IPhoto 08 extremely unstable with external

Question

Good evening
I am very frustrated with iPhoto as the application keeps crashing every 3-4 minutes. I have my pictures stored on an external drive and have created a library also on the external. When I imported all my photos over to the library, I used the advanced option of not actually copying the items to the library (1.4 gig; actual photos 'imported' are 34 gig = 16000 photos).
Are all these advanced and external options combined making my iPhoto unstable?
I have the latest iPhoto and MAC software updates installed.
Any thoughts or suggestions? I want to keep my MACBook Pro somewhat uncluttered of photos so that I can edit videos!
Thank you for your time and thoughts.
sKY::

Answer 1

sKY
Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
No, neither of these things will make iPhoto unstable.
Post the Crash Log.
It's at Home / Library / Logs / Crash-Reporter / iphoto.crash.log
Double click on the file and it will open in the Console. Copy and Paste it in here.
Just a heads up: You need to be aware of a number of potential pitfalls using a referenced Library.
1. Import and deleting pics are more complex procedures
2. You cannot move or rename the files on your system or iPhoto will lose track of them
3. Most importantly, migrating to a new disk or computer can be much more complex.
Always allowing for personal preference, I've yet to see a good reason to run iPhoto in referenced mode unless you're using two photo organisers.
If disk space is an issue, you can run an entire iPhoto Library from an external disk:
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library as an entity from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
If you're concerned about finding the files, that can be easily done from the iPhoto Window.
There are many, many ways to access your files in iPhoto:
For 10.5 users: You can use any Open / Attach / Browse dialogue. On the left there's a Media heading, your pics can be accessed there. Apple-Click for selecting multiple pics.
To upload to a site that does not have an iPhoto Export Plug-in the recommended way is to Select the Pic in the iPhoto Window and go File -> Export and export the pic to the desktop, then upload from there. After the upload you can trash the pic on the desktop. It's only a copy and your original is safe in iPhoto.
This is also true for emailing with Web-based services. If you're using Gmail you can use THIS
If you use Apple's Mail, Entourage, AOL or Eudora you can email from within iPhoto.
If you use a Cocoa-based Browser such as Safari, you can drag the pics from the iPhoto Window to the Attach window in the browser.
Or, if you want to access the files with iPhoto not running, then create a Media Browser using Automator (takes about 10 seconds) or use THIS
Other options include:
1. *Drag and Drop*: Drag a photo from the iPhoto Window to the desktop, there iPhoto will make a full-sized copy of the pic.
2. *File -> Export*: Select the files in the iPhoto Window and go File -> Export. The dialogue will give you various options, including altering the format, naming the files and changing the size. Again, producing a copy.
3. *Show File*: Right- (or Control-) Click on a pic and in the resulting dialogue choose 'Show File'. A Finder window will pop open with the file already selected.
You can set Photoshop (or any image editor) as an external editor in iPhoto. (Preferences -> General -> Edit Photo: Choose from the Drop Down Menu.) This way, when you double click a pic to edit in iPhoto it will open automatically in Photoshop or your Image Editor, and when you save it it's sent back to iPhoto automatically.
Regards
TD