iPhoto help for newbie please....

[Bronze84]

I'm absolutely baffled....

I used migration assistant to transfer all my media from my old pc ( which all worked great btw). But cannot get my head round iPhoto and the 'pictures' folder. The first time I opened iPhoto it imported all my 7000 photos and put them all into photo stream too. Anyway found out how to turn that off.

So now, I have all my photos on iPhoto, which is great. However, I'm guessing these have all been imported from the pictures folder? Soooo, my question is - why do my sub folders in 'pictures' show up as individual folders in iPhoto? Eg- I have a folder for all photos of my son, and then sub folders from when he was born, christening, first Xmas etc... But they are all in iPhoto as a folder each. Do I have to put them all into albums again?

Also, is iPhoto my first port of call when I want to import some photos from say, an sd card or do I save them to 'pictures' folder and then it'll auto import to iPhoto?

Sorry for all the questions. Hope it makes some sort of sense!

 

[laetusviator]

I'm absolutely baffled....
So now, I have all my photos on iPhoto, which is great. However, I'm guessing these have all been imported from the pictures folder? Soooo, my question is - why do my sub folders in 'pictures' show up as individual folders in iPhoto? Eg- I have a folder for all photos of my son, and then sub folders from when he was born, christening, first Xmas etc... But they are all in iPhoto as a folder each. Do I have to put them all into albums again?

Any picture imported into iPhoto is normally copied into a special directory within your 'Pictures' folder called 'iPhoto Library'. You're not meant to interact directly with the files in this folder. Basically, iPhoto will take care of the file management. (It is like iTunes in this respect: users don't normally manage iTunes music files directly.) You can confirm iPhoto is doing this by going to iPhoto Preferences > Advanced and confirming that 'Copy into iPhoto library' is checked.

If this is the case, I'm guessing you now have duplicates on your hard drive: the imported files in the iPhoto library, and your original files in the 'Pictures' directory. (Obviously back up & confirm they are duplicates before you delete any files!) You can check the size of your iPhoto library by right-clicking (ctrl-click) on the iPhoto library in 'Pictures' and selecting 'Get Info' from the popup menu.

The Events & Albums you see within iPhoto won't have any relation to the folder structure within the iPhoto library directory (although when you imported I assume it did make the new Events names based on your old folder structure.)

Also, is iPhoto my first port of call when I want to import some photos from say, an sd card or do I save them to 'pictures' folder and then it'll auto import to iPhoto?

You should just import them directly into iPhoto, assuming you're using iPhoto as your principal photo management software. The files will be placed in the iPhoto library (they won't appear in your Pictures directory). You don't need to put them in your Pictures folder, and files you put in the Pictures folder won't be auto-imported.

Hope that helps.

 

[DerekRod]

Didn't want to make a new thread my iPhoto just isn't responsive anymore i wanted to uninstall it and re-install it anyway to do that im on Mountain Lion and dont want to pay 19 from the App store

 

[Bronze84]

Any picture imported into iPhoto is normally copied into a special directory within your 'Pictures' folder called 'iPhoto Library'. You're not meant to interact directly with the files in this folder. Basically, iPhoto will take care of the file management. (It is like iTunes in this respect: users don't normally manage iTunes music files directly.) You can confirm iPhoto is doing this by going to iPhoto Preferences > Advanced and confirming that 'Copy into iPhoto library' is checked.

If this is the case, I'm guessing you now have duplicates on your hard drive: the imported files in the iPhoto library, and your original files in the 'Pictures' directory. (Obviously back up & confirm they are duplicates before you delete any files!) You can check the size of your iPhoto library by right-clicking (ctrl-click) on the iPhoto library in 'Pictures' and selecting 'Get Info' from the popup menu.

The Events & Albums you see within iPhoto won't have any relation to the folder structure within the iPhoto library directory (although when you imported I assume it did make the new Events names based on your old folder structure.)



You should just import them directly into iPhoto, assuming you're using iPhoto as your principal photo management software. The files will be placed in the iPhoto library (they won't appear in your Pictures directory). You don't need to put them in your Pictures folder, and files you put in the Pictures folder won't be auto-imported.

Hope that helps.

Brilliant answer thank you very much, glad you understood what I meant regarding the folders. It's all starting to make sense now...

So, just to clarify. The 'pictures' folder that got imported whilst using MA can now be deleted as iPhoto is my main library source and I can create albums and sort sub folders from there?

I'm guessing that's why iPhoto and iMovie took an age to sort themselves out as they were importing a sh111t load of media, but once it's on there all is good!