06-22-2011, 11:59 AM

Hi

I'm new to MAC !
I've imported all my photos into iPhoto and want to organize them into Folders & sub-folders. I've created a Folder and created sub-folders using the File/New/Folder method.
However when I try and drag photos from "Photos" into a sub-folder, an Album ("untitled album") is automatically created as a sub-folder to my sub-folder and the photos appear in both my sub-folder and this auto-created album.
Then when I delete this unwanted (sub-) album, the photos disappear from my sub-folder.
Sorry if this sounds confusing....how can I simply create sub-folders and drag photos into them ?
Thanks.

06-23-2011, 02:44 AM

Welcome!

As the LOLcats might say, "yr doin it TOETALLY rong."

I've written the long version of this post a hundred times here, but I can't find any one post of mine that encapsulates what I want to tell you, so I'll try to keep it as short as possible.

You're going about this in completely the wrong way. iPhoto is a photo organizer, so let IT do the organizing. Stop doing the computer's job.

Internally, iPhoto organizes photos by EXIF date, but that's really irrelevant to the user -- you can have iPhoto display photos in pretty much any way you want, but first you have to *give up* the idea that folders and sub-folders are important. They are not.

Photos in iPhoto are visually grouped in (primarily) two ways: Events and Albums. Events are automatically assembled by EXIF date relationships; Albums are populated manually by you. iPhoto doesn't offer sub-albums.

Here, maybe this video will help explain:
MacMost Now 402: Organizing Your Photos in iPhoto 09

Bottom line: let go of the need to micro-manage -- or if you can't, then iPhoto is not for you*. It wants to do the organizing for you so that you spend more time editing or enjoying the pictures rather than "working" on them. This sometimes requires letting go of certain attitudes.

*If iPhoto isn't for you, there are lots of alternatives, though most of the good ones are fairly expensive. You might want to look at ACDSee Pro for Mac, as it is one of the few programs that leaves ALL the file management to you and NONE of it to the program.

08-27-2011, 06:02 PM

I want to browse thru all my pics stored in iPhoto using Adobe Bridge and Adobe Lightroom. I can't find where the pics are stored, so cannot get them all displayed in Adobe Bridge. Where is the file(s) the pictures are stored in?

08-28-2011, 06:46 AM

I don't use either program so someone else will have to say. I don't think Adobe Bridge can read iPhoto Libraries (and that's probably a VERY GOOD THING).

Aperture can import from iPhoto Libraries, but is more of a replacement of/step up from iPhoto.

08-28-2011, 07:03 AM

Originally Posted by Flat Eric

I want to browse thru all my pics stored in iPhoto using Adobe Bridge and Adobe Lightroom. I can't find where the pics are stored, so cannot get them all displayed in Adobe Bridge. Where is the file(s) the pictures are stored in?

Using Lightroom as a photo browser is like killing fleas with a sledgehammer. What specifically does iPhoto not do for you that you are wanting to gain? Not dissing Lightroom; I use Aperture but a lot of my friends swear by Lightroom. Just hard to tell from your post if that is really the right way for you to go.

Regardless, you should be able to import to Lightroom using the method below.

Moving photos from iPhoto to Lightroom in 3 Easy Steps -Seven by Five