[mamamia]

Hi all. I have been a mac user for 10 years and was at one point pretty savvy with os 9 (back in college when I had time to use my computer). Now that I have joined the professional work force, I haven't had as much time to use my computer for pleasure as I would like, and have found myself behind the curve when it comes to os x and some of its media apps. specifically, i don't really understand the itunes and iphoto library structure very well. how does os x want me to keep my photos and songs organized? is it okay to have all of them in their respective "pictures" and "music" folders however i feel like it, and then just import them into iphoto or itunes?
it seems to me that will just create an "iphoto library" folders that duplicates all the photos and makes things a mess organizationally. but i don't really undersand how else i'm suppossed to do it.


if someone could provide a primer on how these applications and os x organizes these things,and what best practice is, it would be appreciated.

thanks in advance to the best mac board on the web!

[larkost]

The simple answer is that you are over-thinking it. Give your photos and music to iPhoto and iTunes and let them store them in any structure they want. Treat it like a black box... you shouldn't care about how they are organized.

Then use iPhoto and iTunes to browse. That is what they are there for. If you need to find the file later (to copy it onto anther disk for instance) then there is a "show file" command you can use. With 10.4 reading a lot of the meta-data finding images and songs should be even easier (even without using the proper tools). Don't try and fight the tools.

[Big Mac]

iPhoto's method of file-level organization is a lot uglier than the way it's done by iTunes, but iTunes has richer metadata to work with. If you want to organize your files manually, then you'll need to look beyond iPhoto.

[Mithras]

Originally posted by Big Mac:
iPhoto's method of file-level organization is a lot uglier than the way it's done by iTunes,

People say that, but I don't see anything wrong with (or anything better than) iPhoto's Year/Month/Day structure.

[mamamia]

i think i'm finally coming to grips with this iphoto organization thing, but a new problem has cropped up (pun intended) in iphoto. some of my photos now will not "sharpen" after I open them up. most of them do, but some of them just open pixelated (like they all do) but then never go through that sharpening phase where they snap into full resolution? any idea what the probem might be?

[patman600]

Originally posted by larkost:


Then use iPhoto and iTunes to browse. That is what they are there for. If you need to find the file later (to copy it onto anther disk for instance) then there is a "show file" command you can use. With 10.4 reading a lot of the meta-data finding images and songs should be even easier (even without using the proper tools). Don't try and fight the tools.

don't bother with the show file command, just drag it from iTunes/iPhoto onto your desktop or wherever you want a copy.

[Mr Heliums]

Originally posted by mamamia:
some of them just open pixelated (like they all do) but then never go through that sharpening phase where they snap into full resolution? any idea what the probem might be?

Look at the file size in the bottom left pane. I suspect they're probably thumbnails that can be deleted.