Oh my goodness......I need help organizing/finding my photos!!!

Question

Man, I have a mess......
About 4-5 months ago I bought a Seagate external hd, and I wanted to back-up ALL of my photos on my Powerbook. I am using iPhoto 6.0.6.
I wiped the new hd and prepared it using the discussion forums here. Everything was cool.
I "decided" to go into my folder on my powerbook and delete/"clean up" some of my photos before I backed it up onto the Seagate. Big mistake. I went into the libraries folder I think and was selecting multiple items at a time and as I was dragging the stuff, I lifted up on the key and dropped them into various places. An example is this when I click on the HD icon and select Pictures. I have all kinds of crap in the wrong places/folders and I cannot remember where and what I did because it's been soo long. Where do I start? The pictures are all there, but they are all over and not organized at all....
New Library
Modified
Library6.iPhoto
ThumbJPGSegment.data
com.apple.iPhoto.plist
Library.data
Originals
iPod Photo Cache
Thumb64Segment.data
iPhoto Selection
iPhoto Library1
iPhoto.ipspot
iPohot Library1
Dir.data
Data
iPhotoLock.data
Albums
AlbumData.xml
Thumb32Segment.data
Library.iPhoto
2002
2003
2007
2005
2004
2006
2008
com.apple.iPhoto.plist
Roll 189
Roll 187
Roll 185
Roll 188
2008
2002
2004
2005
2007
2006
2003
I have a mess, and want to consolidate all of my pictures both external and internal into ONE folder, and put them somewhere safe until I get a time capsule in December. I will probably get rid of the Seagate. I have about 200gb available on the Seagate, and only 30gb on the Powerbook.....getting full.....!
I would like to install a "clean" iPhoto onto the Seagate, and get all of my photos into one place on the Seagate. Without going any further, and promising to NEVER do this again, where do I start?
Please help. Many are very important photos of my children, and I wish to back them all up!

Answer 1

I believe you'll have to resort to the following:
1 - search you User folder (type Command+F) with the following criteria:
File type=image
Title includes .jpg
File size is treater than 100 KB.
This should bring up in the search result window all full sized image files.
2 - create a new folder on the desktop and drag these files from the search results window into that folder.
3 - create a new library.
4 - open the iPhoto/Event preferences and check the check box titled "Imported items from Finder" and select the time period you will want to have the photos split into during import, 1 day, 1 week or one of the hourly selections.
5 - drag the folder of image file from the desktop into the open iPhoto window.
That will get your image files imported into separate events based on the time frame you selected in the preferences. If you don't all of your photos will end up in one large event. They can be separated later but I believe it would be better to do a preliminary sorting during import.
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto (iPhoto.Library for iPhoto 5 and earlier) 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 created an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger or later), 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. It's compatible with iPhoto 6 and 7 libraries and Tiger and Leopard. Just put the application in the Dock and click on it whenever you want to backup the dB file. iPhoto does not have to be closed to run the application, just idle. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.
Note: There's now an Automator backup application for iPhoto 5 that will work with Tiger or Leopard.
and drag the folder from the desktop into its open window. Yo