Lost all photos and other problems followed after upgrade to iphoto 6

Question

All of my photos disappeared while creating a calendar in iphoto 6. I was finally able to find them in the trash can???? After loading them back into my library the photos have shrunk. I shoot with an 8 megapixel camera, and now I can't enlarge at all. How can I recreate my original library. Very frustrated with latest release.
Any suggestions?
Bill

Answer 1

The new structure organizes photos into Originals and Modified folders. There is a third folder called Data that contains thumbnails created for the photos (smaller pictures used for better performance). These three are essential for iPhoto 6 to work.
Each folder contains a folder for each year (a year folder is created if you have even one photo from that year, e.g. a photo from 4/3/2004 will create a folder called "2004" and any other photos from that year will then be placed within it.
Every import creates a serially numbered Roll folder within the year folder. So if you import photos including IMG_234.jpg from 4/3/2004, for example, the location of IMG_234.jpg will be:
iPhoto Library/Originals/2004/Roll 1/IMG_234.jpg
And Roll 1 will have other photos imported in the same session. If you modify the photo within iPhoto (enhance, retouch, etc), the modified copy will exist in:
iPhoto Library/Modified/2004/Roll 1/IMG_234.jpg
The Data folder will contain a thumbnail for the image in the same path as the Originals:
iPhoto Library/Data/2004/Roll 1/IMG_234.jpg
So inside the iPhoto Library folder, you will see some files and those three folders with their sub-structure folders. Other things within the top level of the iPhoto Library folder, are leftovers from the previous structure - such as a folder called "2004" or "2005" that ISN'T inside Originals, Data, or Modified folders.
PhillyPhan's advice is sage. Don't mess with the insides of the iPhoto Library. However, I did verify on my own system after I upgraded, that year folders at the top level of the iPhoto Library are from previous versions of iPhoto. So you could move those, and those only, to a separate folder on your HD. I moved those off to a DVD-ROM and haven't seen problems since.
Remember: Don't touch any files, and don't touch anything within Data, Originals, and Modified folders.