Under no circumstance will I keep photos natively in the iPhoto application/folder. What I do is go to the advanced tab in iPhoto and tell iPhoto NOT to pull a copy into it's directory. Simply unload your photos into the filesystem somewhere and drop that folder in iPhoto. Keeping your photos beholden to iPhoto is just asking for trouble.
The way I look at it is that photos equal files and files should be in folders accessible via a simple file manager. iPhoto subverts that model turning it on its head and makes your photos beholden to it by burying them within its internal structure. iTunes does a similar thing to music files.
It is clear that Apple is attempting to abstract away user control over their digital assets by giving that control to their applications.
Ah. OK. Personally, I care about my photos and music; the files are incidental to the content. Both iTunes and iPhoto (or Aperture, in my case) privilege the content over the file structure, and to my way of thinking, that's correct behaviour. Of course, to each their own.
I agree and wish I had not done that. But before I go through all the hassle and export everything, I want to make to make sure not to run into the exact same problem again.
