Seeking Archiving Script Help

Question

I have heard several requests now for the exact same issue I have been looking to have resolved and did a little poking around but really need help beyond this point.
First my iBook only has a 20Gig drive and so I need to be considerate of how I use it. Storing 10Gigs of photos is not an option. More than that I don't WANT 10Gigs of photos loaded all at once. My uses make an external DVD burner more effective (and scalable) than an external HD. What I want is the ability to store all my iPhoto data with thumbnails of every image I own but archive any full size versions I choose to DVD and remove it from the HD. This would give the desired space savings and organizational capabilities I am looking for.
I had already backed up my entire Library as it was created to CD but found that considerably less orderly than I had imagined. Now I have several discs that can only fit so much info on the label and it can be very difficult to find the disc with the image I am looking for. Besides that I have multiple copies of some images burned onto multiple discs as I accidentally reburned an Album of pictures I use most often. A good thing for backup but really crappy for version tracking and organization.
If I could get iPhoto to keep a note of which disc the image is backed up to, problem solved.
So I start tinkering a bit and found some scripts online (through Apple?). One of which was "Show Image File". Above all I have found this particularly useful. I used it to find specific images which I then tested some questions. Mainly what would happen if I duplicated the Thumbnail and replaced the main image. It was difficult to tell as it looked exactly the same. So I tried a different image which ends up being a smaller file size anyway. Turns out iPhoto will display the new image as long as it is in the same place with the same name, and is the same file type. I then add a note in the comments field for the disc the image is stored on and TADA I get smaller files, data functionality, disc note, and the original thumbnails at small image sorting (the new image only displays at large viewing).
BUT that takes a bit of manipulation. I suspect it could be Scripted and automated but I don't know scripting well enough to try it. Is there someone out there willing to fiddle with this hack and scripting it? Pretty Please?!!
I have screen shots of the results but don't know how to put them up here. If you would like to see them send me an email. There are two jpg's about 50k.
Thanks
Mehkael

Answer 1

HI, Mehkael. If I understand you correctly, you would like to "repurpose" your iPhoto Library folder. Instead of being the place where your primary image files are stored, organized, and worked on and with, you would like to make the library an index to the storage locations of your primary image files outside of the library.
As Brie Fly and Peter have suggested, this would be using iPhoto to perform a function for which it was not designed while ignoring all the uses (image editing, album and book creation, preparing images for emailing or the web, printing, ordering prints, etc.) for which it was designed. With extensive original scripting, it might be possible to accomplish what you want, but you would be working in diametric opposition to the design intent of iPhoto all the way. iPhoto is built to maintain a unified photo library in one place, and to provide direct access to all the original or edited images in the library for a variety of uses from within the iPhoto application. Keeping only reduced-resolution copies of your images in your iPhoto Library folder (to save disk space) would prevent you from making any other use of the program than the one you contemplate. Meanwhile, there is a whole category of applications — "digital asset management" software — specifically designed to keep track of a dispersed photo library of original, full-sized image files spread over many different storage volumes on various media types. The best of these applications (Extensis Portfolio and Canto Cumulus among them; I have an old version of Portfolio) are designed for professional users and more expensive than iPhoto; that may be an important consideration for you.
I suspect there are also less sophisticated and less expensive apps that might meet your need. One little app that I own, but haven't used extensively enough to know how well it might serve you, is ViewIt. And though I'm not familiar with iPhoto 6, I understand that it permits the user to store photos in multiple locations but have them within a single library. Perhaps that would be useful in your situation, it if doesn't limit you to seeing thumbnails only of images that are stored on currently accessible volumes/discs.
For iPhoto users who haven't upgraded to v. 6, creating and maintaining multiple iPhoto Library folders on different media is a commonplace and useful sorting-and-storage technique — though of course it doesn't allow you to view the contents of any library that isn't on a currently accessible volume/disc.