How Does iPhoto Actually Work?

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Hi there,

I'm finding iPhoto a little confusing - as in - how does it actually work?! For instance when looking at photos in Windows - you can have a folder that says 'Florida 2009' and in this folder are the actual .jpgs - and that's that - simple as that!

With iPhoto it all seems a bit 'virtual'.

The reason I ask is because I have a network hard drive which has ALL my photos, stored how I want - I have folders of year 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 etc. And then in these folders are other folders with the name of the 'event' ie. Christmas Party, or My Birthday Drinks etc.

So what's the best way for iPhoto to work so it works in the same way? And so when I import new photos - I can store them on my network hard dirve in the following way?

Thanks!
 
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I would like to know this as well. I have a fear that it actually makes a copy of the photos in another location, which would really start to fill up my SSD. I have my thousands of photos stored on the larger HD and have no need for a copy. I could be wrong of cause. I hope I am.
 
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For 99% of users, iPhoto's built-in file management is good enough, but if you have a need to store the photos elsewhere or are OCD in your file management, you can just uncheck the "Copy items into iPhoto" box under Advanced Preferences.

Advanced_iPhoto_Prefs.png
 
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Schweb: You're the Man, I also needed your great tip. However, my Advanced page in iPhoto 08 is not as elaborate as your sample above. Is that a Snow Leopard feature or do I need an upgrade for iPhoto '08?

In addition, I have Picasa for Mac on my drive but when it started filling up I added an external LaCie USB and added the Picasa app to that one.

Now when I transfer photos from my Fuji digicam to the external drive, they also sneak onto the original Picasa. Conversely, when I transfer them to the iMac drive, copies are automatically saved to the external Picasa.

I also put them into iPhoto. Why? Glad you asked. I like to put short descriptions of the locale and the date within the photo itself which is a great Picasa feature not present in iPhoto.

How can I make sure that the off-loads from the camera go to the Picasa version of MY choice without deleting one of them?
 
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my Advanced page in iPhoto 08 is not as elaborate as your sample above. Is that a Snow Leopard feature or do I need an upgrade for iPhoto '08?

iLife 11 actually .......
 
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Why Worry

Having spent years filing photo collections on a PC iPhoto is a breath of fresh air.

Why worry where the program puts the photos. I connect my camera, import to iPhoto and then on the iPhoto screen I can sort my photos into events, albums, slideshows, etc, without having to worry what the filing system is doing. I never lose photos because I have misfiled them or deleted a folder in error. Edits in iPhoto are done without damaging the original picture and its easy, when necessary, to export to Photoshop or upload to Flickr. MobileMe and Picasa (when Google gets round to updating their software for iLife 11).

If you are really desperate to find the original image file just go to "iPhoto Library" in your "Pictures" folder, right click it and select "Show package contents". Now you can view, copy, etc. any of your original pics or copies that you have edited in iPhoto.
 
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Schweb: You're the Man, I also needed your great tip. However, my Advanced page in iPhoto 08 is not as elaborate as your sample above. Is that a Snow Leopard feature or do I need an upgrade for iPhoto '08?

In addition, I have Picasa for Mac on my drive but when it started filling up I added an external LaCie USB and added the Picasa app to that one.

Now when I transfer photos from my Fuji digicam to the external drive, they also sneak onto the original Picasa. Conversely, when I transfer them to the iMac drive, copies are automatically saved to the external Picasa.

I also put them into iPhoto. Why? Glad you asked. I like to put short descriptions of the locale and the date within the photo itself which is a great Picasa feature not present in iPhoto.

How can I make sure that the off-loads from the camera go to the Picasa version of MY choice without deleting one of them?

Can't understand why you put the Picasa on your external drive - it's an app and will run quite happily from the one location. Also Picasa does not store your photos only reads from their actual location so when you say copies are being saved all over the place it's just that Picasa is reading your external drive and your hard drive. Do yourself a favour - get rid of all but one copy of Picasa and if you don't want it to see your external hard drive disable that in Picasa Folder Manager.
 
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Quick question here. I have all my photos stored on a 2nd HD, as I don't want to flood my SSD which is the main HD. When I use iPhoto on some of those photos, does it make a 2nd copy on the main HD?
 

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