Help in managing Aperture library

Thanks for your time.
I think I am getting too many photos on my Mac. I'd like to be able to effectively manage the images there but I am having a hard time figuring out where to get help.
Is there a way to see what images are using the most space? There are some I have worked in external editors and I notice they are coming back into Aperture as much larger files, i.e., 1.5 MB before and 27.5 MB after.
And is there a good FAQ someplace about general dusting and cleaning and deleting of unneeded files?
Thanks!

Modern digicam workflows require increasing amounts of mass storage. Sorting/deleting IMO only provide limited benefit. Bottom line is image handlers need lots of scalable mass storage.
Single-drive computers are limiting to the volume handling of modern digicam image files. Those of us with single-internal-drive computers like laptops or iMacs IMO should use a Referenced-Masters Library. If you are not using Referenced Masters now is the time to set up with Referenced Masters rather than Managed.
External drives that are not eSATA decrease speed, so your Library should stay on the internal drive. Use external drives to relocate data from your internal drive so that there is room for a (Referenced-Masters) Library there.
When using Referenced Masters the Library does not actually hold the large Master images themselves. That way even a laptop drive can hold an Aperture Library of 100,000 images by referencing Master images that live on external drives.
To store Master images by "Reference," when you go to Import on the right hand side of the import window you must select "Store files in their current location." Obviously at some point referenced Masters must be on external drives to keep from overfilling any single internal drive.
In general IMO graphics users do not give enough attention to hard drives setup that really is very important for graphics performance optimization. A few comments:
• Aperture users' mass storage needs tend to increase very quickly.
• The location, size/speed/fullness and connection method of hard drives can have a huge impact on performance within any given specific setup. Internal better than external; with external eSATA better than FW800 which is better than FW400, and USB2 unacceptable except for backup-only.
• Hard drives slow as they fill. A good rule of thumb is not to fill any drive more than 70%, and for best speed keep important drives no more than 50% full. Drives will operate more full but at a performance cost.
• Without careful management a single internal laptop hard drive will become overfilled.
• Your laptop allows up to 500 GB internal drive size. Since drives slow as they fill, an option is to replace the internal HD with a 500 GB drive and keep it less than half full to optimize operation.
Some of the reasons that I prefer Referenced Masters to Managed Masters are
• The much smaller Library is easy to keep on a faster underfilled drive.
• Vaults are much smaller; hence easier and more likely that multiple Vaults will be created.
• An infinite number of Masters and originals can be stored on as many drives as necessary and backed up ad nauseam using the Finder, backup software, Time Machine, whatever. Using Referenced Masters, Aperture (and any anomalies that a complex app like Aperture might introduce) are not in the Masters backup loop.
-Allen Wicks

Similar Messages

Can I change managed Aperture Library to a preferenced one?

Hi!
So, is it possible somehow change managed library to a preferenced library? I think it would be easier to have preferenced library if I would like to use some other programmes in addition to Aperture. I have my photos included in my old folder structure also. I imported pics from that folder structure into Aperture's library. Thanks for any advice!
Jonne

This is easily done by selecting the files you want to change from Mastered to Referenced, and choosing the menu option Files>Relocate Masters.
You can use custom name formats, which also include the ability to create subfolders based on certain criteria. See pages 139 and 105 in the Aperture User Manual for information on this procedure. It is available from the Help menu.
-Karen

Best way to manage Aperture library size for hard drive space?

For a couple years, I have been using Aperture 2 and then migrated to Aperture 3. All this time I have worked completely on my laptops internal hard drive and with one library. My library is now 80gb and hard drive space is becoming an issue. Now I am trying to decide the best direction to take for reducing my internal hard drive space. My biggest storage culprit are my kids sports team pictures. I have taken thousands and thousands of pictures of kids that I don't need to keep in my internal library. I would like to pull my kids out of those pics, keep them in my main library and archive the rest out. I'm looking for advice for the best process.
I put an external drive on my Airport USB drive and put my library in a new vault last night. I know it is much slower than going direct to USB on computer. With wireless N it took about 12 hours to backup the 80gb library to a new vault on this Airport drive. Are there any issues with using the Airport USB other than speed? I know apple has issues with using time machine on this kind of setup but I don't know if Aperture has any of the same issues. My thought is that I might use this drive for additional libraries as well.
Thanks
-Erik

Once I move files to external storage as a "referenced master", is there a way to move some of them back to main library on the internal drive? I'm going to move all my team sports pictures to external but would like to keep the pictures with my kids on the internal drive where they are at. But if I unintentionally move some of my kids to the external drive, how do I "un-reference" them and move them back?
Thanks for the help!

I am changing to a larger hard drive on my Mac. Can I copy the Aperture library from my backup disk running Time Machine without loosing anything?

I am installing a larger harddrive on my Mac. Can I copy the Aperture library from my backup disk running Time Machine without loosing anything? I am getting help migrating everything else on to the new harddrive, but since copying the 350Gb Aperture library takes a lot of time, I am planning to do that part myself.

I found the following information on Time Machine help about restoring Aperture library from TM
Restoring Your Aperture System
If you buy a new computer or use another system at a different location and want access to the Aperture library, you can install Aperture and then transfer the library from your vault (on your backup disk) to the other computer. If you experience equipment failure or other unexpected events, such as fire or weather-related damage to your equipment, you can easily restore the entire library to your new computer from a backup disk.
HideTo restore the entire library from an external backup disk
Restoring Your Aperture System
If you buy a new computer or use another system at a different location and want access to the Aperture library, you can install Aperture and then transfer the library from your vault (on your backup disk) to the other computer. If you experience equipment failure or other unexpected events, such as fire or weather-related damage to your equipment, you can easily restore the entire library to your new computer from a backup disk.
HideTo restore the entire library from an external backup disk
If you buy a new computer or use another system at a different location and want access to the Aperture library, you can install Aperture and then transfer the library from your vault (on your backup disk) to the other computer. If you experience equipment failure or other unexpected events, such as fire or weather-related damage to your equipment, you can easily restore the entire library to your new computer from a backup disk.
HideTo restore the entire library from an external backup disk
Connect the hard disk drive that contains the most up-to-date vault to your computer and open Aperture.
Choose File > Vault > Restore Library.The Restore Library dialog appears.
Choose the vault you want to use to restore your library from the Source Vault pop-up menu.If the vault doesn’t appear in the Source Vault pop-up menu, choose Select Source Vault from the Source Vault pop-up menu, navigate to the vaults location in the Select Source Vault dialog, then click Select.
Click Restore, then click Restore again.

Photo Orientation in Referenced Aperture Library

I am taking my Managed Aperture Library and moving it to Referenced. As I do so, I am noticing that many of the "portrait" shots in the library don't seem to maintain that orientation in the Finder. The portrait orientation shows up correctly when I look at the photo in Aperture, but when I go to "check" on the original file in the Finder, the icon of the photo and the photo itself when I open it with Preview revert back to "Landscape". Any thoughts as to why?
I have also noticed that when I export the "version" then the orientation is correctly saved with the file. When I export the "original" the orientation is NOT saved with the file.
Ideally I would like the "originals", which are referenced and consequently simply stored in the Finder, to correctly reflect orientation when I view them outside of Aperture, for example with Preview.
I am also aware that Aperture does not modify the original photo. But when I take a photo in "Portrait" orientation, my camera (and most modern digital cameras) record the orientation in the EXIF data in the photo. It is my understanding that this is how the Finder/Preview or any other application knows how to display the photo from an orientation perspective. Indeed, if I take a portrait photo straight from my camera and place it on the Mac Desktop, the orientation is correctly displayed. When I them import that photo into my referenced aperture library, the photo's orientation appears correctly in Aperture, but if I look at the original in the Finder or Preview, the orientation is lost.
Hopefully this makes sense.
Thanks in advance for any assistance.

I just ran into this issue and found your post from a search. Maybe too late for you, but for anyone else who finds this, here is the solution:
In the export dialog when exporting "Originals...", select "Don't Include IPTC" for "Metadata".
The behavior doesn't make any sense, but that's how I fixed my exports!

Aperture Library size different after restore from TM and rebuild Thumbnails

I have just completed an erase-install-migrate from Time Machine using Setup Assistant.
The size of the managed Aperture Library originally was 397.8Gb
After completion of the migrate back in I opened Aperture and as expected it rebuilt the thumbnails (TM does not backup the Thumbnails).
After doing this I tested the Library as far as possible and all seems well, and the number of photos is exactly the same as before (49,883).
However, the size of the library is now 357.8 Gb.
The only logical explanation (to me) is that the restore process has eliminated previews and thumbnails from photos which I have deleted over the years.
I still have a backup of the original (397.8Gb) version which I could put back with the Finder, but if the restored library has cleared years of redundant previews and thumbnails I would prefer to stay with that.
All done with Mavericks and Aperture 3.5.
Any insights very welcome.
Thanks

Just had the idea of looking at sizes in the Library package contents, and the explanation for the change in size is due to three things:
Thumbnails old: 44.95 Gb
Thumbnails new: 15.13 Gb
There is also an iPod photocache of 14.6 Gb which is not yet present in the new.
However Previews old was 27.95 Gb and Previews new is 33.18 Gb, so I assume some previews were smaller in the original Library.
Masters is 304.3 Gb in the original and new libraries.
I am beginning to feel more confident about the new library.

How to email Aperture library photos from iPhoto

Want to use Aperture library photos (which I can easily view from iPhoto 11) in the beautiful email systems of iPhoto. When I select the Aperture library photos and select Share-email nothing happens, then the Share-email menu becomes grayed out. According to the help available all aperture library shots are fully available for use in iPhoto 11. Any suggestions? Thanks

You hav to move the photos from Aperture to iPhoto to do this.
1. Using the Media Browser you can drag from the browser to the iPhoto Window - this yields the Aperture Previews
2. Export from Aperture to the Finder, import to iPhoto.
That said if you use Apple's Mail.app you can
A: Take advantage of the Stationery feature, which has more templates than iPhoto, more varied thatn iPhoto and others can be downloaded
B: It's a full mail application, with an outbox and so on
C: You can email from Aperture, and so avoid this loop into iPhoto.
Regards
TD

What's the best way to make my Aperture library more manageable?

I'm running the latest version of Aperture. My photo library has become quite large and it takes a long time to load. Any advice or opinions on how to make the library more manageable would be appreciated before I go ahead and mess it all up. Obviously, I have a lot of photos there that I never view but I don't really want to simply delete them.
Thanks

I have 192Gb of 999Gb left
That should suffice.
I have now disabled FACES, XML and previews. I'll test this shortly to see if it helps. I'm not sure what difference this will make to other apps.
That will be important, when you want access the APerture library from other applications using te Media Browser or when you want to sync your images to your deviced usin iTunes. For images, that you want to use in the Media Browser you will need previews, or for browsing your aperture library in quick Preview mode. You can craete previews indivudally, if you do need them only for selected images. If you want to use the Media Browser with third party applications, however, you will also need the XML. See:
Aperture 3.5: Set "Share XML with other applications" to "Never" for better performance and faster quit times
Okay. I've closed Aperture and reopened it 4 times. It appears to go through this 'IMPORTING FROM iCloud November 2013' every time.
Either it takes a very long time, or there is an image or a video in your Photo Stream that cannot be imported, because it is incompatible or corrupted.
For iPhoto libraries it used to help, to remove the current "Importing" or "Auto Import" folder from the library package. Try, if this will help for your Aperture library.
See this post by LarryHN how to do it:
TS3745 Re: iphoto library error message???
If you cannot get the import to stop this way, post back, Then you have to delete the photos from your Photo Stream or reset the Photo Stream.

Big Aperture Library - iMac with SSD HDD - how to?

Just ordered the new 27 inch i7 iMac with SSD plus 2TB HDD , and want to plan the move from my old MBP.
I currently have a managed Aperture Library which is about 400GBs (on an external drive). Clearly this will not fit on a 256GB SSD, but I'd like to get some speed benefit from the SSD.
So I'm thinking I'll change to a referenced library, placing the masters on the 2TB drive and the aplibrary on the SSD.
To get there, I plan to to go through the following steps, and my questions are, do you think this is a good approach? Is there a better way? Can you see any risks?
Make a backup copy of the aplibrary on my old Mac to an external drive
Open it on the iMac
Relocate Masters from this aplibrary to the 2TB drive
Close down Aperture.
Copy the (now smaller) aplibrary from the external drive to the SSD
Open it there.
I tried these steps between external hard drives with a small (less than 5GB) aplibrary to test the concept and when I opened the copy of the (now smaller) aplibrary, all worked fine. The copy of the aplibrary knew where the masters were.
Background:-
My thinking is that the performance should be quite good since the library will be quite small (I'm guessing about 30GBs) and accesses to this library will be to quite small items (average in my test is 0.2 MB per item), whereas the images are quite large (up to 25 MB per image). Hard disks are better at moving big items and SSD benefits tend to be higher for reads and writes to small items, since there is no seek time or rotation time. Of course the system and applications will be on the SSD as well.
PS I may even try this approach on my MBP, putting the aplibrary on the internal drive and the images still external.

Interesting!
Thanks, Ernie.
I am expecting that Aperture will launch faster since the app will be on SSD, but I also expect that due to accesses to the aplibrary, Aperture will be much faster. For example, the aplibrary will contain the previews, thumbnails, metadata and adjustments. I don't really expect that Aperture will transfer images being edited to SSD, rather that it would simply read them into RAM directly, bypassing the SSD.
What I definitely WILL do is to try to observe the performance differences with the library on SSD vs HDD.
I can see this turning into a science experiment for me!
PS, I will have 12 GBs of RAM, the original 4 plus 8 more
Message was edited by: John Kitchen - added postscript

Need help in distributing Master Folder (all my original pics), Aperture Library, Aperture Back-up, Vault and Time Machine

I have a desktop iMac and three external HDs. One HD called Aperture Library (2T) now has Aperture Library, Time Machine backups and Master Folder, which is where I put my RAW files of pictures I want to keep. A second HD called Aperture back-up (1T) has another large Master Folder. This was created a long time ago when I was using Lightroom. I plan to transfer pictures on to HD Aperture Library > Master Folder so I will have 1 Master Folder. A third external HD called Vault (1T) now only contains my Quicken b/u.
I have not made a vault yet for Aperture, because I am in the process of exporting files from Lightroom and bringing them into Aperture 3. What a mess, especially because I was not able to use my photo apps (Lightroom or Aperture) for a few months and forgot the do's and don'ts. Please help me organize this stuff while I have the time and motivation. Greatly appreciated.

Note that Masters need only be backed up once (but to multiple backup locations) and that backup should happen immediately after copying to the hard drive from the camera card, before involving Aperture or any other images management app.
Time Capsule is an ongoing regular-routine backup process. Image originals instead need irregularly timed backup, once.
IMO referenced Masters make far more sense than building huge managed-Masters Libraries.
• Hard disk speed. Drives slow as they fill so making a drive more full (which managed Masters always does) will slow down drive operation.
• Database size. Larger databases are by definition more prone to "issues" than smaller databases are.
• Vaults. Larger Library means larger Vaults, and Vaults are an incremental repetitive backup process, so again larger Vaults are by definition more prone to "issues" than smaller Vaults are. One-time backup of Referenced Masters (each file small, unlike a huge managed-Masters DB) is neither incremental nor ongoing; which is by definition a more stable process.
Managed-Masters Libraries can work, but they cannot avoid the basic database physics.
HTH
-Allen Wicks

Need help with my Aperture 3 Library

Greetings:
I recently purchased Aperture 3 with my new iMac and need some help. I have a large photo library (like 8GB)...all of these are JPEG photos in folder etc. Now after I have pointed Aperture to my pictures library, I now see my pictures library folder has ballooned to over 29GB. I have not added a great deal more photos and it is just blowing up the space on my hard drive. My question is, I see there is an Aperture library file that is like 9GB in size, then all of my other photos are there too...so can I delete the separate folder of pictures that I originally had before Aperture or do I need to keep the "Aperture Library.aplibrary" file and I can get rid of the others? I am confused as to what I need to keep and get rid of...and I don't want to delete something I need here...but also, I don't want to keep duplicates...it seems like from the size, which is now nearly 4 times the size it used to be. Please help me understand the in's and out's of this so I will get rid of the copies (if there are any).
Thank you,
Dave Jordan

Hi Dave
I'd recommend you read a couple of the sections in the User Manual before proceeding. I'd suggest the following:
1) [What Are Managed Images and Referenced Images?|http://documentation.apple.com/en/aperture/usermanual/index.html#chapte r=3%26section=1%26hash=apple_ref:doc:uid:Aperture-UserManual-91292STP-1013878] from the 'Basic Components of Aperture' page.
2) [Planning Your Import Strategy|http://documentation.apple.com/en/aperture/usermanual/index.html#chapt er=4%26section=3] from the 'Importing Images' chapter.
Don't worry - they're not long!
You want to understand the difference between managed and referenced and eventually make you own decision. In contrast to Matthew, I'm much happier with referenced masters. You need to get a feel for the pros and cons of each approach and then decide what's right for you. Having said that, I understand that you can change (or even mix?) approaches later on if you find the need.
Some of the other chapters in the [Importing Images|http://documentation.apple.com/en/aperture/usermanual/index.html#chapter =4%26section=0] section might also be useful in shaping your thoughts at this stage.
Regards,
Gary

Need Help Moving Aperture Library to new MacBook

I am unable to move my Aperture 3.1.1 library from my old (2008) MacBook Pro to the new one which I just got. It is a managed library.
When I try to move the library over I get the following error message +"One or more items can’t be copied to “Pictures” because you don’t have permission to read them. Do you want to copy the items you are allowed to read?"+.
I have already Repaired Aperture Permissions and Database and Rebuilt the Database.
Please help. Apple won't!

Niel you are a god! The files appear to be copying over after your suggestion. It will be awhile before I am sure everything is completely set as I am copying a 100GB Aperture library over firewire. However it appears this fix did the trick.
It has been a wasteful and stressful afternoon dealing with this.
Thank You!

TS2518 Help, I had aperture open and working on a image and did not have a battery in and bumped the power off. As a result it will not open my master, it is locked. when I try to open that Library it says There was an error opening the database for the

Help, I had aperture open and working on a image and did not have a battery in and bumped the power off. As a result it will not open my master, it is locked. when I try to open that Library it says There was an error opening the database for the library. I have tried every thing. I updated the other libr but now it will not open the main to update. What do I do?

Try starting Aperture with the command and option keys held down. You'll get 3 options.
Try each, starting at the top, in order, checking after each to see if it fixes the issue.

Viewing Aperture library items in iPhoto as workflow help

I wanted to view my Aperture library jpegs in iPhoto without opening Aperture. The reason for this is to use iPhoto to review my pictures and to open in an external editor from iPhoto. We use Fireworks in designing web sites and newsletters. I did not want to save to another folder which takes up space. The workflow requires the use of Fireworks, crop out what we need from or graphics/pictures and place in the final work for Dreamweaver.
I opened the Aperture library content and dragged the image folders to iPhoto. It did take the pictures and gave a notice for the files that were not imported. These were jpeg files, not the raw. Advantage is that the Aperture library is now the one resource for our workflow. I can switch from FireWorks to Photoshop when needed. We did not try this with the Raw files, but I suppose that could be done too. Opening the raw in PS would be helpful to some workflows.
I thought this was a good tip. It has saved us quite a bit of time and is easy to use.

I'm not sure I understand. If you're using iPhoto to review and edit jpg files you've pretty much nuked any reason to use Aperture at all. It also means that edited copies of your images are not tracked as versions and aren't backed up in the vault. Can you explain a little more what your workflow is?
I'm do not want versions tracked in Aperture in this case. I want samples of textures or parts of image available for use in designing other graphics. We are in the graphics studio and want to open files in FireWorks, crop/marque out parts and paste to another FireWorks file. I have iPhoto set up to open externally in Fireworks. Think of it as needing 'clip art' out of picture in the library.
What we are doing is designing banners for web sites and newsletters. I might want a horizon/sunset only as a background to blend into the banner. I have iPhoto open already along with Fireworks and Dreamweaver. No need to have Aperture or any other program open now. iPhoto has the jpegs..... click to open in FireWorks, marque, copy and past the parts I want into the banner design.
Before that I had to have a resource folder of jpegs. The Aperture library can now store jpegs and access them from iPhoto. I have to hunt quickly through hundreds of image we have store for each texture and different subjects for these banner creations.
Hope this helps. We just need small parts of any given image. This was a good solution. I'm sure there are others too.

I am in Aperture 3, editing from raw, getting bouncing ball every few edits. i created a new aperture library to see if this would help. it does not. i have to force quit to keep working. I shoot alot as my work.. this is making the process take lon

I am in Aperture 3, editing from RAW, i get a beachball every 5 or so edits, so have to force quit to keep working.
I created a new aperture library to see if that would remedy the situation.. it does not.
Very time consuming.. can anyone help? ami doing something wrong? looked for software updates on my computer and did not fine any for aperture.
any ideas? Thank you

How much RAM, how full is the hard drive, and what computer? 8 GB RAM is recommended, and I also recommend that you do not upgrade to OS 10.7 Lion at this time.
HTH
-Allen

Help in managing Aperture library

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