Camera Phone / iPhoto implementation

Brand new Hazel user here, so I'm just feeling my way around.

I'm trying to streamline my Palm Centro to iPhoto '06 import workflow. Let me begin by saying, I personally don't like how iPhoto handles files in the background but I only use it for mobile shots and photos people send me that I want to hang onto. My "Photography" is managed in Lightroom where I maintain my own file structure.

The Hazel/iPhoto import pulls files into iPhoto individually (rather than batch). This creates a new Roll (and resulting folder) for every single photo imported into iphoto. I realize this is more of an iPhoto API issue but I would like to know if this is the only way it works. Also, if this is addressed differently in iLife '09 I'm planning on upgrading eventually.

Another Issue:
I don't see the keywords anywhere. Are they supposed to be written directly to the jpg metadata or in a database somewhere. After the import I still don't see the keywords anywhere. Nothing shows up in in spotlight either.

Thanks
Buck

Unfortunately, Apple seems to think creating a new event each time is correct behavior. I've filed a bug with them but they don't seem to agree that it's a problem so for the time being, there's not much that can be done there.

As for keywords, you should probably not use that feature. The next version will nag the user and eventually the feature will be phased out entirely. The keywords are only stored in the Spotlight index making them searchable but really there's no way to view them. For now, I'd suggest using comments or hold on until the next release as there may be a different solution available then.

Thanks for your help. Indeed there are many funky things iPhoto does.

As for keywords, my main goal was to have a smart album for my Centro shots. This can be accomplished by using the Camera Model.

thanks for your help

After getting Hazel a few months ago, auto importing photos from my camera's SD card was the first thing I wanted to accomplish. I ran into the same problem of each image file being imported individually instead as a batch. I finally tried to sort all the image files I dumped into a folder into a subfolder. I then created a new rule to run against the subfolder so the rule would run only once instead of once for ever individual image file. Here are how my rules are setup.

First rule is:
If all of the following conditions are met:
Kind is Image
Do the following:
Sort file into subfolder with pattern: kind

This creates a new folder name JPEG image

The next rule will act on the new subfolder.

If all of the following conditions are met:
Name starts with JPEG
Do the following:
Import into iPhoto to album: Photos
Move file to folder: Trash (just for clean up)
Send Growl notification with pattern: Your photos have been imported into iPhoto

This works well since the rule is only being processed once on the subfolder and since iPhoto accepts a folder with multiple images in it. All the images get processed by iPhoto at the same time and will then be placed into the same Event. Or one event per day or per week, depending on your preferences in iPhoto for Autosplitting events.