O.K., first line of organization (In my opinion). Rename the film rolls to something more meaningful for you. Click on the little i button on the lower left (if the info pane is not already open). Highlight the "roll" and within that little pane on the lower left, rename the roll. This is what I do and it really sorts things better for me. Now, click on the little triangles next to the roll name and collapse the roll, so that the pictures are not showing. This will make your window less crowded. Then, I generally only open one roll at a time. You can combine photos from one roll to another by dragging the photo to the name of the target roll. I do this with my pictures of my cats -- then I have all cat pictures in one roll. Easier for me!
For the photos themselves, within an open roll, click on each picture and rename it just like you did the roll name. You can do a batch change if you want by clicking on the "Photo" dropdown at the top of the screen and choosing "batch change" (I think its "Photo", not at the mac right now). Anyway, you'll find batch change if you look.
You can create folders and albums for your photos using the File (or is it edit) dropdown. A folder holds albums. So, you could have a folder that was named "Vacations", for instance, and within that folder you would have albums for "Summer 2007", "Winter 2006", etc. This is a great way to keep track. The photos are not duplicated, they are aliases to the actual photo, so you can have as many as you want and not take up too much space.
You can also use keywords and/or smart folders. These are options that allow you to assign one or more keywords to a photo, and have them automatically put into an album. For instance, if you have a photo with several people in it, you could assign a keyword for each person's name, and the create smart albums for each name and then every photo with the keyword "Joe" would automatically go into the "Joe" smart folder.
There are many more things that are easier in iPhoto, but that is enough to get you started.
Just give iPhoto a try, it is so simple and clean! So much easier than manually doing the things that Windows users do. Believe me -- I switched about 4 years ago, and in the beginning, I tried to do things the Windows way, and made myself crazy. Then I saw the light! Let the software do the work and you just sit back and relax!
Enjoy your mac and just let us know how we can help!
