[Dell Switcher]

I have a large group of photos which need to be retained but not stored in iPhoto. How do I remove such groups of photos and store in alternate location on my Mac such as folder in Documents?

Due to the volume of photos, my iPhoto is becoming cumbersome and certain photos are only retained for historical reasons not viewing.

[Maflynn]

iPhoto is designed to contain the photos within its own proprietary database. You'll need to use a different application to do what you're looking for. Apple's Aperture and Adobe Lightroom both offer this type of functionality. Personally I use Aperture and both offer a 30 day download trial.

[fisherKing]

make a folder, name it. drag (from an open iphoto window) the photos you want to move to the new folder.
then delete those photos from iphoto (be sure to empty the iphoto trash...perhaps AFTER confirming those pictures are in your new folder).

place the folder in Documents. repeat as needed!

[Dell Switcher]

Thanks for response but where do you place the "make a folder" originally...in iPhotos or Finder?

[OreoCookie]

You can also download Google's Picasa (make sure to download the Mac version!) which is free.

Roughly speaking, apps like iTunes and iPhoto want to manage the photos for you. They're not lost and you can easily copy and paste them to anywhere else, but this is usually a `change in attitude' for most switchers. Most people using Windows are used to do everything by hand, either because they don't trust the available solution or because they don't have an option.

iPhoto does all the photo management for you and helps you in a lot of ways. I'd give it a longer try before giving up.

[skybolt]

I agree with OreoCookie -- give iPhoto a longer try. You could also create multiple iPhoto libraries (hold down the option key while starting iPhoto and choose to create a new library). That would keep some of the photos out of the way for general viewing.

The "make a folder" suggestion would be to make a folder on your desktop, copy photos to it and then do what you want.

But, please, give iPhoto a better chance. Organizing and maintaining your photos is what it was made to do, and it does it brilliantly if users will let it! If you have specific questions/issues, please post them and let us help you migrate to the easy ways of mac!

[fisherKing]

Originally Posted by Dell Switcher 

Thanks for response but where do you place the "make a folder" originally...in iPhotos or Finder?

as skybolt suggests, make a folder on the desktop (yes, in Finder). if you want organization, any of the programs mentioned above will work...including, of course, iphoto...

if you just want to store them, and keep things simple, a folder will do just fine.

[Spheric Harlot]

iPhoto NO LONGER REQUIRES ALL IMAGES TO BE IN ITS OWN LIBRARY STRUCTURE!

(Sorry, I'm shouting because I couldn't believe it myself)

[JKT]

Originally Posted by Dell Switcher 

Due to the volume of photos, my iPhoto is becoming cumbersome and certain photos are only retained for historical reasons not viewing.

The easiest thing to do would be to use iPhoto to archive them to e.g. DVD if you only need to store them but not view them. From the iPhoto '08 Help:

If you have an Apple-supported CD-RW or DVD-R drive, you can create your own CDs and DVDs to archive your photos. This process is called “burning” because when you write information to a disc (that is, save information on the disc), your drive “burns” the files onto it with a laser.

IMPORTANT: Use the iPhoto burn feature only to archive your photos and albums for viewing in iPhoto. If you want to create a disc to be viewed on a Windows computer or by a photo processing company, you must use the Burn Disc command in the Finder. (See Related Topics below.)

To burn your own CD or DVD:

Select the photo library, albums, or individual photos you want to burn to a disc.

Choose Share > Burn.

Insert a CD-RW disc or a blank CD-R or DVD-R disc into your drive.

Disc information appears at the bottom of the iPhoto viewing area. The green area on the disc icon represents the amount of disc space your photos require.

If necessary, type a new name for the disc in the Name field.

Click the Burn button.

Click the Burn button in the Burn Disc dialog.

It may take several minutes to burn the disc. You can cancel the burn by clicking the Stop button next to the progress bar, but if you’re using a CD-R disc, you might not be able to use the CD after canceling.

Edit: Btw, when you burn iPhoto data discs this way, when you re-insert the DVD later the default is for it to open iPhoto to display the archived files.

[Dell Switcher]

Thanks for all the suggestions. One idea which was very appealing was to setup more than one iPhoto Library. There is freeware which will do that called iPhoto Library Manager 3.4.4. Would this not be a good approach to my needs?

This SW link is below:

http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/

[Spheric Harlot]

As of iPhoto 09, as shown above, you can export a bunch of photos to an external disk, delete them from your iPhoto database, and then re-add them WITHOUT them being copied back over into the database folder.

[Dell Switcher]

I do not have iPhoto 09...content with 08

[fisherKing]

take a look at this...

[ibook_steve]

Originally Posted by Dell Switcher 

I do not have iPhoto 09...content with 08

This feature is actually in '08 as well.

Steve

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

As of iPhoto 09, as shown above, you can export a bunch of photos to an external disk, delete them from your iPhoto database, and then re-add them WITHOUT them being copied back over into the database folder.

Can iPhoto 09 export the original/modified-pair? iPhoto 08 can not, which means if you do what you described you would lose the originals.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by ibook_steve 

This feature is actually in '08 as well.

Steve

Egads.

How did this escape me?