Events vs. Photos vs. Albums

Could someone please explain to me the difference between these three categories. I just don't get it. Why do we need so many subdivisions and what are the characteristics of each. Eg. examples of the way it should breakdown and how you go about importing them into the different categories. Thanks. Sable

Sable
You have a library in iPhoto. Every pic in iPhoto is in that library. Events and Photos are two ways of viewing that library.
In Events, the photos are grouped together based on the date they were taken. It's a very simple and easy form or organisation for those who really don't want any more. But Events have another characteristic: Events in the iPhoto Window correspond exactly with the Folders in the Originals Folder in the iPhoto Library package file (Right click on it in the Pictures Folder -> Show Package Contents).
This means if you want to have a single pic in more than one Event it means you have to duplicate files, and use more HD space.
In Photos, you can see all your Library, regardless of when the pics were taken. It's just another view of the same things.
Every photo you import goes into BOTH categories - they're just a View of the Library.
Albums are where iPhoto begins to really shine. You can create albums simply by going File -> New Album and dragging your pics from either view above to that Album. Easy. You can group Albums into Folders (File -> New Folder) and drag the Albums to the Folder. So, want to group all your Pics on New York, taken over the last ten years? Create a Folder, Call it NY, Create an Album for 1997, 1998 etc., and drag them to the Folder.
Want to do it Automatically? Use Keywords. Then go File -> New Smart Album and Keyword is NY, and Date is ... etc.
Most importantly, Albums are virtual - there is no corresponding folder of images on the HD, so a pic can be in 1, 10, 100 albums with no wasted disk space.
So, Everything is in the Library. Events are a limited view of the Library (Date only, no grouping of Events). Photos is another view of the same thing. But the only limit on albums as an organisational tool is you.
To give an example: I keyword every pic answering the following questions:
Who
What
Where
(When is already in the metadata of the pic) Then I can search very easily. Want a pic of My Dog, of My Dog with My Son, Of My Dog with My Son at the Beach, Of My Dog with My Son at the Beach last July? Easy.
Star ratings offer more options - the best pic of my Dog, My Son etc...
Regards
TD

Similar Messages

Any ideas on why my Apple TV no longer "sees" my photo albums? It lists events and photos but not albums like it did earlier.

Using my MacBook Pro and iPhoto and Apple TV I have always been able to navigate on the TV to Photos and then to either Events, or Photos, or Albums. I always choose albums for my "shows" but after updating Apple TV I no longer see Albums as a choice which prevents me from getting to them with the Apple TV remote. Any ideas for correcting this?

I'm answering my own question. Here's what I've discovered since the original post: 1. Turn on tv and Apple TV - 2. open iTunes on computer - 3. under the Advanced menu of iTunes Turn On Home Sharing and click on Choose Photos to Share - 4. check Share Photos From (iPhoto), click Selected albums, Events, Faces and in the Albums column check the one you want - 5. Now, when you go to the Apple TV remote and select Photos, you will see the album you previously selected.

Events and Photos not shown in full album view

In either Events and Photos (under Library) or Albums, when I click on an event or album, it pre-selects a photo (obviously one that I have set as the cover), but NOT the entire collection (as in the past). I used to be able to:
1) See the entire collage, and select any picture I liked and it would enlarge
2) Click in the black space (I set it to a black background), then the picture would minimize and I'd be back to the full album or event.
Now, nothing happens when I click the background black space. All I can do is simply scroll through the album or event and see the pics as they open on screen. I have no idea what the picture will be until I click the forward arrow. I cannot see the full album as well, just the pre-set first picture.
Not sure what happened.
Thanks.

Also, when I click the various tabs in iPhoto Preferences, the pop-up box shakes for a few seconds, just like when you inadvertently enter the wrong password when logging in, or doing software updates, and the system tells you you've made a mistake by making it vibrate up and down. This does not happen with other programs....the transition between settings options after clicking is clean.
I wonder if there's a bug.
I've done nothing to preferences at all....all settings have remained the same.

Import (v. 7.1.5) iPhotos from old iMac to new iMac (v. 9.2) using Migration Mgr. over fire wire. All photos ( many dups) appeared in EVENTS and PHOTOS in the new Mac – but NO ALBUMS.

Attempted to import 6.5 GB of (v. 7.1.5) iPhotos from old iMac to new iMac (v. 9.2) using Migration Mgr. over fire wire. All photos (plus many dups) appeared in EVENTS and PHOTOS in the new Mac – but NO ALBUMS. I read a previous response to a similar question -- to copy the pictures library to the new computer. How best to do that?

There's actually an option to iPhoto Library Manager that makes this all almost work flawlessly (and work well enough for me). With the exception of Photo Albums that the pictures are part of, if you select "Library > Rebuild Library..." and then select "Scavange Orphaned Photos" check box, then it will put all the Photos and Movies into the "Scavanged Photos" album. It matches the modified pictures to their originals. It preserves all the event names and photo groupings. All the meta-data I could spot check it got right (although with 44k pictures, I only checked a few). If you fail to select this option, however, it will find no pictures at all when it goes to rebuild the library (this was true of the small test libraries I tried as well as the big, monster 280GB library I just finished converting). The conversion process took 5 hours to run, but in the end produced a library my new iPhoto can read and that I can interact with. I'll be suggesting to the iPhoto Library Manager folks a notation that would estimate the number of Orphaned Photos and display that number as a hint to the user that the option would be useful.
Edited: Thanks to Old Toad and LarryHN for their help in finding which of the many options to transition this library to 9.5.1 I needed to use. Sorry if I took my frustration of the past several months out on you guys for generously trying to help me.

Is it possible to move photos in an event into a smart album?

Is it possible to move photos in an existing event into a smart album?

Put another way:
No. An Event is a place. A Smart Album isn't a place, it's a list. It's the answer to a Question: "What are all the photos with this keyword?" "What are all the Photos with this date?"
So, nothing in a Smart Album is moved. It remains in it's original location and is simply listed in the Album.
Regards
TD

An uneventful year... (aka no events for photos taken in 2006)

Have just installed iPhoto 08 and it has upgraded my library and created events for me.
However, no photos from between March 21 2005 and February 1 2007 show up in the Events or Photos views at all! I can see these photos in their albums but there is a huge hole between 2005 and 2007 everywhere else, and it only lists '830 photos in 30 events' at the bottom of the window (I know there are a couple of thousand normally). If i select all the photos in an album and ask iPhoto to create an event it pops up a confirmation, I confirm and it looks as if it has created an event (in any case it won't let me do it again, the option is greyed out), but I still cannot see these photos in Events/Photos.
I tried deleting the album in case a photos can't be in an Event and an Album at the same time but this resulted in not being able to see the photos of that album anywhere! Luckily I have a backup...
I have tried repairing permissions, rebuilding the library, and restoring the library from backup to give iPhoto another shot at it but nothing seems to work!
How can I fix this?

Simon:
Welcome to the Apple Discussions. Threre are two ways to correct that.
1 - use the Photo's->Batch Change menu option to change the date to what you want AND write that date to the files as well.
2 - use the Photos->Adjust Date and Time menu option.
Both do pretty much the same. I've not figured out the real differences between the two but there's bound to be one. I've been able to do multiple photos at a time with each.
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. It's compatible with iPhoto 08 libraries. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.

Photos and Albums have Disappeared

I appreciate that there seems to have been some problems with iPhoto 09 and Snow Leopard.
I have been successfully using iPhoto 09 since I installed Snow Leopard without any problems. I purchased Snow Leopard immediately after it was launched. I back up everything on a very regular basis to a Lacie external drive.
I recently returned from holiday and imported 377 photos from two cameras. The import also included a few small movies taken with one of the cameras. As usual the import worked perfectly. Both myself and my wife had a quick look at the photos and movies so I know I am not going mad when I say that they have disappeared! I created an event for all the photos in my iPhoto library and a separate album for all the photos and movies. I also did some general tidying up at the same time before backing up to my Lacie using Super Duper which has always worked very well.
A couple of days later when I went to look at the photos I had imported they had disappeared. And horror of horrors they are nowhere to be found on my Lacie. The various other tidying up tasks that I completed at the same time which included creating events and some new albums are also nowhere to be seen.I am completely mystified.
When I go into my Home Pictures Library and click on Originals there is no sign of the photos either. I have also tried a spotlight search with no success. The Originals file for years 2001 to 2008 show all the titles of the events I have created however the same does not apply to 2009 which simply shows a variety of different dates. I do not have any untitled folders in my iPhoto library. The following will hopefully make what I am trying to say a little clearer:
*This is an example of how my photos are listed in the Originals folder for the years 2001 to 2008:*
California 2001
Pat and Fred 50th
*This is how my photos are listed in the Originals folder for 2009:*
4 Jul 2009
7 Aug 2009
7 Jul 2009
7 Jul 2009_2
8 Aug 2009
8 Aug 2009_2
8 Aug 2009_3
8 Aug 2009_4
8 Aug 2009_5
13 Sep 2009
15 Mar 2009
19 Jun 2009
Australia 2009 Jayne's Photos
Australia Sue's Photos 2009
Dublin
Oz Quick Album
Rovinj Photos
Take That
To make matters worse I needed my SD cards and have deleted the photos from them which I hardly ever do until I am satisfied that everything is ok.
If anybody has any ideas or remedies I would be extremely grateful.

First:
To recover the missing photos: Run file recovery app over the Camera cards - MediaRecover is one but there are many others.
The layout of the Library you describe is not unusual. This is due to a change made with iPhoto 09, where there is no longer a strict correlation between the Events in the iPhoto Window and the Folders in the Originals Folder.
Is there any chance that you have a second iPhoto Library lurking on your Mac somewhere? This can happen betimes, a common place for such a thing to be is In the Volumes Folder:
In the Finder Use the Go Menu and select 'Go To Folder'
In the resulting Window type
/volumes
A Finder window will open at this location. Can you see another Library there?
Regards
TD

Backing up photos by album to external hard drive

I have just spent days organizing my photos into albums and folders on my internal hard drive. I would like to move this organized information to an external hard drive. When I drag the library over to the external hard drive, will the photos remain organized in the same albums and photos? If not, how do I get the albums/folders over separately?

Yes. You can use the paid version of iPhoto Library Manager to copy Events or Albums from Library 1 to Library 2 and preserve the titles, keywords. descriptions, modified files, etc.
If you want to backup slideshows, calendars, books then you'll want to use a backup application like Synk Standard to backup all changes from Library 1 to Library 2. That will preserve your library exactly.
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto (iPhoto.Library for iPhoto 5 and earlier) 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 created an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger or later), 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. It's compatible with iPhoto 6 and 7 libraries and Tiger and Leopard. iPhoto does not have to be closed to run the application, just idle. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.≤br>
Note: There now an Automator backup application for iPhoto 5 that will work with Tiger or Leopard.

How to sort photos in albums by date in iPhoto '11

For some reason that I have yet to divine, iphoto 11 jumbles the order of photos in any album I create. For example, I have an album called 'Family', and rather than display the photos by the date they were taken, it jumbles them into a mish mash of images. I took 50 pics yesterday and imported them last night. I opened iphoto today to make some edits, and the photos have been dispersed throughout an album of thousands of images. I know I can go and examine the images in 'Events' or 'Photos', but I'd like to see them in context with the rest of my family photos.
Is there some way to get albums to sort photos by date taken like the older versions of iphoto?
Thanks in advance,
Peter

I may be getting confused with what you need here but does going to:
"View --> Sort Photos --> By Date" solve things?
Andy.

EVENTS : Arranging Photos in an Event Manually

I have imported about 8000 photos and they are sorted in separate events. I would like to re-arrange the order of some of the photos in the events manually but when I try to do this via "sort photos", the manual option is greyed out and it won't let me do it anyway via drag and drop.
1) Why is this?
2) Can I actually change the order of photos within an event manually?
3) Do you have to create an additional album for each event which duplicates the event in order to re-arrange photos within an event?
Help!

I have imported about 8000 photos and they are sorted in separate events. I would like to re-arrange the order of some of the photos in the events manually but when I try to do this via "sort photos", the manual option is greyed out and it won't let me do it anyway via drag and drop.
1) Why is this?
Because events can not be manually sorted
2) Can I actually change the order of photos within an event manually?
No
3) Do you have to create an additional album for each event which duplicates the event in order to re-arrange photos within an event?
No matter what you can not rearrange photos within events manually - you can rearrange photos in albums
You can move photos between events, split events, and combine events
Events are the most basic automatic organization - most people use faces, places and keywords with smart albums for their organization beyond the time based events
LN

Erase images and events in Photo app

I cannot erase numerous events in Photo app. Firstly my photos have organised themselves into 30 - 40 events with 3 or 4 photos in each event. This was not how they were imported. Some corruption has occurred. More importantly I cannot erase them. If I set photos in iTunes to sync with nothing, these 30 - 40 events will not disappear. Any suggestions to erase all photos in the ipad Photo app?
Thanks

but just doesn't have the features when I have spent hours tagging, editing and sorting all my photos in iPhoto on my iPad and desktop.
You cannot add tags and captions in Photos iOS 8, and you cannot see them when opening a photo. But the tags you added previously are still there when you migrate the iPhoto library to Photos. You will see that, when you use the search field and enter one of your tags or a caption. This will find all photos with this tagged you then can create an album of all tagged photos for each tag. Creating albums with distinctive names is the new way of tagging. You can search for album names.
I share your sentiments entirely, and I hope Apple will provide an update to Photos soon or offer app extensions to add the missing features.

Photo and album pages

OK this seems to be too hard for someone to answer, mmmm
I am having problems with photo and album pages, I drag and drop photos to the page, looks good when I am building them but when I send them out into cyberspace, NO can C, not on the page, the page is there but no photo.
Could anyone like to take a punt at the answer to this is PLEASE.
Many Many Thanks for your help in this

The same is happening to me. I first noticed it at the beginning of this month. Everything looks good on the iWeb creation page (pictures are visible) but after you publish and visit the published site online, the pictures are GONE. You can scroll down as if the pictures were taking up the space but no pictures. I click on the other tabs that I have with other events (which previously had pictures on them too!) and they're gone as well.
I'm using iWeb '08 version 2.0.4 on my OS 10.5.5 and I used iPhoto 7.1.4
Can anyone help fix this!??!?!

How can i find the original picture in the correct event folder from an album folder picture?

how can i find the original picture in the correct event folder from an album folder picture? I can find the link to the original event folder, but is there a way to get right to the picture without having to search visually the event folder?

Depends on whatr you mean
Deleting from your phone does not delete from anywhere else
HOWEVER deleting from your Photo stream does delete from the Photostream so anyone looking at the PS from any device will no longer see the photo
But if your Mac iPhoto is set to automatically impor tphotos form PS or is you have manually imported photos from PS then onc ethey are imported they are on your Mac and change to PS will not affect them
for more on PS see http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4486?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
LN

IPhoto and photo stream albums

Please help me. I am trying to move pictures from my photo stream album into an existing event.

OT, i tried to highlight and drag as suggested here but it doesnt work.
o manually import photo stream photos to your iPhoto library:
In iPhoto, drag one or more photos from Photo Stream view to Photos in the Source list.
I think the only way I can do it is to export them to a file on my hard drive, create an event and click and drag into that event folder. Then merge it to the event I want them in. Seems to be a lot of steps? What am I missing?

Difference between Photos label at top of screen and all photos under albums?

Just wondering what the difference is being the box at the top left hand side of screen that is labelled 'Photos' and the one just below 'Albums' that is called 'All photos'.
I can see that the 'Photos' area seems to be all photos on your mac, like the events stream was on iPhoto before and the camera roll on IOS iPhoto.
I had expected 'All photos' under albums to be just those you had placed in albums, but I added and deleted a few photos to test this and could not see any difference between the effect on the two areas.
I suspect all the previous 'events' have been folded together in one folder so that it is easy to see what was there on conversion, but before I start dismantling this folder to suit the new layout I just want to make sure I understand how the deleting of photos from albums/the whole program works. I have been prompted a couple of times if I am deleting from album or deleting altogether but deletions seem to affect both these streams?

Photos is sorted based on the date of the photo.
All Photos is based on date added. Don't know how it imported at first, but every photo you add from now on will be shown in the order added to the All Photos album no matter what date is in it metadata. And it will be placed in date order in Photos moments.
If you import 100 photos and delete 20, you will have 80 photos left from the import. The 50 you put in an album doesn't affect the total amount you added to the library. It just means that you chose not to put 30 in an an album you created. You can put the same photo in as many albums you want to create. The actual photo still resides in the library.
Don't confuse the system created albums with the user created albums. You can choose to remove a photo from a user created album without deleting it from the library. Or, you can choose delete from a user album which will delete from all albums and the library. But you can only delete from the system album.

Transfer iPhoto Events to Photo

I have been asked by the Apple Applications App to upgrade from Yosemite 10.10.2 to 10.10.3. This update will install the new Photos App. I am concerned that I will loose my current system of filing my photos which is based upon filing all my photos into Events with a few Albums. When I go ahead and download Photos, will all of my Events remain as Events? Or, should I change all of my Events into Albums first?

léonie wrote:
Reveal the Sidebar with ⌥⌘S
Danieldelarosaif you don't know what ⌥⌘S means, you can also achieve revealing the sidebar by going to View menu > Show Sidebar
(I wish Apple had made that the default, so many people calling out for help because they can't see their albums converted from old Events)

Events vs. Photos vs. Albums

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