Rotate photos and delete original in iPhoto

[Drewski]

In my iPhoto '11 database, I have 11+ years worth of digital photos well into the tens of thousands. A good percentage of those photos were taken portrait style, and of course I simply rotated them in iphoto to make review easier.

As we know, iphoto retains a copy of the original photo if any there is any editing done. I understand the value of this feature for more "invasive" edits, but in the case of a simple rotate, there is no reason to keep two copies of what is essentially the same photo.

I'm trying to pare my iphoto library down to a smaller harddrive footprint, and I'm sure deleting the originals (in the case of the rotate edits) would reclaim a substantial amount of space. What is the safest, most effective way of doing this?

The only real editing I do via iphoto would be the rotate. Any other more substantial editing is done via an export and 3rd party software.

Thanks!

 

[flynz4]

I am not 100% sure how iPhoto works... but Aperture does NOT make new originals as you perform edits.

Aperture is also really good about letting you keep your originals offline on an external HDD. You can still see "previews" even if your originals are not available... and you can control the size/quality (hence storage space) of your library.

/Jim

 

[Drewski]

I am not 100% sure how iPhoto works... but Aperture does NOT make new originals as you perform edits.

Aperture is also really good about letting you keep your originals offline on an external HDD. You can still see "previews" even if your originals are not available... and you can control the size/quality (hence storage space) of your library.

/Jim

Hey thanks for the input, Jim. I did get the chance to play around with Aperture at the apple store, and I appreciate that it does not change the original photo, but saves the set of instructions used to modify to the edited photo. Great idea. However, I'm using Snow Leopard and Aperture requires Lion or +. So for the moment, I'm looking for a solution that does not involve an OS change.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

iPhoto works the same way as Aperture (in this regard) - non-destructive editing, no copies made of the results of an edit - it's all in data. The two programs share the same Library structure, and you can use the same Library in either program, on an on-going basis (you just can't have the same library open at the same time in both programs). The only time iPhoto makes a copy is if you Export.

So, you may have a huge library, but it's not huge due to files that preserve a particular edit.

 

[flynz4]

iPhoto works the same way as Aperture (in this regard) - non-destructive editing, no copies made of the results of an edit - it's all in data. The two programs share the same Library structure, and you can use the same Library in either program, on an on-going basis (you just can't have the same library open at the same time in both programs). The only time iPhoto makes a copy is if you Export.

So, you may have a huge library, but it's not huge due to files that preserve a particular edit.

I know that you can choose to not have iPhoto copy photos to the library on import... I am not sure how to move originals of already move imported photos to external referenced locations.

With Aperture... it is trivial to move your originals in/out of the internal library using the relocate & consolidate original commands. It is a key design element of the program.

Can you do that with iPhoto? I've looked, and I do not see any similar commands.

BTW: While I am interested in using iPhoto this way... it is irrelevant to the OP since moving to Aperture is not an option.

/Jim

 

[ApfelKuchen]

First, let me clarify my earlier statement. Yes, iPhoto (and Aperture) make "copies" of images. More accurately, they're preview images, which are displayed when you're browsing around in the library. They do incorporate the most recent edits made to the image. They're a good bit larger than a thumbnail, but way smaller than most originals these days (I have 24mb RAW files and 6mb camera-generated JPGs, the preview files are around 750kb).

This is an integral function in both iPhoto and Aperture. As far as I know, if you were to delete/damage the Preview folder, a new one would be created (and it would take a while to regenerate all those preview images).

The alternative to this approach would be to open and render the full-size files that are being displayed on screen - not a very good use of CPU and disk i/o resources, and browsing the images would be a very slow process.

Can you do that with iPhoto? I've looked, and I do not see any similar commands.

No, iPhoto doesn't have that same relocate capabilities as Aperture. It's one of the reasons to have Aperture.

 

[flynz4]

First, let me clarify my earlier statement. Yes, iPhoto (and Aperture) make "copies" of images. More accurately, they're preview images, which are displayed when you're browsing around in the library. They do incorporate the most recent edits made to the image. They're a good bit larger than a thumbnail, but way smaller than most originals these days (I have 24mb RAW files and 6mb camera-generated JPGs, the preview files are around 750kb).

This is an integral function in both iPhoto and Aperture. As far as I know, if you were to delete/damage the Preview folder, a new one would be created (and it would take a while to regenerate all those preview images).

The alternative to this approach would be to open and render the full-size files that are being displayed on screen - not a very good use of CPU and disk i/o resources, and browsing the images would be a very slow process.

No, iPhoto doesn't have that same relocate capabilities as Aperture. It's one of the reasons to have Aperture.

Aperture allows you to set the size and quality of previews... or even the non-creation of previews . They can be regenerated on demand from within Aperture. I guess that is another reason to use Aperture.

Also... thanks for the information about iPhoto's lack of relocate/consolidate commands. That is what I thought... but I didn't want to state that as fact without being 100% sure.

/Jim

 

[Dave Braine]

iPhoto works the same way as Aperture (in this regard) - non-destructive editing, no copies made of the results of an edit - it's all in data.

I don't know about Aperture, but when you edit a photo in iPhoto, it stores that edited photo within the iPhoto Library package in a folder called Modified, and this is the picture that is displayed in the iPhoto viewer. The original, unedited picture is stored in a folder called Originals. This enables the "Revert to Original" option to be used on edited pictures.

The pixel size of the modified photos is the same as the originals.

 

[Bruno09]

To OP :

Don't know if you might be interested in this solution :

In iPhoto, rotate the photo.

File / Export, Jpeg quality : High, Size : Full Size
Export.
This should create a copy with the same size and weight than the original.
(create a new folder to receive this photos)

Then delete the original in iPhoto.

Then import the rotated version of the photo in iPhoto.
The rotated version is now the "new" original.

As far as I can see while testing, each import create a new event which will have to be merged with the event the photo came from.

 

[Drewski]

BTW: While I am interested in using iPhoto this way... it is irrelevant to the OP since moving to Aperture is not an option.

Thank you. What Aperture actually does or doesn't do, while being interesting, is a different discussion.

I don't know about Aperture, but when you edit a photo in iPhoto, it stores that edited photo within the iPhoto Library package in a folder called Modified, and this is the picture that is displayed in the iPhoto viewer. The original, unedited picture is stored in a folder called Originals. This enables the "Revert to Original" option to be used on edited pictures.

The pixel size of the modified photos is the same as the originals.

This is what I'm talking about. So just for discussion's sake, and ease of math, let's say the Iphoto library is 20000 pictures at an average of 5MB each. So right out of the gate, you're talking about 100GB or just over 9% of a typical 1TB harddrive. That's already a lot of space, and data that needs to be backed up somewhere. Now go through and simply rotate the portrait pics to appear in their correct orientation, and the hard drive footprint can increase substantially, especially as the number of photos or resolution goes up.

Since Iphoto is apparently unable to distinguish a portrait from a landscape orientation upon initial import, the user should be able to "correct" that orientation without a storage penalty, yes? Again, I appreciate that iphoto can protect vulnerable photo data from my ignorant user's short-sighted destructiveness, but I imagine there is a way to lift those safeguards when appropriate.

 

[Drewski]

To OP :

Don't know if you might be interested in this solution :

In iPhoto, rotate the photo.

File / Export, Jpeg quality : High, Size : Full Size
Export.
This should create a copy with the same size and weight than the original.
(create a new folder to receive this photos)

Then delete the original in iPhoto.

Then import the rotated version of the photo in iPhoto.
The rotated version is now the "new" original.

As far as I can see while testing, each import create a new event which will have to be merged with the event the photo came from.

Good idea Bruno. I tried this too, but I noticed that while the metadata all seemed to have been retained, the memory "weight" seemed to have changed. The export on "high" showed a size of about 40% less than the original, while the export on "maximum" showed a size of about 40% more than the original (by size, I mean reported memory use. The resolution on this particular photo stayed the same however.) I have no idea what the difference is, just be viewing the pic in iphoto. I suppose for simple point n shoot pics, this probably is not a worry, but for the "important" DSLR photos, this could be an issue?

 

[Bruno09]

The "weight" of the exported file depends on the photos, I don't know why.

When exporting some rotated photos, for test, with "high" setting, I got some photos with the same weight, other smaller, other bigger.

With the "maximum" setting, a 1,8 Mo jpeg gives a 4,1 Mo exported file, which is useless.

So, high seems to be fine.

Zoom and compare the 2 photos (original and rotated file "high"), I don't think you will see any loss in quality.

I know Aperture is another discussion, but isn't there any way to get an old version of Aperture for Snow Leopard ?

 

[Dave Braine]

Since Iphoto is apparently unable to distinguish a portrait from a landscape orientation upon initial import,

I import into iPhoto from 2 digital camera, my iPhone and on occasion from Finder. All photographs that have been taken in portrait format appear in portrait in iPhoto without any need for me to rotate them. However, they are stored in both the Originals and the Modified folders with the file size of the "Modified" pics being slightly smaller than the originals.

With the digi cameras, this maybe because they appear in portrait on the LCD screen. One of the cameras has a menu option to view them like that, the other doesn't, nor does the iPhone.

I'm using iPhoto 09, v8.1.2