Backing up iphoto 6

Question

I have a iomega 400g hard drive to backup my photos so i can save space. Read around here and what I did so far is this. I quit iphoto, copied my library folder to my external hard drive, reopend iphoto....
Then what I think im suppose to do is "choose library"????
Where is this option????
Then what do I do????
I want to eventually be able to totally use this drive as my library if possible. In other words can I import my photos directly into iphoto and it will send it to my external hard drive and not to my harddrive on my laptop????
thanks you guys are great
jim

Answer 1

Jim:
Here's how I envision it getting done and keeping your current roll organization in your new folder structure and in the new iPhoto alias library.
Since you already have your photos in an iPhoto library and updated to V6 all of the photos in your rolls will be in their own folder inside the appropriate Year folder in the Original folder. See thisscreenshot of what the new library structure looks like. The new folder will have the same title as the roll does. I'd create a new overall container folder on your external and name it to indicate it's all of your image files. Then copy each year folder out of the iPhoto 6 Library's Original folder to your new container folder. If you have significant edited files in the Modified folder copy and want to include them in the new library I would copy the modified folder to the desktop. You could then replace the originals in the new container folder with the modified one, it'll have the same file name, or you can add the modified files, with a small name change, to the same roll as the original. You can use an application like R-Name to batch add an "-m" or "-a" or whatever to the end of the file name to identify it from the original and then add them to the same folder as the originals. Then I would make sure ownership is turned off on your external drive (unless it's bootable) and manually reset the ownership and permissions on the new container folder and its contents as follows:
Setting Permissions for your new original container folder
1 - Select the container folder and type Command-I.
2 - When the Info window comes up go to the Ownership and Permissions section and make sure You have Read & Write permission and that the Owner and Group have Read & Write also. Others - Read Only.
3 - Then click on the "Apply to enclosed items..." button.
Now you have a folder with yearly subfolders that contain all of your photos organized by rolls. Now move any iPhoto library folder out of your Pictures folder to the desktop. Launch iPhoto 6 and, when asked, create a new library in your Pictures folder. Go to the iPhoto Advanced preference window and de-select the option to copy files to the library when importing.
Now you can drag groups of folders from the container folder on the external HD into iPhoto's open window to import each folder's worth as a new roll. You may find that the roll date will not correspond to what you expected. That's because iPhoto uses the modified date for one of the files in each folder and they don't always correspond to the date taken. You can manually change the roll date to get it to fall in the correct place in the chronological list. I had about 50 folders out of 350 that were that way.
Once complete you will have a library of alias files pointing to the originals on the external HD. Once you're satisfied that all is well you can delete the old V5 library folder and the V6 library folder on the External that you copies the folders out of. Also the folders on the desktop that you used to rename the modified files.
Now that your originals are in year folders and subfolders you can back them up to DVD disks by year or what ever via the Finder. That's an easy way to do it and can mimic your folder organization on the external HD to some degree.
Hope you can understand the process I've tried to describe here. Don't hesitate to post back with more questions if needed. Good luck.