Help-moving pics into various rolls????

Question

Hello there, first post in this forum so be gentle as I try to be as descritive as possible. I am in the process of cleaning my iPhoto 06 library and it was suggested not to do this within Finder but in the App itself. I guess I am wanting to set up rolls for easy keywording after the shots have already been imported. The 'rolls' I speak of are created by my wifes Ixus Canon camera prior to download and not entering anything will just enter them according to dates within iPhoto originals. Say she took X number of pics of two different events that deserve their own 'rolls' or 'titles'. How can these be separated into 2 folders that I can name so they will show up within finder under my chosen name? Am I making sense? Any suggestions would be great and I will keep looking for responses and making things clearer as we get to the solution.
Cheers

Answer 1

Hi, this won't hurt a bit.
In iPhoto, go to the View menu and select "Film Rolls." Also View > Sort Photos > by Film Roll. Be sure to have the Info Panel open (bottom left corner in the iPhoto window). You might see a bunch of randomly numbered film rolls, if you've never edited their names before. Probably a seperate roll for each time photos were imported into your library. If you just see roll names without thumbnails, then click on the triangles to open them. When you select the name of the roll you can then edit the info for the whole roll: name, date, and comments. You can select photos and move them between rolls to reorganize. Select a roll's name and drag the whole thing into another roll to consolidate rolls. You can select photos and go to File > Create Film Roll to make a new roll for them. If your wife imports photos she took at a birthday party and on vacation, you can name the roll "Birthday Party", then select all the vacation photos and create film roll which you name "Vacation." Thus you will have 2 rolls, where the photos are easy to find.
Keeping you library in Film Roll view has several benefits. First, iPhoto uses your roll names when it places files in its file structure. While (as you know) it is not recommended to manipulate pictures via their files in the Finder, if your rolls are well-organized and descriptively named you will know where those files are being stored. Second, Film Rolls may be kept closed in the library. Keeping the rolls closed until they are needed is an effective way of maintaining the optimal speed of iPhoto. If I kept all my rolls open it would take me many minutes just to launch iPhoto, and scrolling through nearly 5000 thumbnails would be quite a challenge. When a roll is closed any comments you've made about it are visible below the roll's name. I use comments so I know which roll to open to locate a particular photo.
There are many ways to keep your library organized. Start playing around with it and see how it goes. I'm sure others here will add their different styles and great ideas. Let us know how it goes.