Importing photos from a PC and creating new library in iPhoto

Question

I recently purchased a MacBook and I would like to transfer all of my photos from my external hard drive to the Mac. I had been using a PC prior to my MacBook purchase, so I am accustomed to organizing all of my pictures on my PC in one "My Pictures" folder with several subfolders within that large folder (e.g. "Landscape Photos," "Portraits," etc.):
1. How should I transfer my photos onto the Mac? Do I copy and paste them into the "Pictures" folder, and then import them into iPhoto? If so, won't that create duplicate copies on my hard drive?
2. I understand that going forward, when I upload pictures from my camera onto the computer (using iPhoto), the pictures will be uploaded into the "Original" folder, all lumped together with every picture that is uploaded. But for instance, if I upload a "landscape" photo, how do I put that in my "Landscape" folder, which is the same folder I was using to classify landscape pictures on my PC? Or does this "folder" classification now go away since iPhoto just organizes it?
3. I use Photoshop to edit certain pictures. If I revise a picture, in which folder am I supposed to save it? Does it become a file "Modified" folder? How would I access this photo to print out at an external photo lab?
I would definitely appreciate any insight from anyone....thanks in advance for your help!!
MacBook 13" 2.16GHz   Mac OS X (10.4.9)  

Answer 1

Hello and welcome to the discussions!
Many of you 'switchers' are having problems with how iPhoto works, and how it differs from other programs you are used to with PCs. Most of you do all of your organizing yourself, but with iPhoto, you can just concentrate on working with your photos and being creative, letting iPhoto worry about what photo is in which folder. Here is an explanation of how iPhoto works: Using iPhoto, from iPhoto Help
iPhoto is designed to let your do all your arranging/naming/organizing into albums from WITHIN iPhoto itself. You should not be tinkering around in any of your iPhotoLibrary Folders outside of iPhoto: Don't Tamper
Another good explanation of iPhoto and how it works is in this thread
And, here is a discussion thread on migrating from Picasa to iPhoto: iPhoto structure
Be sure to read Terence's excellent explanation.
Finally, for your questions:
(1)You should be able to get your photos into iPhoto by opening up iPhoto and dragging your photo folders into the main window of iPhoto. iPhoto will create a film roll for each folder. If the folder has subfolders, film rolls will be created for them also. By naming the folders when you import them, you will be able to keep the same organization in your film rolls. iPhoto automatically stores the photos in iPhotoLibrary folder in Pictures folder. You do not need to put them into Pictures yourself.
You need to learn about iPhoto's album system, where you create albums in the Source pane and selectively put your photos into them. These albums actually contain aliases of the photos, not the photos themselves, so a photo's alias can be placed into many albums, but the photo can be in only one film roll.
(2) If you don't want your photos downloaded from your camera in a lump sum, use ImageCapture (in Applications) to selectively download your photos into separate folders on your desktop, and then import each folder into iPhoto where each folder becomes a separate film roll. You can either keep the original downloaded photos on your computer, or you can delete the downloaded folders after you have imported the photos into iPhoto.
(3) You can set your 'Edit' preferences in iPhoto to open up PhotoShop for all editing, and you save the photo back to iPhoto afterwards. It will be in the same film roll.
Post back if you have more questions.