[meowington]

hi! i have had my macbook for several months and am new to macs. i have noticed that my iphoto has been harder to use than other people make it seem and i noticed that when you go to the "finder" box, while the things like "desktop", "applications", "documents", "movies" and "music" are all there, the "pictures" icon is missing. i know it used to be there and now when i save pictures, i have to save them to a roll instead of straight to iphoto. i know i am probably not making much sense, but i think i may have deleted a part of iphoto which has made my photo organizing and finding difficult. is it possible that i deleted something but still have the iphoto application? if so, how do i fix it? thank you!

[zro]

iPhoto is for finding and organizing photos. Do yourself a favor and do not try to use iPhoto and the Finder together.

A Finder window is what I am assuming you mean by 'the "finder" box.' You can drag any item into and out of the lower portion of the sidebar (on the left-hand side of a Finder window). Navigate to your user folder and drag the Pictures folder inside of it onto the sidebar.

"Rolls" is a view option in iPhoto. Look in the View menu in iPhoto to select the view and sorting options you want to use. I'm not at all sure what you mean by your having to save photos to a roll and not directly into iPhoto. Are you using Image Capture (included with Mac OS X) or some other software that came with your camera to unload the photos?


Also, be sure to have a look at this: Apple - Support - Mac 101 - All Work and Play

And every Apple application has a decent set of help documents that can point new (and sometimes veteran) users to exactly what they're looking for. It's in the menu item labeled "Help."

[meowington]

thank you! i apologize for being a rube regarding this topic. i just had noticed that "pictures" was no longer on the sidebar and flipped out. i thought i'd deleted something important and will have to do some reading to figure out how to organize all of my photos i've saved, as they're randomly saved in different places. but i did place the "pictures" onto the sidebar. i'll read through what you suggested and i will get back if i have questions...my big thing is going to be how to somehow organize all of the photos i have...part of me wants to delete them all and start over. it's overwhelming. again, this is probably something very simple to most of you but i simply haven't spent enough time figuring out the best way to do some apps on here. thanks again.

ps--if you or anyone else might know why safari keeps on shutting down unexpectedly (very frustrating when you type out a long email and before you can copy it--which should be unnecessary--it does the beach ball thing and closes), please let me know. i just have a feeling that my mac does not do a lot of things that it should. same thing happens to aol instant messenger. a lot! i have since started using firefox because it will at least bring up what you were working on once you restore your session (and yes, it does quit unexpectedly sometimes too).

[skybolt]

Just do all your organizing from within the iPhoto app, like zro said. Do not go into the finder to do ANYTHING to/with your photos. They will corrupt! Organizing from within iPhoto is actually quite simple. Create folders for main events (Christmas, Birthdays, Vacations, whatever) and then create albums and/or smart albums within those folders (2005, 2006, New York, etc.). Use Keywords and you will be able to find anything you want in a jiffy!

Good luck!

[peeb]

What Skybolt says.
The icons on the side of the finder are not a big deal- removing them does no harm. To replace them, open your 'home' in Finder, find your Pictures folder, and drag it to the place it used to be.
Re your crashes, they are not normal. Have you tried repairing permissions?
As a next step, I would create a new test user account, and see if the problem persists in that. If it does, there is something system-wide wrong with your machine, if not, something in your user account has become corrupted.