Edited photos eating up memory

Question

As far as I can tell, if I import a photo and then edit it, say correct red eye, a second copy of that photo is then created rather than copying over the original. Same things seems to happy if I change the name. I am wondering if this is a one-to-one relationship (i.e. a 1MB photo is renamed, or edited, and now I have two 1MB photos). Is this the case? I have gotten various answers.
Seems like not a big deal if looking at one photo, but when I am talking about thousands of photos, a lot of memory will be burned. If this is the case, is there some way to get rid of the original - once I fix red-eye or rename, I no longer want the original (I would want the original if I cropped, however). Thanks!

Answer 1

if I import a photo and then edit it, say correct red eye, a second copy of that photo is then created rather than copying over the original.
This is correct. iPhoto is a Digitial Asset Manager and works to the best principles of DAM. It treats your original file in the same way as the film shooter minds the negative. This process is hard wired into iPhoto and cannot be stopped. If you don't want this feature then the best thing is to us another application.
Also, this feature is required for the working of the Non Destructive editing feature.
Same things seems to happy if I change the name.
What do you mean by "change the name"? There is no way to rename a file in iPhoto. You can add a title to the photo. This does not create a new version.
I am wondering if this is a one-to-one relationship (i.e. a 1MB photo is renamed, or edited, and now I have two 1MB photos)
Not quite. Every time you save a jpeg some data is lost. This is in the nature of jpegs- they are a compressed "lossy" format. So if you edit, then re-edit, then re-edit, each time your file is getting smaller as you lose data. iPhoto's Non Destructive editing feature prevents this. Each time you edit the sum of the edits is re-applied to the original, and so you never drop more than a single generation. But you need the original.
If this is the case, is there some way to get rid of the original - once I fix red-eye or rename, I no longer want the original
As I say, use another app. Going the Export/Trash/Re-import route is a lot of work, and makes it really easy to inadvertently chuck away the wrong version, and as I said, destroys the non- Destructive Editng feature. Using an app that works the way you prefer is much easier and less risky.
If you're concerned about Disk Space you can run a library from an external disk:
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
Regards
TD