How to cull & organize recovered photos after failed drive crash

I had my iPhoto library on an external hard drive that failed
Many $$ later I got my photos back, but without any albums, etc.
All photo files are called "recoveredphotoxxxx"
No original dates for the photos show up - they all have the same date (date of recovery)
It appears that I have several images (files) for each photo - the original, the thumbnail, the altered photos, etc. and of course these are not next to each other - spead all over the place
I have 18,000 photos (a LOT)
Okay - my questions:
1. I am overwhelmed trying to edit out the thumbnails (which is the right one to delete, so many photos) - any suggestions? I was thinking of going into Finder and sorting by size and deleting the small ones, but am worried due to warnings not to muck with iPhoto files
2. any idea on how to get the photos back into chronological order? There are so many and it is taking forever to go through them 1 by 1
Mahalo (Thanks)! Liz

Molokai:
Welcome to the Apple Discussions. Here's a way to cull out the thumbnail (smaller) files:
1 - open the top folder that contains your photos, i.e. in subfolders,etc., and type Command-F.
2- in the search window select the following criteria.
a. Type is image
b. size is less than 100 KB
3 - in the search results window all of the thumbnail files will be listed.
4 - select all and drag to the trash or to another folder temporarily.
This will leave only those files larger than 100 KB. Check one of the photos to see if the EXIF Capture Date intact. You can use Reveal. If you get a date in the Summary window then there's a way you can batch rename the files with the Capture Date as a starting point.
Post back if they do have the Capture Date and I'll post the workflow to rename them.
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, 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. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.
G5 Dual Core 2GHz, 2G RAM, 250G HD; G4 Dual 1Ghz, 1.5G RAM, 80G HD, Mac OS X (10.4.8) QT 7.1.3, 22 LCD, 200 & 160G FW HDs, Canon S400, i850 & LIDE 50, Epson R200

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