Organising my photos in iPhoto after switching

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Hello fellow Mac-users

I have recently switched from a PC to a Mac. The apple store has imported all my photos into iPhoto, but I don't quite understand how they are organised. I would like to organise them by year / month etc. but they are now organised in events (?Not sure of the terminology, my version is in Dutch) - and I believe it does so by day. But the view shows them all messed up, not in chronological order, and basically I cannot find half my pictures. Is there somewhere a tutorial or something to be found on what the best way of organizing is?

Many thanks, best regards,
Lou
 
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iPhoto should display your Events in date order when viewed in the Events pane. However, this doesn't always work, and you can drag your Events into the order of your choice. You ca also merge Events by dragging and dropping one on top of another. If you want to split an Event into two or more Events, then open the Event, select the photos you want o split off, and then select Split Event in the Event menu.

You can choose how iPhoto splits your photos into Events when importing, in the Events tab of iPhoto Preferences.

If you view your photos by clicking on Photos in the iPhoto Sidebar, they will be arranged in time/date order, as per the time/date setting on your camera. You can't re-arrange the photos here.
 
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I've never liked iPhoto as a photo organizer or browser. I use it primarily to bulk upload photos to fb and to keep photos synced across my devices. Otherwise I simply organize by even on the HDD and use an App like Graphic converter to brows and manipulate.
 
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Events are created by the EXIF date information in your digital photos) -- photos that were taken around the same time are grouped together.

If you want to create albums of "years" or "months" by all means do so -- but don't mess with the events. They make perfect sense as-is unless the dating information on the photos is somehow incorrect.
 
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Events are created by the EXIF date information in your digital photos) -- photos that were taken around the same time are grouped together.
.

Only by default! Mine are imported from finder folders and keep the folder name in iPhoto. Events are then organised by Event name. Date doesn't come into it on my machine.
 
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Thanks all for your insights, that is really helpful.

One more question, so within the events (say for example "Feb 2001", I cannot create other events, such as "Ski holiday" (which then took place in Feb 2001)? In other words, I have now merged some of my previous separate events, but then all the photos are clumped into one big event.

How do other people do this and find back their photos?? I have about 1,000 photos and creating 100s of events seems not very practical.

I certainly do not want to start downloading other apps to organise my photos...? That shouldn't be necessary, in my opinion?

I have once tried to move some of the photos to the Finder, but then, it changes the date on the photo which is quite disastrous, as then I will never be able to track back when the photo was taken.

Again, I would really appreciate it if there was a tutorial somewhere which I could study so that all of this would make sense. I know I have been poisoned by Mr Gates, but there you have it.
;-))

Thanks
Lou
 
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One more question, so within the events (say for example "Feb 2001", I cannot create other events, such as "Ski holiday"
No, but you can create a Folder for 2001, a Folder inside that for February, and then a Folder or Album inside that for Ski Holiday.

You can create Folders and Albums inside another Folder, but you can't create an Album inside another Album.

Screenshot2013-02-04at220520_zpsa0ea52c6.png
 
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You can't create Events WITHIN events. You can cut and paste photos from one event to a new one. For specific arranging, use albums.

Think of it as being like iTunes. In iTunes you have all your albums on the right, in in iPhoto you have all your events. Then in the iTunes sidebar, you can make playlists of songs in the order you want them independent of their original album order; in the iPhoto sidebar you have albums in which to organize photos independent of their original event.
 
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Thanks again guys for your patient replies!!
Mighty gem, that is exactly what I meant! So I would need to make folders and albums, that would work. Thanks

Oreinaut, I have never managed to work with iTunes either ;-)

Am I correct to assume that whatever way I organize the photos, I am not creating duplicates in iphoto? In other words, if I move the photo to an album or folder from the event, it does not use more disk space, right??

Thanks again.
Lou
 
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chas_m

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That's correct, Lou. Everything you do in terms of organizing photos in iPhoto does not create duplicates. It doesn't change how the actual library itself organizes things at all, you're just rearranging "views" to suit yourself.
 
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I am not creating duplicates in iphoto?
Correct. All the photos in your Folders/Albums are just links to the original picture.
 
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Thanks all again for the feedback. I do hate to trouble you again, but again, if there was a tutorial somewhere which would explain all of this... anyway now I am using iPhoto to make a book. I'm not too pleased with how you can only have landscape photos and i would like a little bit more flexibility. So I am thinking of downloading another albumprinter, but then it is impossible to import photos into the website from iphoto.

In one of the threads here I read 'just drag the album to the desktop', but it does not allow me to do this. How can I put multiple photos on the desktop - does it have to be a folder, or an album...? Also the albumprinter software does not seem to allow you to go to any other directory than 'pictures' so how could you even import photos from the desktop into these programs?

Again, sorry for all these questions. If there was a resource somewhere where I could study all this without having to ask all this, I would. Frankly, if I had known this was SO different, I am not sure I would have switched :-(

Thanks,
Lou
 
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but then it is impossible to import photos into the website from iphoto.
If that's the case, just select the photos that you want in iPhoto and drag them to the Desktop or your Pictures folder and import from there.

How can I put multiple photos on the desktop - does it have to be a folder, or an album
In a Folder or Album in iPhoto just select what you want either by clicking with the mouse and then dragging over all the pictures that you want, or by holding down the Cmd key and clicking on those you want. Then drag and drop the selection to the Desktop or Pictures folder.
 
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, if there was a tutorial somewhere which would explain all of this.

Have you watched all the tutorial videos on the Apple website?
 
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Here's a link to lots of basic Mac tutorials. Along the top of the video viewer you'll see tabs for tutorials on iTunes, iPhoto and more.
 

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