Flagging Photos in iPhoto

Sunday, March 07 2010

By: chrisb

A quick way to mark files

Flagged Photos
Click to see a larger image

Let's say that you have just imported a bunch of photos that you took on a trip. You are glancing through them and know that there are some you want to edit. You want a way to quickly and temporarily mark these photos so you can come back to them later.

Temporarily marking photos is what the Flag is for. Select a photo or photos and click on the Flag icon on the bottom toolbar of iPhoto. An orange flag appears in the upper left corner of flagged photos. You can flag from any Event, album, etc.

On the left pane, under the RECENT section is an item Flagged. The number tells you how many photos you have flagged and clicking on Flagged collects all your flagged photos and shows them in one window.

Flagging photos you want to only mark temporarily is easier (and cleaner) than making a new album and dragging photos to it or assigning Keywords. Once you are done with the photo you flagged, select it, and click Unflag from the bottom toolbar.

The keyboard shortcut for Flag / Unflag is Command-. (Command-Period). Using the shortcut key instead of going to the bottom Toolbar every time can really speed up your workflow.

If you want to remove all the flags at once, hold down the Option key and choose Photos on the Menu Bar. One of the items on the dropdown menu is Clear All Flags. (If you don't hold down the Option key, the dropdown menu will say "Unflag Photo".)