Some questions about iPhoto

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Hi, I'm a newb to this forum! Okay so I am an avid photographer and have hundreds of photos which I have uploaded onto my Mac! When I used to use a PC, I would just have my photographs in folders in my documents. Now that I have a Macbook, I store all of my photos in iPhoto. Now, I know that iPhoto makes files of the photos when you import them from a camera, but these files are inaccessible unless you control-click and select "show file." I was wondering how reliable these files would be, and if maybe I should make regular files of my photos in my documents to be safe. I don't know much about these things, but I keep thinking that if something happened to the iPhoto program I would lose all my photos because you can't get to the files it creates of them without opening the program. But then again what would happen if my Macbook crashed! I really need to start investigating good ways to back-up all of my photos.

If anybody has any suggestions, ideas or info on this topic it would be greatly appreciated.
 
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I don't use iPhoto, all my photos are archived on snapfish. It's where my wife orders most of or photos from. You can have them mailed from snapfish (shipping charges) or processed at the local Walgreens and pick them up.

If nothing else it can be a virtual backup in case anything happens to your mac. You do have to order some pics from them occasionally to avoid a fee.

You could also try something like flickr.com or google's picassa. I found snapfish/walgreens to be the cheapest as far as processing goes.

They have a batch upload tool. I just make a folder with my latest photos, go to upload photos from the website and select all in the folder (have to use safari). It uploads them all in the background.

hope that helps and wasn't too long.
 
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iPhoto manages your photos beautifully - that is what it is made for! Do not access your photos from within the finder, do anything and everything to/with your photos from within the app itself. Mucking about in the finder is a sure way to corruption and loss. Just because you CAN ctrl-click, does not mean you should.

If you do a backup to an external drive, for instance, you will not risk losing your photos. I actually have two externals, one I keep at home, and one I update once a month that I keep at my office. Using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner will do all you need to protect your photos.

If you prefer, you can backup to a CD or DVD. Just select the events you want to back up in that particular backup session, and click on the "burn" icon. Your photos will be backed up and ready to reimport into iPhoto should something bad happen.
 
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iPhoto manages your photos beautifully - that is what it is made for! Do not access your photos from within the finder, do anything and everything to/with your photos from within the app itself. Mucking about in the finder is a sure way to corruption and loss. Just because you CAN ctrl-click, does not mean you should.

If you do a backup to an external drive, for instance, you will not risk losing your photos. I actually have two externals, one I keep at home, and one I update once a month that I keep at my office. Using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner will do all you need to protect your photos.

If you prefer, you can backup to a CD or DVD. Just select the events you want to back up in that particular backup session, and click on the "burn" icon. Your photos will be backed up and ready to reimport into iPhoto should something bad happen.

Hey, thanks for the advice! What are SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner? Also, when you burn events from iPhoto onto CD or DVD, are they managed neatly in folders or just all jumbled? I'm so new to this that it seems easier to manage photos in finder in nice neat folders rather than in iPhoto.
 
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f you use the "burn" function in iPhoto, they are in the correct iPhoto format and will not work on any other software. If you want that, you need to use the "export" function and export to folders of you choosing (on your desktop, for example) and then burn them to a disc. Doing that will preserve your folders, etc.

CCC and SD are applications available free from several sites, including VersionTracker. They make a clone of your hard drive to another drive, external HD, for example. Great to have! Should something happen to your internal, you can simply clone back from the external to the internal and all will be exactly as it was at your last backup.
 
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Look in your HD for "iPhoto Library".
Then put the pointer in it and use the right button to select "Show Package Contents".
There will be several files, the key one is called "Originals" in it you have all your files. Another one of interest is called "Data" in it you have a 'thumb' version of each photo. A third one is called "Modified" in it you have the images that you have changed and saved.

So, it is all there, you decide if you need to make extra copies.
 
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Best to just stay out of the library in finder. As I stated before, mucking about in there can lead to corruption and loss. If a user wants to use iPhoto to manage their photos, that library is off limits. iPhoto organizes it in its own way so that the app can function. Mess with it and the app will be useless.
 

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If you're using Leopard, which I'm going to assume you are, try using Time Machine for backing up your pictures (and everything else). It's included with OS X and works really well.

You could also look into using Picasa (not the web version - the app itself). I'm pretty sure it doesn't move your pictures around but don't quote me on that. It is only a beta so be conscious of that as well.
 

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