Two questions, maybe stupid ones

Question

Hi
Two iPhoto questions if that is OK.
The first one may be irrelevant depending on the answer to the second.
By way of background,I organised my digital photos on previous computers into a directory by year, this has been on PCs until now.
Then I name a subdirectory with the name of the event, then if I modify any of the images I put those in a further subdirectory and so on.
So for example I may have, on my PC:
C:\photos\2008\Paul's wedding\worked images\printed images\weddingprint1.jpg
And I have photos from about 2003 to 2009 and each year has between 5 and 20 events and all have a folder with "worked" images.
This system is obviously a bit clunky but has worked for me.
So now I am on a MacBook Pro and have copied everything over which as gone without a hitch. I have imported the images into iPhoto and left the original copies on the MacBook Pro HD.
I like the directory structure that I use and want to keep it because it fits with previous backups, I can navigate if I share the drive over a network and so on.
However iPhoto copies the photos into its own structure, it organises everything by year as I do, but then if you look in terminal there is only one level of subdirectory. So I have, for example
my-macbook-pro:2009:worked_1
my-macbook-pro:2009:worked_2
my-macbook-pro:2009:worked_3
With no idea which each refers to unless I go into iPhoto.
This is a pain in the neck for wanting to move the photos at a later date.
So I am currently keeping all the photos in my original structure and letting iPhoto keep its own. This doubles the amount of disk space needed.
So, that was a bit of a long story.
Here are the two questions.
1. Is there a way to get iPhoto to work with my directory structure?
2. Is there any way to get iPhoto to "watch" a directory, day one called "digital photos" and all its subdirectories and add any new photos to the iPhoto library. Picassa on the PC does this. It means that all I have to do is copy photos from my camera and iPhoto will automatically update.

Answer 1

Terence Devlin wrote:
However, there are a number of potential pitfalls using this system.
1. Import and deleting pics are more complex procedures
I am not sure how it is more complex. Granted, importing from your camera to iPhoto directly is a "one step" process, but dragging and dropping your photos from your desktop (or a folder) into iPhoto after importing them from the camera is not what I would call complex.
Deleting seems straight forward as well. Pick the photo in iPhoto and delete it. However, my situation is probably different than most people. Since I don't use iPhoto as my main organization and storage for my photos, anything I add to iPhoto are what is left after I have already sorted and erased the bad ones out of my camera. I don't usually have a need to remove much from iPhoto.
Terence Devlin wrote:
2. You cannot move or rename the files on your system or iPhoto will lose track of them on systems prior to 10.5 and iPhoto 08. Even with the later versions issues can still arise if you move the referenced files to new volumes or between volumes.
I never used iPhoto much on previous versions because I hated the way it organized stuff and didn't like that you HAD to copy your stuff to the iPhoto library files. I recently upgraded to my OS 10.5 iMac from my old OS 10.4 eMac and decided to play with iPhoto again. When I discovered I could use it with my EXISTING library folder structure without having to copy everything into iPhoto, I have been using it more these past couple weeks that I had the past five years of having a version of iPhoto available to me.
Terence Devlin wrote:
3. Most importantly, migrating to a new disk or computer can be much more complex.
Perhaps.
Terence Devlin wrote:
Always allowing for personal preference, I've yet to see a good reason to run iPhoto in referenced mode unless you're using two photo organisers.
Well I think there is the big difference between us. It sounds like you use iPhoto as your primary photo tool for importing and organizing your library. I do mine manually and use iPhoto as an accessory for other secondary stuff so I don't depend on iPhoto to be able to find stuff or when moving from one system (new computer, new hard drive, new operating system, etc.) to another.
Terence Devlin wrote:
Remember that it you edit the pics via iPhoto (either with iPhoto itself or with another editor) it will store the edited version within the Library Package. And if you edit the pics via any other method the edits will not be available in iPhoto.
Yep, that I am aware of. My personal preference is to NEVER alter the original files from my cameras at all. Always work on copies. So I do find iPhoto fun to make quick edits to photos I add to it like cropping knowing that I am not actually altering the original in any way.
Likewise, if I do any editing outside of iPhoto it will again be on a copy for a specific reason, so I won't need those edits to be back flushed into iPhoto. If I do I will just add the new edited version back to iPhoto.
Of course shouldn't we really be more concerned with the secret government agencies tracking our photos via the face identification feature of iPhoto? {reference to another user's post in a different thread Terence and I both commented on}
Cheers,
Patrick