Reader Barrett Clark allows me to start off the week with a telegraphic answer. He writes:
When I load new photos into iPhoto I like to put them into an album. This helps me catalog them so that I can easily “thumb” through them later in iPhoto or easily find them in iMovie and iWeb. My wife doesn’t always create a new album when she loads new photos, though. Is there a way to see what pictures are not included in an album?
File -> New Smart Folder
Album is not Any
OK
Done
I can see how you might feel you’ve been shortchanged by such a short exchange. Here’s a little extra iPhoto goodness from me to you.
You see that Calendar button at the bottom of the iPhoto window? If you’re like me, you rarely use it. Turns out it’s pretty useful. For example:
• It tells you in which months you’ve shot no pictures. Black type indicates pictures exist for the selected album. Gray type means no pictures. Same idea when you’re using month view.
• Hover your mouse over a month and a tool tip pops up that tells you how many pictures are tagged for that month and year. For example, hover over April 2006 and I find that 217 pictures taken in April were imported into iPhoto.
• This is a handy way to gather together all the seasonal pictures you’ve taken. Click the right-pointing triangle in the Calendar pane so that it turns into a left-pointing triangle and shows you the month view. Use the up arrow to move to December 2005. Click the dot next to the week that holds your special holiday event. This highlights that week. Move back to the previous December and Command-click on that same special week in 2004. Repeat back through the years. Most of your holiday pictures will now appear in iPhoto’s main window. Choose File -> New Album From Selection and you’ve got your holiday photos gathered in one place. If you want to be more exacting, choose specific days each month with this Command-click technique.