Best way to manage pictures on HDD? Sorry I'm new to this...

Please excuse what could be a dumb question, but after 20years of using Windows, I have move to my first Mac ever, and to be honest I absolutley love it and wish I'd done it earlier, although am struggling getting used to menu's etc, but after 20yrs on PC, only expected.
My question as a newbie is I have over 30,000 images/photos that I have backed up from my PC and I'm trying to work out the best way to organise the folders, etc. Traditionally I have simply added them into the MyPictures Folder in Windows and just created new albums, which I know I can do on OSX as well (Pictures Folder), but everyone seems to point to use iPhoto..
Could someone let me know what are the benefits of importing them all into iPhoto versus using the Pictures Folder and also is it best to manage them as Events or create Albums within iPhoto?
Again I do apologise if it's a simple question, I've spent 3hrs trying to find answers, but none seem to explain why not to use the pictures folder...
Thanking you kindly in advance for any guidance and assistance

what are the benefits of importing them all into iPhoto versus using the Pictures Folder and also is it best to manage them as Events or create Albums within iPhoto?
Filing is about Finding Things. Iphoto gives you many, many more ways to find your photos than storing files in the Finder.
I use Events simply as big buckets of Photos: Spring 08, July - Nov 06 are typical Events in my Library. I use keywords and Smart Albums exensively. I title the pics broadly.
I keyword on a
Who
What
Where basis (The When is in the photos's Exif metadata). I also rate the pics on a 1 - 5 star basis.
Using this system I can find pretty much find any pic in my 20k library in a couple of seconds.
So, for example, I have a batch of pics titled 'Seattle 08' and a typical keywording might include: John, Anne, Landscape, mountain, trees, snow. With a rating included it's so very easy to find the best pics we took at Mount Rainier.
File -> New Smart Album
set it to 'All"
title contains Seattle
keyword is mountain
keyword is snow
rating is 5 stars
Try that in the Finder
Or, want a chronological album of John from birth to today?
New Smart Album
Keyword is John
Set the View options to Sort By Date Ascending
Want only the best pics?
add Rating is greater than 4 stars
Again, try that in the Finder.
The best thing about this system is that it's dynamic. If I add 50 more pics of John to the Library tomorrow, as I keyword and rate them they are added to the Smart Album.
Keywording takes time to set up, there's no doubt about it. I use Keyword Manager as it's much more powerful than the inbuilt system, and adds the possibility of nested keywords. So, for instance, if I add John to a photo it also adds 'Family'. Now I can add many keywords to a pic quickly.
Other advantages: iPhoto is integrated throughout the Operating System: in *every Open... or Attach... dialogue* you can access your Library. iPhoto is a useful photo editor too, and if you want to use a more powerful one:
You can set Photoshop (or any image editor) as an external editor in iPhoto. (Preferences -> General -> Edit Photo: Choose from the Drop Down Menu.) This way, when you double click a pic to edit in iPhoto it will open automatically in Photoshop or your Image Editor, and when you save it it's sent back to iPhoto automatically. This is the only way that edits made in another application will be displayed in iPhoto.
Add to that: Slideshows, Books, Calendars etc.
As Larry says, make a Library and import 100 pics, see what happens and explore. By all means post back if you need more.
Regards
TD

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