iPhoto Backups
After a hiatus of three years, I finally own a working digital camera again (more on that later). As a result, I now have a use for iPhoto.
It’s always annoying to keep track of what files I’ve backed up to CD, but iPhoto can make the job easier using Keywords and Smart Albums. First, choose Photos > Show Keywords from the menu. This will give you a little window with some things like “Family”, “Birthday”, etc. Choose Add from the (horrible) Keywords drop-down menu in the dialog, and create a new keyword called “Archived”. Next, select File > New Smart Album… from the main menu. Give the new album a name like “Not Archived Yet”, and then choose Keyword, is not, Archived from the drop-downs. From now on, every new photo that you import will automagically appear in the “Not Archived Yet”. When that album reaches 650 MB or so (depending on the size of your CD-Rs), highlight it and use Burn (if you want a fancy iPhoto library CD) or File > Export… (if you want a more generic and compatible disc format) to archive the photos to a CD-R. Once you’re done, select all the photos in the “Not Archived Yet” album, select the “Archived” keyword in the Keywords window, and click Assign. This will clear the photos you just saved out of your “Not Archived Yet” album, leaving it open for the next batch.
Bonus Tip iPhoto ‘04 has a new full-screen edit mode that lets you flick through newly-imported photos quickly, fixing rotations and deleting the crappy ones as you go, but it’s rather hidden away by default. To use it, switch to Organize mode, click on the Slideshow icon at the bottom of the window, and then check off Display slideshow controls. Click Save Settings to close the dialog, select the album to view, and then click the “play” triangle at the bottom left of the window. You will get the photos blown up to full screen size, along with translucent controls for rotating, deleting, and rating the photos.