Forum Moderators: travelin cat
I have thousands of photos which, after the purchase of my new G5 are now in one massive and unweildly mess!
On my old iMac. I had everything neatly sorted within the programme supplied by the camera manufacturer(s). Now, everything has been imported into iphoto and is a complete mess.
I tried to read about how to sort them but am thoroughly confused with too many choices!
Rolls, Libraries, albums, smart albums, folders and where to put what? I used to have libraries and folders, that was it ... and it worked beautifully!
I would open that library and within it would be a folder for each specific part of the island. Within each specific part of the island would be subfolders for specific events with dates.
In the past, I would go into my application programme, create a library if one didn't already exist or create a folder within a library if one didn't already exist and I would download into the folder I wanted the pictures to go.
So my question is this. I want to create "something" sorted as follows:
Island Name > Part of the Island > Specific event (dated)
Now, I plug in my camera and iphoto automatically downloads the files before I create a library or folder.
Can anyone tell me how to sort these things? Since getting the new computer (which had several bugs to deal with) there are now dozens of "rolls" with literally a couple of thousand photos which need sorting ... plus all my old photos as well! Its a huge mess!
I get the part about "how" to create an album or folder, but I haven't been able to drag a folder and drop it into an album. What am I doing wrong?
Help!
A Roll is an amount of photos imported in one go - it lets you sort your photos in the same way that a photographer might keep his negatives.
you can close the Roll "disclosure triangle" in the library, and rename the roll title, to give you a precis of what's in your library.
A roll is a collection of photos that the Mac brings together for you.
An album is an arbitrary collection of photos that *you* bring together.
Clicking the plus sign at the foot of the first column should let you create and name an album.
Go back to the library and drag photos into the album. Aliases are made - the photos stay put.
The album can then be displayed by clicking on it in the left column, from where you can then set up a slideshow.
A smart album enables you to collect together all the photos that match a certain criterion (like you've given them all 5 stars).
Once you've mastered the above you'll find your collection really easy to manage!
DerekH
So, if I understand you correctly, I can't keep folders of certain events within albums for certain islands and places within a certain island. Is that correct?
Jeeze, with dozens of islands, each having several major places and even more events, this is going to be a real mess! Not the best system I've seen.
If I had a "real" filing cabinet and devoted one drawer per island, I would then have sections of that drawer tabbed for each major part of the island. I would then have separate folders for each event placed within the major sections of each island.
Filing is meant to be easy ... not cumbersome!
Drawer = Island > Section = "Place" Tab> File = Event
Pretty simple stuff!
File > New Folder > Name it "Category"
File > New Folder > Name it "Subcategory"
File > New Album > Name it "Date"
Drag "Subcategory" into "Category" then drag "Date" into "Subcategory"
In my Library, I use View > "Film Rolls" (Film rolls translates to "one per batch download" but, you can drag photos from one roll to another.) and after downloading a new "film roll" to iPhoto I just drag and drop those images into the proper "date" album in the right "Category"/"subcategory" folder.
Pictures can go only go into an album (smart or otherwise), but you can organize albums into nested folders to your heart's content.
