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I absolutely love the simple and clean interface and features that iPhoto and Aperture bring and I absolutely hate the "library/import" approach. I like to see my photos as files on a disk and that's that. Is it possible to just navigate through a drive in iPhoto and open images for editing or do I always have to import stuff?

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I had the same feelings, which was what led me to go with Lightroom instead. – chills42 Aug 11 '12 at 4:13

4 Answers

In Aperture, at least, you can import photos into the database but leave the files where they are. In the Import settings (when you click on the "Import" button), choose Store Files: In their current location (instead of "In the Aperture Library").

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I am with you entirely. I hate having to do an import. I don't mind pointing an application at a folder that I have laid out. I can further sort within the app, add tagging, etc. But it had better not move my photos around.

I don't know of any way to do what you want with iPhoto.

Lightroom does indeed support a "folder" approach where that folder and everything under it is in the app for you to work on.

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Is there any way to disable the "collection" feature in Lightroom? – antonpug Aug 11 '12 at 22:58
@antonpug - Lightroom can do an import-in-place. It's one of the import options. – Fake Name Aug 12 '12 at 22:53

Although storing your photos in folders is fast and simple, you can't place one photo into two folders without making file duplicates. And thus locating the necessary images might require more time.

So economy in a stage of image library classification will leads in loosing time in finding images later.

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You have to do the imports. The systems need to set up all of their information about the images somehow, after all.

So, start the imports and go do something else for a while. You're not required to sit and watch the imports. Let the computer do its thing, and then come back later when it's done.

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