Filed under: Features, How-tos
Mac Automation: Burn a backup disc of recent iPhotos
Time Machine is great way to backup your entire Mac, but what if you want to make a single backup of your recently imported photos in iPhoto? Well, Automator for Leopard is here to help with this task. In this how-to, I will show you how to find photos taken in the last 2 months and burn the resulting photos to a disc for safe keeping. Continue reading to learn how to create this Automator workflow.
Creating the workflow
To create this workflow, just place the following Automator actions together (in the same order):
- Ask for Text
- Set Value of Variable
- Find Photos in iPhoto
- Burn a Disc
Creating a variable
Let's now create the variables for this. Variables allow you to change, for instance, the file name based on a user's text input. To create this simple variable, just click View > Variables. Right-clicking in the resulting pane that shows up at the bottom of the window and selecting "New Variable" will do just that -- create a new variable. Supply the text "Disc Name" for the "Name" section; leave the "Value" section blank.
Once you create the variable, drag it to the "Disc Name:" text field in the "Burn a Disc" action; then set the "Variable" in the "Set Value of Variable" action to "Disc Name" -- this will link the variable's value to the text supplied by the user in the "Ask for text" action.
Adjusting some settings
Lets adjust some of the action's settings. In the "Find Photos in iPhoto" action change the first drop-down box in the "Whose" section to "Date" and the second drop-down box to "Within last 2 months." This will find photos whose date is set within the last 2 months.
In the "Burn a Disc" drag the newly created variable from the variable's panel to the "Disc Name:" text field. Be sure to un-check the "Erase first" box unless you're using re-writables. You can also choose either to eject the disc or mount it on the desktop when finished.
Running the workflow
When you first run the workflow, you will be presented with a dialog asking you to name the finished backup disc. When you type in a name (most likely the name/date/time of the burned photos) and click OK, iPhoto will begin searching for photos from the past 2 months. When the pictures are gathered up, the disc will be burned and finalized using the settings you supplied in the "Burn a Disc" action.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Shahryar said 11:07AM on 6-17-2008
Hmm.. I'm not sure of a situation where I personally would want to burn just the last couple months of photos. Normally, I would just want to keep a back up of my photos via my regular Time Machine back ups.
I'd like to finally start using Automator though, but need something useful to me personally to make me start.
I hope this benefits others though.
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TVGenius said 12:16PM on 6-17-2008
Spindle of 25 DVD-Rs that would last 50 months if done this way: $7.99
Time Machine: $100+ for external drive [plus another $99 since I need to upgrade to Leopard still] :)
Michael said 9:43AM on 6-18-2008
"Normally, I would just want to keep a back up of my photos via my regular Time Machine back ups."
You're right, of course, inasmuch as one's whole home area should be backed up. (Time Machine actually does more than that: it does the whole drive; but it's the data that's crucial.) If there were no Time Machine one could do similarly with rysnc:
rsync -aE --delete ~ /Volumes/external-drive/Backups
Which of your data *wouldn't* you want to keep in the event of a hard-drive failure? And hard drives are the easiest means for saving (and incrementally updating) data, besides being the cheapest form of storage GB for GB.
Nevertheless, there is something to be said for having redundant copies of important data. The internal hard drive and the Time Machine volume cover each other against the day that one of them fails. However, they're both on the same site. That makes both vulnerable to the same accidents. For example, if you suffered a burglary, the intruder might grab the external hard drive as well as the computer. (They're likely on the same table, maybe even tethered together 24/7.)
If you really valued your photos, it wouldn't be a bad idea to also burn off some DVDs or CDs of them, and take those off-site somewhere else. Of course, you don't need Automator for that, but burning DVDs isn't a bad idea in itself.
Shahryar said 9:57AM on 6-18-2008
Hopefully it's ok to move slightly off topic here.. I think the info here could be helpful to many.
Actually Michael, I keep my external HD at work that I back up to via Time Machine for the specific event that if someone ever (god forbid) broke into my house and stole my stuff. I would have a backup off site somewhere.
But you have brought up something to think about - what if my external HD fails that has my backups. Hmm.. perhaps I should get one more external HD then just to be on the safe side and alternate what I back up. Between those practices, I should be covered.
Backing up to DVD is something I would just prefer not to do. One of the main reasons is because you'd have to keep track of your backup DVD, and if what you have on their is personal or sensitive, you don't want it to get lost. With an external HD (or 2), at least you know where everything is.
When I backup via Time Machine, since I'm a safeboot user, all my personal/sensitive info is trapped in teh .sparsebundle file. I don't keep my music in my home folder since that's not sensitive - I keep that in my shared drive (But do back that up also).
One of the things I would like to see in the future is a smarter way to back up your stuff so only your updated/new files are backed up each time. Right now, I make a folder that's a few gigs in size each time everytime I back up with 99% of that info just being the same info copied over and over again.
nbidgood said 11:40AM on 6-17-2008
will this work if your last 2 months of photos require more than 1 disc?
I've found that when trying to burn a disc directly out of iPhoto, both the "modified" and "originals" folders for each event get burned. This can significantly reduce the numbers of pictures you can fit on a disc.
Does anyone know a way to get iPhoto to just burn the pictures as seen in your photo library (i.e. without all the supporting files). I realize you can export and create a burn folder, but it would be nice to be able to use the built-in burn feature of iPhoto.
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RobK said 6:46PM on 6-17-2008
Yes, you can do it but don't use "Share-Burn". "Share-Burn" is ONLY meant to backup your photos including originals. It is NOT meant to be a way to burn just the modified photos so you can take them to a photo processing place.
IMHO, Apple INTENTIONALLY makes it hard just to burn your modified photos. They want you to use their expensive on-line photo finishing service.
Here are the steps to burn just the modified photos (from iPhoto help).
In iPhoto, select the album or albums you want to burn to disc.
Choose File > Export.
Click the File Export button at the top of the Export Photos dialog.
In the File Export pane, change the desired options:
Format: Choose a file format for your exported images from the Format pop-up menu. (Depending on the source of the images, you may want to choose JPG to ensure compatibility.)
Size: If necessary, scale images to a specific size by specifying a maximum width and height.
Name: Choose whether to export photos with their filenames, iPhoto titles, or album name. Be sure to select the "Use extension" checkbox to add the file format extensions (such as ".jpg" or ".tiff") to the end of the photos' filenames, titles, or album names.
Click Export.
Choose a location for the photos you are exporting, then click OK.
(ed. you may want to make a new folder for these photos).
When the export is finished, quit iPhoto.
Click the Finder icon in the Dock and insert a CD-RW disc or a blank CD-R or DVD-R disc into your drive.
Drag the folder that contains your exported photos onto the disc's icon.
When the files have finished copying, choose File > Burn Disc, and then click Burn.
Yousef Raffah said 12:31PM on 6-17-2008
Thanks for the tips. Even though I'm not personally going to make use of this tip, I still appreciate the fact that you are trying to help us make use of Automator.app. I really wish I can make real use of it.
I personally started playing with it and created my first action to convert whatever images inside a selected folder into SRGB color mode. This makes it easer for me before uploading to the web for instance
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Jono said 6:08PM on 6-17-2008
Thanks a lot for this Cory, very useful.
Although I might not use the same actual workflow it shows you the kind of things you can do (& gives you ideas for different workflows) with Automator.
I'm finding the variables very useful, especially since before last week's tutorial I'd never even heard of them.
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