Peter Nixey talks about 5 things that would make managing photos better in the Apple ecosystem. I agree with all five points.
Tagged: iPhoto
Moving photos from one Event to another in Apple iPhoto
Organizing imported photos from your iPad or iPhone in iPhoto can be a real pain in the ass sometimes. In particular, I often find that I want to move photos from one event to another. It’s not obvious that there is a simple and safe way to do this, but there is.
Simply Flag the photo(s) you want to move. You can do this by clicking the little Flag icon when hovering over the photo, selecting the photo you want and using the Photos > Flag Photo menu command, or using Command + . (period) shortcut.
Once you have all the images you want to move Flagged, just click on the Event you want to move them into and go back up to the menubar and choose Events > Add Flagged Photos To Selected Event. Or if you want to create a new Event to place your Flagged photos in, choose Events > Create Event From Flagged Photos.
Once you’re all finished moving your photos, you can unflag them by selecting them and hitting Command + . again.
I’ve always just used Command + X and Command + V to cut & paste photos from one Event to another, but this method seems a bit safer if iPhoto crashes before you paste.
Thanks to MacObserver for this tip.
How to merge multiple iPhoto libraries
I’ve been asked a few times over the years if it was possible to merge multiple iPhoto library files into one large library. The answer is yes, but it’ll cost a few bucks.
iPhoto Library Manager is a handy tool for anyone who has large iPhoto collections
iPhoto Library Manager ($19.95) lets you easily create and keep track of multiple iPhoto libraries, but that’s only the beginning. It also has the ability to copy your photos from one library to another, while keeping track of photo metadata that is normally lost when exporting from one library and importing into another.
You could split or merge library files manually, but that could result in a lot of time spent dragging out and re-importing a lot of photos – and it doesn’t guarantee all your meta-data will make the trip. If you take a lot of photos, and you use iPhoto to manage them, iPhoto Library Manager will make organizing and backing up those precious photos much easier.
Access your iPhoto collection in an application’s Place or Open dialog box
When Leopard was released, a little-hyped feature was the ability to access your iPhoto, iMovie and iTunes assets from within virtually any application’s Open, Insert or Place dialog box.
Because it’s a feature you don’t use every day, it’s easy to overlook it – but it can save so much time that I’m surprised I don’t hear or see more people using it. Previous to Leopard, you could use Karelia’s free iMedia Browser to get the feature in Mac OS X Tiger (10.5) or Leopard – including any application that doesn’t support Apple’s built-in method. But in my day-to-day work, I’ve yet to come across an app I need it for that the built-in method doesn’t work in.
You simply need to click on the appropriate Media icon in the left-side source list of an Open, Place or Insert dialog box. The appropriate database will appear at the top of the window allowing you to access your library of assets, and offer previews of your assets below it. In the case of the screenshot above, I’m accessing a specific collection of images in my main iPhoto library from within Photoshop. No need to open iPhoto and drag the image to the desktop before opening it in Photoshop. The same method will work for bringing iMovies into Final Cut or your favorite video editing apps, etc.
You can still use Karelia’s iMedia Browser if you come across an app that Apple’s built-in method doesn’t work with. The nice thing about it is that it’s a stand-alone app that you can keep open and drag images out of whenever you wish.
View your iPhoto library on a 3D wall
iPhoto is perfectly capable of displaying your photos as a slideshow or one at a time. But you’re limited to a flat display that doesn’t exactly “wow” anyone. With one simple download, you can view your iPhoto collection on a visually stunning 3D wall, right in your web browser. In my mini-review at The Apple Blog, I show you how you can avoid launching iPhoto to view your photos, including events, albums and the full collection using Cooliris, a plugin for Safari and Firefox. This is one of those plugins that is so utterly sexy, you can’t help but install it, even if you only use it once in a great while.
Switching between multiple libraries in iPhoto
You may have known that you can create and maintain multiple iPhoto libraries by holding down the Option key when clicking the iPhoto icon in the Dock. This is a useful feature for those who have large collections of photos. In the past, you had to hold the Option key down while launching iPhoto in order to access the dialog box which allowed you to choose which library to open. With iPhoto ’09, you can now just double click the iPhoto library in your Pictures folder to access the library you want to work with. Keep in mind that iPhoto will “remember” the last library you had open, so clicking the iPhoto icon without holding the Option key down will open the last library you worked with. Why would you want to create multiple iPhoto libraries? Well, I like to create a new library for each year. Not only does iPhoto load faster, but it makes it much easier to back up each library to DVDs.
Get quick access to your media with iMedia Browser
Do you like the media browser that Apple includes in some of its applications, but wish you could use it from any application? Now you can. Karelia has released iMedia Browser 1.0, a free media browser much like the one you find in Apple’s iWork suite and several other applications that tie-in with iLife apps. iMedia Browser allows quick access to your iPhoto collections, iTunes library, movies and Web links via a small window which you can add to by dragging other folders of media into. While this is nothing really earth-shaking, I like the fact that I have full access to my iPhoto library without actually having to launch iPhoto – which can take some time with thousands of photos in it. iMedia gave me access to all my photos and albums from iPhoto instantly. I simply drag a photo from iMedia Browser to my Photoshop icon to open it, or to an InDesign document to place it. Simple stuff!
Backing up your iPhoto libraries
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.