Sharing iPhoto Library and duplicate files.

Joined
Jun 22, 2008
Messages
3,343
Reaction score
213
Points
63
Location
Forest Hills, NYC
Your Mac's Specs
15-inch Early 2008; Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; Memory 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 10.7.5
It's really simple (or should be). There are two admin accounts on my Macbook Pro. One is mine, and the other is my wifes. She wanted to upload some pictures from her camera and so I initiated the effort (she's not very savvy with this stuff, but she'd be fine if I sat her down a tic) and had iPhoto import them. After it did its thing I realized that I'd want to share those photos between both our accounts. So after digging around a bit, I realized (unless there's another way) that I had to copy the iPhoto Library into the Shared folder in order to access those photos from my account.

So I copied the library, and then when in my account, I then copied the library (imported) from the shared folder over to my account's iPhoto Library. However, I now have 600 MB + sitting in each of those folders, (that's 1800 MB) and this seems like a rather extreme way for iPhoto to handle sharing. I thought that it would be something more like iPhoto being pointed to one common directory, and that would be that. There's got to be a way to do this, without having not only three separate originals folders, but add to that, the modified folder, which adds up to just tons of wasted space.

Should I have done something different from the start to have avoided all of this ? If so, iPhoto doesn't make such applications clear, at all. In iPhoto's preferences, I see that there is a box which you can check for "copying to iPhoto's library" (that might not be the exact thing it says, I don't have it in front of me.. I'm on my Linux box), does that play a role in this ?

So what do I do now ? All I want is that when I upload folders/photos that my wife is able to see them on her end, and visa-versa. Do I have to manually put photos in the shared folder ? And if I do, will iPhoto automatically see those things ? Or will it still work if I drag (or she drags) folders/photos directly into iPhoto and then put those things into the shared folder automatically ?

Also, If I physically delete the photos from everywhere (except for the modified folders of course) except for the shared folders, it should make no difference, right ? And lastly, Why is it that I even HAVE to have a modified pictures folder ? Can I not have the choice to back my files up on an external HD, and choose to edit all of my original files and not have to have a "modified" folder ? (which just takes up more space) I think that should be a choice left up to the owner of any files, personally speaking. I really don't like being dictated to at the mercy of Apple programming.....

Help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Doug
 
OP
Doug b
Joined
Jun 22, 2008
Messages
3,343
Reaction score
213
Points
63
Location
Forest Hills, NYC
Your Mac's Specs
15-inch Early 2008; Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; Memory 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 10.7.5
OP
Doug b
Joined
Jun 22, 2008
Messages
3,343
Reaction score
213
Points
63
Location
Forest Hills, NYC
Your Mac's Specs
15-inch Early 2008; Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; Memory 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 10.7.5
Bump. Again. 51 views and not one suggestion ?
 
Joined
Jun 8, 2008
Messages
213
Reaction score
6
Points
18
Hi Doug,

Which version of iPhoto are you using?

If you are using 08 (the most recent) you should see a tab in the preferences menu (cmd ,) titled "sharing" that allows you to either share all albums or individual albums.

You should first of all get rid of all the duplicate photos so you are back where you started.
Then enable sharing on the album in your wife's account that you want to have access to.
When you open iPhoto in your account, you should be able to view the photos.
 
OP
Doug b
Joined
Jun 22, 2008
Messages
3,343
Reaction score
213
Points
63
Location
Forest Hills, NYC
Your Mac's Specs
15-inch Early 2008; Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; Memory 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 10.7.5
Thanks Mark. I'm hopefully going to try that out tonight when I get a chance. And yes, I am running the latest version of iPhoto. I noticed that setting you're talking about, and could swear that I already checked it, (at least on her side). I guess what I should do is delete everything and start fresh. That would be easiest.

Except this time, I'll be importing files from a folder either on my desktop or some other shared folder, since I deleted the original files from the camera. Is there a specific way to do this then ? Should I put said files into any particular location on the Mac's HD ? Is iPhoto going to look for a specific directory, or can I assign one ? It's likely that I'm soon going to use an external HD for all of our photos, so perhaps I should start getting into the habit now, rather than later. I'll not want to have any files on my MBP's hard drive, so I'm assuming there's no problem wanting to do this ?

Doug
 
OP
Doug b
Joined
Jun 22, 2008
Messages
3,343
Reaction score
213
Points
63
Location
Forest Hills, NYC
Your Mac's Specs
15-inch Early 2008; Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; Memory 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 10.7.5
I just tried what you suggested, and it was a failure. What I did was make sure sharing the entire library was on in both accounts. I then copied the library from her picture folder over to the shared folder (because simply making sure that sharing was enabled didn't do anything in and of its self) and deleted the library from my picture folder in my account. But when I opened iPhoto, it asked where the library was, and i directed it to the shared folder, and afterwards, it told me that the disk it was on was locked, and then just shut down. This happens every time I start it up again. It just says the disk is locked and shuts down.

I don't see anything on her end indicating that it would be locked to me on my end. The only thing I can think of is that I have filevault activated on both ends. Would that effect this ? This is just getting a bit too silly and complicated now. Why should this be so difficult ?

doug
 
Joined
Sep 7, 2008
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Your Mac's Specs
iMac 20" 2.66GHz Intel Core 2Duo
Hi Doug,

I have the same problem. Any luck yet? I think the sharing that one clicks in iPhoto's preference menu is just to share with other computers running iPhoto.
It just seems ridiculous to me that we need to have two copies of all our files.

Please let me know if you've solved the problem. Thanks
 
Joined
Apr 22, 2007
Messages
687
Reaction score
14
Points
18
Location
Nashville, TN
Your Mac's Specs
2010 Macbook Pro, 8g RAM, iPhone 6, iPad Mini, Apple TV
I have not tried this, but seems like this would work: Put the iPhoto library in a shared area. then on each account, hold the option key while starting iPhoto and choose that library. Seems like then whenever either of you opened iPhoto it would access that library. Downloads would go there, etc. as well.

Remember, I said I have not tried this -- just trying to think like iPhoto thinks. Once this was working, you could delete the duplicate/triplicate libraries.
 
Joined
Jun 17, 2008
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Both accounts have to be log on to share photos between users and believe that Iphoto have to be opened on both accounts
 
Joined
Aug 17, 2007
Messages
22
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Skybolt is right.

My wife and I have the exact same setup. I went one step further, though, and created a partition solely for iPhoto. I then checked the permissions to make sure that we can both R/W to the partition. Then, each of us used the Opt. key/iPhoto to choose the newly created iPhoto library. (I just copied my iPhoto library to the new partition then deleted it from my Photos folder.)

Both of us do not need to be logged on to add or view photos and we both can do whatever we want to the library. Works great.

Mark
 
OP
Doug b
Joined
Jun 22, 2008
Messages
3,343
Reaction score
213
Points
63
Location
Forest Hills, NYC
Your Mac's Specs
15-inch Early 2008; Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; Memory 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 10.7.5
Wow, had no idea anybody would kick this thread up again. I think I decided to toss the idea of using iPhoto all together. It' is just not worth the hassle of all these things which are being suggested. Never before have I seen such counter-intuitive software that makes you run around in circles just to get the most mundane tasks done.

Ultimately, I decided on setting up my external hard drives as both a music and photo server. I was going to use iPhoto for both of our accounts, but I'm playing around with Aperture 2, and think that I should be able to accomplish the same simple tasks with it (I hope) as I would with iPhoto for my wife. This entails putting photos on our mobile.me account sites and blogs and general photo galleries for her family and friends to see.

As for the rest, I think it makes for a better organizing solution than iPhoto, in general. I'm also planning on checking out the newest Adobe Lightroom and see if I like that better than Aperture. Either way, I despise the way so many additional files are created within the iPhoto library (different sizes etc) and really don't like the way its data base method is handled, period. Just bought a 500 gig WD external Mybook, so I'll use that for my server and just back up the same said files on the other externals I've got, to be safe.

Good suggestions though, nonetheless, thank you.

Doug
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top