iPhoto Lies -- Copies Photos Regardless of Preferences

[Geoff Myers]

I have nearly 100 GB of photos and I've been organizing them within Finder for awhile. I've been meaning to use iPhoto, Aperture, or Lightroom for a long time, but I never got around to importing my photo library. I chose to use iPhoto in the end, but when I import photos, it makes duplicates of all my photos (which I do NOT want -- into the "Modified" folder), REGARDLESS of the fact I unchecked "Copy Items to the iPhoto Library." I don't have enough space to have 2 copies of all my photos... Can someone please help me figure this out? I want iPhoto to LINK to the photos wherever they are, not COPY them to the iPhoto Library folder. Thanks for the help!

 

[MurphyM]

It's creating the modified version as you import, without you modifying? Full sized copies?

You did the right thing unchecking the box, I'd say there's nothing else you could do in that regard.

You can get a free eval version of Lightroom from Adobe. Did you do that? With a library that big I'd be leaning totally toward Lightroom over iPhoto.

 

[quotemeas]

Check sizes?

Do the file sizes of the copied photos match the file sizes of the originals? I am pretty sure that you are just seeing the thumbnails iPhoto creates. The photos in the Modified folder you are seeing should be considerable smaller then your original photos.

 

[Geoff Myers]

Do the file sizes of the copied photos match the file sizes of the originals? I am pretty sure that you are just seeing the thumbnails iPhoto creates. The photos in the Modified folder you are seeing should be considerable smaller then your original photos.

The files are the full-quality images. The iPhoto Library has grown to about 13 GB.

However, I think I figured this out: many of my photos were RAW, and I think iPhoto makes JPEGs of those RAW images anyway (regardless of the option in the preferences not to copy images) and puts them in the Modified folder.

 

[quotemeas]

Correct....

The files are the full-quality images. The iPhoto Library has grown to about 13 GB.

However, I think I figured this out: many of my photos were RAW, and I think iPhoto makes JPEGs of those RAW images anyway (regardless of the option in the preferences not to copy images) and puts them in the Modified folder.

Can't believe I did not remember that. LOL, this is correct. I bet the preview column show the file types as jpegs?

 

[mrkgoo]

It is doing as it says. The copy photos flag is for referencing vs. storing in its own library. If you have it copy on, all your raw files will also be in an 'originals' folder, as well as the jpeg version in the modified.

I don't take RAW often. All changes made to a photo is made on a copy and exported into the modified folder. Another example is my portrait orientation shots are in the modified as well as original, because iPhoto reads the rotation metadata tag as a modification and saves the rotated version into the modified.

I learnt to not get bothered by it.