[Appleman]

I really would like to know how iPhoto works concerning the way it works with the data and albums.

When you delete everything related with iPhoto, install it again (f.i. from iDisk), it makes these:

in User/Pictures it creates the folder "iPhoto Library". In here it creates a folder "Albums" and a file "Library.cache".

In "Albums" there are 3 files
"Last Import"
"Pending Rotation"
"Photo Library".

Since I have had problems with iPhoto as described in this thread and in this thread I decided to install iPhoto again and then copy all the albums back into the Albums folder.
But since this seems to be registred bby iPhoto, when you copy it with the Finder, iPhoto simply doesn't show you the copied albums / pics.

It's really frustrating, and there should be a way to get this done, but how?

So if anyone could be able to explain me how it works, I might get it right.

The frustration lies in the fact that it seems as certain prefs are not within prefs and libraries, but within the folder itself, which is kind of strange to me.
Thanks.

[Bobby]

This is a guess as your description isn't 100% clear to me. But it looks like you are saying you deleted your photo album and now want to copy the contents of your old iPhoto Library folder in to the new one.

If this is correct, the best way you have to do it is to drag the old iPhoto Library folder in to iPhoto itself. Thought you will most likely want to do a search to remove some of the folders that are there. Mainly "Thumbnails" folders, also possibly original items folders (I don't remember what they are called). You should be able to find these by doing a find in the specific folder. As it stands when you add photos to iPhoto, it copies the image to the iPhoto Library folder then adds the file name to some kind of cache list or something of the sort... Unless you can find a program to re-build these outside of iPhoto (and I somewhat doubt this program exists), then there is no overly simplistic way to go about it...

[Appleman]

Problem is that my iPhoto Folder seems to be corrupt: Last imported images from camera don't stay in iPhoto (they do in the folder itself in the Finder), and when importing files in iPhoto it crashes, always.

Since this problem seems to lie in the iPhoto Folder itself, deleting all the prefs is no solution.

Installing iPhoto again neither, when after that you want to have the original albums again.

What should work is start from a brand new iPhoto install and then import all pictures manually, but that takes days...