How can I import photos without using iPhoto?

Question

I'm 37, a lifetime PC/Windows user and have finally made the switch to Mac after years of using every other Apple product, including iPod, iPhone and Apple TV, which, by the way, must be the most under-marketed and best value Apple product ever. I can't believe more people don't have Apple TV in their homes.
With PCs, I was used to importing pictures to my hard drive and then viewing and editing them with whatever software applications I wanted. With my Mac, I notice that when I insert my SD card, iPhoto starts and asks me to import, which I agree. Unfortunately, it imports the images to an iPhoto folder that I can't easily access from another program, such as PhotoshopElements. I have read how to use Finder to navigate to these imported images in the iPhoto library ("Show Package Content") and then I copy the folder of images and paste it to a folder in my "Pictures" directory in Finder, but I find this tedious and also redundant as I now I understand I basically have two copies of every image, one for iPhoto Library and the other for accessing via other programs, such as Photoshop.
Is there anyway I can simply import images straight to a folder on my hard drive?
Also, if I do choose to access these images via iPhoto, am I correct in assuming iPhoto will automatically create a duplicate folder, just for accessing in the iPhoto library? If so, isn't this a waste of hard drive space? Can this be avoided?
Thank you for any and all assistance.
Kevin

Answer 1

Hi Kevin,  I am in the same boat as you having been buying PCs for the last 25 years and managing IT for SMEs I have now purchased my first Mac (mac mini).  My move to Mac started with the iPhone that led to the iPad then like you I succumbed to the beauty of the Apply TV that then led to the purchase of an Airport Express.  The love affair had to conclude in the purchase of a Mac! 
For many years I have used the feature to have the date photos taken created as a folder and all photos from that date placed in that folder.  Every year I create a new folder for that year and the import on PC creates the daily folders to hold photos …
I was just about to ask how I can keep doing this and realised it’s not as important as I thought – I’ll still create a folder for each year and just have the photos dumped in there.  I can sort in Finder by date taken and catalogue in any way I won’t.
I’ll still use folders rather than iPhoto as I want other software like XBMC (on other OS)  to read the photos.
Thanks for letting me rant – I thought I will post anyway as this is my first Apple post and it may assist others.