David Pogue's Digital Photography: The Missing Manual

Importing Pictures on Your Hard Drive

If you've been taking pictures for some time, you probably have a lot of photo files already on your hard drive. You might want to use your new digital-shoebox program to organize them, too.

• iPhoto: To add photo folders to iPhoto, find them on the Mac's hard drive. Now drag them either into the main photo area or into the Source list (the column on the left side).

  Or, if you prefer, choose File→Import to Library (or press Shift-⌘-I) in iPhoto; select a file or folder to import in the Open dialog box, and then click Import.

  Tip

  iPhoto Tip: Take the time to name your folders intelligently before dragging them into iPhoto, because the folder names become the album or Event names in iPhoto.

• Picasa: All photo files on your hard drive show up in Picasa automatically, the very first day you install the program. You'll find their corresponding folders listed at the left side of the window, exactly as they're named on your hard drive.

By the way, Picasa and iPhoto take radically different approaches to storing your photos:

• iPhoto: When you import pictures into iPhoto, the program makes copies of your photos, always leaving your original files untouched.

  Where do they all go? Behind the scenes, iPhoto stores your pictures in a special folder called iPhoto Library, which you can find in your Home→Pictures folder.

  Don't move, rename, delete, or open this iPhoto Library file yourself! You should do all your photo organizing within the iPhoto program, not behind its ...