Apple iPhoto and my first Mac woe - HELP!

Armanius

Bring Jack back!
Location
Houston, Texas
Name
Jack
As some of you know, I finally saw the light and got my first Mac, an 11" MBA.

Problem ... I imported photos into iPhoto. Whenever I am on a web application/browser and try to access the photo (i.e. uploading photos to "My Album" in SeriousCompacts.com), I get as far as the iPhoto library. When I click on the iPhoto library icon, instead of showing me the individual photos in the library for me to choose from, the computer thinks that the iPhoto library is the "photo" that I want to upload. Obviously that doesn't work!

The only workaround I can see is to copy the photos in the library by first opening the iPhoto application, and then pasting it in the "Pictures" folder.

Is there a better solution to the inconvenience that I am describing?

On a lighter note, is there a way to resize the photos in iPhoto?

Thanks!!!
 
You can drag the picture into the open dialog box I'm pretty sure. Not on my Mac at the moment and I'm a bit rusty on iPhoto.
 
You can drag the picture into the open dialog box I'm pretty sure. Not on my Mac at the moment and I'm a bit rusty on iPhoto.

I am sure Deidre means dragging from the open iPhoto application. From your post it sounds as though you are trying to access the iPhoto library from outside of the iPhoto application -- NEVER do that or you risk corrupting the library. You can export individual photos [Menu File/Export] or by drag & drop onto your desktop [or wherever] and then upload to SeriousCompacts. But I doubt you can drag it directly into SeriousCompacts though I have not tried that.

NOTE The iPhoto Library is a special kind of folder called a package and all your photos are in there as individual original files but linked to all your copies and edits by a database file so although you can open the package too get photos out you should NOT do so because the database will not know what you have done. If you ever want to do that, do it on a copy of the Library.
 
I gave up on this and just put things on the desk top as I need them. I keep a folder there for quick access to photos. There is probably a much easier way, but I am lazy and hate faffing about with this sort of thing. :)
 
You can resize them by picking the photos you want to export from iPhoto and going up to FILE-EXPORT, from there you chose the compression and sizes. then export them to the desktop or your pictures folder,

I think this is what your looking for, I hope it helps :)
 
Armando - I responded over on the other site, but one other thing. I think the key point is that the photos in the iphoto or aperture "libraries" are the original you pulled out of your camera, whether jpeg or raw. They do NOT reflect the changes you've made with either program in terms of exposure, contrast saturation, any sort of conversion to B&W, or whatever. All of the changes are just stored as settings and applied to the photo every time you look at it, but they don't actually write over the original file. So if you've done ANY work on a photo, whether in iphoto or aperture, it won't show up in the version buried in the library files. And as Richard noted, you don't want to mess with those files for fear of messing up the connection to any of the data to the edits you've made to the photo. So, whether using iphoto or aperture, you really need to export the edited image to a jpeg and then copy or upload THAT file to post in the library, on flickr, or where-ever. Iphoto and flickr have automated the process for upload to places like facebook and flickr, but I never use their automator because it sets up all kinds of automatic links and connections and causes all manner of confusion down the line. When I want to upload to Flickr or anywhere else, I just export the photos I want to upload to the desktop - its VERY easy to resize them during export - the dialog box sort of makes you choose the size and format you want to export to. And then I upload those exported files from the desktop. And then I can just delete those new jpegs because all of the data and settings are still stored in iphoto or aperture.

The quickest and easiest way to export is literally just to drag the photo out of iphoto onto the desktop - it automatically creates an exported image file this way. In aperture, I know where to set the defaults for the size and other settings when I drag to export. In iphoto I'm not sure, but I can't imagine you can't set that somewhere. And then literally if you have a half dozen shots you want to upload, just drag 'em out of the iphoto window onto the desktop and you're set.

Again, I think you really ought to upgrade to Aperture (or lightroom or whatever) - you're just way too into this to just be using iphoto. But regardless, you'll face the same issue with Aperture or Lightroom - you have to export the image to save it with all of your edits so that you can upload it.

Hope this helps,

-Ray
 
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