Alternatives to iPhoto - organises and stores photos in normal folders?

Hi Guys,
I am looking for an alternative to iPhoto.
The specific things I am looking for are:
> The ability to store photos directly in a "normal" folder in the Finder, rather than in the special iPhoto "closed" folder. (Reasons for this are primarily to do with backup and sharing - I want my photos folder to sit on Dropbox so I can share with other computers, and want the security of knowing everything is backed up off site).
> The ability to view photos in the "albums" (folders in Finder) I have stored them in.
> Similar basic photo editing features to those found in iPhoto.
If anyone has any suggestions I'd be very grateful!
Cheers,
Mike

Hey Terrence,
Thanks for this info - appreciate the quick response!!
Do you have any suggestions for a really good photo editor?
I wonder also if there's a tool that allows viewing of photos easily, as Finder isn't actually that great for flicking through photos when they are in standard folders (I see that this could go round in a circle and end up pointing to iPhoto again, but I really am keen to move away from iPhoto for the reasons I mentioned in my original post)!
Thanks in advance!
Mike

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New to iPhoto - Can I store photos in Public folder?

I am new to iMac and iPhoto.
My wife and I both have user accounts.
Can I store my photo collection in my public folder, then have both user accounts use iPhoto to access the photos, or will this cause a problem?
Ideally, I would like us to share one album. But I do not know how iPhoto organizes, and do not know if this will cause a problem for two separate iPhoto programs on different user accounts (same computer) accessing the same photo library.
Before I start, is this OK? Or should we both just have a separate library on our own accounts?
Thanks,
-Lee

Best advice: use two libraries in separate accounts and then use iPhoto Sharing to share the pics:
For iPhoto 09 (version 8.0.2) and later:
If you want the other user to be able to see the pics, but not add to, change or alter your library, then enable Sharing in your iPhoto (Preferences -> Sharing), leave iPhoto running and use Fast User Switching to open the other account. In that account, enable 'Look For Shared Libraries'. Your Library will appear in the other source pane.
Any user can drag a pic from the Shared Library to their own in the iPhoto Window.
Remember iPhoto must be running in both accounts for this to work.
Tha advantage to the above is that it's really safe, especially for new users. However...
If you want the other user to have the same access to the library as you: to be able to add, edit, organise, keyword etc.
Quit iPhoto in both accounts. Move the Library to the Users / Shared Folder
(You can also use an external HD set to ignore permissions, a Disk Image or even partition your Hard Disk.)
In each account in turn: Double click on the Library to open it. (You may be asked to repair the Library Permissions.) From that point on, this will be the default library location. Both accounts will have full access to the library, in fact, both accounts will 'own' it.
However, there is a catch with this system and it is a significant one. iPhoto is not a multi-user app., it does not have the code to negotiate two users simultaneously writing to the database, and trying will cause db corruption. So only one user at a time, and back up, back up back up.
Regards
TD

Upgraded to iPhoto '11 and all photos gone!

Upgraded to iPhoto '11 this evening from iPhoto '09 and all my photos were showing up as blanks. All my events were there and the photo outlines with the correct meta data were all there. But the photos themselves were all blank with a triangle with exclamation point in them.
The Photo Library still showed 44GB in size so I knew it was all there somewhere but nothing was rendering. Tried holding down option/command and rebuilding but that didn't help.
I finally opened up Terminal and went into the photo library and found something that was definitely not right. First the Originals directory now seemed to be a symlink to a new Masters directory and that directory was empty! I also saw a bunch of new "Old ..." directories in there for example "Old Masters". And guess what, inside the Old Masters directory were all my photos!
So I moved all those directories inside Old Masters into Masters and started iPhoto again. All my photos are still blank but if I actually double click on a picture to look at it, it shows up this time instead of the triangle with ! point in it.
I've now restarted iPhoto with option/command and am waiting for the thumbnails to rebuild. It's now taking much longer to rebuild (compared to the first time I tried the trick) and it still has not finished the rebuild process. I'm hoping once this is complete that I'll be back in business.
Looks like Apple was doing some cleaning as part of the upgrade and for some reason, it did not finish it properly. We'll see if I'm back after this rebuild.

Note, here's the sequence of events in my case:
1. Bought new iMac from Apple store
2. Copied iphoto library onto external HFS+ sata disk (~44GB in size) from my old mac's internal disk
3. Copied iphoto library from external HFS+ sata disk onto iMac internal disk
4. Ran iPhoto on iMac and it did some upgrading, etc and then came up just fine
5. Read up on the features for iPhoto '11 on Apple's website and discovered I didn't have some of the new features
6. Discovered in About iPhoto menu that I was actually running iPhoto '09 which was the default installed on my brand new iMac
7. Found that iPhoto '11 was on a DVD that came with my iMac but not pre-installed
8. Used the DVD to upgrade to iLife '11 (iPhoto '11)
9. Launched iPhoto but it did not launch saying I must run an upgrade first using Software Update
10. Launched Software Update and it found iPhoto v9.1.
11. Upgraded to it.
12. Re-launched iPhoto.
13. Started upgrading my photo library
14. Took a long time but finally finished
15. Library came up but with blank thumbnails and blank pictures with a ! triangle in them if you open the photo; but all meta data is correct
16. Ran Get Info on iPhoto Library and saw that it was still the right size (~44GB)
17. Used Terminal to go into the iPhoto Library and saw there was an Old Masters directory which contained all my photos still (hopefully)
At this point tried reading all sorts of forum posts and blogs and found nothing that worked. All pointed to upgrading to 9.0.1 and unfortunately I'm already on 9.1 as part of the software update above. Tried rebuilding, repairing, everything. Nothing works. Eventually copied out the Old Masters into my home directory and created a brand new iPhoto Library and imported everything back in. Just hoping I did not lose any of my photos but I definitely lost all the events and books (obviously).
I have some backups but they are a few months old unfortunately. And I did not even think to back up before upgrading to iPhoto '11 since I have never had an issue with an Apple iPhoto upgrade in the past. Sigh

Why does iPhoto 6 imports all photos in two folders: modified and original

I upgraded from iPhoto 5 to 6. Now I have all my photos in the order and with the name I have given to the rolls. Great!
However, everytime I import new photos from my compact flash card iPhoto automatically modifies the photos by reducing the size and adjusting the orientation. These photos are on average 25-50% of the original size and are saved under the folder: pictures /iPhoto library /modified.
At the same time iPhoto saves the original photos to the folder: pictures/iPhoto library / originals.
The problem is that having more then 6GB of photos this set-up starts to fill my harddisk (presently an additional 2 GB).
How can I change or cancel this feature. Does anybody have an idea or similiar expierence.
thanks, Baguette

baguette
How can I change or cancel this feature
You can't.
Does anybody have an idea or similiar expierence.
Everybody does.
iPhoto is not just an image viewer, but is a Database with a built-in image viewer, version control and lightweight editing.
A Note about the iPhoto Library Folder:
In this folder there are various files, which are the Library itself and some ancillary files. Then you have three folders
Originals are the photos as they were downloaded from your camera or scanner.
(ii) Modified contains edited pics, shots that you have cropped, rotated or changed in any way. This also includes photos that have been auto-rotated by your camera.
This allows the Photos -> Revert to Original command - very useful if you don't like the changes you've made.
(iii) Data holds the thumbnails the the app needs to show you the photos in the iPhoto Window.
So each element is there for a reason and there is no actual duplication.
The notion of version control (the ability to revert to an Original) is central to the philosophy of the application, and if you don't want the feature, then the application may not be for you. There are many image viewers available.
Regards
TD

IPhoto Mac and iCloud Photos

Can i sync my iPhoto Events to iCloud Photo Library (Beta)?
After I activate "iCloud Photo Library (Beta) on my iPhone and iPad, my PhotoStream pictures upload to that service, but i have lots of Album Events (PhotoStream months events, personal events, video events, etc) on my iPhoto and don't upload to iCloud Photo Library.
How can I automatic sync that with iCloud?
Thanks
MacBook
OS X Yosemite
iPhoto 9.6
iPhone - iPad
iOS 8.1

iCloud Photo Library is not yet supported by iPhoto on the Mac - it is still only for IOS devices
here is one description on it - http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/131422-apple-icloud-photo-library-in-beta-explai ned-what-is-it-and-how-does-it-work
LN

Unable to click and drag photos to trash, folders

Working on downloading 2000 photos from cruise. 6.06 quit unexpectedly and lost whole library. Have recovered those but has happened twice since. Also CAN NOT CLICK AND DRAG PHOTOS ANYMORE!

Sounds like a corrupted library - how did you recover from the problem? Have you rebuilt the library? using iPhoto? using iPhoto Library Manager?
LN

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I currently subscribe to Office365 and use OneDrive to sync all my docs and files from my old Windows PC to my Mac (OSX Mavericks).
I have a tons of photos already on OneDrive and would like to so my PhotoSteam and also when I import photos or use iPhoto that it uses the OneDrive Photo folder/directory.
Is this possible?
As a new OSX users I am not sure how to do this, in Windows I would have just changed the directory of the Picture library but cannot see a way to do this on OSX.
Any help and pointers (in as simple steps as possible!) would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Phil

Yes it is possible but no you really, really don't want to do this if you're using iPhoto.
You can't put an iPhoto Library on OneDrive. It's not a Directory, but a rather complex ecosystem of sql database, files, caches and metadata. Basically, you're trying to run a Mac database from a Windows disk and that's always going to cause problems. (as doing the reverse would too.)
You can (in theory) run iPhoto with storing the files on OneDrive but don't. iPhoto has no tools to manage this set up properly, and you're only storing up issues for further down the road.
For more on iPhoto and file management see this User Tip:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6361

Iphoto crash and uploaded photos lost

Hi I am flabbergasted!
I tranfered 300+ photos to iphoto, created a folder for them, and was just doing some editing when the program froze, closed and when I reoped the program the new directory was there, however there were no photographs in the folder. During the process up transfer the oroginals were deleted (as per the cue), so now I have nothing - all my christmas photos gone. Please sombody tell me how I can get them back!
Thanks
Tom

first off we can only communicate with words so proper usage is critical
In iPhoto folders can not hold photos - folders hold albums or other folders
So what are you calling folders? Events? Albums?
as to the importing - a best practice to is to never have any computer program (including iPhoto) delete the photos from the card but to import the photos and keep them and then after at least one successful backup cycle has completed and the reformat the card -- I use three very large (32 GB) cards in rotation so I do not reformat for typically a year or more giving me one more long term backup of my photos
Depending on exactly what you have done and what you are seeing you may have to use data recovery software to recover the photos on your memory card - downoad media recover and with the free trial see what you can recover - do not use your card until this is resolved - if necessary you can purchase media recover and recover what it sees
LN

Just installed Iphoto 6 and many photos will not import to Iphoto...

About half of my photos from one of my rolls from this Spring will not import into Iphoto6. I can open them up from my hard drive but they will not import into Iphoto. Any tips?
g4 tower Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Chris:
Even though you've gotten back up and running if you have any thumbnails that show up as blanks again try the following: download and run BatChmod on the iPhoto Library folder with the settings shown here, substituting your account name for mine. You can either type in the path to the folder or just drag the folder into that field.
The blank thumbnails after updating to v6 are often a result of permissions on the files getting messed up somehow preventing you from having access to them. Running BatChmod on the library folder as demonstrated will force the correct ownership and permissions on all of the files.
Do you Twango?

IPhoto Export and HUGE Photo Sizes

So, I love iWeb and iPhoto 6 -- it works for my needs. But I have one major complaint after spending time organizing my photo library. The whole idea was to be able to re-arrange and update my website with two clicks: Export and Publish. But when you export to iWeb the original file size is exported to iWeb and used in the published site, regardless of the other scaling that goes on, for thumbnails, etc. This is a problem for two reasons. One, it slows down the site and two, I don't want my original full sized files out there for anyone to steal and print high quality copies. Now, if I export files to the web through the file menu, I can constrain the image size that is created. I suppose I could just drop the resulting folder right into iWeb, but then there goes the two click updating. And I'll be forever creating, managing and deleting additional file copies of my iPhoto images. So much for quick and easy. Am I overlooking something here? Is there something that I can adjust in iWeb, because this just seems like a silly omission and one, if true, MUST be corrected in the next updates.

I am going to offer not a 2 click solution but just an idea.......
First of all, iWeb only displays images at a max dimension of 800px, therefore as you say exporting larger images and not scaling them down seems a little silly!
My idea builds on what you kinda suggested above.
1. Your have your iPhoto album organized
2. In iPhoto, select all images in the album go to File>Export - Export your images to a new folder.
3. Create a new iWeb-YourAlbum Name in iPhoto
4. Drag the photos from your new folder into the album.
5. Now do the 2 click publish that you originally wanted!!
But, as you say Automator should be able to handle some of this, Preview>Scale Images???
If you get something that works it would be great if you post back so that others can have the ability to do the same
Will
1GHz G4, 15" PB, 1.5GB RAM, Airport Network, 4 GB iPod Mini (1G), 60GB iPod (5G) Mac OS X (10.4.6)
Help others by marking solved questions as answered ( + Solved or Helpful )

IPhoto Library and new Photos app

What happens to the iPhoto Library when the new Photos app comes along? Does it automatically get uploaded to iCloud? I have 34 g/bytes of photos.

Only 34 gigs?
I can see no way that you will be forced to upload everything to the Cloud. It simply makes no sense for those with hundreds and hundreds of gigs of photos.

I updated to OS X Mavericks and iPhoto 11 and my photos for the last 2 month disappeared. I have a Mac Mini.

On 10/25/2013 OS X on my Mac mini was updated to Mavericks and iPhoto was updated to iPhoto 11. Since then the photos in iPhoto from the last 2 months have disappeared. Has anyone had a similar complaint? Thank you. harck.

Since then the photos in iPhoto from the last 2 months have disappeared.
Just a hunch - the "last two month" sounds like an photo stream sync problem.
How did you import the photos from the last two month? Were they in the Photo Stream? Then enable your Photo Stream again in the Sytem Preferences iCloud pane and iPhoto Preferences iCloud tab. This option might have been disabled. If you did not download your recent photos automatically from from the stream, the photo stram must be disabled to show them.
Also, your "last import" event might be empty after the upgrade of the library. Try to sort your events differently, to bring the last event to the top of the list in "Events" view.

Can a TC be used to backup and store photos/movies wirelessly?

I am contemplating purchasing a Time Capsule and want to clarify a something. I know I can wirelessly backup my essentials from my home folder (music, dos), but I also have an external hard drive containing many gigs of photos and movies, which I cannot fit onto my laptop. Can I store those photos and movies on the TC to be viewed/played wirelessly from my laptop/iphone without any sort of confusion with the backup?

Some of the MP series, such as the MP990, have a film scanning unit built into the lid. This film scanning unit has a lamp that projects light from behind the loaded film, so when you load your negatives into the carrier, light is passed through the negative (or positive) film to the contact sensor.
Devices without the film scanning unit can only project light from in front of the negative which does not produce very good scans.
Looking at the specifications for the MP490, there is no mention of this model having the film scanning unit.

Moving iPhoto data AND keeping photo/event descriptions

I recently took my PowerBook on vacation to unload my camera every now and then. During the vacation I added descriptions to many photos and events that were created. Now, I'd like to move the photos from the PowerBook to my MacBook which I use as my main computer. However, if I simply drag an event to and external drive and import that into the MacBook, the descriptions of the photos are lost and the description of the event is lost. Is there any way to merge the data without loosing the descriptions?
The PowerBook G4 is running OSX 10.5.4 and iPhoto 7.1.3.
The MacBook is running the same OS and iPhoto version as the PB.

MisterJerry
Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
Two options:
1. Export each Event using the File -> Export command. Set the Kind: to jpeg and tick the box to 'Include Title and Keywords'. This will get the descriptions too.
or, even easier
2. Use iPhoto Library Manager to move the events between the libraries - this will move photos and metadata too.
Regards
TD

Alternative way to import and organize photos?

Hi,
I've got a mixed Mac/XP setup, and would like to make all photos available to all users. I'll be implementing iPhoto on the Macs, obviously.
Currently, I've got all my photos organized by directory in a YEAR/MONTH/DAY/CAMERA hierarchy. This makes it fairly easy to browse with nothing more than Finder/XP Explorer.
I'm thinking I'll keep this format, and just have iPhoto reference these files in their current locations, since the iPhoto organization is less intuitive for those that can't use iPhoto (those being the XP users on my network).
Is there an easy way to download photos into this hierarchy, then launch iPhoto, and tell it to add these newly downloaded files to the library, referenced in their current location? Perhaps an ImageCapture/Automator type workflow?
Thanks.
Matt
Mac Pro 3.0GHz Mac OS X (10.4.9)

welcher:
To keep your file system the way you want and have auto import of your files you'd need an application like iView MediaPro. I have auto update capability for adding files/folders to it's system, called a catalog. I use it as my primary image management application and iPhoto for creating books, calendars, cards, etc. iVMP allows you to annotate the files and write those annotations back to the file itself. It also lets you rename the actual file names, either individually or in batches. I use it to rename each file with it's EXIF Capture Date in the format YYYY-MM-DD-description-001.jpg, -002, jpg, etc. That gives me excellent chronological sorting and searching capabilities in any application. iVMP also lets you create hierarchical Catalog Sets for advanced organization.
The alias based system that you're considering will keep your "source" files in the same structure as you'd like but, as Terence pointed out, you have to add the new files manually. I you could add a folder action to each of your source file folders to automatically import into iPhoto any new file added to that folder. However, that file(s) would come into iPhoto in it's/their own roll. Another caveat of the alias based system is that if you delete a photo from iPhoto you have to delete it manually from your source files. AND you can't move or rename the source files once they've been imported into iPhoto.
You can somewhat mimic your folder structure by creating folders, sub folder, albums and smart albums in the Source pane to group your photos as desired. You can also use the calendar at the bottom of the Souce pane (on the left) to locate files by year/month/date. You can also use Smart Albums to group photos by camera ( and go farther and sort by year/month/camera - by day would be too many smart albums IMO).
There are a lot of ways to achieve what you want. My Tutorials have some additional information on using iPhoto's alias system.
Do you Twango?
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've written an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.

Alternatives to iPhoto - organises and stores photos in normal folders?

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