If you recognize and know how to use the first three words of this post, you might be able to help me.
If you feel like you have pretty beefy understanding of the three above, keep reading.
I'll pay you by the hour to help me solve my problem. Send me a response if the following makes sense to you, and you think you can help.
I've recently converted my computer and photography life to the Mac.
This means that I'm moving about 120GB of photos and videos from the PC. I had been using Picasa, and was happy with that tool. Picasa leaves all the photos in folders, and creates its own database, which it updates automatically whenever new photos appear in a "watched" folder. Gosh, that was easy.
Now, on the Mac, things are much trickier. iPhoto will easily import the whole bunch of photos (believe me, I've done it many times, in many ways!) But, details matter. For example:
- When I just imported the 700 or so folders (one for each shoot), I got events, but no albums.
- However, the sharing of photos in iPhoto is album-based. So I need a way to get an album for each event.
- Presto, it turns out that if you import one and only one folder at at a time, you'll get a new event, AND an album of the same name. (That's good!)
- But, that requires me to manually import over 700 folders. And each time you drag one in, the window resets, and you must be careful to drag the next folder only over the "Albums" heading, or the photos will go inside that album. (That's bad, and this will take quite a while.)
- I tried to use Automator to make this go faster, but it couldn't seem to recognize that I wanted to drop a folder into the "Albums" heading. Maybe if you know how to use Automator, you could help with this. At least I could end up with my 700 albums, AND have automator doing some work for me.
Then, wanting to use all the wonderful tools on the Mac, I took a look at Aperture and Lightroom. Oh, they look so nice. But now here's the problem. They both want to import photos and manage thumbnails in their own library. Yes, iPhoto and Aperature can look at each other's libraries, but unless I'm mistaken, it looks like I'll end up with two parallel libraries!
Gee. I can't even get one workflow going yet. So lets start with what I'd like you to do for me using iPhoto:
1. Help me import my 700 folders, one at a time, using Automator, so I get an album for each folder. Photos will stay in the Finder folders, organized as folders one per year, and inside that one per event. Each folder/event would end up beingboth an event AND an album in iPhoto.
2. Help me figure out a workflow for new photos. This almost works, but needs some automation. Essentially, I'd like you to make an Automator script that creates a "hot folder" for iPhoto. So it would work like this (similar to what I did with Picasa, which worked well!)
a. Rename the folder on the camera card to 2008-03-xx (if in March). This is manual
b. Drag the renamed folder off the card intoPictures/SyncedPhotoArchive/2008 Photo Archive
c. Your magic script sees that there is a new folder there. It causes an import into iPhoto
3. I already use a sync tool called Chonosync, which is great. I have three Mac's and I'd like to keep my photo library on each. I could easily have Chronosync keep Pictures/SyncedPhotoArchive in sync on each machine. Your magic script would import anything that's new.
4. This would mean that all the machines have synchroninzed photo libraries, and each would have an album per event. As far as I know, though, there is no way to synchronize new albums, or new iPhoto projects. So I'd have to designate one iphoto library as the master library. Now, here we need your expert knowledge:
a. Let's say I have this: on each machine there is /Pictures/SyncedPhotoArchive. This is the Finder folder that has all the photos. New photos can be added to any machine. They will be moved and synced, probably using a portable hard drive. Chronosync is really good.
b. Lets say we have a single, master iPhoto library called /Pictures/PortableMasterIphotoLbirary. This library expects to find all of its photos in the same place an any machine.
c. Would this work? Would iPhoto merrily link to the same photos an either machine? Or does it store magic information and it would know its been moved?
5. Okay, if you could make the items above work, then I'd have a good work flow, and I'd even have the beginnings of using Automator. That would be great!
6. Now, it would be nice to be able to use Lightroom or Aperture without going even more crazy! First, Aperture:
a. Aperture lets you look at iPhoto albums. So it's doubly crucial that we sucessfully create the albums as above.
b.Its not clear what happens when I edit a photo in Aperture that came from my iPhoto library. I assume it leaves it there, and just makes non-distructive edits against the master? Yes?
7. Now, Lightroom:
a. It seems that Lightroom doesn't even allow you to look at the iPhoto library. This is bad.
b. I end up shooting videos and photos together sometimes, and I need iPhoto as my basic management tool. It looks like Lightroom would want me to have a completely separate library. (Yes, I can import and leave the masters in the sameSyncedPortableArchive, but I wouldn't be able to see any iPhoto edits or albums from inside of Lightroom.
Okay, well, that's about it. As I review this, it seems that getting those 700 albums is the key, and getting a hot folder is the next key. It also seems that using iPhoto and Aperture would work reasonably well.
If any of this makes you think you can help, send me a reply. I'll pay you your going rate by the hour, and I'll be eternally grateful.
It is NOT ok to contact this poster with commercial interests.
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