I agree with Mr Speedbird that all these bloody bits of software want to own everything that they think might conceivably be theirs.
Being a lazy so and so most of the time, I had allowed a proliferation of piccies - er, up to 4 versions of the same piccy - to develop on this pc as it has a hard drive the size of a planet. (Win 7/64/Home premium)
However, like the Windoze version, with piccies, itunes believes that it owns every piccy on the pc. It is too dense to realise that many are duplicates.
This is all fine until SWMBO wants piccies on her ipad to show to adoring/very bored sisters, aunts and other wimmin. So the ipad ends up with many duplicates/triplicates etc.
So Ancient decided to bring a bit of order to all this.
I set up a new folder, with a simple title that I might find again. (C/Myname/Family Photos) and put 1 copy of each sub folder to be retained in there. Then deleted a few mega whatnots of duplicates. Then told itunes to sync the ipad to that folder, NOT to the generic "pictures" thingy that windoze had set up.
(Itunes is not that bright - another couple of syncs might be needed to overcome various hiccups)
Turning to Mr Speedbird's issue, I now use "Computer" whenever I attach a gadget with piccies on, and rather than using Nokia's/Olympus's/Samsung's/Canon's importing software, I just copy and paste from the "Removable Storage" device in to the file that I have set up. I try to remember to re-name the new sub-file to something that I might remember.
Then, and only then, do I worry about any editing of said piccies.
(The process gave back about 3 gb on SWMBOs ipad).
That does lead to an aside about the size and relative incompetence of gadget maker's software. However, I don't have all day, and whilst they are bad, none of them are as bad as HPs. I did get around to deleting the Nokia and Olympus rubbish.