How do I uninstall iPhoto 5 and reinstall iPhoto 4 in Tiger

Question

I would like to uninstall iPhoto 5 and go back to iPhoto 4. I am using a Pentax Optio S4 Camera and have 3500 pictures in iPhoto 5 and am very unhappy with the performance since upgrading to iPhoto 5. I have read others are also having problems with certain cameras because of EXIF information used to create Maker Notes. With iPhoto 4 my system was very responsive, fast, and reliable. I've decided that the functionality of iPhoto 4 out weighs the features I will loose with iPhoto 5. So, I am wondering what the process is to uninstall iPhoto 5 and reinstall iPhoto 4. I am running Tiger 10.4.3. Has anyone else done this?

Answer 1

Hi xjfo,
To go back to an older version of iPhoto, you must have a backed up Library from that version. An older version of iPhoto will not open newer versions libraries.
If you have newly imported photos in your 5 library that are not in your backed up library you will need to share/export them now. Export the Original to the desktop. These can be imported once you are back in the older version of iPhoto.
Navigate to /Applications and drag iPhoto to the trash
Navigate to /Library/Receipts and drag all of the iPhoto receipts to the trash
Navigate to ~/Library/Preferences and drag com.apple.iPhoto.plist to the trash
Navigate to ~/Pictures and drag your iPhoto 5 Library folder to the desktop. You can keep it on your hard drive in another folder, or you can rename it and keep it in the Pictures folder, or you can move it to an external for safe keeping or you can burn the entire iPhoto Library folder for safekeeping.
Insert your older iLife CD/DVD and choose to do a custom install.
Install iPhoto
Run Software Update and update iPhoto to the latest version. that means if you installed 4 there should be some updated version of 4
Put your backed up iPhoto Library in the Pictures folder. If it is named iPhoto Library then it should open when iPhoto is launched.
If you renamed it, then launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and have it open the library you navigate to.
If you don't have a backed up version of the iPhoto Library of the version you want to install then you have a lot more steps to do.
If done this way, all albums, keywords, folders will have to be redone because you are starting from scratch with a new library and importing these photos into the new library.
Close iPhoto
Rename your old iPhoto Library to "iPhoto Library_old"
Drag this library to your desktop
Hold down the Option key and launch iPhoto
This is the window you will get
Create a new library or choose a library to open
Choose to create a new library
Once this new empty library is open it is time to import the images from your old library
Go to File>add to library
Navigate to the old library on your desktop and choose it.
iPhoto will start importing the images from your old library
This is what to expect:
Your images will be imported in nice dated rolls. (make sure your view is set to sort by rolls to see it) There are a couple of caveats to this. You will get rolls named "Originals" These rolls will contain your video clips and your original images that you had edited. If you had RAW files they would be in those rolls too (I don't do RAW, so I don't know for sure) Delete what you don't want from those rolls. You will also get the jpeg pointer files to your video clips imported. They will just be jpegs and will not point to the video clips anymore as iPhoto made new ones when the clips were imported again. You can delete those. they should be in a roll right next to the newly imported video clips so they are not hard to find. The thumbnail files don't get imported as iPhoto makes new ones when the images are imported.
Once all you images have been imported, check through the library and make sure everything looks ok.
You can now start making your Albums, and do your keywords or any other organizational steps.
You can also delete the old library on the desktop.
It is also a good time to backup this new library to CD/DVD by burning the iPhoto LIbrary folder in the Finder, or copying the iPhoto Library folder to an external drive formatted for Macs, or copying the iPhoto LIbrary folder to an iPod.
Good luck!
Lori