IPhoto vs. iView Media

Question

Hello,
I have recently imported over 8000 photos from my work Mac (that used iView Media) over to my home Mac (that uses iLife '06/iPhoto 6). Wow, I may have made a really bad choice. iPhoto is seriously lacking in some major organizational features that I relied upon in iView Media. So, let me make sure with these questions:
1. Is there a way to find the album(s) that a photo is attached to? I have random photos that I need to join with previously imported projects, but can find no easy way to find them.
2. Is there a way to show all photos that are not associated to an album(s)? I have imported allot of photos first and then created albums for them, so I want to make sure that each photo is in an album somewhere.
3. Is there a way to change the actual file name of the original photo at the Finder level? I see that I can manually change the name of a photo in iPhoto, but the original name at the Finder level remains the same. This could pose a huge problem as I have hundreds of 001.jpg files and could be devastating if I lost the iPhoto organizational links!
If iPhoto 6 is unable to do any of these tasks, then does anyone know if the upcoming iPhoto 7 (with iLife '07) will be able to? Otherwise, I am going to have no choice but to halt the frustration now and purchase iView Media Pro.
“Technological change is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.” (Albert Einstein, 1941),
Dr. Z.

Answer 1

Dr. Z:
I'm try to answer your questions.
1 - No.
2 - Yes. Make a Smart Album whose criteria is "Album is not any". That will show you all albums not associated with another album.
3 - No. But if you need those files outside of iPhoto you can export them to the destination using the File->Export->File Export menu option and select the "Use Title" option. That will give you new files with that title as a file name.
As far as V7 is concerned we have no idea what direction the developers will take.
I use iVMP as my primary image management application and iPhoto to create books, calendars, cards, etc. What I've done is keep my iVMP organization and create an alias based library (uncheck the Copy files to library upon import checkbox in iPhoto's Advanced preference section) of those source files. Downside to that method is that whenever I add new files to the source files I have to manually import them into iPhoto. But I always add the new files to their own folder that's dated and has a brief description. I then import into iView, rename, keyword and annotate and then import that folder into iPhoto.
That way I have the best of both worlds with only one set of original/source files.. One caveat with this is if you do editing with iVMP iPhoto will see the edited version but the thumbnail will not recognize it. Also if you do any editing in iPhoto the edited version will not be recognized by iView as it will be a new file in iPhoto's Modified folder. So you can do lots of editing, cropping and not affect what iView sees. iPhoto has a good, automatic, rudimentary version control process. iView has version control also but has to be activated and actively engaged by the user.
You can rebuild the library's thumbnails and that will fix that. But you must not change the name of the file or the extension in the editing or iPhoto will not know it's been edited and still display the original.
I've written some Tutorials on the alias method and using iPhoto and iView that may give you some useful information.
If you're not in a big hurry you might hold off or a month, maybe two to see if V7 is released and what the improvements are. However, if you're considering buying iView MediaPro it will remain at it's current price until the Microsoft version of it is released and then the price will go up $100. If you have a licensed version now, you'll get a free upgrade to the full MS version later this spring.
Do you Twango?
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've written an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.