iPhoto photo saving

[simoncoul]

Hi,

I'm planning on buying a mac within the next couple of months but I had one question about iPhoto. I'm a big shutter bug, and current I'm using picasa for linux. The one thing I do though is go into the folder in which my images are saved and I was woundering on how iPhoto imports pictures. I know picasa and gthumb both import into a folder and all the images are placed into a subfolder with a defined name give at the time of import, and then when the pictures are viewed the are sperated into those folders, so pretty much as if I were just looking at a set of real photos. I've tried programs like f-spot, but it imports pictures by date so it's impossible to find pictures if you go into the folders. So if someone could explain how the import and storage of photos works in iphoto that would be great, screen shots would be appreciated as well if possible.

Thank you

 

[Richard Flynn]

Hi,

I'm planning on buying a mac within the next couple of months but I had one question about iPhoto. I'm a big shutter bug, and current I'm using picasa for linux. The one thing I do though is go into the folder in which my images are saved and I was woundering on how iPhoto imports pictures. I know picasa and gthumb both import into a folder and all the images are placed into a subfolder with a defined name give at the time of import, and then when the pictures are viewed the are sperated into those folders, so pretty much as if I were just looking at a set of real photos. I've tried programs like f-spot, but it imports pictures by date so it's impossible to find pictures if you go into the folders. So if someone could explain how the import and storage of photos works in iphoto that would be great, screen shots would be appreciated as well if possible.

Thank you

iPhoto stores its whole library in ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library (be default, you can change library location or use multiple libraries by holding down ALT as iPhoto starts). Within the ‘iPhoto Library’ folder there are several sub-folders as well as files in which iPhoto stores the database information. Your originals are stored in ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/[4-digit year]/[roll name. If you edit photos in iPhoto, it saves the modified versions in ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/[4-digit year]/[roll name].

The ~ symbol denotes your ‘home folder’ on the Mac (if you didn’t know that already). A ‘roll’ in iPhoto is a photo-import session, so every time you import new photos into iPhoto, a new roll is created: if you don’t assign a custom name, then by default the roll is attributed the name ‘Roll x’ (where x is incremented for each new roll).

This is how the file-structure works. However, you shouldn’t edit or otherwise manipulate photos that are stored in an iPhoto library outside of iPhoto, otherwise the database will balk. If you do want to use an external editor, you’d be best advised to export the photo from iPhoto, open that file in the editor, save it, and re-import into iPhoto. Alternatively, you can set up the external editor (e.g. Photoshop) as your default editor in iPhoto, but by doing this you wouldn’t be able to access the iPhoto editing tools, and a complete round-trip for the more common simple edits might be something of a timewaster.

Hope this helps.

 

[simoncoul]

Thank you very much that was very helpful! So if photos are edited through iphoto then the orginals are never modified? Is it possible to drag and drop a photo from iphoto onto the desktop or another folder, or do I need to export it?

Thanks

 

[Richard Flynn]

Thank you very much that was very helpful! So if photos are edited through iphoto then the orginals are never modified? Is it possible to drag and drop a photo from iphoto onto the desktop or another folder, or do I need to export it?

Thanks

That’s right, the originals are never modified when editing in iPhoto—that way you can always revert to your original photo.

You can just drag a photo out of iPhoto onto any Finder window (or the desktop), and it’ll do the equivalent of exporting the photo.

As an experiment, I just tried dragging a photo from iPhoto onto the Photoshop icon on my dock. The photo opened, but it opened the original file. I made some adjustments, and saved the file (over the original jpg). Returning to iPhoto, the thumbnail preview hasn’t updated, but when I double-click on the photo in iPhoto, the adjusted version appears. As yet, the thumbnails still haven’t been re-generated. Doing this therefore modifies your original photo, and you have nothing to go back to, so I wouldn’t recommend it. If you want to make adjustments in an external editor, drag the photo out of iPhoto onto the desktop, and then into your editor.

 

[simoncoul]

Thanks very much for the help, can't wait to get my iMac!