IPhoto Organisation query

Hi all
I have an iMac with iPhoto version 9.5.1. on it. After downloading photos I am never sure if I should put them in Events, Albums or just leave under photos. Things get pretty messed up when I am editing or deleting photos as if you carry out these actions under one area of iPhoto they do not necessarily update/delete in other areas.
Any advice on how to organise iPhotos would be gratefully accepted.

After downloading photos I am never sure if I should put them in Events, Albums or just leave under photos
Events and Photos are the same thing. Notice that they are under the Library heading?
Events and Photos are two views of the Library. Two doors into the same room, as it were. So, every photo is in the Library and that means that every photo can be seen via the Events view and can be seen via the Photos view. They are not duplicates, just two views of the same photo. So that's one decision you don't have to make.
Albums are ad hoc groupings of photos. They might be all the photos of your dog, just the best photos of your recent trip to the beach. What that means is that you decide what photos go into an Album. Albums are not duplicates either. They reference the photos in the Library, so a pic can be in 100 or more Albums and use no extra disk space.
If you edit a photo in the Library then that edit is seen everywhere. Photos view, Events and Albums. I'm not sure why you think otherwise.
FWIW a canned answer that illustrates some of the possibilities that iPhoto offers for organization:
I use Events simply as big buckets of Photos: Spring 08, July - Nov 06 are typical Events in my Library. I use keywords and Smart Albums extensively. I title the pics broadly.
I keyword on a
Who
What
Where basis (The When is in the photos's Exif metadata). I also rate the pics on a 1 - 5 star basis.
Using this system I can find pretty much find any pic in my 50k library in a couple of seconds.
So, for example, I have a batch of pics titled 'Seattle 08' and a typical keywording might include: John, Anne, Landscape, mountain, trees, snow. With a rating included it's so very easy to find the best pics we took at Mount Rainier.
File -> New Smart Album
set it to 'All"
title contains Seattle
keyword is mountain
keyword is snow
rating is 5 stars
Or, want a chronological album of John from birth to today?
New Smart Album
Keyword is John
Set the View options to Sort By Date Ascending
Want only the best pics?
add Rating is greater than 4 stars
The best thing about this system is that it's dynamic. If I add 50 more pics of John to the Library tomorrow, as I keyword and rate them they are added to the Smart Album.
In the end, organisation is about finding the pics. The point is to make locating that pic or batch of pics findable fast. This system works for me.

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StanB:
As PhillyPhan warned, you don't need to use the Finder to locate an image file for use outside iPhoto. You can either drag the thumbnail to the desktop to get a copy of it or use the File->Export->File Export menu route to export the file to the desktop. The second option allows you to resize it if desired. So there's no need to go rummaging around in the iPhoto Library folder to find a file.
Do you Twango?

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still need details
What version of iPhoto and of the OS on each system?
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Hey Terrence,
Thanks for this info - appreciate the quick response!!
Do you have any suggestions for a really good photo editor?
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The list of countries where the printing services are available is here
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Hello all,
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Any photos imported from another computer (in this case a PC) are organised in the iphoto library by the data MODIFIED rather than the date taken, even though in iphoto, looking at the properties of each photo, it has the correct date under the images original date.
after getting really annoyed by this, i just cant help wondering why i cant just organise my photos inthe library the way i want to, as i can with itunes?

^ Eh? What has this got to do with anything? Am I not explaining this right? Of course in the Finder, within a folder, files/tracks are arranged alphabetically. And yeah, there's no alternative. It would be nice if Apple allowed you to list files in the finder by other attributes (timestamps, ID3 tag data, etc) as in other operating systems, but that's another story.
What I said was you could organise the hierarchy of folders anyway you like, and even keep all your music files out of the library altogether and somewhere else. So instead of the default option in itunes, where it puts tracks inside a folder with the album name, and that folder inside a folder with the artist's name, you can organise them into folders by genre, style, BPMs, whatever you like.
"iTunes allows more viewing options because music files have more "meta-data" than photo files, but the different viewing options don't change the file organization in the folders that contain the original files."
For the third time, I'm not concerned about the viewing options within the application. I'm interested in the way iphoto organises the HIERARCHY of folders within its library.
It SHOULD be organising them by the date and time they were taken, but instead, for a large number of photos which were copied of another computer, it organises them by the date modified, which is the date they were copied over. So I have huge folder within the library on the 8th of october, within the 2005 folder, containing many months of photos.

Adobe bridge vs. iphoto

i now use adobe bridge (which acts like 'finder') to view/organize photos because i like to organize them my own way.
can i use iphoto with out "copying" my photos into iphoto? this seems like a huge waste of space.
is there a way to not have iphoto organize my pics for me (like the option for music in itunes)?
a few years ago i tried iphoto and hated the way it organized your actual photos, with huge hierarchical folder trees. i would prefer to not be program dependent for organization.
since i have a macbook pro, an ipad and an iphone - and the icloud is coming this fall, i want to be all prepared and organized for the migration.
is iphoto the way to go?

is iphoto the way to go?
Depends...
Here's the thing: When you say this:
i now use adobe bridge (which acts like 'finder') to view/organize photos because i like to organize them my own way.
...You're not entirely accurate. What you're actually doing is using the Finder to organise the files and then Bridge to view this organisation.
So, I can understand your frustration when you say
i tried iphoto and hated the way it organized your actual photos, with huge hierarchical folder trees.
But it doesn't. Yes it organises files into folders but your files are not your Photos.
iPhoto is designed for people who want to organise their Photos and to take the chore of file management away. How iPhoto organises the files is of no relevance, you do all your work in the iPhoto Window, organising your photos, a job that is done with no reference to the location of the files on the HD. Iphoto tracks the relationship between the two, of course, but does it in the background and is invisible to you.
So, you have to make a small leap: That jpeg file is not your Photo, it's just a container that carries your photo. So forget about the container and, instead, focus on the contents: Your photos.
If you can make that leap you can easily become a contented user of iPhoto. If you can't, then forget about it because you'll never be happy with it.
How the files are stored on the HD is of no relevance, because after importing you never need to access them again (tho' of course, there are ways too - see below). Anything you need to do with your Photos - edit them, email them, upload them, print them, use in other apps, whatever - but literally, anything you can do either with or via iPhoto. You can edit them in iPhoto. You can edit them in Photoshop. You can email with Apple's Mail, or via a Web Browser and the Gmail service. You can easily get your photos into iPhoto and just as easily get them out again. You can get the Original, unedited file you imported, or the edited version of it. Any metadata that you add in iPhoto can be written to the files on export and so on.
(Small caveat: Faces can't be written to the file. There's no protocol for sharing faces on any photo application, made by anyone on any system.)
So, there's no wasted space and yes, you can organise your Photos any way you want.
i would prefer to not be program dependent for organization.
But you always are. Right now you're dependent on a mixture of the Finder and Bridge for it. If they are on a computer then some app is managing them
To your specific question:
A Referenced Library is when iPhoto is NOT copying the files into the iPhoto Library when importing. The files are then stored where ever you put them and not in the Library package. In this scenario you are responsible for the File Management.
This is an attractive option for some users at face value, but it contains a significant number of issues that you might want to consider before making the decision to run a Referenced Library
How to do it:
iPhoto -> Preferences -> Advanced and uncheck the box at 'Copy items to the iPhoto Library'
Now when you import iPhoto makes an alias in the Library Package that points to the stored file. Note: iPhoto still creates a thumbnail of the image and it makes a Preview of edited photos inside the Library Package.
Issues?
1. You are responsible for file management. That's more work:
You must first move the files from your camera to the storage location before importing.
If you want to delete files then you must first trash them from iPhoto and then afterwards find them in your storage and trash them.
Thereafter, you cannot move the files on early versions of iPhoto at all, on iPhoto 08 and later you may move them on the same Volume or Disk. If you move them to a new volume or disk the aliases my break. If they are on an different volume and you move them the aliases will break.
You cannot rename the files.
Migrating: moving to a new machine, moving the files to another disk are all a lot more complex.
2. You gain no extra functionality from running a Referenced Library. Nothing. This is just storage. You still manage the files via iPhoto. You edit them with iPhoto or via iPhoto's External Editor setting, otherwise you're changes will not be available in iPhoto. You don't save byte of storage space.
3. If you have the Library on one volume and the photos on another you if anything changes in the path to a file (Like if you upgrade your machine, move the files on the NAS or on to another one?) then the alias will break, and you'll have to repair it manually. For every photo in the Library. One at a time.
Why do you want to run a Referenced Library?
Because my photos won't fit on my HD?
You can run a Managed library from an external disk. Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library 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.
You're worried about accessing the files?
There are many, many ways to access your files in iPhoto: You can use any Open / Attach / Browse dialogue. On the left there's a Media heading, your pics can be accessed there. Command-Click for selecting multiple pics.
(Note the above illustration is not a Finder Window. It's the dialogue you get when you go File -> Open)
You can access the Library from the New Message Window in Mail:
There's a similar option in Outlook and many, many other apps. 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.
If you want to access the files with iPhoto not running:
For users of 10.6 and later: You can download a free Services component from MacOSXAutomation which will give you access to the iPhoto Library from your Services Menu.
Using the Services Preference Pane you can even create a keyboard shortcut for it.
For Users of 10.4 and 10.5 Create a Media Browser using Automator (takes about 10 seconds) or use this free utility Karelia iMedia Browser
Other options include:
Drag and Drop: Drag a photo from the iPhoto Window to the desktop, there iPhoto will make a full-sized copy of the pic.
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.
Show File: a. On iPhoto 09 and earlier: 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. 3.b.
b: On iPhoto 11 and later: Select one of the affected photos in the iPhoto Window and go File -> Reveal in Finder -> Original. A Finder window will pop open with the file already selected.
You want to edit them in Photoshop and not iPhoto
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. This is the only way that edits made in another application will be displayed in iPhoto.
Iphoto is not for everyone, and may well not be for you. But it's not the ogre or dragon that it might seem. If you want to organise you Photos then it's pretty good for the guy with a point and shoot camera. However, if you want to organise files then stick with a file organiser.
My best advice to you:
Create an iPhoto Library. Import 250 pics, and explore.
Regards
TD

Will there be an upgrade soon to organise folders??

same old question - but why can't iPhoto organise folders in Finder in the same way as you set them up in iPhoto?
Will there be an upgrade soon to allow folder syncronisation in the same way as iTunes does it?
Also - how do you use files in other packages without having to search through folders organised by date?
Any help - much appreciated
Thanks
Ben

Hi Benm
1. I don't know know but there must be a good reason.
2. I don't know, but the more feedback Apple gets on that topic, you never know.
3. Some programs can already read that data.xml file and can navigate your iPhoto albums in order to open/import an image. It's up to the other programs to begin integrating with iPhoto. It can be done.
Then how do you use files in other programs?
I use drag and drop if the other programs supports it.
I share/export the images I want to use in other programs

How can I archive photos in iPhoto to a hard drive and retain the Album folders and the Events?

How can I archive photos in iPhoto to a hard drive and retain the Album folders and the Events? I tried to Export the Albums but just transferred the files individually.

If you want to maintain the iPhoto organisation then back up the iPhoto Library.
If you want to export to the Finder, well you need to create a folder for the contents of an Album and expot to that.
If you have an older version of iPhoto: Apps like iPhoto2Disk or PhotoShare will help you export to a Folder tree matching your Events. This feature is built in to iPhoto 11.
This User Tip
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4921
has details of the options in the Export dialogue.

IPhoto Organisation query

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