Recovering Photos

iPhoto sports a special Trash album that holds all your deleted photos, just like the Finder's Trash. And like the Finder's Trash, you can pull mistakenly deleted photos out.

Ways to recover photos:

Select one or more photos in the Trash album and choose Restore to Photo Library ( ) from the Photos menu ( Figure 2.20 ).

Figure 2.20. To remove photos from the Trash, select them and choose Restore to Photo Library from the Photos menu.
Select one or more photos in the Trash album, -click the selection, and choose Restore to Photo Library from the contextual menu that appears.
Drag one or more photos from the Trash album into the Library album or to the bottom of the Source pane.

Tips

You can't edit photos stored in the Trash, nor can you create a book, calendar, or card using the Trash album. Well, duh!
You can't drag a photo from the Trash album into another album without first restoring it to the Library album.
iPhoto doesn't move the actual image files when you put them in the Trash; it merely tracks which ones are in the Trash album. Only when you empty the Trash are the actual files deleted.

Use Your Trash!

I strongly recommend that you make full use of iPhoto's Trash and empty it only occasionally. The whole point of having a Trash is to save you from mistakes, and you never know if you'll realize a mistake right away. Instead, let photos sit in the Trash for a while before deleting them for good. Or wait until you feel like you need the disk space they take up before deleting them.

Creating Multiple iPhoto Library Folders

Although there's little outward indication of this, iPhoto lets you create and maintain multiple iPhoto Library folders.

Reasons to create multiple iPhoto Library folders:

You might want to keep two different types of photos completely separate, such as personal snapshots and location shots for your real estate business.
You might want different iPhoto Library folders for different purposes. For instance, I have a special iPhoto Library folder that holds just a few images that I use when giving presentations.
You might want an iPhoto Library for miscellaneous photos sent to you by other people that you don't want cluttering your main collection.

To create an iPhoto Library folder:

Quit iPhoto.

Hold down and click iPhoto's icon in the Dock to launch it.

In the Choose Photo Library dialog, click Create Library ( Figure 2.21 ), and in the New Photo Library dialog, enter a name and select a location for your new iPhoto Library folder ( Figure 2.22 ).

Figure 2.21. Create a new iPhoto Library folder by holding down Option while launching iPhoto and then clicking Create Library in the Choose Photo Library dialog.

Figure 2.22. Name and save your new iPhoto Library folder however and wherever you like.

Tip

If you want a second iPhoto Library folder to contain all your photos to start with, select the original iPhoto Library folder in the Pictures folder in the Finder and choose Duplicate ( ) from the Finder's File menu.

Switching between iPhoto Library Folders

So you now have two (or more) iPhoto Library folders. How do you switch between them?

Ways to switch between iPhoto Library folders:

Hold down and click iPhoto's icon in the Dock to launch it and display the Choose Photo Library dialog. Click Choose Library ( Figure 2.21 , opposite ), and locate the desired iPhoto Library folder.
With iPhoto not running, manually rename or move your main iPhoto Library folder, then rename or move the desired iPhoto Library folder so it's called just "iPhoto Library" and is located in your Pictures folder.
When iPhoto is not running, rename or move the iPhoto Library folder, launch iPhoto, and, when prompted, click Choose Library and locate the desired iPhoto Library folder ( Figure 2.21 , opposite).
Use the free iPhoto Library Manager from http://homepage.mac.com/bwebster/iphotolibrarymanager.html .
Use Rick Neil's free iPhoto Buddy ( www.iphotobuddy.com ), which gives you a simple interface for switching quickly among multiple folders ( Figure 2.23 ).

Figure 2.23. Use iPhoto Buddy to switch among multiple iPhoto Library folders.