organizing photo folders

[lesemajesty]

i've had my ibook for almost a year and i am very pleased with my switch to mac, in fact i cant remember the last time i was actually frustrated working on a computer, except for at work when i use a PC. but i have a newbie question, how do i organize my photos. I can organize them in iphoto but when i go to my HD and navigate my photos folder all the pictures are in various folder with no rythme or reason behind them. How do i fix this? can i delete all those because they already exist in iphoto? i apologize if this has been posted, i searched and couldn't find anything. if there, can someone lead me to it.

thanks i appreciate any help.

 

[decksnap]

No- those are the photos being referenced by iPhoto. If you use iPhoto, it's iPhoto or nothing as far as browsing. It wants to control folder organization in it's own may (day>month>year>' or whatever. This is why nobody I know uses iPhoto. Apple, are you listening?

 

[wwooden]

iPhoto is really a photo organizing program. If you need to find a photo, look it up on iPhoto. If you want to use it in another program, you can either choose to have the edit mode be some other program or drag a copy of the photo to the desktop or to the other program. Once you start excepting iPhoto as the way to get to your photos, it's not that bad.

 

[lesemajesty]

thanks for the help. i guess i dont really need to navigate throught those folder. I just bothers me that they are jumbled in various photos.

 

[decksnap]

iPhoto is really a photo organizing program. If you need to find a photo, look it up on iPhoto. If you want to use it in another program, you can either choose to have the edit mode be some other program or drag a copy of the photo to the desktop or to the other program. Once you start excepting iPhoto as the way to get to your photos, it's not that bad.

Yes, well, iTunes is an organizing program too, but you don't have the same problems there because it lets you organize the source files how you want.

If iPhoto really wants to be your only access to photos, it has a ways to go. You can't even rename photos in iPhoto.

 

[lesemajesty]

that cant be true. i rename files all the time.

 

[Toeside]

There really is both rhyme and reason to how iPhoto organizes images.

You'll find the folder structure where the pictures reside orgainzed by year\month\date they were taken. Then you'll find the album folder structure that has aliases to the path of the actual file.

Wanna find your picture? Just use finder to get to the album folder, find the album name, then the alias to the picture.

 

[lesemajesty]

thanks, i didn't notice that. Overall iphoto has been wonderous to work with for organizing my pics. it's simple and the user-interface is great. i guess iwas just bothered by the folder set-up.

also, should i bother organizing these my own way or is there really no need for that?

 

[Toeside]

thanks, i didn't notice that. Overall iphoto has been wonderous to work with for organizing my pics. it's simple and the user-interface is great. i guess iwas just bothered by the folder set-up.

also, should i bother organizing these my own way or is there really no need for that?

Organize all you want within iPhoto, but don't manipulate the folder structure manually. You'll mess up your iPhoto database.

 

[kgarner]

Just use iPhoto (or Spotlight) to find pictures and drag them to the desktop or folder you want them in. It is MUCH faster than hunting through a folder hierarchy (even one you create for yourself). I just don't understand some people's obsession with controlling the folder heirarchy of iTunes and iPhoto. I haven't gone looking through those in years and can't say I miss it much.

 

[decksnap]

that cant be true. i rename files all the time.

Not in iPhoto you don't. You can change 'titles', but you can't change the original file name. So when you, for instance, drag an image out of iPhoto, it'll be called 'P0340987054.jpg' instead of the title you gave it. You have to 'export' files in order to rename images with the titles. Making drag and drop useless in that respect.

Some of us use multiple programs to manipulate and edit photographs, and have many destinations and uses for these files. Using a program to organize your images that doesn't let you even rename the files isn't really possible for me.

The hierarchy has rhyme and reason, but it's useless to browse through. My whole point is that if iTunes allows you to rename source files, and allows you to organize the source however you want, why can't iPhoto?

 

[Applespider]

I haven't gone looking through those in years and can't say I miss it much.

It drove me batty pre-Tiger when I decided I wanted to attach an image to an email that I'd already written and iPhoto wasn't open. Now that Spotlight is built into the Open/Save/Attach dialogues, it does make it easier - except that it doesn't show the darned iPhoto titles!

I've now got used to the idea that iPhoto is just a big well-organised shoebox - and I keep it permanently open (but hidden). If I want to use images for something else, I look for them in iPhoto and then drag them to wherever they're going.

 

[RedTomato]

Can people suggest a better photo organising program for the Mac please?

On my old PC, I used to use ACDSee, in one of its older, faster incarnations, before it got bloated with featuritis. I enjoyed bring able to instantly whizz through a folder in fullscreen slide show mode from the finder.

Now with the powerbook, I've got about 3000 photos (all taken in the last 6 months in iPphoto, and it is taking longer and longer to load

I feel I'm starting to outgrow it, so I'm on the look for something better now.

Especially as it seems difficult to work with photos in external applications and till have iPhoto behave well with the images.

xoxo Tomato