iPhoto question

On my PC I used Picasa from Google. Now I guess I ave to use iPhot.

I mported a couple of photos and looked at the directory structure and found it had 2 copies, original and modified.

I have a very large library and I don't want to take up double disk space.

Is this the norm for iPhoto.

Or what else is available to organize and categorize my library.

TIA

Richard S Albrecht

You can change this with the iPhoto preferences. Go to iPhoto, Preferences, Advanced, and clear the check box for "Copy Files to iPhoto Library folder". Then you will no longer have two copies, meeting your objective.

I saw that. Now what about the editing done in it, is it destructive?

That I don't know. I have never done editing in iPhoto. I understand that it is not destructive (it keeps backups so I am told) but I can't speak from experience... any iPhoto experts care to weigh in on this?

well, when you right click a modified photo it gives you the option to 'revert to original' but, i have the preferences set up the default way...

The options are getting a little confused in this thread. If you modify a file, you will end up with 2 copies regardless of the 'Copy files to library' option. This is because the operations are non-destructive.

The Originals folder you found is where everything is copied to if you have teh option turned on, and the Modified folder ONLY keeps the modified versions of files. If you don't make any modifications, there won't be a copy in Modifications. Similarly, if you 'revert to original' the copy in Modified is simply deleted, leaving only the original.

The 'Copy to iPhoto' option just prevents the Originals folder from being created. The photos are left wherever you copy them from and lets you manage them manually. I generally leave this turned off - the iPhoto structure is fairly sensible anyway so finding originals or modified versions is easy enough.

Thanks that explains it.

Picasa keeps some kind of script I think.

Thanks again.