iPhoto '09: Committing changes and getting rid of originals

Joined
Sep 4, 2007
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Location
Buenos Aires
Your Mac's Specs
MacBook Pro 2.53GHz, 6GB of RAM, Seagate Momentus XT 500GB (late 2008)
ey everyone,

I've recently started to use iPhoto again ('09). I used previous versions in the past but was never satisfied on how the application handle original and modified pictures in the database, I was running low on disk space quite often.

There are still some issues with it that I'd like to get fixed. The most important one is to find out if there's a way to commit the changes to a picture once it's edited, so that I'm only left with the edited version. The reason I want this is because I always download my pictures to an external drive and then import (copy) them to my iPhoto library. This way I have a backup of the original files and a another copy that I can safely edit on my Mac.

Now, when I'm done with a picture and I know that I wont be reverting it to it's original state (if I ever need to, I have the originals backed up), how can I tell iPhoto to commit the changes and keep only the edited version and delete the original? The most annoying occurrence of this is when a picture doesn't need any more editing than a simple crop or rotate. I end up with two copies of pretty much the same photo!

If there's a simple way I can accomplish this I would very much appreciate you share it with me.
 
Joined
Apr 22, 2007
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Nashville, TN
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2010 Macbook Pro, 8g RAM, iPhone 6, iPad Mini, Apple TV
There won't be a simple way because the behavior is exactly what Apple wants it to do. It is the failsafe for your photos. Would be easier to simply let iPhoto import the photos to its database, and then backup that database, not import to a file first and then import. iPhoto is not meant to work that way.
 
OP
Wheeljack
Joined
Sep 4, 2007
Messages
67
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Location
Buenos Aires
Your Mac's Specs
MacBook Pro 2.53GHz, 6GB of RAM, Seagate Momentus XT 500GB (late 2008)
Well yes, that would be easy. But I don't always want to keep several GBs of originals on my laptop, just the edits.
 

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