REQUEST: Differentiate between iPhoto and Events

Question

Hey there. Just got iLife 08 and I really like it.
However, I have a major problem with iPhoto '08. I like the Events feature, but I have a ton of random photos that don't necessarily qualify as an event. Random shot here or there.
In all previous iterations of iLife, the Albums and Library were only loosely linked. That is, you could delete a photo from album "Summer 07" and it wouldn't delete it from the Library. The iTunes playlist approach to photo organization, as it were.
Now, I expected/hoped/assumed the same functionality would be extended to Events. It wasn't. I found this out after I'd deleted about a quarter of my photo library. Thankfully the undo button averted disaster.
I don't understand why this works this way. If I have a random snapshot of, say, a sunset, one which doesn't fit into any event either contextually or chronologically, I'd like to be able to delete it from an Event while keeping it in my Library.
I could, of course, just split off all those photos and have one big "Miscellaneous" event. But that seems to run counter to the stated purpose of Events, and it's pretty darn tedious, and I don't understand why I can't just delete a few odd photos from the Events window without erasing them off of my computer.
Am I missing some big trick? Is there any way to change this?
Thanks.

Answer 1

The problem you're having is that you're assuming the new events replace the flexibility of the old albums. That's just not so.
Pre-iPhoto 08, all your photos were permanently stored in the library, and grouped by time of import into "film rolls". Using your example, all your weekend events would be imported into 1 roll. From that roll, you could create as many albums as you liked. Or, you could split that album into multiple rolls, if, say, one memory card was used to shoot a football game, a sunset, and then a concert. It was up to you. Create albums, split the film roll, or both. You were happy then, I assume.
Now with iPhoto 08, essentially NOTHING HAS CHANGED! You still have the flexibility to create your albums for football and concert, and leave all the originals in the library, including the sunset that doesn't go with the game or concert.
Only 2 things have changed: (1) film rolls are now called 'events', and (2) instead of importing your whole memory card into a single roll, iPhoto uses your preferences to automatically separate your photos into separate rolls based on when they were shot. (you could still do this before, just manually)
You basically have two primary means of organizing your photos: manually with albums, or automatically (via date) with events. The benefit of using albums is that it gives you the ultimate control that you want, while leaving the random photos protected in the library. The con is that you have to create and manage albums manually. The benefits of using events are that they're neatly organized by date and you have the flexibility to manually override their creation by splitting them or moving photos to any event you choose. The con of events is that, as sub-folders of the master library, every photo must be in an event, which forces you to create miscellaneous events of 1 or 2 photos--which admittedly clutters up your library--but only if you want that granularity of organization. There's nothing stopping you from having 1 single event called "football game, drunken roommate, and concert", and then 2 albums for the game and concert.
I tend to take photos like you do: many photos of particular events, with random scattered shots of wildlife in my yard, wrecks by the side of the road, cats doing funny things, etc. And I, too, don't like having lots of extra film rolls (still on v6) for those miscellaneous shots that don't qualify in my mind as events worthy of their own category.
So here's what I do... I never use albums because they're just too much work and they don't sort automatically. Since nearly all of my photos fall into the classic definition of an event, I primarily use film rolls (now events) to group my photos. If a roll from a camping trip happens to have 2 photos of a wild turkey in my yard, I usually leave it in the roll, but edit the roll's description to say something like "Camping trip to Catskills (+ wild turkey in yard)". That way I can see that the roll contains miscellaneous shots, and also be able to find them in the future if I search for "turkey".
While importing new rolls/events and organizing them, if I happen to notice that I have quite a few of those miscellaneous shots in close time proximity to one another, then I'll create a "Miscellaneous-August 2007" roll/event, for example, and move them all into one place. Having them together doesn't help the random pictures at all, but it does clean up all the other events from where the random pictures came. I actually find myself doing this more frequently since I started importing the highly random photos from my cell phone. One giant "misc" event would be too crazy, and having lots of scattered 1- or 2-pic events would be too cluttered. But having just 1 misc event per month seems to be a good compromise for me.
Apple is definitely not at fault in designing events. Really, they're nothing new compared to film rolls, except that they can split photos while importing. If you loved the old albums, then stick with them. They're 100% unchanged and still ultimately flexible. Otherwise, know the constraints of events, and make decisions based on what's important to you.