4. Searching Your Photos
In this chapter, you learn all the ways you can search through your photos in your library.
→ Searching by text
→ Searching by date
→ Searching by keyword
→ Searching by rating
iPhoto offers you powerful search capabilities. It allows you to search your photos using many of the things you’ve learned about in the previous chapter as parameters, including photo names and descriptions, EXIF information such as dates, and keywords and ratings.
If you are just starting out with iPhoto or digital photography, your iPhoto Library may be quite small, meaning you hardly use search. However, as your iPhoto Library grows, search will become an important tool you’ll use more and more.
iPhoto’s Search button is in the toolbar at the bottom-left corner of the screen. It, appropriately enough, looks like a magnifying glass. When you click the Search button, it changes to a Search field. Inside this Search field, you see a search menu icon that looks like a smaller magnifying glass. When you click the icon, you see four search options: All, Date, Keyword, and Rating.
Searching by Text
Apple really should have named the All search menu option Text because that’s what it does—it enables you to search for text associated with a photo, including names, keywords, and descriptions.
1. Click the Search button in the iPhoto toolbar.
2. Click the magnifying glass icon in the text field so the pop-up menu appears.
3. Click All.
4. Enter the text you want to find in the Search field.
5. As you enter text, the body of iPhoto’s window populates with those photos that match your search term.
iPhoto’s Search Is Dynamic!
iPhoto’s search is dynamic. That means if you start typing “HOLIDAY” one letter at a time, photos with the letters HO, such as Holland, appear alongside photos with the words holiday associated with them. When you type in HOLI, those photos labeled Holland disappear, yet those labeled Holiday remain.
6. Click the X to clear the search field of text.
Searching by Date
iPhoto allows you to search photos by date in four different ways: by year and month, by specific date, by range of consecutive dates, and by nonconsecutive dates.
Search for Photos by Date
1. Click the Search button in the iPhoto toolbar.
2. Click the magnifying glass icon in the text field so the pop-up menu appears.
3. Click Date.
4. A calendar pop-up window with the year and months displays.
5. Navigate the years by clicking the left and right arrows in the pop-up menu.
Having a Gray Month?
Months that are grayed out have no photos taken during that time in your iPhoto Library. Months in white have associated photos taken during that time.
6. Click the month name to view photos taken during that month.
2. Click the magnifying glass icon in the text field so the pop-up menu appears.
3. Click Date.
4. A calendar pop-up window with the year and months displays.
5. Navigate the years by clicking the left and right arrows in the pop-up menu.
6. Double-click the month with the specific date you want in it. A daily calendar displays.
7. Click a specific date on the daily calendar to see the photos taken on that date only.
8. Click the arrowhead in the circle at the top left of the pop-up menu to return to the month view.
Search for Photos by Consecutive Date Range
1. Click the Search button in the iPhoto toolbar.
2. Click the magnifying glass icon in the text field so the pop-up menu appears.
3. Click Date.
4. A calendar pop-up window with the year and months displays.
5. Navigate the years by clicking the left and right arrows in the pop-up menu.
6. Click the month (or day) with the specific date you want to start your search and then navigate through the calendar until you find your ending date range.
7. When you find your ending date range (month or day), click it while holding down the Shift key. iPhoto displays all the photos in the date range you selected.
Search for Photos by Nonconsecutive Dates
1. Click the Search button in the iPhoto toolbar.
2. Click the magnifying glass icon in the text field so the pop-up menu appears.
3. Click Date.
4. A calendar pop-up window with the year and months displays.
5. Navigate the years by clicking the left and right arrows in the pop-up menu.
6. Find the first month (or day) of the time period you want to include in your search and click it.
7. Keep adding additional dates, months, or years by holding down the Command key when you click them. As you add more dates, iPhoto displays all the photos taken on the nonconsecutive dates you’ve selected.
Searching by Keywords
Now that you are getting familiar with iPhoto’s search functions, you can see why keywords can be a powerful search tool as they enable you to quickly find a specific photo by a word you chose to tag it with.
1. Click the Search button in the iPhoto toolbar.
2. Click the magnifying glass icon in the text field so the pop-up menu appears.
3. Click Keyword.
4. A list containing all your keywords appears as a pop-up menu.
5. Hover your mouse over a keyword in the list to see a number displayed that shows you how many photos are tagged with that keyword.
6. Click the keyword, and the photos appear in iPhoto’s body. Note that the clicked keyword button turns to white.
7. If you click another keyword, it also changes into a white button. Clicking two or more keywords shows you only the photos with all of those keywords in them. To search for photos using a single keyword, make sure you click any white keyword buttons to deselect them.
Advanced Keyword Searching
iPhoto has some pretty nifty advanced keyword searching features built in. The app lets you use keyboard keys as logical operators. In other words, you can search for photos containing some keywords but exclude those same photos from your search results (if they contain certain keywords as well).
Let’s say you have lots of photos labeled “water.” Some of these water photos show pictures of flood damage to your basement (which you’ve tagged using the keywords “water,” “house,” “insurance,” and “flood”). Others show the lake you vacationed at in Switzerland last summer (keywords: “water,” “vacation,” “lake,” “summer,” “Europe”). Still more show pictures you took of the Mediterranean Sea (keywords: “water,” “sea,” “vacation”).
So, you’re searching for all your photos that contain water, but you want to exclude the pictures of the flood damage to your house. Use the following logical operator keys to construct the keyword search:
• Shift key = “OR”
• Option key = “NOT”
• Control key = “AND”
1. Click the Search button in the iPhoto toolbar.
2. Click the magnifying glass icon in the text field so the pop-up menu appears.
3. Click Keyword.
4. A list containing all your keywords appears as a pop-up menu.
5. Click the keyword “water.” The pictures of your flooded basement, the lake, and the Mediterranean appear.
6. Click the keyword “flood” while holding down the Option key. This eliminates all the photos from the “water” search that also contain the keyword “flood.” Now you’re left with the pictures of the lake and the Mediterranean.
7. Hold down the Control key and click the keyword “Mountain.” This tells iPhoto you want to search for all photos containing “water” and “mountain” but not “flood.”
Searching by Ratings
The last way to search your photos is by ratings. This is my favorite way because it’s the simplest and also it quickly shows you your favorite snapshots.
1. Click the Search button in the iPhoto toolbar.
2. Click the magnifying glass icon in the text field so the pop-up menu appears.
3. Click Rating. Five hollow stars display in the search field.
4. Progressively click the number of stars for the rating you want to search for. For example, if you want to search for four-star photos, click the fourth star. iPhoto displays all the photographs that have a rating of four stars or higher.
