Moving from folder-organized photo library on networked NAS to iPhoto...

Question

Hello,
This is a fairly broad question, I know, but I've been researching for almost a full week and still at a loss as to what to do, so I thought some of the kind souls on here might be able to cut thru the forest of info out there to help me.
I vetoed iPhoto long ago but am now interested in trying it out & testing it against Picasa. However, I have a fairly large photo library that I keep on NAS, and definitely want to keep it there. Basically the research I've been doing has scared me, with all the horror stories about mixed libraries and the dangers of referenced libraries (which is what I was thinking would probably be the way to go), so now I'm a bit frozen.
My photos are currently folder-organized, mostly by date, but the level above date is by major categories (such as child's name, etc). I realize the date organization becomes redundant if I migrated to iPhoto, and even the categories seem redundant too if I can tag them all instead, etc.
The Picasa part was pretty easy, since I can just point it to the externally stored library and it does the rest, not moving anything. That part of Picasa is brilliant and makes a strong argument for going that route. My big hangup with it is the lack of nested collections - particularly in the web environment. The organizational aspects of Picasa seem a bit lackluster - and iPhoto sounds to be pretty good at that.
But with iPhoto, I'm having trouble deciding how to structure things and get started. I've read up on moving an existing iPhoto library to an external drive, but my impression is that to achieve what I'm trying to, I would need to import the entire library into local iPhoto library FIRST, then go backwards and migrate that iPhoto libary back onto NAS - which would then be a duplicate of the entire library since I'd be leaving the original intact to continue using with Picasa. Is that indeed the way to do it? I'm a little worried about ending up with an undifferentiated mass of 50+ Gigs of pics in iPhoto that i'd then need to go thru individually to tag (a monstrous task), as opposed to, say, having the names of folders turned into tags on all the pics within those folders (wishful thinking?).
To complete the picture of my situation for whoever may be kind enough to read all this, we have an iMac & a MBP, and would love to be able to share the NAS library on our respective iPhotos, and be able to keep "sync'd" up to what the other has done. From reading around it seems this is a little trickier, and the stuff I've been seeing about speed issues with WiFi-connected NAS libraries is not making me any more comfortable.
I was somehow able to rig just this situation up for iTunes (the library for which is shared & kept on NAS), which works pretty good (although I'm now concerned that that is also a 'referenced library' and liable to the same horror stories and cautions as external referenced libraries for iPhoto - is it the same? - so far so good...).
I've seen Terence Devlin mention a few times about using 'external managed libraries' instead of referenced libraries, but I'm not sure how to do that. The other vague conclusion I've come to from reading around is that I should probably use iPhoto Library Manager to achieve my goals here, and although I'm aware of what IPLM does, I'm not totally clear about how I would use it most effectively in my situation.
Whew - sorry for such a long rambling 'question'! This has probably been addressed elsewhere in the boards, but I've been reading for hours and can only get glimpses into a possible strategy for my situation - I thought just asking might nip it in the bud.
THANKS!

Answer 1

Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
A long question with, I'm afraid, a short answer.
a fairly large photo library that I keep on NAS, and definitely want to keep it there.
Stick with what you have. iPhoto needs to have the Library sitting on disk formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Users with the Library sitting on disks otherwise formatted regularly report issues including, but not limited to, importing, saving edits and sharing the photos. That pretty much rules out having a Managed Library on that NAS.
In some more detail:
My photos are currently folder-organized, mostly by date, but the level above date is by major categories (such as child's name, etc). I realize the date organization becomes redundant if I migrated to iPhoto, and even the categories seem redundant too if I can tag them all instead, etc.
Here's a fast way to tag them:
Start at the bottom of your Folder hierarchy and drag a folder of images to the Album Heading in the iPhoto Window. iPhoto will import the pics and make an Album of the same name as the Folder. Now: Want to tag all those pics with the same keyword: Select all (Command - a) and apply the keyword.
You can work through your images quite fast in this way.
Alternatively, use an app like Keyword Manager which has Nested Tags as a feature. So, for instance, you can set a hierarchy: John is your Son so tagging 'John' will also add a 'Family' tag and so on. In my case I have tags like 'Seattle' that add 'Washington State' 'U.S' and 'Travel' to the pics. WIth auto completion all I have to type is Sea...
but my impression is that to achieve what I'm trying to, I would need to import the entire library into local iPhoto library FIRST, then go backwards and migrate that iPhoto libary back onto NAS
No, all you need to di is start a Library, then move it to an appropriately formatted disk. You don't need to complete the Library first.
we have an iMac & a MBP, and would love to be able to share the NAS library on our respective iPhotos, and be able to keep "sync'd" up to what the other has done.
Again, noting that the NAS is not the way to go here, you can simply enable iPhoto Sharing or use the same Library with both machines - very easy.
I know that these a pretty short answers, and by all means post back if we can be more helpful.
Regards
TD