Running OSX and apps on a portable drive

Hi all, I share an iMac with my family and I do heavy photo editing and takes tons of pictures for a website I'm doing in iWeb.
My question is how to save hard drive space? I cannot figure a way to make iWeb only use pictures from a portable drive and be able to work with them via iPhoto (and videos via iDVD).
Is it possible to buy a new external drive, load OSX onto it and run my programs on that portable drive -- and have the files also remain on that drive?
That way, I wouldn't suck up all the HD space on what is still our family computer

You can run a separate copy of OSX on the external drive (just use the OSX install disc that came with the computer), but it would be simpler and easier to just store your iPhoto library on the external drive.
I'm assuming you're using your own user account on the computer that's separate from your other family members. If not, this procedure will move the other family members' photos as well as yours, so you might want to make a separate account if you don't already have one (System Preferences -> Accounts -> click the plus sign to add an account).
1) Drag the iPhoto Library file (inside your Pictures folder) onto the external drive to copy it.
2) Open up iPhoto while holding the Option key
3) In the resulting dialog box, choose the iPhoto Library on the external drive. If it isn't in the list, choose Other Library and find the file on the external drive.
All your apps that work from the iPhoto library (iWeb, iDVD, etc) should now use the copy on the external drive.

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