Why do iPhoto/Aperture manage pictures the way they do?

[brent0saurus]

Why do they store files in that library package and not in Finder?? This really drives me crazy and I feel like there has to be some sort of benefit that I'm not seeing. It looks like in Aperture I can choose to import photos to folders that are outside of the Library but you still have to manually choose where etc. It seems like in a perfect world, the files would show up exactly as the do in iPhoto, organized in folder by the Events that they reside in. And I can't even ctrl-click a picture in Aperture and say "Show in Finder" or anything!
The reason I'm trying to do this is so that I can upload pictures to Facebook, as the Facebook uploader built into both Apps are extremely limited.
Can someone please explain the benefit of this to me?
Thanks!

 

[aristobrat]

The reason I'm trying to do this is so that I can upload pictures to Facebook, as the Facebook uploader built into both Apps are extremely limited.

If you upload a single picture, it pulls up the File Upload browser, and you can go directly into Aperture/iPhoto.

If you want to upload multiple pictures, you make an album in iPhoto/Aperture and publish it on facebook.

What limitations are you running into?

As for why they don't want people dicking around inside of the folder, it's probably just to prevent newbies from directly modifying pictures, or accidentally moving them out.

You can still click on a group of pictures, right-click, and export them to your desktop, if you really need to do stuff to them out of the library.

 

[brent0saurus]

If you upload a single picture, it pulls up the File Upload browser, and you can go directly into Aperture/iPhoto.

If you want to upload multiple pictures, you make an album in iPhoto/Aperture and publish it on facebook.

What limitations are you running into?

As for why they don't want people dicking around inside of the folder, it's probably just to prevent newbies from directly modifying pictures, or accidentally moving them out.

You can still click on a group of pictures, right-click, and export them to your desktop, if you really need to do stuff to them out of the library.

Hm, interesting. The limitation I was running into was that I couldn't upload a picture to an existing Facebook album from Aperture. It also seemed like I couldn't upload a single picture; only entire events. Is this not the case?

As far as people accidentally modifying originals, I guess this does make sense. It's impossible for me to accidentally do this in Aperture, right? If I can always go back to the original then that truly is a great advantage. And yes, I can always copy images to the desktop for a quick upload, which is a bit of a workaround but does work.

 

[aristobrat]

Hm, interesting. The limitation I was running into was that I couldn't upload a picture to an existing Facebook album from Aperture. It also seemed like I couldn't upload a single picture; only entire events. Is this not the case?

Yeah, I don't think you can use iPhoto/Aperture to add to an album that wasn't originally created by them.

In that case (or to just upload a new status update w/ a photo), I just use my browser. When you get to the Browse... button in facebook "Upload a Photo" section, your browser should pop open a new window, and there should be a Media section in the bottom left. Through that, you should be able to get any iPhoto/Aperture/iMovie/iTunes file without having to manually find what you're looking for in Finder.

If you have iPhoto or Aperture open, and your browser has the File Upload window open, you can usually drag the pic you want from iPhoto/Aperture over to the File Upload window, and it'll populate with the correct location too.

But mainly, I use the Media part of the browser.

As far as people accidentally modifying originals, I guess this does make sense. It's impossible for me to accidentally do this in Aperture, right? If I can always go back to the original then that truly is a great advantage.

Yeah, both iPhoto and Aperture let you revert back to original.

What I've seen (esp. in the days before everything was hidden in one big "Library" file) were people finding pictures directly in Finder, and then modifying them or deleting them, and wondering why the next time they opened up iPhoto/Aperture, either their modification didn't show, or their library was all jacked up.

 

[brent0saurus]

Yeah, I don't think you can use iPhoto/Aperture to add to an album that wasn't originally created by them.

In that case (or to just upload a new status update w/ a photo), I just use my browser. When you get to the Browse... button in facebook "Upload a Photo" section, your browser should pop open a new window, and there should be a Media section in the bottom left. Through that, you should be able to get any iPhoto/Aperture/iMovie/iTunes file without having to manually find what you're looking for in Finder.

If you have iPhoto or Aperture open, and your browser has the File Upload window open, you can usually drag the pic you want from iPhoto/Aperture over to the File Upload window, and it'll populate with the correct location too.

But mainly, I use the Media part of the browser.


Yeah, both iPhoto and Aperture let you revert back to original.

What I've seen (esp. in the days before everything was hidden in one big "Library" file) were people finding pictures directly in Finder, and then modifying them or deleting them, and wondering why the next time they opened up iPhoto/Aperture, either their modification didn't show, or their library was all jacked up.

Interesting!! I had no idea about that Media section. I can't wait to try that when I get home. Thanks so much for the insight!