iPhoto Organize Help

[jneubarth]

Greetings. Need a little help. Have a 200 gig Iphoto Library on one Mac. Have 30 gig on another. Copied both to external drive. Bought Iphoto Library Manager. Want to combine all to one library and then split into different libraries by year. Anyone do this? Also, should I continue to use Iphoto to manage these or switch to higher end program

thanks for the help

 

[flynz4]

Greetings. Need a little help. Have a 200 gig Iphoto Library on one Mac. Have 30 gig on another. Copied both to external drive. Bought Iphoto Library Manager. Want to combine all to one library and then split into different libraries by year. Anyone do this? Also, should I continue to use Iphoto to manage these or switch to higher end program

thanks for the help

I've never use iPhoto library manager. I am an avid user of Aperture... and it does everything that you want with ease.

I have no idea what type of photography you do... but it seems a bit unnatural to me to have a different library "by year".

If I was a pro... I might have a different library by project type (fashion, architecture, wedding)... or even by client... because usage of those photos would not intersect.

My use is as a "photography enthusiast" and my library contains "mostly" family and vacation photos along with some artistic work that I do for fun. My value of a great Digital Asset Manager (DAM) like Aperture or Lightroom is to make collections of photos that span multiple years. Examples might be:

• All photos of my oldest daughter skiing.
• All photos taken at the Oregon coast with at least one family member and at least one friend, rated 3 stars or higher
• All photos ever taken in any of the Hawaiian islands rated 4 stars or better... for inclusion in a book
• Creating an slide show that contains all Christmas morning photos taken on our frequent Christmas vacations except for those taken at our house.

Those all span multiple years... and would be impractical to create if the libraries are hyper segmented by year.

Instead... I do arrange my Aperture library by "project" (similar to an iPhoto event"... and they are sequentially grouped in a "year folder"... which are further grouped in "decade folders".... but they all live in the same Aperture library.

/Jim

 

[ChrisA]

Greetings. Need a little help. Have a 200 gig Iphoto Library on one Mac. Have 30 gig on another. Copied both to external drive. Bought Iphoto Library Manager. Want to combine all to one library and then split into different libraries by year. Anyone do this? Also, should I continue to use Iphoto to manage these or switch to higher end program

thanks for the help

Aperture does what you want. It has better library management tools. And it directly can use the iPhoto library without conversions. I would combine everything into one library. Yes you can make folders by year but why? you can sarch or make "smart folders"

Do NOT split up the library by year. That just makes it impossible to search.