Organizing iPhoto Events

I just started importing my photos into iPhoto, and I'm not liking the way Events are imported. I use my Mac for both work and personal use. On my PC I kept a folder for Work which contained dozens of sub-folders with pictures of different jobsites and work related projects (I'm in construction). I also kept a personal folder with family photos, sub-folders of different vacations, etc. But now that they are imported, the events screen has these different events lumped together in no particular order.

As it stands now, if I take my MacBook to a meeting with a client and want to show them pics from a perticular jobsite, that event may be next to an event with personal pics of my friends overendulging themselves on the weekends.

I realize that I can use folders to recatagorize all these just like I had them before. But this seems redundant. And if I delete a photo from a folder, I also have to go back and delete it from the event (if I can find the event among the 200 others in the pile). And the folders system doesn't have the style that the event page does (scrolling the mouse across the events).

Does anyone else out there have a useless Event page with 100+ events in no particular order? Can you at least alphabetize them? I realize you can move them around manually to sort them, but that's almost impossible when you have so many.

I also saw that you can create a separate library, but you can't switch between the libraries without restarting iPhoto. What if my camera has personal and work pics on it that I want to download? I have to open iPhoto, download the first set, close iPhoto, reopen/switch libraries, then download the rest. That's ridiculous. And what if my wife decides she wants to start her own set of events? Then I reopen it a 3rd time?

Wouldn't it make sense to allow for the option to catagorize events? Folders are useable--events aren't. How about taking the fancy new interface that makes events page look so cool and apply it to the folders and albums so we could actually use it?

Other than iPhoto, I love my new Mac.

I have the same problem as you, what about using another program to organise them? Im waiting for Elements 6 to come out for the mac and then use their library, or adobe lightroom! Like u i have 1000's of photo's that i organised into many sub folders on my old PC, all i have done for now is import them into my photo's folder and left them in the folders as they used to be organised in untill i can sort them out! Love my mac too!

I must admit that since switching I've replaced most of my Windows apps with native mac apps but I still haven't found anything in the OSX world to touch Picasa for photo organising.

However, in iPhoto why not use Albums. These can consists of photos from more than one event i.e. An Album per jobsite etc. And they are listed down the left hand sidebar in alphabetical order.

Might not solve all your problems but it's a start

mrplow said:

I must admit that since switching I've replaced most of my Windows apps with native mac apps but I still haven't found anything in the OSX world to touch Picasa for photo organising....

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Agreed 100%. iPhoto isn't even close to Picasa in my book. That may be because of my familiarity with Picasa but the way iPhoto organized my photos has just been a mess. I already keep my photos in a highly structured model - folders by year, within that folders by day.

iPhoto is wildly inconsistent with my photos going into events. Usually it gets it right but sometimes it will pop a photo into the wrong event and it's not clear as to why.

Any other suggestions for photo organization on Mac?

A few notes -- your events will be sorted by date by default. You can move photos around from one event to another by dragging, though I find this easier to do in the "library" view (top of the lsft pane).

For organizing, use albums and folders. A folder for each client, perhaps. Then albums or smart albums within that folder for each project. Or simply a folder for "personal" and one for "work", and albums within each of those.

If a photo is in an incorrect event, first thing to check would be the date on the photo. Perhaps the camera's date was incorrect and thus the photo thinks it should be in a different event. Correct that, then drag the photo to the correct event and you will have it licked. Check your preferences to see what time frame you have indicated that you want iPhoto to use for creating new events. That could also be the problem.

For me, the events work perfectly! And so much better than the rolls previously.

Picasa isn't even close to iPhoto in my book.

What's the problem with Events? Import your job pictures first. It will create several events. Then just merge the separate events that are actually just one event. Once you have organised your Job events, then import your personal pictures. Again, organise. You do know that you can rearrange events, merge them, split them and do all kinds of eventy stuff right?

Otherwise use Aperture/Lightroom for professional pictures and keep iPhoto for personal pics.

I couldn't get my head around Events when I first got my mac so I imported all my photos into Albums and which I could name and sort (and create sub albums) as I pleased and I tended to ignore events altogether. A state which has largely continued. Yes I do miss out on some of the functionality of Events like being able to scroll the mouse over the event to see all the photos but life is too short to sort photos into albums and to sort Events as well.

For personal pics I have 'top' albums headed ' 'People', 'Places', 'Events' (!). These have sub albums of for example 'My wife', 'Children, 'Friends' ; 'Yorkshire', 'Paris', 'Loire' etc; and 'House renovation 2006', 'Spanish Holiday 2007', 'My 50th birthday' etc. In addition I have other albums for stuff I want to pull together separately (for Photo books, my Ebay sales, document scans to name a few). Work photos are stored in separate Libraries, one for each client and accessed by holding down the alt key on starting iPhoto and for those I do tend to just use Events one for each project within a client and I don't need albums for those.

As you see I tend to ignore iPhoto Events altogether for personal photos (95% + of all my pictures) as they just do not offer the same flexability as Albums. Perhaps one day...

Here's the two solutions I've come up with so far. In still find iPhoto completely unusable. I have 200 events and no way to, at the very least, alphabetize them. The albums idea is useless as well. God forbid I decide to delete a photo. I can't delete it from the album. I have to go back and delete it from the event. Problem is that you can't sort the events, and when you have so many, you can't find the one you need. So deleting a photo is a nightmare.

But I'm not here to complain. I'm here to find a legitimate solution. Here are the 2 options I've found so far.

1. I downloaded Aperature 2. It alphabetizes everything automatically and has a workable photo management system using a tree of folders. The software is total overkill for the average user, but it's functional. Also, currently, I am a fan of Photoshop for advanced editing, but perhaps I will find Aperture to have some useful features.

2. Who needs software to view photos anyway? I can just create my own tree system of folders and subfolders. I wasn't crazy about the lack of a stylish interface at first, but when you switch the view to coverflow, it still has a cool look to it. Is anyone else using this system?

I'm not familiar with Picasa, and haven't even tried iPhoto, but do they allow you to tag images with key words?

I use LightRoom, and when downloading images, I assign key words to them like "Vacation", "Kids", "Dogs", etc. I can do a quick search, and it brings up all relevant images very quickly. I just leave the downloaded images where they are, organized by default under individual files by dates.

Delete from album to also delete from event

Jaygray said:

The albums idea is useless as well. God forbid I decide to delete a photo. I can't delete it from the album. I have to go back and delete it from the event. Problem is that you can't sort the events, and when you have so many, you can't find the one you need. So deleting a photo is a nightmare.

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Hi. I'm a little late, but I just found out something that got me excited to join the conversation. I never liked events for the same reasons as mentioned already (mainly no folders for events). But I just learned you can do a delete from an album that will also erase it from the event where it lies at the same time by pressing COMMAND-OPTION-DELETE... be warned, when you delete a photo this way from an album, it will erase it completely from your library and all other albums that use the photo. This differs from a regular delete that deletes it only from the album.

Now I feel more comfortable with events. I organize my photos like this:
One event for every big trip I take, and one event for every year for random 'non-event' photos. This way the photos in the events become the archive and I make more specific albums based on them. And that new delete thing makes it much easier to manage.

I am surprised that nobody suggested the most obvious answer, so here it is:

iPhoto supports multiple libraries. Make a library for work photos, make a library for personal photos. Organize each as you like. Done.

(to create additional libraries, hold the option key whilst launching iPhone. You will be asked if you want to open or create additional libraries. Remember that the last library selected will be the "default" one to open unless it's no longer present or you hold the option key down and change libraries.)

deleting photos in finder

Hi Jaygray! I use the same as you - in finder!
The "eye"/preview-function, then I press fullscreen.

My problem however is that when I delete one photo with "command+delete" it takes me out of the folder. So I´m looking for an easy/quick way to browse through photos I just imported into finder, then delete as I go along.
Any ideas?

I´ve tried it in full-screen, with the "eye"-function etc... Help!