Deleting Photos

Many of the pictures any photographer takes are lousy, and you need to cull the ones of your spouse wearing a stupid expression. Believe me, you really do. But that's the best part of digital photography; there's no cost to taking a photo and trashing it immediately.

You can trash photos only if you're currently in the Library, Last Roll, or Last 12 Months album.

Ways to trash photos:

• In one of those three albums, select one or more photos (see "Selecting Photos," in Chapter 3, "Organizing Photos"), and press , drag one or more images to the Trash album, or -click one or more photos and choose Move to Trash from the contextual menu that appears.

• While viewing a photo from the Photo Library, Last Roll, or Last 12 Months album in a basic slideshow or in edit mode, press .

To delete photos for good:

1.	Choose Empty Trash from the iPhoto application menu. iPhoto asks if you really want to remove the pictures (Figure 2.18). Figure 2.18. iPhoto checks to make sure you really want to delete photos from your hard disk before doing so.
2.	Click OK to delete the photos.

Tips

• Deleting a photo from a normal album you created does not delete the original image but removes it from that album.

• The only way to remove a photo from a smart album is to change the photo's criteria so the smart album doesn't see it.

• Dragging a photo to the Trash icon on the Dock does nothing.

• Remember, backups are your friends!