iPhoto help

brand new machine folks. Excited to join the Mac world.
I have a question I can't quite figure out and I've searched high and low to come up with an answer.

We have a very large photo collection and would like to use iPhoto with it. (pert of the reason to buy a Mac)
My machine has Lion on it and I did figure out how to share the library between different users but the image cap became an issue. I was not able to import all of our photos.
I need a solution where different users can have full access to a large library. Able to edit as well as view, and have those changes available to the other user.
I have a network drive that contains all of our photos, I would be ok with using it or an external usb drive. The issue is having full access between users and being over the photo cap limit.

Any help is appreciated. This issue is really the make or break of continuing in the Mac world or going back to windows. Windows does not have any of these issues at all.

Thanks you soooooo much

Try this:
iPhoto: Sharing libraries among multiple users

You mention being over the Photo cap limit. By this do you mean that your Photo collection is too large for an iPhoto Library?

Not sure what the size limit is (or even that there is a limit). Regardless, the easiest way around this is to download iPhoto Library Manager, which makes it very easy to create, manage and switch between multiple iPhoto Libraries.

http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/

You can do it w/o this software of course, but a lot easier with it.

iphoto6 can hold 250,000 pictures. Are you saying that you have MORE than that?

Gold68 said:

iphoto6 can hold 250,000 pictures. Are you saying that you have MORE than that?

Click to expand...

Yes, I am. We have done pretty much nothing with our photos since year 2000 and I would love to have them all in one place to organise and catalogue. iPhoto fits the bill for this.

If anyone knows how to overcome the cap the sharing part is a breeze using aliases to point to a shared location.

Thanks for all the replies

We looked at using the Mac with a single account between us but then it just doesn't give the benefits of Macs connectability. Multiple accounts is the only way to go.

thanks again, I'll keep searching.

If anyone knows how to overcome the cap

Click to expand...

Try creating separate Libraries. One for each year or something.

Bellybuster said:

Yes, I am. We have done pretty much nothing with our photos since year 2000 and I would love to have them all in one place to organise and catalogue. iPhoto fits the bill for this.

If anyone knows how to overcome the cap the sharing part is a breeze using aliases to point to a shared location.

Thanks for all the replies

We looked at using the Mac with a single account between us but then it just doesn't give the benefits of Macs connectability. Multiple accounts is the only way to go.

thanks again, I'll keep searching.

Click to expand...

Please go back and follow the link in my post as it addresses your need to split libraries.

EDIT: Out of curiousity, how did you get over 250,000 images, I am pretty bad about not culling my shots and my 30 GB iPhoto Library dates from the late 90s and only has 17,000 images?

250,000 photos = 25,000 photos per year, every year, for the last decade.

For a professional or even semi-pro who has that kind of time on his hands, that's quite achievable.

MightyGem's answer is the best one for using iPhoto, but at the point where you have amassed greater than 250,000 photos I would have to say you ought to take a look at Lightroom, Aperture, ACDSee Pro or even a pro-level DAM solution for best management.

I might be confused, but it would seem that Lr and Aperture are pro-level DAM solutions for photographers... ACDSee Pro I haven't used.

Either way, at that point.. yea I'd ditch iPhoto and go for Aperture or Lr (actually, went Lr a while ago and wondered what the heck I was thinking before I did so).

250,000 photos = 25,000 photos per year, every year, for the last decade.

wow, putting it that way got me in there looking. We do not in fact have 250000 photos. More like 25000
When we tried to import our entire photo collection the import was interrupted by an error that the iPhoto folder size was exceeded. I just assumed we must have the photo cap limit. I will try again adding them year by year and see what happens

Just for interest, my Wife took 400+ photos of the Falls at Niagara last year. Almost 1000 photos taken that single weekend. That's why we have so many

thanks for all the help folks, lovin my new iMac so far