iPhoto Cheat Sheet :: My First Mac - Help Buying and Getting Started with Your New Mac

Quick Scan

Download PDF Cheat Sheet to view or print when you use iPhoto.

Remember that the photos stay in the Library even if you have them in Albums.

Albums in iPhoto = Playlists in iTunes.

Fix My Photos With iPhoto

iTunes Cheat Sheet

iPhoto Cheat Sheet

By: Chris Kerins
Published: Monday, July 16, 2007
Categories: Getting Started

Still trying to figure out where to start with iPhoto? Our exclusive iPhoto Cheat Sheet will give you a quick reference for the most used functions found in the Organize View of iPhoto. You'll be organizing Albums and creating books in no time at all.

The beauty of iPhoto is that it handles the average person's digital photos with ease and elegance while presenting you with a surprising number of options to create beautiful real world photo products right from the iPhoto interface. There are layers of complexity as you dig deeper into what iPhoto can do, but today we'll just look at the most used part of the program: the Organize View.

The Organize View is where you review your photo library and take selections of it to make virtual albums, slideshows and more. There are other views that will take over the main area for different uses (such as Edit View), but the Organize View is where you manage your photos.

The key thing to remember is that all your photos are ONLY in the Library. Whenever you use photos in Albums, they are NOT moved to the Album, but referenced in it. This way, you can have the same photo in multiple Albums while the original remains in your Library. It works much in the same way as songs do in iTunes: Albums=Playlists.

Another point to consider is that the Organize View allows the opportunity to add keywords and other data to photos, but if you plan to use these functions, don't miss applying keywords and other data when importing your photos. This is a good opportunity to attach data to the whole import group at once rather than go through the photos one by one after the import.

You can click on this image below to get a large PDF version to either print or save for viewing later. Below that is some of the image in parts to view on this page.

The Source List (left side)

Source List

Information Pane

Information Pane

Calendar Pane

Keyword Pane

iPhoto Keyword Pane

Edit and Album Options

iPhoto Edit and Album Options

Toolbar

iPhoto Toolbar

Did this Cheat Sheet help explain the iPhoto Organize View layout? Should we do any further views? Do you have anything to add that will help get a new user started with iPhoto? Give us your feedback below!

DIG DEEPER

Great Resources from Apple:
iPhoto Hot Tips
iPhoto Manual
iPhoto Tutorial
iPhoto Support

Macworld Digital Photography Superguide

iPhoto Plugins News, A List of Plugins & Tips For iPhoto

Jim Heid's Macintosh Digital Hub. A good list of link references.


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Your Comments:

Great cheat sheet. Thanks for taking the time to post it.

Darrin
07/16/2007 at 06:11 AM

This is really helpful! I can't wait to see what more detailed tutorials you come up with!

Grace
07/16/2007 at 07:46 AM

Many people are used to organizing their photos into folders and sometimes complain that iPhoto places them into a Library without a hierarchy. What helps is to remember that iPhoto organises photos chronologically in Film Rolls (View - Show film roll). Dragging old photos into new film rolls (Edit - Create film roll) and changing each old photo's date and time will organise them chronologically. Importing new photos from a digital camera does this automatically.

Egon
07/16/2007 at 11:35 AM

What is the best way to transfer my photos from PC to Mac?

Mikko
07/29/2007 at 02:57 AM

Mikko -

The easiest is probably to copy all your photos to an external hard drive and then import them into iPhoto (File-Import to Library...). Alternatively you could burn them to CD's or DVD's (if your PC has that capability), but depending on how many photos you have, that could take a long time and/or a lot of media. You could also network the two computers together, but that is more complicated.

If your PC has a Firewire port, you could connect your Mac to your PC like an external drive. Shut down both machines, then connect each together with a Firewire cable, then turn on the PC. Once booted up, turn on the Mac while holding down the "T" key. This puts the Mac into Firewire mode. It should show up on your PC as a external hard drive. Just copy the photos over to a folder on the Mac.

Chuck Konfrst
07/31/2007 at 03:48 PM

I now have all my photos on the external drive, now, how can I import them into the iPhoto library without having to change each date/time stamp on every individual photo?

The cheat sheet is great, I've already learned a ton...I still need help organizing all my photos which are already organized by event, from multiple cameras!

susan
01/15/2008 at 09:25 AM

Susan,

Got some bad news. iPhoto will reorganize all your photos in their library structure whether you like it or not. And normally you want it on your internal hard drive, so i hope you have enough room. You can place your library on an external drive, but then you need to have it hooked up to use.

UPDATE: I just found this in the advanced prefs:
Choose iPhoto > Preferences

Click Advanced.

Select or deselect “Copy items to the iPhoto Library.”

Deselecting this option means that iPhoto will not duplicate photos when importing them into the application, but will leave them in their original files on your computer. When you edit these images in iPhoto, however, the edited versions will be saved in the iPhoto library, not your original files. Your original files remain untouched.

Good news: iPhoto reads the camera date time stamp and applies automatically. If you have iPhoto '08, it will also break the photos into events by day or time gaps automatically. You can sub divide and combine from there. It's easy and really useful.

Decide where you want your library first and specify it.

Chris Kerins
01/16/2008 at 10:23 AM

I love the iPhoto cheat sheet. Will you be updating it for iLife 08?

Richard
11/04/2008 at 07:36 PM

Good suggestion! We'll put it in the queue.

Chris Kerins
11/06/2008 at 10:41 AM