IPhoto folders are all messed up and my pics arent showing up correctly..

Question

I tampered with the iPhoto folders...I renamed files and moved things around thinking I was organizing things.. but now my photos in iPhoto arent working correctly. Some photos show a thumbnail but dont open.. and all I get is a gray screen with an exclamation mark. Other photos open but at very poor quality.. around 32KB instead of the 1.6 MB that they should be!
What can I do to fix this problem?
Also, my computer seems to have 5 copies of all my photos. One copy that is the original... another that is smaller and then more random copies. How can I get rid of those copies.. I've got like 2,000 of them! Ahhh..
Somebody please help! Any suggestions??

Answer 1

Hi Diana,
#1 Two Apple kbs for you to read
Don't tamper with files in the iPhoto library folder
About the iPhoto Library folder
#2 It seems you moved photos around and some thumbnail photos from the Data folder were put in the originals folder (photos open at 32k) and the ones missing (renamed by you). This is how it is supposed to be in the Finder;
iPhoto 6 Library folder in the Finder
As you can see the structure is now related to rolls. Rolls are created for each folder you import and each import session from a camera.
It is very easy to change the names of film rolls within iPhoto to make them easier to find images within. Open the info panel in iPhoto by clicking on the "i" icon. Once it is opened, click on the roll title in the viewing window.
Click on the word "title" in the info pane and type in your new title. I like to use a date and text format such as 12/25/05 Christmas at Mom's, 1/05/06 my birthday, etc. Once the roll names are changed within iPhoto, they are also changed within the Finder, making it easy to locate an image.
When importing from a camera, make sure you name the roll with a date and text before the import.
There is no way to recover from this except to start over with just the original files. This would entail creating a new library, going through the old library and finding all the full sized images and deleting the thumbnail images
#3 Here are the instructions for creating a new library. BUT remember that in your case it is not as simple as importing the Originals folder again as you moved photos around and in and out of the wrong folders. You are going to have to find all the originals and delete the smaller thumbnails of the same name (unless the originals were overwritten by the thumbnails when you moved photos around because an image has the same name in all the folders (Data, Original and Modified).
close iPhoto
-drag the iPhoto Library folder to the desktop
-launch iPhoto and create a new library
-double click the iPhoto Library folder on the desktop to open it
-the two main folders you will need to import are the Original folder and the Modified folder (only if you want to import the edited images).
-the Originals folder has all your originals photos unedited. the Modified folder has all images that you have edited, rotated, cropped, etc.
-Drag these two folders to the desktop
-If you want to save the edited image, find it in the roll in the Modified folder and drag it into the roll of the same name in the Originals folder. It will replace the originals and now will be the original.
-If you don't care to save any edited images, then don't import the Modified folder into iPhoto or don't bother replacing the edited image with the original image like I just described.
-If you import the Originals folder into iPhoto you will have all your originals in their named rolls.
-If you import the Originals and Modified folders into iPhoto, you will have all of the being in the originals folder in the finder. The roll with the same name as the other will have a _1 appended to it's name (in the finder)
-the roll from the originals will be next to the same roll from the Modified folder within iPhoto. You can then delete any of the images from there if you want.
I know this might sound confusing but it really isn't.
Get back if any of this sounds like something you might want to do.