Folder alias permission problems

Hi - I recently bought and installed an external hard drive then moved the pictures folder from /users/myname/pictures to the new drive. On the new drive I created an alias from the pictures folder and copied it back to the original folder. All works great, if I click on the folder in /users/myname it takes me to the new drive. The problem is applications that try to write directly to the folder no longer work. Example is Photo Booth which continually gives me an error on open "Cannot create save folder in /users/myname/pictures". Am I missing something? Does anyone know why no applications can actually write to the alias even though I have read+write in the folder info.

Thanks!