Removing old photos from iPhoto to external HD but not the library

Question

Hi I have just purchased a new external HD.  I already have one which is used with Time Machine for backing up my mac.  My problem is the mac HD is not that big and my extrenal with time machine is also getting full and after reading around I discovered that it will start to erase old backups to replace with new ones.  My problem with this is that I have used Time MAchine as a way of storing home movies and films exteranally as they take up to much space and therefore are no longer on the mac itself.  I bought a new disk so that rather than being a backup i can simply store files there and when needed plug it in if i want to use them ie videos old photos etc.
I currently have smart albums set up in iPhoto for each year so photos automatically drop into these depending on when they were taken. 
I would like to move the older albums straight to an external and delete from my mac.  How do I go about this as deleting the smart folder wont delete the originals and can I drag a smart folder to an external drive?  If not how do I find photos taken by year move them across to the external and delete the original.
Thanks

Answer 1

Hello there MrCoates14,
You are correct, deleting the photos from the Smart Album will not remove the originals from the computer, and based on what else you want to do with iPhoto, heres what I recommend.
First you can export the photos in the Smart Album to an external drive, as outlined in this article iPhoto '11: Export a photo found here http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2438. Note: At step 1, you want to highlight ALL the photos in the album, not just 1.
To export photos:
Select the photo or photos you want to export.
Choose File > Export.
At the top of the Export Photos window, click the File Export button.
To specify the file type for the exported photo, choose an option from the Kind pop-up menu:Original: Exports the photo as it was originally imported into iPhoto, before editing.Current: Exports the photo in its current format. If you imported a RAW-format photo and then edited it in iPhoto, the photo is exported as a JPEG file.JPEG: If you choose this format, choose an option from the JPEG Quality pop-up menu. The higher the quality, the bigger the photo. For example, if the photo will be used on a website where optimal quality for printing isn’t required, you could choose Low to save storage space on the website.TIFF: A lossless file format that works well for transferring photos between computers and applications.PNG: Another lossless file format popular for web images.
To change the size (resolution), choose an option from the Size pop-up menu:
For photos to be emailed or mainly viewed onscreen, these settings compress the photos (making them smaller):
Small: Use for photos you email or publish to websites where you don’t expect anyone to download and print your photos.
Medium: Use when you or your recipients have a reasonably fast Internet connection, such as DSL. This setting is not suitable for making prints.
Large: Use this setting when you and your recipients have a very fast connection. This size can be used to print small to standard-size photos (2 by 3, 3 by 5, and 4 by 6 inches).
For photos to be printed or published for download, these settings provide maximum detail for final prints:
Optimized: Use for larger prints and for publishing photos to websites for others to download and print. With this setting, photos are slightly compressed to a smaller file size so that they download faster without compromising quality.
Actual Size/Full Size: Use to make high-quality prints in small to large sizes, or to upload photos to websites so that others can download and print them. This setting matches the actual size of your photo, so it may take longer to upload or download.
Specify your other options:Include checkboxes: If you choose JPEG or TIFF from the Kind pop-up menu, you can include titles, keywords, and location information with the exported photos by selecting the checkboxes.File Name: Choose whether to export photos in sequence, or by their filenames, iPhoto titles, or album name.Prefix for sequential: If you choose Sequential from the File Name pop-up menu, you can specify text to appear before each number (for example, Birthday01, Birthday02, and so on). This step is optional.
Click Export.
Choose where to save the exported photo files, and then click OK.
Then when they are all exported you can Create a New Event from the photos in each album to group them all together in Events, so that when you delete the new event with all the photos in the album in it, they will be deleted from the library. Here is the article for that named iPhoto '11: Create a new Event found here: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2364.
You also have the option to iPhoto '11: Move your iPhoto library to a new location if you just want to move the entire library to the external drive and use the library from the drive directly: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2506
Cheers,
Sterling