iPhoto folders

[slipper]

Is there any way to change the was iPhoto catalogs the pictures? Since iPhoto 5, i would really like to start using the program but i cant stand how it catalogs the pictures. Its a huge hassle especially since i primarily edit with photoshop.

 

[varmit]

Is there any way to change the was iPhoto catalogs the pictures? Since iPhoto 5, i would really like to start using the program but i cant stand how it catalogs the pictures. Its a huge hassle especially since i primarily edit with photoshop.

Which way do you want to catalog them. You can already use the calendar and see when you inported which pictures. You can put pictues into albums. You can sort them by year. You can make Folders which can hold albums. How to you want to do it.

 

[slipper]

im talking about how iPhoto catalogs the pictures on the finder level, not within the program itself.

 

[slipper]

no way huh?

 

[ravenvii]

You can try to drag the picture out of iPhoto and into the Photoshop icon to edit it. I've never tried it, but it sounds inuitive, and it'll probably work. 😀

 

[timnosenzo]

When I want to edit a photo outside of iPhoto, I usually just use the Share-->Export function, save the export somewhere, then open it with PShop.

 

[stcanard]

Simple solution is completely ignore how it's organized in Finder.

Use iPhoto as the "finder" interface. You can duplicate, copy, delete, move, open in photoshop, save back out as a new format...

I'd really be curious about what you need to do that you can't do by using iPhoto as the organizing structure itself.

 

[stcanard]

You can try to drag the picture out of iPhoto and into the Photoshop icon to edit it. I've never tried it, but it sounds inuitive, and it'll probably work. 😀

It works with on caveat ... I edits the original directly, it doesn't save an "original" version. That's not a problem, though, as you probably want to duplicate and save a backup copy (or use the open in external editor preference, so it does save a backup).

 

[jywv8]

Is there any way to change the was iPhoto catalogs the pictures? Since iPhoto 5, i would really like to start using the program but i cant stand how it catalogs the pictures. Its a huge hassle especially since i primarily edit with photoshop.

I can't stand the cataloging scheme either. It's the one reason why I don't use iPhoto. I use Portfolio instead.

 

[munkle]

I can't stand the cataloging scheme either. It's the one reason why I don't use iPhoto. I use Portfolio instead.

iPhoto is meant to be used like iTunes, i.e you interact with your photos via the iPhoto interface and not at the Finder level. Once you get round to this way of thinking it really is a very capable and attractive app.

If you want to edit your photos in Photoshop just change the appropriate settings under preferences. You can then double click on a photo and have it automatically open up in Photoshop or any other app of your choice. The changes will be saved automatically.

It's not such a big deal now with iPhoto 5 having nested folders but a good companion to iPhoto for those who want a bit more control in how to organise their photos is iPhoto Buddy. It allows you to create multiple libraries and works well.

 

[jywv8]

iPhoto is meant to be used like iTunes, i.e you interact with your photos via the iPhoto interface and not at the Finder level. Once you get round to this way of thinking it really is a very capable and attractive app.

One of the reasons I love iTunes is I can have it set to automatically organize my music by artist -> album. That's how I think about my music, and that's how it is stored on my HD. Nice.

However, I think about my photos according to their subject matter. For example, I have photos of my pets, my trip to Prague, etc. I don't think about them in terms of when I took them or when I imported them, and so I don't want them stored that way.

I want them organized in a particular way on my HD (i.e. by subject matter). I can't stand the date thing. I guess I'm just anal.

 

[munkle]

One of the reasons I love iTunes is I can have it set to automatically organize my music by artist -> album. That's how I think about my music, and that's how it is stored on my HD. Nice.

Fair enough but you don't interact with your music via the Finder, even if it is nice to know that it's all nicely organised! For example, if you want to burn an album you still do it via iTunes. The same should apply to iPhoto.

If you want to backup your photos via albums say, then it's very easy to use the export function to organise your photos in that manner. Basically you just have to ignore how iPhoto handles your photos at the Finder level and realise you're meant to deal with your photos through the iPhoto interface. Once you get over that hump you begin to realise that iPhoto is indeed a great app.

 

[Lacero]

I've made the mistake several times of dragging either my whole library or large film rolls directly onto the desktop, which created thousands of pictures on my desktop and completely beach-balled my PB for several hours on end. Then the ensuing clean-up was always a fun task.

 

[stcanard]

However, I think about my photos according to their subject matter. For example, I have photos of my pets, my trip to Prague, etc. I don't think about them in terms of when I took them or when I imported them, and so I don't want them stored that way.

That's how I think about them as well, and why iPhoto shines, and filesystems fall down. Where do you put a picture of your pets in Prague?

My organization system is essentially two-tier: Photos from a related event are grouped into a roll, with a title of the form "Event at place". e.g. "Christmas in Vancouver" "Vacation to England".

Then each photo is tagged with keywords on the contents; I've got keywords for the members of my family, pets, things like "landscape", "wildlife" etc.

Now I can create albums of all the Christmas photos, then I can create an album of photos of my son, and have the photos of him opening christmas presents in both.

Makes a lot more sense than trying to squeeze it into a single folder, doesn't it?

 

[mkrishnan]

That's how I think about them as well, and why iPhoto shines, and filesystems fall down. Where do you put a picture of your pets in Prague?

It seems to me intuitively too like I should be very carefully cataloging my files in neat folders, but the more I think about it, the more I agree with this. I started using iPhoto the first week I got my iBook, but I've just very recently started really adding content to it. And I think it's the right way of doing things, modulo the gripes lots of people have (like hierarchical albums).

Now I need to start adding more comments and captions and so on, so I can search more effectively. I have lots of photos of kids from the camp I volunteer at, and I need to label them with names to help me remember all of them. 😉

 

[jayscheuerle]

Why not just set your editor in iPhoto to Photoshop? Double click on the picture and it opens it in Photoshop automatically.

 

[mkrishnan]

Why not just set your editor in iPhoto to Photoshop? Double click on the picture and it opens it in Photoshop automatically.

I feel like I've really been pwned, but I just (independently of your post 😉) figured out that you can do this. I actually looked this thread up so I could add this comment, but you beat me to it. 😀

Oooh, it even works with GIMP. The prefs item is somewhat unclear, so I wanted to share what I figured out (this is all based on iPhoto 2). By default, the "edit in external editor" item in the context menu is greyed out. You can click the radio button in the prefs to open in external editor on double click, and define an editor. If you do so, it will do this when you double click the image, rather than going into single image / edit mode in iPhoto. But the radio button and the box for editor app are actually independent of each other -- if you define the app, but leave the radio button set at open in edit mode, then you can still launch the picture in the external editor by context menu. Which to me is the best of both worlds. 😀

 

[dalvin200]

i've got a follow up question to this (rather than starting a nwe thread)..

when i was on winxp, i had all my photo's organised on folders using meaningful folder names (eg: xmas 2006, xxx b'day 2004, trip to zoo etc.. etc..)

when i switched to mac, i just copied all (6GB) of photo's across into the pictures area on the mac.. then just dropped them into iPhoto (v6.0.2)..

Since being on the mac, I have kind of stuck to my winxp ways.. by creating new folders etc.. and dropping the pictures that i want to keep into the folders and then importing them into iPhoto from the finder folders..

I've just realised that I may have made a big mistake.. one of the iPhoto prefences is set to "let iPhoto organise my photo's" (or something to that effect)..

SO, for example, if I edit a photo in iPhoto, it doesn't change the photo that is in my organised folder structure, but it chanegs the photo that iPhoto has stored somewhere it its own "organisation"..

which then leads me to the conclusion - has iPhoto duplicated my photo's (thereby doubling the HDD space taken) by having it organise my photo's?

if so, how do i undo this? I want iPhoto to use my organisation and point to the files in my folder structure and file names.. not in iPhoto's "roll" folders in the finder..

Can i simply uncheck the box in the iPhoto prefs, and it will automatically point to my files? Or would I have to delete everything from iPhoto, uncheck the box in the prefs and then re-import all my photo's?

I hope this kind of makes sense..

Thank you

 

[Applespider]

Can i simply uncheck the box in the iPhoto prefs, and it will automatically point to my files? Or would I have to delete everything from iPhoto, uncheck the box in the prefs and then re-import all my photo's?

No. You'd need to delete your iPhoto Library and then uncheck the box and re-import them.

Currently your pics will be store in Originals and Modified folders inside iPhoto where iPhoto will have copied things. Just as iTunes keeps tracks of the music inside the iPhoto library so you don't have to play with the raw files, so does iPhoto deal with pictures. It is a lot easier now that iPhoto labels its folders with the Roll Name rather than the month/date concept it used to use. The danger of having them kept outside iPhoto but using iPhoto to catalogue and make amends is that if you change anything in the Finder with it, whether the iPhoto database will figure out that change is up for grabs.

Personally, I take my pictures and transfer them to a folder using Image Capture. Then I burn that folder to CD so that I've got an copy of the 'original' images as a back up. Then I import to iPhoto and trash the other folder on the hard drive. iPhoto's library is backed up separately.

 

[JasonGough]

I've recently wanted to get into iPhoto, but am also having issues with the way it stores my photos.

Firstly, it automatically copies all of my photos to my 'Pictures' folder in my home directory. I don't want it to do this..

I keep all my photos on a separate partition, is it possible to use iPhoto with files not in your home directory? Ideally, can i get it to simply import the pictures i have organised on my hard disk at the moment without copying them to a different folder?

Dalvin200 says there is an option in preferences, but i can't see it? there are only 4 panes in the iPhoto prefs.... ?

 

[GimmeSlack12]

In the iPhoto Preferences go to 'Advanced' there will be a checkbox that copies pictures to the iPhoto folder. Uncheck that and keep your pictures wherever you want to.

Yeah iPhoto has a strange way of managing its pictures but I use Version 6 and keep my external Editor as Photoshop CS2 which allows for more color correction when needed. But it is the easiest way to deal with all the pictures, and I don't really bother with the iPhoto files in the Finder. I really like the full screen viewing of v.6.0

 

[macit]

mmmm well... now here's my problem


I have double click set to open photoshop but what if I want to compare two photos before I open an external app.? Now everytime I clicky, that monster of an app opens!!!

 

[JasonGough]

In the iPhoto Preferences go to 'Advanced' there will be a checkbox that copies pictures to the iPhoto folder. Uncheck that and keep your pictures wherever you want to.

I'm totally not seeing any advanced options.. is that something new to iPhoto 06? I'm still on iPhoto 5, can this not be done on the older version?

 

[iHeartTheApple]

LOL Funny as it is, I find iPhoto's directory structure and storage method quite annoying myself. I understand the comparison to iTunes in that both apps are the finder "front end" as it were, but iTunes actually keeps everything well organized in artist and album folders...whenever I go into my iPhotos directories it makes me sick. 😱 😕 Maybe I'm just a neat freak, but...😱

 

[GimmeSlack12]

I'm totally not seeing any advanced options.. is that something new to iPhoto 06? I'm still on iPhoto 5, can this not be done on the older version?

Very possible. I am not sure if that is in version 5. Sorry.