One of the things I disliked about iPhoto in the past is that it was a bit of a pain to backup your carefully organized photo libraries from the Finder. But there is a simple solution if you’re running older versions of iPhoto. You can backup individual libraries in iPhoto simply by selecting the library or film roll you want in iPhoto and going to File>Export and select a folder (or create a new one) to place a copy of the photos into for backup purposes. This folder can reside on the main drive, an external drive or server. Thankfully, with version 6 of iPhoto, Apple has made it easier to make sensible backups via the Finder. First, visit your ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library folder. Inside that folder you will likely find a few folders worth noting titled “Originals” and “Modified.” These folders contain more folders which are named according to the film roll name in iPhoto. This makes it very easy to find the specific photos you wish to backup. Obviously, the modified folder contains copies of the images you have modified through iPhoto’s built-in tools or through an external editor.
