iLife '04: The Missing Manual

More on Film Rolls

iPhoto starts out sorting your Photo Library by film roll, meaning that the most recently imported batch of photos appears at the bottom of the window. Your main iPhoto window may look like a broad, featureless expanse of pictures, but they’re actually in a clear order. Here are a few ways you can change this sort order:

• To change the sort order to reflect the creation date of the photos (rather than the date they were imported), choose View → Arrange Photos → by Date.

• To view photos sorted alphabetically by their names, choose View → Arrange Photos → by Title. (Titles are described on page 113.)

• In a new iPhoto 4 twist, you can sort your pictures by rating, so that your masterpieces are at the top of the window, with the losers way down below. Choose View → Arrange Photos → by Rating. (See page 118 for the full story on ratings.)

• Whether you choose to sort photos by film roll or date, you can reverse the sort order so that the most recent items appear at the top of the iPhoto window instead of the bottom—an idea that can save you a lot of scrolling through thumbnails. Choose iPhoto → Preferences, go to the Appearance panel, turn on “Place most recent photos at the top,” and close the Preferences window. (If you choose this preference in conjunction with the By Title viewing option mentioned in the previous paragraph, your photos appear in reverse alphabetical order.)

Tip

If you drag a folder of photos into iPhoto, the name of the folder becomes the name of the film ...