need help with iphoto

i am new to the mac os and i hear everyone rave about iphoto. i am confised though, it looks like iphoto creates a library. it also keeps trying to make copies of all my images (60,000+) which is obvioously taking up way to o much space on hd. what are some pointers?

Hi,

I had exactly the same problem when I bought my MAC. It seems every time you do any changes to the images iPhoto it makes a copy (no bad thing) but I think some of these are hidden and can only be seen by looking in the actual iPhoto application library via Finder (a bad thing as you shouldn't really try and manage anything via this path.) Following the advice of others I now download all images from cameras or scanner into a folder not associated with iPhoto and do any processing with Photoshop there and only import the final image into iPhoto once I'm happy with it. Downloaded originals can then be backed up elsewhere (I use Time Machine.) It's all about workflow this may not be the best but it works for me and I no longer eat uploads of MAC HD space with iPhoto copies.

If you want to process an image already in iPhoto, export it to another folder work on it & save and re-import in to iPhoto with the same file name, that way you don't get loads of copies either.

This works for me, others will have alternative and probably better solutions!

HTH

If you use an external editor, e.g., Photoshop, set your iPhoto preferences to use that as your editor. Then, when you select a photo in iPhoto to edit, that external editor will open, you can edit, and then iPhoto will save it back to its rightful place. The only duplication will be that iPhoto does still keep the original shot so that any time you might want to go back to the beginning, you can (that's a good thing!).