When I add photos to iPhoto 11, it copies them into its internal database. This is good, but it creates a bunch of numbered folders. Is there a way for me to tell iPhoto not to do that, and to just use one folder for all the photos?
That way, when I want to access the photos directly, say to upload to Google+, I don't have to collect them from multiple folders.
I could use iPhoto's Export function, but that apparently insists on re-encoding the photos :( This naturally decreases quality and increases file size (if you choose the Maximum quality setting).
Lightroom, for example, gives me control over where the files are actually stored. The storage is still managed by Lightroom, but I can tell it to store all my photos in one directory, in this case.