I have a question about iPhoto

Ok, so on my old MacBook in iPhoto I made albums for the different cameras I shoot with. The pics I take with my Nikon I drag those pics from the camera to the Nikon folder and voila. Well now that I'm using iPhoto on my new MacBook Pro, I made folders the same way like on my previous MacBook. I then drag pics from my camera to said folder, but my pics don't show up in the folder. They show up in iPhoto, but under "Last Imported"

This is because iPhoto is more than just an application. It's a digital asset management program. It's basically a database that controls the images. It stores them into your iPhoto Library under your Pictures directory.

Once in the Last Imported folder, you can (within iPhoto) create a system of folders and albums to organize your photos and drag them there.

There's actually no need for you to do this at all. The whole idea of an organizer (like iPhoto, like Aperture, like Lightroom) is to let the COMPUTER do the actual work or organizing based on common criteria and your own custom direction.

In this case, for example, what you really want is called a Smart Album. A Smart Album looks like a regular album but is governed by criteria you set. You can see how to create one below:

From iPhoto's file menu:



Then from the resulting dialog box:



There you go! Any future photos taken with that camera can be automatically found in that Smart Album! You can even get MORE specific, such as showing which photos with that camera were taken at a given ISO, or with the flash on, etc etc. You'll be dumbfounded at the options, and how much work you DON'T have to do!

chas_m said:

There's actually no need for you to do this at all. The whole idea of an organizer (like iPhoto, like Aperture, like Lightroom) is to let the COMPUTER do the actual work or organizing based on common criteria and your own custom direction.

In this case, for example, what you really want is called a Smart Album. A Smart Album looks like a regular album but is governed by criteria you set. You can see how to create one below:


There you go! Any future photos taken with that camera can be automatically found in that Smart Album! You can even get MORE specific, such as showing which photos with that camera were taken at a given ISO, or with the flash on, etc etc. You'll be dumbfounded at the options, and how much work you DON'T have to do!

Click to expand...

Thank you for that useful information. However, I just created a smart album labeled it as such (Camera name) and it didn't even import it to the Nikon album.

EDIT: Yes, it finally worked. How weird!! Thank you very much Chas!

chas_m how can I get more specific with the album? Flash, ISO, etc.?

FLAWLS1 said:

chas_m how can I get more specific with the album? Flash, ISO, etc.?

Click to expand...

After you make the Smart Album for the camera click on the plus sign and add another rule.

Thanks for the assist Pomeroy! Excellent work!

chas_m said:

Thanks for the assist Pomeroy! Excellent work!

Click to expand...

I thought maybe you had taken the day off chas_m. LOL

Wow, another excellent post Pomeroy. Thanks for those screen shots! By the way how do I take screen shots on my MacBook Pro? I know on my old one it was command + shift + 4

It's still the same. Command +shift +4 for a selection (hit space and you'll highlight full windows), cmd - shift - 3 for full screen.

Thanks Dysfunction! I have another question guys. I'm trying to delete certain photos from my albums, but for whatever reason it's not letting me. Anyone know why?

You may have to hold down a modifier key, like CMD. Someone who uses iPhoto will likely have an answer

You can't delete a photo from a Smart Album, because it's not really an album -- it's a saved search. It will always show all the pictures that meet the criteria you defined for that Smart Album. Is that perhaps the issue?

chas_m said:

You can't delete a photo from a Smart Album, because it's not really an album -- it's a saved search. It will always show all the pictures that meet the criteria you defined for that Smart Album. Is that perhaps the issue?

Click to expand...

OHHH ok. Is there anyway to delete certain photos then? There's a lot of photos in the albums that I want deleted. There has to be some kind of way.

Sure. Go back to the Photos view and delete them there. IOW, albums are just filtered subsets of your photo library. Once you delete a photo from the library, it's gone -- and will not show up in albums or smart albums anymore.

To delete them permanently (as in "I'm sure, no mistake"), you must then empty *iPhoto's* trash, which is not the same as the system trash sitting on the bottom right of your screen. The iPhoto trash is IN iPhoto, on the lefthand-column near the different library views. You right-click or control-click to empty it.