Please explain the difference, data file wise, between an album and folder

Question

First day with iPhoto. I've just finished reading most of the help files. However, I'm still confused between the differences of an album and a folder.
Specifically; I see the iPhoto Library data tree in Finder. I get that iPhoto imports pictures to the Library. But we take pictures randomly. There's a 100% certaintly that after I import the most recent images, they'll all need to be individually moved to an appropriate sub-category area. I'll make all the areas (House, Family & Friends, Skiing ,etc..).
What I don't want to have happen is to duplicate actual photo images. I'd like to move them out of the library and into their permanent home. Otherwise, the library will turn into a 3,000 photo mish mash of pictures and be unusable.
So.. do I create my new areas as albums, or as folders? My hunch is folders. Then again, it's also possible that I'm not fully understanding the libraries functions.
Many thanks
- Rowan

Answer 1

HI Rowan,
iPhoto imports each of your camera imports or folder imports as a roll within iPhoto (set your view to View>film rolls to see them) and the Finder (under Originals/Year/roll name)
The organization within iPhoto of making albums and folders to put albums and other folders in, is only seen within iPhoto as they are actually info contained in data files. You will not see the folders and albums or even books, slideshows, calendars, etc in the finder. all the info for those is contained in data files.
The library contains all the images you have imported.
When you make Albums containing the images, you are not duplicating those images. the albums actually just reference the images that are in it.
therefor if you delete photos from an album, they will still be in your library.
If you delete photos from the library and then empty iPhoto's trash, you are deleting them from iPhoto and your hard drive.
Folders are used to organize even further within iPhoto.
Folders cannot contain loose images. You have to put images in an album first, then you can put albums in a folder.
You can also put slideshows and books etc into a folder. You can also put a folder into another folder.
There are different ways to view your iPhoto Library within iPhoto.
You can view by date, film rolls, keywords, ratings. Go to View in the menu bar and click on it and scroll to your choice.
I personally view by film rolls (imports) and keep the film rolls closed (option click on the disclosure triangle of an open roll to close all rolls)
So now I will offer you more info just in case you might need it:
--First thing to know and remember is this...Do not drag any images, folder of images into the iPhoto Library in the Finder. Images have to be imported into iPhoto within the application. Do not scan images and save them into the iPhoto Library folder in the Finder. Save them to another location such as the Pictures folder or even the desktop. You can then import them into iPhoto.
If you have already put files/folders in the iPhoto Library folder in the Finder then you will also find out that if you try to import them into iPhoto you will get an error message. No worry, just drag them to the desktop and import from there.
--All images that you import are shown in the library view. You can choose how you want to view, by rolls, by date, by rating, etc. When you put images in an Album, slideshow, book, etc, you are actually just putting pointers to those images in the library. You are not adding more images. If you delete an image from the Album it will still be in the library. If you delete an image from the library it is deleted from iPhoto's database and your hard drive (unless you have it backed up somewhere else)
--You have a folder of images on your hard drive and want to import them into iPhoto. Drag the folder of images into an open iPhoto Library window and the folder of photos will be copied into the library, resulting in a new roll with the name of the folder. You now have two copies of those photos, the ones in iPhoto's database and the ones on your desktop. You can keep the ones on your desktop that you just imported as backup or you can delete that folder.
-- you scan a picture/pictures and save it in a folder. You cannot scan directly into iPhoto or the iPhoto Library folder in the Finder.
You want all your photos in iPhoto so you import them into iPhoto.
Now you have two copies of that picture/pictures, so you can delete the originals that were in the scanned folder and keep the one/ones that were imported into iPhoto.
-- You download pictures from your camera into iPhoto.
There is now one copy of each of the pictures. (DO NOT HAVE IPHOTO DELETE THE IMAGES FROM YOUR CAMERA! DELETE THEM MANUALLY WITH THE CAMERA-if something goes wrong with the import and they are never imported and then they are deleted from the camera you might end up losing those images)
You want to change something about a picture you imported, such as
cropping it or changing the size, or changing the orientation.
Once you do that to a picture, you now have two copies of the picture
in iPhoto, the original and the edited one. The edited one will be in the library organize view. The original is packed away in an Original folder in your iPhoto Library folder under the date of the roll. You can always revert to the original by control clicking on the photo and choose "revert to orginal" You will not have this choice if you used iPhoto Diet to get rid of the Originals.
(a quick note on cropping within iPhoto...when you are in edit mode, you automatically will be in the crop mode with cross hairs to highlight the crop area. To finish cropping you must click the crop button and then go back to library view and your cropped picture will be there.
3.You want to use Photoshop or another graphic program to edit a picture in your iPhoto library.
You can open up prefs for iPhoto and choose "when double clicking on
photo ..do" choose "other" and select Photoshop. Now you can edit all
pictures in your iPhoto library in PhotoShop by double clicking. If you save the photo with the same name and as a flattened file it will be saved right into iPhoto and you will see the changes. If you don't want to save it into iPhoto then do a "save as" and save to the desktop. You will then have the original photo still in iPhoto and your new edited photo on the desktop.
Or, with iPhoto open, you can drag a picture from the library window
to your desktop (you see a + sign on the pic you are dragging). You now
have two of the same picture, one in the iPhoto library and one on your desktop. You can open up the one on your desktop in any graphic program and work on it. The one in iPhoto stays the same. You can also share/export the picture/pictures to your desktop or folder to work on them or do batch processing, etc. You will still have the originals in your iPhoto Library.
Or, you can open up the ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library/folders and option drag any
picture out of the folder to your desktop. Notice that you will see a plus sign while dragging the photo. This is copying the file to your desktop
I would advise anyone not to do this as they might forget to use the option key and drag the photo out. Next time you open iPhoto the photo will be missing.
Two Apple kbs for you to read
Don't tamper with files in the iPhoto library folder
About the iPhoto Library folder
Don't forget that in Library view you can Control click on any picture and get a contextual menu with many options. One is to revert to original.
Backing up your iPhoto Library
1. Burn the iPhoto Library folder in the Finder to a CD or DVD
This method will give you a burned iPhoto Library folder that can be copied back to your computer to replace a damaged library. You can also use this method to backup an old library when you want to create a new Library to use as your current library.
insert a blank CD into your internal or external CD-RW drive and copy the iPhoto library to the CD icon on your desktop. When you drag the CD icon to the Trash/Eject button in the Dock, you are given the option to burn the CD. Click Burn and the CD is created. To burn a DVD backup of your digital images, use a DVD and a SuperDrive-equipped Mac
The easiest way to burn an iPhoto Library folder in the Finder that is larger than 4.7 gig to fit on one DVD is to burn sections of the folder.
Drag the iPhoto Library folder to the desktop
Double click the folder to open it.
Drag each Year folder to the desktop.
You should be left with the iPhoto Library folder containing all the data files, and the Year folders.
Combine whatever year folders that amount closest to a DVD burn size on one DVD. Make sure that you have burned all the Year folders, then the iPhoto Library folder with all the data files.
If you ever need to use this backup, insert the DVDs into your computer and copy the folders to the desktop. Put all the Year folders back into the iPhoto Library folder. Then put the iPhoto Library folder back into the Pictures folder.
You can also check out applications for disc spanning:
Disc-spanning software
DropDMG
Toast
Dragon Burn 4
Retrospect Express-comes with some external drives
Retrospect for Macintosh Desktop Edition
2. Copy the ENTIRE iPhoto Library to an external drive formated for a Mac. Do not use this as your only back up as the external can also go bad.
3. Copy the ENTIRE iPhoto Library to your iPod in disk mode
4.Creating your own CDs and DVDs for viewing in iPhoto
This method is a great way to back up Albums of older photos or even your entire library if it is small enough to fit on a DVD. This method will give you a library that will mount within iPhoto in the source column to be viewed. To import any images from this library they need to be dragged into your library in the source column.
If you just want to backup the images in your library:
1) Within iPhoto select the images, albums or rolls you want to backup. Go to Share>Export and export them to a newly created folder on the desktop. Follow the directions in the next link.
Creating a CD or DVD to be viewed in Windows or by a photo processing company
1.. If you backed up the entire iPhoto Library by burning within iPhoto or burning the folder in the Finder, make sure the burned copy is a good working copy before you delete the iPhoto Library folder in the Finder. You delete the iPhoto Library in the finder by dragging it to the trash when iPhoto is closed. When you next launch iPhoto it will create a new empty library for you to start anew.
2. If you burned just the images, be aware that that is all you are archiving. No metadata will travel with the images such as comments, keywords, etc.
You can then delete those images within iPhoto by highlighting them and hitting the delete key, then empty iPhoto's trash. Do this often and in groups so iPhoto will not choke on too many images.
Importing Images from the hard drive, CD, or DVD
To import a folder with subfolders of images maintaining the same organizational structure (or close to it):
Drag the folder into iPhotos viewing area.
A film roll will be created with each sub folders name. To view the rolls in the Library you need to first go to the menu bar and choose View>by film rolls.
To make each roll into an Album, highlight the tile of the roll
Go to File>new album from selection.
You will now have an Album in the source column with the images from that roll. Do this for each roll if you want them to be an Album. This is your choice.
Next, go to the menu bar and hit File>new folder
Name this new folder with the year or whatever the name was of the Parent folder containing the subfolders that you had dragged into iPhotos viewing area.
Next drag all the Albums into the respective new Parent folder you just made.
Albums- collection of images from one roll or many rolls. The Albums will be listed in your source column when you make them. The albums only contain placeholders for the images that are still in the library. They are not duplicates.
Rolls- rolls are created when you import folder of images. It will be given the name of the folder you are importing.
Rolls are also created from each import from your camera. You are given the option to name the roll at import.
Folder-a folder you create manually using the File>new folder command
Folders can hold Albums, slideshows, books, another folder, etc.
One other way you can import a folder of images and have an Album created for it as the same time it is imported as a roll in the Library view:
Drag each folder of images into the source column of iPhoto. When you see the plus sign, drop it in the source column.
An album will be created in the source column, and the roll that the album was created from will be in the library view window.
Hope this helps!
iMac 800 512, iBook 700 640   Mac OS X (10.4.6)   AE, Canon i9900, Canon LIDE30, Canon S2, iPod 3gen, shuffle
iMac 800 512, iBook 700 640   Mac OS X (10.4.6)   AE, Canon i9900, Canon LIDE30, Canon S2, iPod 3gen, shuffle