Aperture acting up

Not sure what I've done differently but I can't toggle b/w images in full screen mode - a royal pain! Any ideas?
Thanks,
M

By toggling I mean using either arrow key to move from pic to pic.
M

Similar Messages

Is there a way to transfer all my old files in an USB hard drives to a larger thunderbolt connected hard drive through Aperture so it acts as the DAM?

I just got the 27" iMac but I don't want to burden it with all my photo files which are presently on 2 external HDs (USB 2.0 but one has FW800). I plan to transfer all these files to a new 4Tb HD via thunderbolt which will be my new working HD. Then I will put the old HDs in a an off site place for security. I want to access all the files by letting Aperture act as the digital asset manager. What is the fastest way to accomplish this?

I think the best place to ask this question would be in the Aperture forum, as they would know what you'd need to change in Aperture to deal with the moves.
Here's a link for you:
https://discussions.apple.com/community/professional_applications/aperture?view= discussions

One of my vaults stopped updating

Hi all,
Any ideas what might be wrong?
I have Aperture 3.0.3, library about 200GB. I've set up three vaults: one internal raid set and two USB disks. I had to do a restore a week ago and did that from the internal vault. No problems whatsoever. After the restore the first vault update to the internal disk and one of the USB disks took several hours but completed eventually.
Now I've got the other USB disk back at home. The vault didn't update, just got stuck to about 50% (completed "copying masters", then nothing happens). The progress bar is there but aperture acts as if the update process had been completed. All the aperture controls are responsive but the vault is marked red as "not up to date".
I deleted the vault and re-created it to the same disk. Same result. The other two vaults update normally but this one doesn't, no matter what I do. I've run Aperture fix and repair tools, system permissions repair etc etc etc but nothing seems to help.
The disk is a seagate USB 500gb disk, MAC os extended (Case-sensitive, journaled).
Should I report a bug or is this a known feature?

Given that the library backs up to vaults on other drives the variable is the drive, check the ownership on the drive you are writing to. Get info on the drive and check the Sharing & Permissions tab.
Tony

I deleted aperture and now my sistem is acting crazy. I desperately need help fixing it.Can anyone help me please?

I deleted aperture and now my sistem is acting crazy.The dock disappeared and almost all icons are gone except for their names.I have an important project for tomorrow and I desperately need help fixing it.Can anyone help me please?

Well it all started with Aperture 3 trying to import some photos from my iphone.It took ages to import those photos and like I was in a hurry to finish my work in Illustrator so I tryied to force quit on A3 and it didn´t, so I shut down the computer and started over.it was all ok but I uninstalled the A3 and the I realized the icons were back to original form and a few fonts changed.so I Installed the trial version of A3.I did a restart of the system and then there was.aperture lauching but no dock and a 80% of the icons disappeared, but the names of the files and folder remained.and I cand acces the apps from the apple sign on the left corner.I tried also restarting a few time but it´s always the same.I am a recent user of a mac , and please excuse my bad english.If this is in any way useful please help me!

Aperture suddenly acting buggy: photo adjustments not showing up

Aperture has starting acting really oddly. The primaryt thing I've noted is that when I make adjustments, frequently they aren't being reflected in the image shown (as if the "preivew" isn't being updated. I know the adjustments are doing something, since the histogram curves change as I'm making changes. Moreover, if I toggle between the master and the version, no change is displayed (although the histograms do change).
The above behavior happens about 80% of the time, with the other 20% of the time things act normally. I can't determine any pattern to when things work or don't work.
I tried deleting all the previews and recreating them all, thinking maybe there was some issue with the preview database. Alas, that didn't solve the problem.
Any ideas?

Argelius,
Please test with a new, small Library, and see if the same behavior persists. Also see:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3805
Ernie

Sorting order of pictures from Aperture in an iPod slideshow

I've recently got a video iPod and have transferred all my photos to it from Aperture. I found that it was necessary to create an album for every project in my Aperture library in order for the projects to show up on the iPod.
Having got all my projects (as albums) listed on the iPod, I want to be able to view them as slideshows. However, there's been a 'scattering effect' in the sorting of all the pictures in each album: overall, they're broadly in the correct order, but many pictures have been scattered out of the order they're supposed to be in.
For example, in one particular album, which is of a two-day shoot, the pictures are broadly chronological on the iPod but many pictures are out of sequence. Sometimes they're displaced just a few positions from where they should be. Sometimes they're on completely the wrong day (e.g. a handful of day 1 shots are intermingled with the day 2 pictures). It's easy to see that the ordering is wrong by looking at the 5x5 album preview on the iPod, and of course the slideshow reflects that order.
My photos are all dated correctly (in terms of Mac datestamp and EXIF image data), and they're named sequentially (in the form "### image name.jpg", where ### is a three-digit number starting from 001). In Aperture, the pictures are set to be ordered by filename, and they do appear in the right order there, but once they've made it across to the iPod they're out of sequence. I can't see any reason for the new iPod ordering: it seems entirely arbitrary, yet it's the same after every synch, and it doesn't correspond to any setting I can make in Aperture as far as I can see.
My iPod's date setting is correct and the 'shuffle slideshow' option is turned off. (Though I don't think that either fact is relevant - especially not 'shuffle', as the pictures are clearly in the wrong order in the album previews and the slideshow just reflects that ordering.)
I want and need my pictures to be in their correct numerical/chronological sequence. If they're in the wrong order, the slideshow facility is completely useless. I've seen similar questions asked by other users on this forum, but none has yet received a satisfactory answer.
Someone, please put me out of my misery and tell me how to make this work as it should!
PowerMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8) Dual 2.5GHz, Radion X800
PowerMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8) Dual 2.5GHz, Radion X800

Thanks a lot for the answer. But what an absolute pain in the nether regions! The situation as it stands is totally unacceptable, and I really didn't want to have to mess about with iPhoto any more. I bought Aperture to replace iPhoto, not to act as a back-end to it.
I sincerely hope that Apple will address this issue, and soon. The combination of Aperture and iPod is frankly not fit for purpose. And when you consider that the 'free' software equivalent (iPhoto plus iPod) is just fine, you start to feel a little ripped off.
By the way, David, it's a small world! You know that church just across the road from David Brown? My father's been organist there for about 40 years. And my uncle worked in David Brown's in Meltham (though it's been demolished for years, now). I live only about a mile away from where you used to work.
PowerMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8) Dual 2.5GHz, Radion X800

Aperture creating new version of image for each adjustment applied!

To anyone out there who can sort this one out, I will be forever grateful!
Here's the problem. I'll be jamming away in Aperture, adjusting photos like a madman. After adjusting a random number of photos (it usually varies between 5-30 photos or so after starting Aperture each time), the adjustments panel will no longer update when I click on a new image (i.e. it holds the info from the last image I adjusted and will continue to apply new adjustments to that last image even if another image is highlighted). If I switch to the metadata panel and then back to adjustments it will refresh itself and recognize the currently selected image (although I have to do this for EACH image I want to adjust once it starts acting up like this). The BIG problem is that even if I get the adjustments panel to recognize the selected image at this point, for EACH adjustment I apply it makes a new version of the image. For example, if I first change the contrast, it will make Version 2 of the image and select it (which is what it's supposed to do for the first adjustment, because I have "create new versions when making adjustments" checked in my preferences), but if I then make another adjustment like changing the saturation, it makes Version 3 of the image (from the master, so that only the saturation adjustment is applied and not the contrast adjustment). As you can imagine, this utterly destroys my once incredibly efficient Aperture workflow and makes it pretty much impossible to use Aperture for adjustments unless I turn off "create new versions when making adjustments" in the preferences, at which point it does seem to work again (although I've only tried it on a few images, so not 100% sure it will work properly even then). If I restart Aperture (or my computer), it will work normally again for a few pictures and then will start acting up again with the same problem.
Originally I was running into this problem on my PowerBook G4, and so I figured it was just because Aperture didn't like my wussy G4 processor and was acting up when the load got too heavy (after all, the adjustments would work fine for up to 30 images or so). However I recently purchased a sexy iMac 24" 2.8 GHz and maxed out the RAM to 4GB, but I'm still getting the same darned problem with Aperture on my iMac. Yes, I'm using the same library of photos I was using on my PowerBook G4.
This problem has been plaguing me for about 3 months now (everything else in Aperture works fine so I'm still using it to import and organize my photos, I just haven't been able to make adjustments on large groups of pictures for a while), and I've searched and searched these forums countless times to see if anyone has run into similar problems, but I've not seen a single mention of it. I've also tried EVERYTHING mentioned for similar problems (rebuilding library, vacuuming database, erasing com.apple.aperture.plist preference file, repairing permissions, reinstalling Aperture, making burnt offerings to Steve Jobs), and NOTHING is working. ARRGH!!
For those who might have some words of wisdom to offer this delighted-***-miserably frustrated Aperture user, here are a few more details about my setup:
I have a library of about 37,000 photos, the vast majority of them being RAW .CRW files from a Canon 10D. The 25GB library file is stored on my internal hard drive, and all photos are referenced from an external LaCie 500GB FireWire 400 hard drive. I have a LOT of export plug-ins installed in Aperture, but no image adjustment plugins. I have generated previews turned off for all projects. I've had the same problem on both my PowerBook G4 and new iMac 24" 2.8 GHz. One other thing worth mentioning is that instead of upgrading from 2.1 (which was already giving me this problem) to 2.1.2, I downloaded the full version of 2.1.2 and installed it. I noticed that my 2.1 Aperture.app file was less than 100MB, whereas the 2.1.2 Aperture.app file is over 300MB. Don't know if that's normal or not.
The only other thing I can think of to try at this point is to load a new library into Aperture and import a large group of pictures and make adjustments to them to potentially see if my problem is being caused by Aperture or by the library. Will probably try that tomorrow.
I would appreciate any advice or feedback anyone can offer about this nasty little problem, as it's giving me a serious hormonal imbalance.
THANKS!

Thanks for the reply RB, but my current workflow depends on me creating new versions when I make adjustments. I suppose as a temporary solution I will probably have to either turn this preference off or just be willing to constantly restart Aperture. At least I finally found another thread with the same problem, so finally I don't feel completely alone in the far reaches of the Aperture universe. For anyone who is interested, here is the link to that thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8555067
It appears this problem is closely related to the ubiquitous black viewer problem that seems to be plaguing far more users than my issue (although I've run into the black viewer problem a few times myself), as both problems force Aperture to output the following message to Console:
Main Thread Exception in Aperture: * -NSCFArray objectAtIndex:: index (1) beyond bounds (1)
It seems that both of these problems existed in Aperture 1 and 1.5 up until the 1.5.6 upgrade which seems to have fixed it, but then with Aperture 2 the problem seems to have returned. At least that's the gist of what I've been reading on a number of threads. Whatever the case, I hope Apple gets this sorted out in their next update!
As it appears there is no proper answer to this problem at the moment, I'm gonna go ahead and mark this thread answered (and since you were kind enough to at least take the time to reply RB, you can be credited with the answer... thanks!).

Why I like Aperture

I need to preface this by saying that no application is perfect for everyone. Different people have different workflows, different post-processing needs, and different priorities. I'm not saying Aperture is perfect for everyone. Nor should anyone else say Aperture is useless. It may be useless to them, but not to everyone.
I shoot mostly fashion and advertising type work. I'm a pretty serious amateur, in that I have good gear, and I'm very serious about photography, but I have a day job doing something else (security architecture, which I also love). I shoot only RAW as it gives me way more latitude if I want to adjust the exposure after the fact to change or increase a look (i.e. I want to make things darker and moodier, or I want to blow things out a little). My post-processing requirements are usually the following (in order of frequency): Exposure, white point, saturation, sharpening, levels, blemish fixing. On very rare occasion I'll need to do something beyond that.
My pre-Aperture workflow looked a lot like this:
Copy files from CF card. Due to my camera putting them in different folders based on the sequence, I had to write an automator script to pull out just the image files from all the folders and put them in a new folder on my desktop. This works, but takes a little while, and is something I had to write myself.
Create a folder for my project "Sarah-DarkWear hoodie".
Create the following folders inside that: "raws", "all-jpeg", "best-psd", "best-jpeg". Move all the RAWs from my automator action's results folder into the raws folder.
Open up Adobe CS2 Bridge. View the files. Try to pick the best ones. I can't emphasize enough how laborious and time consuming this task is. Out of 200 shots, about 20 are really good, and about 5 are worth using (in a portfolio or ad or whatever). Bridge has no way to compare two pictures other than switching back and forth between them. You also can't see the pictures at 100% so figuring out sharpness or focus is pretty impossible unless you open them up in Photoshop. Which requires a multi-dialog process and a conversion time.
Once I get my 20 good ones, batch convert them all to PSDs using an action I wrote. This takes a while. The PSDs go into the "best-psds" folder. They each take up about 40-70 MB of space vs. 3-6 MB for each RAW file.
Make the levels, saturation, sharpness adjustments as needed with each file. Using another action I wrote, batch convert the best PSDs to full rez jpegs with my copyright notice on them. As this action involves opening a 70 MB file, creating a new layer for my copyright, setting it up, converting to srgb, converting to 8bit, saving as jpeg, this takes a while. Several seconds each file on my dual 2.5 with 2.5 GB ram.
Using another action I wrote, batch covert all the RAWs to small rez jpegs with my copyright notice on them. These are for the model if it's a tfcd shoot, or for my records, or whatever. This takes a good long while. Now my 1 GB of raws are about 2.3 GB of raws, jpegs, psds.
Open up iView Media pro and update it's index so that all my new files are in it.
Done.
With Aperture, I put my card in the reader.
Aperture pops up and asks if I'd like to import these images. I pick a destination, specify the metadata and keywords for this shoot, and it loads them all in.
I turn on auto-stack. I make a few manual stacking adjustments. I start picking the best shoots. Aperture has excellent compare modes, including 2-up, 3-up, more-up, full rez zoom, a loupe tool for instantly checking focus at full resolution, a 0-5 star rating system, a quick-select key for picking an image as five star, a quick-reject key for an image I know is junk. Within in a stack I can promote, demote, and pick the stack "pick" very quickly and easily. I can do this with just the keyboard. I can easily compare any pictures next to each other. I can go full screen with drops off all the unneeded junk and keeps the various window and toolbar colors for interfering with my vision on my color calibrated display. Picking the best shots is amazingly faster and less frustrating due to the features mentioned above.
I can now make my adjustments (exposure, levels, brightness, saturation, shadows, highlights, spot and patch blemish fixing, red eye, etc...., and then can apply them to all the other similar condition pictures. (In Photoshop/Bridge you can batch apply things like white point and exposure changes, but you can't do saturation, sharpness, etc...). My adjustments go into a 24kb xml file, instead of a 70 MB psd. Each adjustment can be turned on or off, removed, modified, etc... I can instantly create different version of an image. I might want a crop to zoom in on the model's face, or I might want a black and white version, etc... The versions are just a tiny amount of data in the xml file. In photoshop I'd need a new 70 MB psd for each version I wanted.
Once I'm all done getting the images rated and adjusted the way I want them, I can at any time use the export function to generate the jpegs. Since the copyright is a watermark layer and is rendered by Core Image in my video card, the export is about 10X faster than the Photoshop batch action processing. I haven't timed the two side by side, but I will. It's about 10X or so faster though. For me.
Done.
I just converted my 70 GB working library into Aperture over the weekend. I was able to duplicate my photoshop adjustments in Aperture and drop my psds. This took my 70 GB lib to 35.5 GB. That's about half the size.
So for me, and my workflow, and my post-processing requirements, Aperture is faster, uses less hard drive space, is easier to use, and does a great job. It will pay for itself during the first shoot's sorting and post-processing.
There have been reports of the RAW conversion not doing as good a job as Adobe's. It turns out many of those people bringing that up left the default sharpening turned on in Adobe. Since raw files, at least Canon raws, pretty much always need sharpening and a small saturation boots, comparing a converted raw to a converted raw with sharpening will clearly show the one with sharpening looks better. So most of them aren't valid tests. There may be some real issues with Apple's image handling vs. Adobe's. Hopefully if there are, Apple will fix them. My personal experience is that the raw conversion looks pretty much the same to me as Adobe's non-sharpened conversion. I've found that Apple's noise-reduction looks better than Adobe's or Fred Miranda's action. I've found that it takes me less time to get a look I like in Aperture than in Adobe. I've found that my workflow is vastly quicker. To me it is an amazing program that will only get better with each revision.
Devon
2X2.5 GHz w/2.5 GB + 2X2.3 GHz w/4.5 GB + 17"pb Mac OS X (10.4.3)

I have used Aperture quite extensively over the weekend and I also see a lot of potential. I also see the typical amount of bugs for a first release of a software of this complexity and I also see a few software architecture problems.
What did I do with Aperture so far?
First I have imported a few 70MB Tiff scans. Probably less than hundred and played around with it. Rated them, defined some searches, added some keyword hierarchies, tried some image manipulations, created a light table, printed the light table to pdf, created a book and created some example web pages. I played also with the fullscreen mode.
There were a few user interface glitches: The light table sometimes has problems with selections. Creating a query takes too long since it tries to update live. I can't seem to create a book with a light table visible at the same time. While entering a query I clicked on a triangle to open a folder - Aperture didn't like that. And some more.
Lots of stuff worked fine. Some (like the book designer) didn't have enough features. Some features I did understand after some time.
Now I copied my Aperture library to an external firewire disk. The disk is a fast RAID 0 disk connected via firewire 800.
Next I loaded my iPhoto library into Aperture. Something like 17000 photos. This took a few (five?) hours and went without any problem. I got a few hundred projects - I would like to join some of them. I created a query to get the iPhoto edited photos (1900 photos) and removed them. This took about ten minutes. Next I created some queries. No problems with that. Speed is okay on the Powermac.
Next I did some film scans with Nikon Scan and imported them (hundred maybe) large TIFFs into Aperture in small batches.
Then I imported probably hundred RAW images from my Canon EOS 350d. I tried the raw import patch mentioned somewhere else to get Mac OS X 10.4.3 to recognize. This worked fine. (I later tried another method which I cannot mention here, but that worked also fine.)
So currently my Aperture library is about 55 GB.
I never like the rendering of iPhoto too much. Often I used Graphicconverter to view, scale, batch convert, ... Graphicconverter also has quite a good (IMHO) rendering of images. So I was a bit sceptical about Aperture's rendering, but actually I don't have a problem with its on-screen rendering. I kind of like it. I haven't tried to print yet, though.
I also have Photoshop Elements, though I don't use it very much. GraphicConverter is used though. I also have the Canon tools which I also don't use much. I use the scan application sometimes. For the Filmscanner I use Nikon Scan which is okay. For my taste the Aperture application looks & feels better than those - though I'm not a big fan of an all-grey interface (which may have some advantages with being more neutral).
So I had a few crashes (two maybe) and had to force Aperture to quit (three times maybe). But I didn't seem to have lost any data and Aperture started quickly again. Sometimes I restarted Aperture when it acted strangely (like didn't want to provide a working crop tool - maybe four times).
So, would I buy it again? Yes, without a doubt. It's lots of fun... Can't wait to show my friends Aperture loaded with some of the scans I did over the weekend.
Regards,
Rainer Joswig
PowerMac Dual G5, 2.5Ghz, 4GB RAM, 22" Cinema Display, Canon 350d + Canon s80 + Nikon Coolscan IV ED Mac OS X (10.4.3)

HT3805 buy book feature not working "a connection could not be established at this time etc...." How do I fix this? I am running Mountain Lion with Aperture 3.3.2

I have the same problem as many of you on this forum,
Aperture will not allow me to buy a book. It says a connection could not be established at this time.
I have a 2011 17in MBP, running Mountain Lion, Apertaure 3.3.2 purcahsed from the App Store, a 100Mb network connection, based in Staffordshire UK. It acts the same over wifi or ethernet, e.g a connection could not be established at this time. It makes no difference if I am signed into the App store or not.
I have spent 5 days preparing my Wedding album images for a 30 page book with lots of adjustments, therefore, I am desperate to fix this and as I paid £55 for the software I want it to work.
Can anyone help?
Regards
Tim

I still don't know what happened to my test Aperture Library after the update to 3.4...Not only were my previews lost, but so were the original images! Needless to say, I haven't bothered to update the main library on the Mac Pro because I don't want to deal with this level of uncertainty (even with backups in place).

Aperture 1.5: External editor not bringing image back into Aperture?

Hi,
I am running Aperture 1.5 and have Noise Ninja installed as my external editor. I can successfully send an image from my Aperture library to NN and edit it there, but when I save the image, it is not brought back into Aperture. Further, if I try to send another image from Aperture to NN while NN is open, a new TIFF version is created in Aperture, but nothing opens up in NN.
I've been using Aperture and NN for about a year, and it has always acted like this, so I've basically given up on trying to use the External Editing feature in Aperture, but after some research it seemed like this shouldn't be as difficult as it has been for me.
Has anyone else had a problem like this and been able to resolve it? And does it matter that my files are referenced, and not stored in the Aperture library?
Thanks all
Burt

Burt,
Did you ever find a solution? I'm having the same problem with Photoshop files not saving back into Aperture. I haven't been able to figure it out.

Having problems with aperture 3 on imac osx 10.7 and wish to install adobe photoshop elements 10, question will i loose all my liberary from aperture??

would i loose my fotos from the aperature library when i change to adobe photoshop elements 10. aperture keeps shutting my system down all available help has not done any good. gmadeline

You'd only loose your Aperture libraries if you deleted them or damage them in some other way. The simple act of installing another app will not do this.
Of course you do realize that PS will not have any access to the Aperture libraries. If your originals are referenced then PS can get to them as it would to any file. If your originals are managed you will need to export them in order for PS to use them.
This all assumes you are abandoning Aperture for PS. If you are looking to do something else post back,

IMac & External Display & Aperture - Experiences

I have been thinking of getting the new quad core iMac to use with an external monitor for photo editing, relegating the iMac built in display to doing what it does best - acting as a looking glass!
From my own experience and reviews I have read on the web, the performance of Aperture is significantly affected by the graphics card. So what I want to ask is, has anyone here tried this and if so what effect on Aperture's performance does connecting an external display have? If it has an effect do you still find Aperture 'fast enough'? Yes I know 'fast enough' is a relative term and what one person deems fast another may find slow.
Thanks in advance any answers appreciated.
P.S. Is there any way to switch the iMacs built in display off and just use the external display?
John

Hi John
You can not turn off the iMac display, but it shouldn't be a problem if you run the setup in Extended Desktop Mode and then use the connected display as your main Display. Go to: System Preferences > Display's > select the Arrangement tab, then turn Mirroring Off and drag the menu bar to the connected display.
The display on the right is my 17" iMac Display, but I use my 21.5" LG on the left as the main Display. I run most of my Applications on the 21.5" LG Display and use the 17" iMac Display for Finder, iTunes, Tools, Preference panels and other Utilities.
Dennis

Aperture loses focus, even in other programs

I developed a new problem over the past week or so. I'll be typing along in any program when it suddenly loses focus. I can click to re-establish but, once it starts. it happens every 10-15 seconds. I think I've isolated the issue to Aperture. Once I quit Aperture, the problem seems to stop. When I'm using Aperture, it's begun acting strangely: multiple clicks required to select photos, shift-click to get a range doesn't always work, right-click menus pop up then disappear or don't contain all items expected (e.g., Export only shows "Project as new library" as a sub).
I'm up to date on Yosemite (10.10.1) and Aperture (3.6 500021000000000.3 RAW 6.02/Build 768.6), and I'm struggling to key the start of this phenomenon to any particular update (assuming Aperture is winding down and Photos will come soon?) I haven't tried to reinstall Aperture, although I did have a repair situation a couple of weeks ago when I had a white screen of death in OS X.
Has anyone experienced this? Any suggestions beyond repair/rebuild? I've been exporting originals for a while with the expectation of changes ahead and will continue with that as best I can...

So, I had some time (and accumulated frustration) to check on this further, with no positive results.
I thought I might need to repair or rebuild my Aperture database. I tried following the instructions in the Help file (Control-Command-Click on Aperture database in Finder) but that did not yield the dialog to repair/rebuild, just launched Aperture.
I used Activity Monitor to try to see what was running, and I seem to get a process called "ReportCrash" that cycles into the CPU use column every time the focus changes. But, I haven't gotten the typical "Program has crashed. Do you want to send a report?" dialog. It happens every 3-10 seconds, and only happens when Aperture is open. I haven't tried reinstalling Aperture yet because I haven't had a chance to dig out installation disk stuff.
I may try to cross-post this to a Yosemite forum to see if it's just coincidence that it happens when Aperture is running.
Maybe it's just life telling me to ante up for LightRoom...

Aperture previews on internal HD while RAW on external HD - possible?

Hi. I need a solution that will allow me to store my RAW and old JPG original image library on external drives and keep high quality JPGs in the Aperture library on the internal drive. For me this would act as a secondary backup to burning RAW files to DVD for archival and disaster recovery, and also allow faster access to certain functions of Aperture that don't require messing with RAW masters, not to mention freeing up a lot of space that is very much needed. Especially now with 24 and 36 MP RAW files from my D7100 and D800, RAW files are often in the 60-70 MB range while an HQ JPG of the same image might be about 10x less. Is this possible with Aperture? Is anyone doing something similar to deal with similar issues with a different solution that doesn't include Aperture (I've been using Aperture since the beginning so I don't have a lot of experience with different solutions, but I'm willing to switch), such as Lightroom or Capture NX2? Obviously cost and hardware are limitations here. Ideally, I would have a RAID setup and offsite auto-backup, but this would require TBs of storage on top of the TBs I already have, which usually costs upwards of $100 per month (i.e. bitcasa). Not an option for me right now. Thanks for any suggestions!
P.S. Just to be clear, I'm aware of the relatively high quality thumbnails (up to 1024 pixels) Aperture generates, which are available in the program even if the managed library is unavailable (unplugged). This isn't good enough for my purpose. I'm talking about large JPGs, at least 2 to 3 times larger than a 1024 thumbnail that could potentially be of use in a professional context in the event the orignals were lost or unavailable.

Aperture is structured to provide exactly what you want. You have a few details mis-understood, however.
Read my short guide to the parts of Aperture.
Your Library holds Images (each Image is a record in a database). You control whether the Image's Original (the file you imported) is stored inside the Library package or outside. Images that are stored outside the Library package can be on-line or off-line (Images stored inside the Library package are on-line any time the Library is open in Aperture.) Aperture lets you do much with Images whose Originals are off-line, all of which involves metadata: you can rate them, put them into different containers in Aperture, assign keywords, etc. What you cannot do when an Image's Original is off-line is: print the Image, change Adjustments, or export the Image.
Aperture is designed to deal with the problem of Libraries taking up too much space an a single drive by relocating older or rarely-used Images' Originals to a second (almost always external) drive.
Cleverly, though, Aperture also includes another file based on your Image that can be useful. This is the Preview. It is a JPG file. It is stored in your Library package, and thus is always on-line when your Library is open. You create a copy of your Preview file by dragging an Image from Aperture. Those copies can be emailed, used in other programs, etc. (Added: In fact, it is this Preview file that Aperture makes available to other programs via OS X's Media Browser.)
You control:
- whether Previews are created
- whether Previews are deleted
- the size and quality settings of the Preview file.
You can control these things for each Image in your Library, but in practice this is usually set for the entire Library and not changed for any subset of Images.
Put your Library on your system drive. Relocate [some, many, almost all] Originals to a dedicated external drive. (Note that this is not a one-way trip: Aperture makes it easy to relocate or consolidate any Originals at any time. And don't worry about the Finder folder structure: it seems important to you, but to the computer it makes no difference at all.) Set your Previews to the highest resolution and quality that you might need. (I set mine to equal the resolution of my largest display, with "Quality" set to 10.)
You now have pretty much what you asked for: a trimmed-down Library, RAW Originals off of your system drive, and the ability to create fairly large, high-quality JPGs of your Images at any time.
The next step -- should your Library outgrow this set-up -- is to put your Library on a fast external drive. External drive throughput is excellent today. Start-up time for a Library on an external drive is slower, but once loaded a Library on an external drive should appear to the user no different than a Library on an internal drive.
The above makes up your _working copy_ of your Aperture system ("system" = Library + Images' Referenced Originals). For backup, make two copies of your _working copy_. Store one off site. Never have all three in the same physical location.
The Preview is, as you've noticed, a good "extra" back-up of your work. Just be aware that it is a JPG, and is likely lower resolution than a new file created by exporting an Image.
Lastly, you might re-consider using optical media for archival purposes. I looked into this three or four years ago and concluded that keeping two copies of my digital archive on hard drives was less expensive, easier to maintain, more reliable, and gave me far more latitude for storage and retrieval.
HTH,
--Kirby.
Message was edited by: Kirby Krieger

Aperture workflow using Photoshop

All,
To those pro digital photographers out there, or anyone doing high volume and/or serious adjustments (beyond what Aperture can provide), I am interested in what the workflow looks like for those who are using both Aperture and Photoshop.
I am now in my fourth day of using Aperture, and I feel I've been brought to a crossroads of deciding whether to use Aperture at all, despite the fact that I love some of its features, and I'd like to use it. Here are the parameters acting on the situation:
1) I must have the ability to edit my RAW, original photos on open (first edit) using Adobe Camera RAW.
2) I have to have Photoshop as my image editor (for many reasons, just assume its non-negotiable).
Seems simple enough. But these things are my hurdles:
1) Inability to get at my Aperture files on the filesystem.
2) Inability to save from Photoshop directly into Aperture. This is very important if I decide to "Save As..." from Photoshop or do something like create a Picture Package which saves as a new PSD.
3) Inability to open into Camera RAW.
4) Inability to save layers in PSD files in Aperture.
I am trying to be the optimist here and keep an open mind. But honestly, if Photoshop is an integral part of your workflow, how are these obstacles not a deal-killer?
I'd like to hear from any of you who are using both Aperture and Photoshop together. What does your workflow look like?
Brad

2) Inability to save from Photoshop directly into
Aperture. This is very important if I decide to "Save
As..." from Photoshop or do something like create a
Picture Package which saves as a new PSD.
It's only a workaround rather than a proper solution, but for this bit have a look at the thread on tethered shooting, I listed the steps to set up a hot folder - any image copied or saved to that folder will automatically be imported into Aperture. There is even an option to delete the 'dropped in' file so that the folder doesn't clog up with temporary files.
Ian

Aperture acting up

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