Explanation of how Iphoto works.

Question

Can someone please explain to me how iPhoto works as far as organizing photos and duplicating/converting photos. I have a bunch of photos in my photo file, and I would like to keep them all in one place (via iPhoto), but when I have experimented with it, Ive knowticed that dragging photos into iphoto, doesnt move the file at all, it just duplicates it, and then hides the duplication?, it also changes the image into a smaller file and creates "thumbnails???" I'm so confused. Can someone tell me what im supposed to do.

Answer 1

Hi Derek,
Here is some more info to add to PhillyPhans great answer.
--First thing to know and remember is this...Do not drag any images, folder of images into the iPhoto Library in the Finder. Images have to be imported into iPhoto within the application. Do not scan images and save them into the iPhoto Library folder in the Finder. Save them to another location such as the Pictures folder or even the desktop. You can then import them into iPhoto.
If you have already put files/folders in the iPhoto Library folder in the Finder then you will also find out that if you try to import them into iPhoto you will get an error message. No worry, just drag them to the desktop and import from there.
--All images that you import are shown in the library view. You can choose how you want to view, by rolls, by date, by rating, etc. When you put images in an Album, slideshow, book, etc, you are actually just putting pointers to those images in the library. You are not adding more images. If you delete an image from the Album it will still be in the library. If you delete an image from the library it is deleted from iPhoto's database (the iPhoto Library folder in the Finder) and your hard drive ONLY after you empty iPhoto's trash. (unless you have it backed up somewhere else)
--You have a folder of images on your hard drive and want to import them into iPhoto. Drag the folder of images into an open iPhoto Library window and the folder of photos will be copied into the library, resulting in a new roll with the name of the folder. You now have two copies of those photos, the ones in iPhoto's database and the ones on your desktop. You can keep the ones on your desktop that you just imported as backup or you can delete that folder. You can also drag a folder of photos into an empty space in the source column and a new roll and album will be created at the smae time for those images in the folder. The album will have the same name as the folder you dragged into the source column.
-- you scan a picture/pictures and save it in a folder. You cannot scan directly into iPhoto or the iPhoto Library folder in the Finder.
You want all your photos in iPhoto so you import them into iPhoto.
Now you have two copies of that picture/pictures, so you can delete the originals that were in the scanned folder and keep the one/ones that were imported into iPhoto.
-- You download pictures from your camera into iPhoto.
There is now one copy of each of the pictures. (DO NOT HAVE IPHOTO DELETE THE IMAGES FROM YOUR CAMERA! DELETE THEM MANUALLY WITH THE CAMERA-if something goes wrong with the import and they are never imported and then they are deleted from the camera you might end up losing those images)
--You want to change something about a picture you imported, such as
cropping it or changing the size, or changing the orientation.
Once you do that to a picture, you now have two copies of the picture
in iPhoto, the original and the edited one. The edited one will be in the library organize view. The original is packed away in an Original folder in your iPhoto Library folder under the date of the roll. You can always revert to the original by control clicking on the photo and choose "revert to orginal" You will not have this choice if you used iPhoto Diet to get rid of the Originals.
(a quick note on cropping within iPhoto...when you are in edit mode, you automatically will be in the crop mode with cross hairs to highlight the crop area. To finish cropping you must click the crop button and then go back to library view and your cropped picture will be there.
--You want to use Photoshop or another graphic program to edit a picture in your iPhoto library.
You can open up prefs for iPhoto and choose
For iPhoto 5--"when double clicking on
photo" ..do" choose "other" and select Photoshop. Now you can edit all
pictures in your iPhoto library in PhotoShop by double clicking. If you save the photo with the same name and as a flattened file it will be saved right into iPhoto and you will see the changes. If you don't want to save it into iPhoto then do a "save as" and save to the desktop. You will then have the original photo still in iPhoto and your new edited photo on the desktop.
For iPhoto 6 (from the Apple Help Menu)-Have you ever used PS as the external editor set up within iPhoto Prefs?
From the iPhoto Help menu;
"Choosing what happens when you click the Edit button
When you want to edit a photo, you can have the photo open in iPhoto's edit view, in a separate window, in full-screen view, or in another application.
To choose a preference:
Choose iPhoto > Preferences.
Click General at the top of the Preferences window.
Under Edit Photo, select one of the following options:
"In main window" opens the photo in the main viewing area.
"In separate window" opens the photo in a separate window.
"Using full screen" opens the photo in full-screen view.
"In application" opens the photo in another application you choose.
To open a photo in its own window when "Main window" is selected, press the Option key when double-clicking the photo.
To open a photo in edit view when "Separate window" is selected, press the Option key when double-clicking the photo.
Note: Any video clip you imported into iPhoto will always open in QuickTime Player when you double-click it."
And...
"Editing photos in another application
You can do many editing tasks in iPhoto, such as rotating and cropping a photo, changing a color photo to black and white, adjusting exposure and contrast, and reducing red-eye. If you want to make other changes to a photo, you can open it in another image-editing application, such as Adobe Photoshop.
To edit photos in another application:
Set your preferences to open photos in another application when you double-click them or click the Edit button. (See Related Topics below.)
Double-click the photo to open it in the application.
Edit the photo and save it using the same name and file format.
The changes you made to the photo will be visible when you return to iPhoto.
IMPORTANT: When you double-click a RAW-format photo, iPhoto creates a copy of the photo in JPEG format, which opens in the other application. To edit the photo in its original RAW format, drag the photo from the iPhoto window to the Finder, and then use the other application to open it. (If you previously used iPhoto to edit the RAW photo, select the photo and choose Photos > Revert to Original before dragging it to the Finder. This way, you can edit the photo using its RAW data in the other application.) If you want to import the photo back into iPhoto, you must first save it as a JPEG or TIFF file."
--Or, with iPhoto open, you can drag a picture from the library window
to your desktop (you see a + sign on the pic you are dragging). You now
have two of the same picture, one in the iPhoto library and one on your desktop. You can open up the one on your desktop in any graphic program and work on it. The one in iPhoto stays the same. You can also share/export the picture/pictures to your desktop or folder to work on them or do batch processing, etc. You will still have the originals in your iPhoto Library.
--Or, you can open up the ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library/folders and option drag any
picture out of the folder to your desktop. Notice that you will see a plus sign while dragging the photo. This is copying the file to your desktop
I would advise anyone not to do this as they might forget to use the option key and drag the photo out. Next time you open iPhoto the photo will be missing.
-The one option you will not find within iPhoto is to resize photos. iPhoto wants you to keep all full size images within iPhoto to give you the best size for printing or using for other applications. You can however go to Share>export (for iPhoto 5) or File>export (for iPhoto 6) and choose the naming scheme, input the dimensions and export to the desktop to use for uploading to a web space or emailing.
--to email a photo set up your email client in iPhoto Preferences. Once done, just select a photo/photos and hit the email icon in the toolbar.
If you use a web based email, then you need to export the photo to the desktop and upload it from there.
Two Apple kbs for you to read
Don't tamper with files in the iPhoto library folder
About the iPhoto Library folder
Don't forget that in Library view you can Control click on any picture and get a contextual menu with many options. One is to revert to original.
For more help and information you can go to the Help menu wiithin iPhoto and input your search term in the search bar, then hit the "enter" key on the keyboard or just browse through the topics and categories.
You can also go to the iPhoto Support site and browse the topics there including the tutorials.
iPhoto Support