Dont Understand The Mac File System

When I upload pics from my iPod to the macbook, I can see them in iPhoto. But I am unable to find them in Finder. So I am unable to figure out how to upload them to the Web. Can anyone help?

Sure!

1. Open iPhoto.
2. Select the photos you want to upload.
3. If they are going to Facebook or Flickr or Twitter, just use the built-in Sharing menu.
4. Otherwise, drag a copy of the photos out to the desktop, upload to wherever, then trash the desktop copies.

(many other photo services have plug-ins for iPhoto that will let you upload directly, look into that possibility also).

As for the reason why you can't see where the photos are in iPhoto, that's because iPhoto uses a database to work with your pictures, and if you move pictures you corrupt the database, which puts you at risk to lose ALL your pictures. So Apple hides the photo database to prevent users who don't really know what they are doing from messing up and losing pictures.

Bottom line: ANYTHING you might want to do to pictures in iPhoto starts with staying inside iPhoto. Don't try to do ANYTHING with the pictures in iPhoto using the Finder. EVER.

In iPhoto, highlight a photo, choose File > Export or options in the Share menu ?
Does that help you find what you're looking for?

You can add photos to the web without having to put them on the desktop and then delete when done. From the Browse window that comes up to put the file online click Browse just like you would to add any other photo from a folder. When the Finder window opens scroll on down past Pictures in the sidebar and under Media you will see Photos, select that and iPhoto will open and you can select any photo you want and upload to the website.

It's best to think of iPhoto as your Pictures folder itself. It's from there that you'll rename, organize, share and drag to copy a photo to another location.

Transferring Photos to Passport

I want to back up my photos to a Passport external hard drive. It already has a bunch of photos on it from my Windows computer. When I started to use Time Machine, it wanted to erase the Passport, which I obviously don't want to do. Any suggestions on how to transfer my photos on my Macbook to my Passport? I normally do this with Windows Explorer on my Windows based machine. Thanks!

Take a look at post # 2 in this thread by member chas_m. Follow the directions he gave in step 1 and 4 only instead of uploading the photos, drag them to your Passport drive.