Why use iPhoto instead of manually saving images? I would like to know whether there are any advantages to using iPhoto on Mac for my pictures taken on my iPhone. For the past few years I have simply exported all images via Image Capture which stores the actual file to a location on my hard drive. Recently I have had to use iPhoto to get images off an iCloud shared stream, I have noticed when importing the images it saves into one file (almost like a database) instead of individual JPEG files.

Can someone tell me whether what pros and cons are there to using iPhoto instead of manually saving images?
Most things you can do in iPhoto you can do in Preview and Finder, except a lot slower. Organization in iPhoto is more powerful than simply using a file system.

You can sort:

by Event
by Location
by Person via facial recognition


Arrange into albums (Unlike folders, photos can reside within multiple albums.)
Shows extra metadata, such as:

Stars
Camera and settings used
Map position


Allows basic image touch ups:

Color-grading
Auto touchup (really hand, fast and convenient)
Built in &quot;straighten&quot; function (also very useful)
Auto-enhance
Automatically retains &quot;originals&quot; in case you want to revert an edit


Manages Facebook and Flickr albums