stepping up the iphoto ladder - how to import the library?

[dbmnk]

How do you migrate - or even better - sync your iPhoto library from your old mac to your new mac?

This should be fairly easy, but as often the case - with a new mac, a new version iLife, and it appears that iPhoto 09 will only import originals from iPhoto 08 - not all the editing i've done.

Please can somebody give instructions? I've googled myself blind and carnt find any solution.

Probably not possible, but keeping those two iPhoto libraries in sync would be the don - any thoughts on how to come about that given the different versions of iPhoto?

 

[spice weasel]

To get your photos on your new mac, just copy the iPhoto Library folder (it will appear as a single file, but it is really a folder structure). By default it should be in your Pictures folder in your home directory.

Keeping libraries on two different computers synced is a harder issue. The easiest way is to import and edit your photos on one computer and then use the sharing feature (in iPhoto prefs) to copy them over your home network to the second computer. When you enable photo sharing, your libraries will show up in the sidebar on whatever computers are on and running iPhoto. You can drag and drop photos from the shared library to your local library as you like.

The other option is to edit your photos, export them, and either copy them over the network or with a flash drive, etc.

The problem with maintaining two libraries in iPhoto is that changes to the date, comments, etc. fields are not carried over. In fact, this is a general problem with iPhoto. For this reason, I use an IPTC tagging workflow in Automator before I import photos into iPhoto. That way, whenever I export a photo, the metadata goes along with it.