issues with storing photos

[rosiegirl8]

hi,

i'm totally lost about what to do with my photos.

currently, i'm using image capture to upload photos into a photos folder and then drag all the uploaded photos into iphoto. then i would move all the photos from the original upload folder into date specific folders (2008, 200806 (june 08), 060108).

the whole process is arduous and probably unnecessary. i take a ton of photos and videos (about 9K-10K a year) and i like to make sure i have backups. but is this whole process unnecessary? is it taking up extra room on my mac (it's been running slower and slower)?

i'm guessing i have all the photos already in the iphoto library so i figured i could just upload into iphoto directly (although, do i have to upload everything on the memory card every time?!). but i looked at the iphoto library and nothing was organized by date (just by roll) and when i clicked on individual photos, the dates were listed as the upload date, not the date taken.

so the big questions:

what is the best way to organize my photos?
what is the best way to use iphoto?
if i delete the photos i've stored in folders, will my computer run faster? will i still be able to find the photos if they're not in dated folders?

for reference, i have an imac with these specs:

mac OS X 10.4.11
intel core 2 duo
2.16 GHz
1 GB memory

thanks!

[VirtualTracy]

Originally Posted by rosiegirl8

hi,

i'm totally lost about what to do with my photos.

currently, i'm using image capture to upload photos into a photos folder and then drag all the uploaded photos into iphoto. then i would move all the photos from the original upload folder into date specific folders (2008, 200806 (june 08), 060108).

the whole process is arduous and probably unnecessary. i take a ton of photos and videos (about 9K-10K a year) and i like to make sure i have backups. but is this whole process unnecessary? is it taking up extra room on my mac (it's been running slower and slower)?

i'm guessing i have all the photos already in the iphoto library so i figured i could just upload into iphoto directly (although, do i have to upload everything on the memory card every time?!). but i looked at the iphoto library and nothing was organized by date (just by roll) and when i clicked on individual photos, the dates were listed as the upload date, not the date taken.

so the big questions:

what is the best way to organize my photos?
what is the best way to use iphoto?
if i delete the photos i've stored in folders, will my computer run faster? will i still be able to find the photos if they're not in dated folders?

for reference, i have an imac with these specs:

mac OS X 10.4.11
intel core 2 duo
2.16 GHz
1 GB memory

thanks!

What version of iPhoto do you use? iPhoto '08 allows you to choose which photos you want to download and whether or not you want to keep or delete them from your camera. Prior to this I too used Image Capture because it allowed my to pick and choose which shots to download when I hadn't erased the memory card and didn't want to keep on downloading/deleting the same old piccies all the time.

If you have "Copy items to the iPhoto Library" ticked in:

iPhoto Prefs ~> Advanced ~> Importing:

Then there's no real need to have them stored on your HD outside of the iPhoto Library Hierarchy. It's a good idea, however, to back up your photos regularly, just in case.

I am in the middle of scanning my photo collection and have noted that I'll need to go and edit the date of all of them to reflect when they were taken and not when they were imported and I'm not sure of any way around this but iPhoto does allow you to batch edit this info, which is good if not still tiresome.

Whether or not your computer will *run* faster depends, but if you have a duplicate of thousands of pics on your HD, then retrieving that free space has to be a plus.

Re: the iPhoto Library at:

YourUserAccount ~> Pictures ~> iPhoto Library

Whatever you do, don't mess about in there like re-organise anything, as you can really stuff things up big time with iPhoto and you wouldn't want to do that with so many valuable pictures ..... stick to the main iPhoto interface and let iPhoto the app do the rest ... and back up

I suggest you read the iPhoto Help file for a bit and have a look at what options there are for organising your collection and if you don't have iLife '08 you should seriously consider it if not for the option to import only the piccies you choose at any one time ... oh, and the Events feature is cool too!