[one09jason]

Am I missing something? The archive feature in iPhoto 2 doesn't seem to make any sense. You can't keep adding photos to your iPhoto library forever. Eventually you'll run out of room - especially if your camera takes large pictures (3-4 MB per photo). Presumably, the whole point of archiving photos is to make room on your hard drive for some new ones.

So... iPhoto makes a nice copy of the photos you select and archives them on a disc. The photos are then available at any time in iPhoto by mounting the disc.

Great. Perfect.

But THEN what? How do you remove from your iPhoto library all the pictures that you just archived to disc? I don't want to make copies of parts of my library. I want to MOVE parts of my library to disc so that I don't have an ever-growing iPhoto library.

Furthermore, there doesn't seem to be any way to simply delete an album of photos. Doing this simply removes the album. To delete the photos in the album, you'd have to go through your library, finding each photo one at a time, and hitting cmd-delete.

Am I missing something, of is iPhoto just that stupid?

[KeyLimePi]

I don't think iPhoto is for you.

iPhoto is a simple app for consumers with simple needs. If you're pics are 3-4MB each then you're moving into the 'prosumer' range. Get Portfolio.

[Vax]

But he is right! There should be an option if you delete an album that you also delete the pictures in the archive. Most of the time I save the albums to disc and then I delete the corresponding film rolls in the archive. Not an easy job cause you have to controll the film rolls before deleting if there are any other photos in it you don't want to delete. An option would be nice here...

[TC]

Not the easiest fix but there is a way to delete all the items in an album:

1. Select all the images in the album you want to delete.
2. Open the keywords panel and assign them a unique keyword (backup for example).
3. Go to the photo library and use the keyword panel to view just the photos in the backup category.
4. Select all the images.
5. Press delete.

Apple should automate this, home users are the people who will have smaller hard disks and be more likely to want to do this kind of archiving. I think deleting an album should ask you if you want to delete the images associated with it, with lots of warnings that it can't be undone.

[one09jason]

TC,

Good man. That's a good suggestion that I hadn't thought of. I find it so hard to believe that Apple actually designed the application this way. Leave it to you guys to think of a clever work-around.

[Vax]

Oh, yes, TC, very good idea!

Thank you for it. But yes apple should implement something like that...

[kman42]

On a related note, does iPhoto really not store the film roll structure when burning them to CD? I tried this once by selecting a bunch of film rolls and burning and I just ended up with a CD containing 427 photos, but no organization. I thought the film rolls would show up from the CD just like if I select my 'real' library.

Did I do something wrong or is this how iPhoto archives things? I think I've seen a screenshot of Albums showing up under the CD, but not film rolls. I just assumed it would work in an analogous way.

kman

[wreising]

There is a simple and important reason that you can't delete photos from the iPhoto library from an album.

My Mom and my girlfriend would have deleted all their photos by accident by now.

It is very easy to explain to people that as long as they don't delete photos from the "Library" they will always be there. It works the same way as iTunes so people understand it quickly and feel comfortable using it.

I think that Apple has done a great job of packing a lot of features into a package that people immediatly feel comfortable with, enjoy using and don't have to call me everytime they want to try something new

Bill Reising

[Sal]

Why not use the AppleScript support in iPhoto to do the work for you?

Use this script very carefully as its actions cannot be undone. (Replace the name encasing question marks with curly quotes.)


tell application "iPhoto"
activate
try
set the album_list to the name of every album
set this_ablum to (choose from list album_list with prompt "Pick the album to delete:") as string
if this_ablum is "false" then error number -128
display dialog "Are you sure you want to delete album ?" & ¬
this_ablum & "? and its contents?" & ¬
return & return & ¬
"This action cannot be undone." buttons {"Delete", "Stop"} default button 2 with icon 2
if the button returned of the result is "Stop" then error number -128
set the photo_count to the count of photos of album this_ablum
if the photo_count is 0 then error "The chosen album contains no photos."
with timeout of 1800 seconds
repeat with i from the photo_count to 1 by -1
add photo i of album this_ablum to trash album
end repeat
empty trash
remove album this_ablum
end timeout
display dialog "The album ?" & this_ablum & "? has been deleted." buttons {"OK"} default button 1
on error the error_message number the error_number
if the error_number is not -128 then
display dialog the error_message buttons {"Cancel"} default button 1
end if
end try
end tell


[edit: added the query and proper repeat structures]

[KeyLimePi]

wreising is spot on. Apple knows that people who aren't good with computers will accidentally erase photos if it is too easy. But, people who are good with computers will find a simple work-around, like the ones mentioned here. (Or they will stick a crowbar in their wallets and shell out for a full-featured program, instead of complaining about something that didn't cost them a cent.)

[one09jason]

Bill,

I have to admit that I agree with you. But not entirely.

If you are not meant to ever delete photos from your library, then why even bother to include a feature that is called "archive"? iPhoto 1 was perfectly capable of creating copies of groups of photos. I don't see what the advantage is to having a "burn" button other than to save a few clicks.

No, I think that Apple purposely called this feature "archive" and not "copy" because a strong complaint of the origonal iPhoto was that it's not really a digital "shoebox" because what happens when the shoebox gets full? (in real life you can always get another shoebox) Not to mention that iPhoto becomes practically unusable the as the library gets very large - which of course it always will because you don't stop taking pictures. I think this so called "archive" feature was meant to assuage those critics, but instead it's half-finished. What were your first thoughts when you saw/read that iPhoto 2 could "archive" photos?

[Xeo]

Apple could easily solve this by putting a checkbox near the burn button that says "Delete photos from Library after Archiving." That would make clear the distinction between "archiving" and "backup." If it were supposed to be a backup feature, it would say backup and would obviously not delete from your Library. If it says archive (which it does) then it should, at least, have the option to delete from the Library.

It could even be unchecked by default so you are forced to read the text and decide whether to check the box. Simple enough for newbies but powerful enough for pros.

[one09jason]

Originally posted by KeyLimePi: (Or they will stick a crowbar in their wallets and shell out for a full-featured program, instead of complaining about something that didn't cost them a cent.) [/B]

Now wait a minute, this isn't about money. iView, Protfolio and the others are great and even affordable. But I WANT to use iPhoto2 because of the terrific integration with iMovie, etc. No amount of money can buy you that in another application. I'm "complaining" because I don't want Apple to give me a reason to use another App. iPhoto is so close. How hard would it have been? How about a preference that is off by default that deletes original photos after archiving. One that complains louldy with warnings when checked. That would have been easy, and safe for novice users.

You get the feeling that Apple responds to user requests, but doesn't anticipate them. Anyone who has used iPhoto knows that the biggest problem with it is that it works well at first, but quickly becomes sluggish and difficult to work as the library grows. I just don't understand why Apple didn't try to fix this totally obvious problem of the ever-growing library.

By the way, in iTunes this is not as much a problem because .mp3s are smaller then the files output by many digital cameras, and because iTunes doesn't behave badly just because you have a lot of songs in your library.

Also, i've got a new PowerBook here. I can only imagine how frustrating iPhoto is on an older Mac.

[one09jason]

Xeo,

looks like we were posting with the same suggestion at the same time. Actually I think it's very telling that the solution is so obvious, and yet Apple didn't do it. They design great software at Apple, but I don't think they use (not test, use) it much before releasing it.

[kman42]

Originally posted by kman42:
On a related note, does iPhoto really not store the film roll structure when burning them to CD? I tried this once by selecting a bunch of film rolls and burning and I just ended up with a CD containing 427 photos, but no organization. I thought the film rolls would show up from the CD just like if I select my 'real' library.

Did I do something wrong or is this how iPhoto archives things? I think I've seen a screenshot of Albums showing up under the CD, but not film rolls. I just assumed it would work in an analogous way.

kman

Does anyone know anything about this?

[TC]

Originally posted by kman42:
Does anyone know anything about this?

According to this page, yes:
http://www.apple.com/iphoto/organize.html

Maybe you have to burn the entire Photo Library to get this or select multiple albums? The iPhoto help doesn't give much info.

[kman42]

Originally posted by TC:
According to this page, yes:
http://www.apple.com/iphoto/organize.html

Maybe you have to burn the entire Photo Library to get this or select multiple albums? The iPhoto help doesn't give much info.

Thanks for the link. It didn't work for me. I selected about 10 film rolls and hit burn. It burned all of the photos, but when I insert the disc it doesn't show any signs of knowing about the film rolls. It just shows all of the photos lumped together.

Has anyone else tried this with more success?

kman

[Toyin]

Originally posted by wreising:
It is very easy to explain to people that as long as they don't delete photos from the "Library" they will always be there. It works the same way as iTunes so people understand it quickly and feel comfortable using it.

A simple solution to prevent accidently deleting files.

[Dale Sorel]

OK, here's what I do: pick through your iPhoto library folder and group the pictures you want to keep into separate folders. Then remove/delete your original iPhoto folder. Fire up iPhoto, and it will ask you if you want to create a new iPhoto Library folder. Click yes, and iPhoto will tell you you have no photos. Now drag one of your picture folders onto the iPhoto window, and all your pics will import. Quit iPhoto, and again move the iPhoto Library folder. Do this for each folder you grouped your pictures into. Then use iPhoto Library Manager to switch between archives.

Works for me

[Jordan]

Originally posted by Xeo:
Apple could easily solve this by putting a checkbox near the burn button that says "Delete photos from Library after Archiving." That would make clear the distinction between "archiving" and "backup." If it were supposed to be a backup feature, it would say backup and would obviously not delete from your Library. If it says archive (which it does) then it should, at least, have the option to delete from the Library.

It could even be unchecked by default so you are forced to read the text and decide whether to check the box. Simple enough for newbies but powerful enough for pros.

Perhaps I'm missing something but I saw a totally different need for the archive. Now that we are putting all these precious memories on our hard drives, a crash becomes all the more painful. I know this as I had to recover a mates Mac that crashed after a faulty Jaguar disc from Apple.

He was devasted that all of the photos he had of his baby might have been gone. I took the archive option as being a safety mechanism in case the worst happened. More like a back up then anything else.

To delete photos when albums are deleted raises the question of what do you do with photos that are in multiple albums. (Just delete those that are exclusively in one album???)

All that aside, I really do wish Apple had addressed the speed problem. I don't want to shrink my library. However, at 4,500 photos and growing, iPhoto is becoming unusable. The hardware is fast enough to generate previews on the fly. At least I think that is what is making it take so long to start up and navigate....

[TC]

Originally posted by Jordan:
Perhaps I'm missing something but I saw a totally different need for the archive. Now that we are putting all these precious memories on our hard drives, a crash becomes all the more painful. I know this as I had to recover a mates Mac that crashed after a faulty Jaguar disc from Apple.

As already mentioned here what Apple is offering is backup not archive. Archiving involves storing your images away on a CD (or DVD) and deleting them from your machine. What iPhoto does right now is Backup, creates a copy of the selected images on a CD + leaves them on your computer.

The whole point of this topic is to work out how people can do archiving.

[KeyLimePi]

Okay we're kind of splitting hairs here on symantics. Archive is pretty much synonymous with back-up, but I see your point.

iPhoto does give you the choice of removing files from your camera after copying them to the computer, so yes maybe it would be nice if it gave you the same options when 'archiving.'

I still think it is a good thing that Apple makes it a little harder to delete photos. Unlike MP3s, which are easily replacable, images are usually one-time things. You can't recreate them when they're gone.

It's fine to discuss features that we'd like to see in future versions, but let's remember what iPhoto is: a free app that does a few things well. It doesn't do everything.

[Britney F.]

Furthermore, there doesn't seem to be any way to simply delete an album of photos. Doing this simply removes the album. To delete the photos in the album, you'd have to go through your library, finding each photo one at a time, and hitting cmd-delete.

I think that the last script on this page does what you are looking for.

Britney

[Dale Sorel]

Originally posted by Britney F.:
I think that the last script on this page does what you are looking for.

Thanks for the link to all the cool iPhoto scripts

[adamengst]

Originally posted by kman42:
Thanks for the link. It didn't work for me. I selected about 10 film rolls and hit burn. It burned all of the photos, but when I insert the disc it doesn't show any signs of knowing about the film rolls. It just shows all of the photos lumped together.

I've played a little bit with this so far. If you select your iPhoto Library or images within it and burn, you'll get just the images on the CD, with no film rolls or albums (remember, film rolls appear ONLY within the main Photo Library album). If, on the other hand, you select specific albums and burn, you'll get those albums retained on the CD.

In either case, keywords and titles stick around.

cheers... -Adam

[crayz]

4MB images? Dude, thats like 12 megapixel with low JPEG compression, from my calculations. What in the hell are you doing using iPhoto with a 12 megapixel camera?

edit: also, "archiving" to a CD doesn't seem like the greatest idea. I know I've had CDs I've burned in the past, and I go back to them a year later and surprise, they don't work.

I wouldn't trust my digital photos to a CD-R. Backup, and keep them on the HD as well.

If you can afford a $2000 camera that is taking these 4MB images, you can afford $100 for a 160GB HD that will hold 40,000 of them.

[Sal]

Originally posted by Britney F.:
I think that the last script on this page does what you are looking for.

Britney

Thanks to all for the great feedback!

I made an adjustment to the script so that it moves all the images in the chosen album to the trash, deletes the album itself, and then prompts the user to complete the removal of the images by choosing "Empty Trash" from the iPhoto File menu.

(As before, replace the encasing ?-marks with curly quotes)


tell application "iPhoto"
activate
try
set the album_list to the name of every album
set this_ablum to ¬
(choose from list album_list with prompt "Pick the album to delete:") as string
if this_ablum is "false" then error number -128
display dialog "Are you sure you want to delete album ?" & ¬
this_ablum & "? and its contents?" & return & return & ¬
"This action cannot be undone." buttons {"Delete", "Stop"} default button 2 with icon 2
if the button returned of the result is "Stop" then error number -128
set the photo_count to the count of photos of album this_ablum
if the photo_count is 0 then error "The chosen album contains no photos."
with timeout of 1800 seconds
repeat with i from the photo_count to 1 by -1
add photo i of album this_ablum to trash album
end repeat
remove album this_ablum
end timeout
display dialog "The album ?" & this_ablum & ¬
"? has been deleted and its contents moved to the trash." & return & return & ¬
"Choose ?Empty Trash? from the iPhoto File menu " & ¬
"to delete the images." buttons {"OK"} default button 1
on error the error_message number the error_number
if the error_number is not -128 then
display dialog the error_message buttons {"Cancel"} default button 1
end if
end try
end tell

[scottiB]

Sal,

[Gee4orce]

Originally posted by adamengst:
I've played a little bit with this so far. If you select your iPhoto Library or images within it and burn, you'll get just the images on the CD, with no film rolls or albums (remember, film rolls appear ONLY within the main Photo Library album). If, on the other hand, you select specific albums and burn, you'll get those albums retained on the CD.

In either case, keywords and titles stick around.

cheers... -Adam

Nope - Albums are preserved if you burn the whole library at once. FWIW the disks produced are also readable on a PC - although it would be nice if there were some HTML index pages produced too, to make it easier for PC folks to browse your photo collection.

[Britney F.]

Sal,

That is great! Sorry, I didn't realize that was your script I linked to that you had posted earlier in this thread.

I have been thinking through this archiving photos thing and was thinking that I would like to be able to find all of my photos that are not currently in a album. I don't think that iPhoto does this currently but I think that an script would be exactly what the doctor ordered. Time for me to learn a little more about Applescript!

Britney

[Sal]

Originally posted by Britney F.:
Sal,
I have been thinking through this archiving photos thing and was thinking that I would like to be able to find all of my photos that are not currently in a album. I don't think that iPhoto does this currently but I think that an script would be exactly what the doctor ordered. Time for me to learn a little more about Applescript!

Britney

Intersting idea and it can be done! The current structure of the iPhoto scripting terminology will make it possible through the use of "nested repeats". The script may take a minute or two to run, but it does work!


tell application "iPhoto"
set the ID_list to the id of every photo of every album
set the album_count to the count of the ID_list
set the unmatched_imageIDs to {}
with timeout of 600 seconds
repeat with i from 1 to the count of photos
set this_ID to the id of photo i
set the add_flag to true
repeat with q from 1 to the album_count
set these_IDs to item q of the ID_list
if these_IDs contains this_ID then
set the add_flag to false
exit repeat
end if
end repeat
if the add_flag is true then
set the end of the unmatched_imageIDs to this_ID
end if
end repeat
end timeout
end tell
return the unmatched_imageIDs


The question then is: what do you want to do with the images once you've located them?

[kman42]

Originally posted by Gee4orce:
Nope - Albums are preserved if you burn the whole library at once. FWIW the disks produced are also readable on a PC - although it would be nice if there were some HTML index pages produced too, to make it easier for PC folks to browse your photo collection.

This seems to be a confusing issue: the Apple web site reports that you can maintain photo albums AND film rolls when burning CDs; I didn't get either when selecting film rolls and burning; someone above reported selecting ALBUMS and maintaining albums, but not film rolls; and now you are reporting selecting the whole library and having it maintain albums.

Just so someone doesn't have to spend the time or the money (okay, it would only cost about a dollar) to try all of the possibilities, could people please post their results including ALL of the following information:

1) What was your input to the burn?
a) the whole library
b) selected albums
c) selected film rolls
d) selected photos

2) What was the output of the burn?
a) just a collection of photos
b) albums were maintained
c) film rolls were maintained
d) film rolls and albums were maintained

Here's my report:
Input: selected film rolls
Output: just a collection of photos with no albums or film rolls maintained.

thanks,
kman

[mbryda]

Originally posted by crayz:
[B]4MB images? Dude, thats like 12 megapixel with low JPEG compression, from my calculations. What in the hell are you doing using iPhoto with a 12 megapixel camera?

Not necessarily. My Minolta D7 (5.2MP) takes between 1.5-3MB JPEG's on high quality with full resolution, depending on the complexity of the subject. I'd imagine if you had one of the 6MP Fujis you could get close to 4MB. If you shoot TIFFs it's even worse at something like 11MB per TIFF...

[Britney F.]

Originally posted by Sal:
The question then is: what do you want to do with the images once you've located them?

I was thinking that I would want the pictures not in an album to be placed in a album so that I could then move them to an appropiate album. So maybe the script could create an album named "Photos not in Albums" (or something like that) and place all the photos that were found in there.

What do you think?

Britney

[Sal]

Originally posted by Britney F.:
I was thinking that I would want the pictures not in an album to be placed in a album so that I could then move them to an appropiate album. So maybe the script could create an album named "Photos not in Albums" (or something like that) and place all the photos that were found in there.

What do you think?

Britney

Here ya go! This script will create an album named "Unassigned", locate all images that don't belong to an album, and move them to the "Unassigned" album. It will take a while to run but will post an auto-closing progress dialog every 100 images processed.

Enjoy!

(BTW, I'll post this one on the website this week as well.)

tell application "iPhoto"
activate
set the photo_count to the count of photos
display dialog "Do you want to locate all the unassigned images in this library of " & (photo_count as string) & " images?" & return & return & "The scanning process make take some time."
if not (exists album "Unassigned") then
set the ID_list to the id of every photo of every album
new album name "Unassigned"
else
display dialog "An album named ?Unassigned? already exists and will have to be renamed or removed before running this script." & return & return & "Should this script remove this album for you? No images will be deleted." buttons {"Remove", "Cancel"} default button 2
select photo library album
delay 1
remove album "Unassigned"
delay 1
set the ID_list to the id of every photo of every album
new album name "Unassigned"
end if
select album "Unassigned"
set the list_count to the count of the ID_list
with timeout of 3600 seconds
set the image_count to 0
repeat with i from 1 to the photo_count
if i mod 100 is 0 then
display dialog "Processing image " & (i as string) & " of " & (photo_count as string) & "." buttons {"Cancel", "?"} default button 2 giving up after 2
end if
set this_photo to photo i
set this_ID to the id of this_photo --photo i
set the add_flag to true
repeat with q from 1 to the list_count
set these_IDs to item q of the ID_list
if these_IDs contains this_ID then
set the add_flag to false
exit repeat
end if
end repeat
if the add_flag is true then
add this_photo to album "Unassigned"
set the image_count to the image_count + 1
end if
end repeat
end timeout
display dialog "Scanning completed." & return & return & (image_count as string) & " unassigned images were located." buttons {"OK"} default button 1
end tell

[Britney F.]

Orginally posted by Sal:
Here ya go! This script will create an album named "Unassigned", locate all images that don't belong to an album, and move them to the "Unassigned" album. It will take a while to run but will post an auto-closing progress dialog every 100 images processed.

Sal, thank you very much! This will be very helpful in organizing my iPhoto library.

Originally posted by Gee4orce:
Nope - Albums are preserved if you burn the whole library at once.

Yes, they are preserved but you aren't able to just drag and drop the album to your library to copy it. I am not sure what the logic is to put this limitation but it is a pain. So to copy the album and its' pictures on the CD/DVD to my library I have to add an album to my library named the same as the backed up album on the CD/DVD and then copy the pictures from the CD/DVD album to the album in my library. Maybe the power of Applescript could help in this situation too?

Britney

[Sal]

Originally posted by Britney F.:
Sal, thank you very much! This will be very helpful in organizing my iPhoto library.

Britney

Here's another script that might be useful. It displays the images from the last import, one-at-a-time, and prompts for the keywords to assign to the displayed image. Hold down the Command key to select multiple keywords.

Enjoy!

try
tell application "iPhoto"
activate
set the view to organize
select photo library album
set the photo_list to photos of last import album
set these_keywords to the name of every keyword whose name is not "_Favorite_"
set the beginning of these_keywords to "Skip this image"
select ""
repeat with i from 1 to the count of the photo_list
set this_photo to item i of the photo_list
set the assigned_keywords to the name of keywords of this_photo
select ""
select {this_photo}
set the view to edit
delay 1
set the chosen_keywords to (choose from list these_keywords with prompt "Pick the keyword(s) for this image (Cmd-select for multiple):" default items assigned_keywords with multiple selections allowed)
if the chosen_keywords is false then
set the view to organize
error number -128
else if the chosen_keywords contains "Skip this image" then
-- do nothing
else if the chosen_keywords contains "None" then
repeat with q from 1 to the count of the the assigned_keywords
set this_keyword to item q of the assigned_keywords
remove keyword this_keyword from this_photo
end repeat
else
repeat with q from 1 to the count of the the chosen_keywords
set this_keyword to item q of the chosen_keywords
assign keyword string this_keyword
end repeat
end if
delay 1
set the view to organize
end repeat
set the view to organize
end tell
on error error_message number error_number
tell application "iPhoto"
activate
if the error_number is not -128 then
display dialog error_message buttons {"OK"} default button 1
end if
end tell
end try