Well, I finally think I've got some of iPhoto figured out. Did some editing, cropping etc, it was a breeze. I edited the photos in the album so I'm not sure if that edit affects the original photo or not.
I'll continue to play and eventually I may even understand what I'm doing!!!!!
Thanks for all your help.
Good for you. iPhoto can be a powerful tool, if you get to know it.
The way editing works in iPhoto (and Aperture and Lightroom) is by 'non-destructive' editing. The photo is imported, and a catalogue entry made in a database. Everything you do to that photo is noted in its database listing. Nothing is ever done to the original photo, including edits.
When you view the image on your screen, iPhoto has taken the unaltered image, applied the edits you've made, and shown you the results. That edited image only "exists" (at that moment) on your screen (and in RAM, I suppose - for the nitpickers
).
If you merely look at that photo and then move to next photo then the edited photo no longer exists. If you were to use the Finder to look at the photo in the iPhoto library it would be the original, unedited, photo. Just as it came out of the camera.
However, while looking at it in iPhoto, if you decide to do something with this edited photo then iPhoto then a new photo is created, with the edits applied. If you decide to print the photo - then the only copy of this new and edited photo exists as a print on paper. On the computer, there is still just the original unedited image and the catalogue notes.
If you email the edited photo from within iPhoto, then the only copy of the edited photo exists as an email attachment. It will exist only where that attachment is.
If you "export" the edited image to your desktop, then the final edited images exists only on your desktop. The original untouched photo is still in your iPhoto library.
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If you put a photo into a number of albums, the original unedited photo 'exists' only in the iPhoto library - and is there only once. The only thing that gets created when you put a photo into multiple albums are notes in the database. It simply says that image P1000457.jpg can be found in the Albums "Family; Vacation; Rome; Silly Party Hats". If you subsequently add that photo to another album - then the only change is that another entry is made to the list. If you edit a photo in one album, then those edits are visible in all albums. If you want to create a new image, independent of the original then you need to create a duplicate.
In Lightroom (and I believe iPhoto, so I mention it here) you can duplicate or create "virtual copy" of an image. What this does is merely duplicate the database entry - there is still just one image in the library. This means your already large image library doesn't bloom into something even more gigantic. The duplicate copy inherits all of the "metadata" (keywords, albums, flags, stars, etc) and edits of the original. At that point it looks like you have two identical images side by side. However, from this point the duplicate becomes independent. For instance, you can now make one image monochromatic and leave the 2nd image in full colour. Two independent images. However - still just one untouched image stored in the library. The only thing that is changing is the database. You can create a whole lot of different images this way, to test and try out things, without needing additional storage space. You can have different duplicates in different albums. The only real linkage between these images is that you can't delete the original untouched image without deleting all of your duplicates as well. But you can delete any of the duplicates without affecting any of the other duplicates.
Cheers - Good Luck.
