

 

[kfordham281]

Which version of iPhoto are you running?

 

[backstage]

i'm running 6.0.6

 

[kfordham281]

I currently have 33GB in my iphoto and I'm looking to purge my harddrive down to a more manageable level by reducing that. I shoot in RAW so that accounts for much of the use plus the fact that its simply lots of photos.
What I'm considering doing is backing up the entire folder on an external drive, then making a copy of the photos in a folder (simple select all and dump in folder), then deleting everything in iphoto (how would I do that?) and reimporting the images in the folder. That way I've preserved my original and modified images on the external, and still have my finished images in iphoto. Its my understanding that simply removing the originals folder would mean that photos in my iphoto that were not modified would then disapear, so this seems like the only way to do it?

Does that make sense? Is there an easier way?

If you're just trying to clear some space then I'd suggest copying the entire iPhoto folder to an external drive. Once you have that, just import the photos you want back into iPhoto.

I believe you are correct in your assumption about removing the originals folder. It will basically remove any photo that hasn't been edited.