First time importing of Photos into iPhoto 11

I have read through the following thread and looked at the videos contained therein.

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/im...raphy/242102-iphoto-sub-folders-problems.html

Please bear with me if I do not explain myself sufficiently in this first post.

I have a Network Attacked Storage Server (QNAP TS439). I use it for storage of videos/photos, accounts and documents. The hierarchical file structure of my videos/photos is such that I can use my med8ter media player Mede8er Forum - Index to view at leisure on my Sony 46" TV.

Recently I purchased a 2011 15" MBP (thoroughly enjoying the experience) with the 750gb HD and the AMD 6750 graphics card, and wish to carry a copy of all my photos and videos (stored on the NAS) with me whilst traveling.

Given that I wish to emulate (maybe not the correct word) the logical structure of my photos on the NAS in iPhoto 11 , I am wondering which is the best way of labeling them. Be it Events or Photos. Many of the photos are very old family 35 mm transparencies (that are in boxes) that I have scanned in and given the date and tray number to. e.g. Tray 2 July 1974, Tray 3 August 1975. To my mind using the listing of events is not suitable because the events are purely my labels and the times are when I scanned them in, not when the photos were taken. Also I have very old family photos (not slides) from the 1950s and 1960s that have been scanned in, the same applies.

My thought is that everything that I have should be imported from the NAS in iPhoto 11 under Photos and not Events!

Thoughts? Has anyone else been through the same exercise?

Regards

Peter

You are not grasping iPhoto. iPhoto organizes the photos internally (by EXIF date as it happens, but that's really pretty irrelevant), and then presents the library of photos to you in a variety of ways, absolutely none of which effect in any way whatsoever how they are organized internally.

In other words, Events, Places, Faces and Photos are all just different ways of looking at the exact same material. You can also sort photos by star rating, by keyword, by title and even (within albums) do your own totally random manual sort if you like. None of it makes the slightest different to iPhoto, as it doesn't affect how the photos are organized on the disk at all.

Your best bet is to simply create Albums that correspond to the "folders" you had set up, and populate them manually as you like through drag and drop. If you know the dates when the photos were taken, you can adjust the "time stamp" on them so that Events (which could also be called "the group-by-date view") handles them properly. If you don't know the dates, simply ignore the Events view and stick to the Albums.

Again, what you put in what album and in which order has no bearing whatsoever on how they are actually organized within iPhoto (and unless you enjoy losing data, DO NOT try to mess with iPhoto's internal organization!). All presentations on a computer are layers of abstraction; iPhoto takes more advantage of this than most other programs.

chas_m

Thank you for your concise reply.

chas_m said:

You are not grasping iPhoto.

Click to expand...

Far from it. In fact, the very reason I created this post is because I do grasp the principles of iPhoto. I did not want to start importing into the library and then find I had got it all wrong and had to start again.

chas_m said:

Your best bet is to simply create Albums that correspond to the "folders" you had set up, and populate them manually as you like through drag and drop.

Click to expand...

Thanks....This is exactly what I wanted to know! Surprisingly there is a lot of information on the web including videos, but nowhere is there any detailed instructions for starting off and importing from scratch with an already established hierarchical structure of photographs, or perhaps I missed it amongst the plethora of videos and help files that exist.

chas_m said:

If you know the dates when the photos were taken, you can adjust the "time stamp" on them so that Events (which could also be called "the group-by-date view") handles them properly. If you don't know the dates, simply ignore the Events view and stick to the Albums.

Click to expand...

Thanks again. I already knew this existed, having read all about it elsewhere.

One question if I may.

If I use the method of creating folders as you described above which will emulate my present folder structure on my server, will anything change in this structure in iPhoto if the dates of the slide transparencies are changed later? For instance, the folders will under 35mm slides will be as follows:

Tray 1 June 1974 (modified 10/12/2009)
Tray 2 June 1974 (modified 10/12/2009)
Tray 3 July 1974 (modified 10/12/2009)
Tray 4 August 1974 (modified 10/12/2009)
Tray 5 August 1974 (modified 05/11/2010)

etc etc

Note. The modified dates shown above are NOT the name of the folders, that is the date that I created the folders shown in bold.

Please remember, the object of the whole exercise is to carry around on the MBP a similar structure to what is in the folders on my QNAP server.

chas_m said:

snip

Your best bet is to simply create Albums that correspond to the "folders" you had set up, and populate them manually as you like through drag and drop. If you know the dates when the photos were taken, you can adjust the "time stamp" on them so that Events (which could also be called "the group-by-date view") handles them properly. If you don't know the dates, simply ignore the Events view and stick to the Albums.

Again, what you put in what album and in which order has no bearing whatsoever on how they are actually organized within iPhoto (and unless you enjoy losing data, DO NOT try to mess with iPhoto's internal organization!). All presentations on a computer are layers of abstraction; iPhoto takes more advantage of this than most other programs.

Click to expand...

It really cannot be said much better than that.

Orchardmead143 said:

snip

If I use the method of creating folders as you described above

Click to expand...

You'll be creating Albums in iPhoto.

will anything change in this structure in iPhoto if the dates of the slide transparencies are changed later?

Click to expand...

Not unless you move them out of the Album you placed them in. Making a change to any picture inside an Album, does not somehow move the picture outside the Album.

Those changes can and will affect what you see in Events, Places, Faces... which as chas noted, are all just different ways of viewing the same photos.

You're over thinking this. I'd suggest you create maybe 3 Albums and import your pics into them and check it out to really see what it does. At some point you have to start. Creating and actually doing it will clear up the rest of the mystery.

You could also just copy all of your pics, in their existing folder structure and all onto your Mac and use Picasa as a photo viewer.

bobtomay and chas_m

Thanks for your advice. I have created a new album called 35mm slides and dragged the sub folders into it, (trays 1 to 20 as described in my previous post) and as you suggested it works a treat.

One minor problem! I deleted several sub folders (Tray 1 June 1974 and Tray 2 June 1974) from my new Album "35mm slides" because I made a couple of errors. I then dragged them back into the album again. So all my trays from 1 to 20 appear once in the album, but when I go to the Library (Photos and Events), the 2 Trays that I had deleted and then dragged back in (Tray 1 and Tray 2) appear twice. How do I show these trays only once? A search does not supply the answer. I cannot see how to get rid of the duplicates in the Library Photos and Events. I understand that I do not delete them! Are we talking about re-indexing the album or something along these lines?

Edit.

Since posting the above request for information, I have spoken to a guy at Apple Support (I am still within the 90 free days) and one guy was really helpful.

The solution is to go into the Library Events and delete the duplicates from in there. In fact because I have all my data on my server and do not have to worry about losing photos, I carried out several exercises with the Apple Rep and now have a complete understanding. In the end I have deleted everything and imported again.

Excellent, and a virtual high-five to the Apple Support guy!

Mede8er 500x2

Hey Orchardmead!

I wonder if you can help. I just bought a mede8er 500x2. It came with a 2TB hard drive already installed which has already been formatted and has a bunch of media on it. My problem is that when I connect it to my iMac (quite new; bought in October 2010) via the blue USB cable (supplied) it is not visible in the Finder and so I cannot do anything with it!!

Any ideas on how to access it from my iMac?

Cheers

gooders said:

Hey Orchardmead!

I wonder if you can help. I just bought a mede8er 500x2. It came with a 2TB hard drive already installed which has already been formatted and has a bunch of media on it. My problem is that when I connect it to my iMac (quite new; bought in October 2010) via the blue USB cable (supplied) it is not visible in the Finder and so I cannot do anything with it!!

Any ideas on how to access it from my iMac?

Cheers

Click to expand...

I have not ever thought of doing that! Perhaps I should try. Using my Mac I access my little QNAP server and import photos from there.

I presume your mede8er is connected up to a TV set also?