IPhoto '09 - Separating large library

Question

Hi,
my iPhoto library has grown over the years and it currently around 76Gb.
In an effort to make it more manageable, I'm splitting it into smaller libraries going by the year that they were taken.
The way I've been doing this is by creating a New Library, showing the package contents of the iPhoto Library in Finder and then dragging and dropping from the Originals - <year> folder into iPhoto. Every new library has two years worth of photos.
Now, years 2000 through to 2008 were easy to do because every event had it's own folder, the event folders had the same name as the events in iPhoto so once imported, all the events were there as in the original iPhoto Library.
Years 2009 and 2010 however, haven't done this. Although in the iPhoto Library they are organised in events, in Finder, some of them are named by the date they were taken and other folders are named by the image name given by the camera. Basically, it's a bit of a mess.
I'm assuming that the change has something to do with upgrading from iPhoto '08 to iPhoto '09 when iLife '09 came out. Is there an easy way to change how the folders are named without having to go through each one or is there another way to accomplish the original task?
Cheers.
Andy.

Answer 1

The size of the package file (76Gb) is of no relevance to iPhoto's performance. iPhoto is good for 250,000 images so do you really need to split that Library? Further, as iPhoto can have only one Library open at a time that means that the vast majority of your pics will not be accessible without first quitting iPhoto and selecting a new Library. There is some inconvenience here.
Your method of going about this task is not really splitting a library, it's starting a bunch of new Libraries over from scratch. Your method
dragging and dropping from the Originals - <year> folder into iPhoto.
preserves no work that you have done on these photos: no edits, no metadata added in iPhoto, nothing. It's as though you have simply started over and these photos have never been on a computer before.
If you must split a Library then use iPhoto Library Manager. It will create libraries for you and allow you to move Events/Albums/Pics plus associated versions and metadata from Library to Library. At least this way you will preserve most of any work you've done on the pics.
Yes, since 09 the link between the Events in the iPhoto Window and the folders in the Library package is changed. Try accessing the files via the supported method: File -> Export and set the Kind to Original
Regards
TD