Aperture Advice: Managed or Referenced Files

I've looked through a lot of the threads here and done some googling. It seems the answer is - "it depends".
So I was hoping I could get some advice on how I can maxamise my use of aperture.
System specs - Mac OSX Imac 2.66 GHz dual core. 4gb ddr2 Ram.
Part of the problem I'm having is that I have a huge number of photos to manage (it's around 350gb of photos) so because of this i'm keeping my photos stored on a fast(ish) 1 terrabyte external drive. At the moment i'm using a managed system but I'm told part of the pro's of aperture is that it's easy to change your file systems.
I don't have any need to edit my image masters, if i need to access photos i just export a version.
So am i right in thinking the best system for me, will be to keep a library file on my Imac but set managed storage to keep the masters on my terrabyte external drive?
Would really appreciate some advice on how I can best use aperture i've noticed that whenever it's open it's a total system hog. I basically have to close it if I want to use anything else on the Imac. Final cut express and aperture open is a no-no for example.
Any advice is greatly appreciated
Thanks
C
(Detailed system specs)
Model Name:          iMac
Model Identifier:          iMac8,1
Processor Name:          Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed:          2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors:          1
Total Number Of Cores:          2
L2 Cache:          6 MB
Memory:          4 GB
Bus Speed:          1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version:          IM81.00C1.B00
SMC Version (system):          1.29f1

Why managed, I am lazy! One click back up using vaults, simplicity.
I have multiple RAIDs, my old "slow" RAID now has my libraries on it, the new "fast" RAIDs are used for video.
I do run multiple libraries and the only time I have had an issue with missing files was when playing with referenced. That said many people enjoy running a referenced system, for the way I work managed is easiest. Disk space is not an issue, backing up is not an issue, what is it now, $100 for a 2TB drive, on site and offsite covered for $200.
Tony

Similar Messages

Managed or Referenced files?

I'm using Aperture 1.5.6 for a year and although pretty familiar I still have a few questions about managed vs referenced files and they are:
1) Are all Aperture features available to both managed & referenced files. i.e., metadata, keywords etc. etc.?
2) If I choose to change referenced files to managed from my hard drives into the Aperture Library are those files duplicated or now only in the Aperture library?
Thanks

Despite this quote from page 140 of the User Manual,
"Choose whether you want the image files moved or copied to a new location by clicking the 'Move files' or 'Copy files' button".
If you choose to store them in their current location, they are neither moved nor copied.
If you choose to have them stored in the Aperture Library or elsewhere they are copied.
This is probably a good thing because, no matter what you do, it keeps your iPhoto Library intact.
DLS

Change from managed to referenced files

My hard drive is full, so I'd like to move all the managed master files in my Aperture 3 library off my internal hard drive onto an external 'photos' hard drive as referenced masters instead. Although I feel like I understand the general principles of what's involved, I have some specific questions I'm hoping some more experience A3 users can help with:
What command in Aperture do I use to move all the managed master files in my Aperture 3 library off my internal hard drive onto an external one, converting them all to referenced masters? (I can only seem to find instructions for going the other way (consolidating referenced masters into the library) or for moving masters that are already referenced.)
After all my master files are converted to referenced masters, if the referenced external hard drive is disconnected, will I still be able to make adjustments to the 'off-line' files using the previews stored in the library? (e.g.: adjust colours, crop)
After all my master files are converted to referenced masters, if the referenced external hard drive is disconnected, will I still be able to edit the metadata for those off-line files using the previews stored in the library? (e.g.: change time, add keywords)
Time Machine automatically back-up the referenced master files on the external 'photos' hard drive? (I understand that this would at the very minimum require that my Time Machine external back-up hard drive be big enough to back-up both my internal drive and my photos external drive -- which it is.)
Regardless of the Time Machine answer in #4, if I duplicate the photo directory on my external 'photos' hard drive onto another external drive as a back-up, and then if the 'photos' hard drive fails, is it a simple process to get Aperture to point to the files on the back-up hard drive and use those instead?
Thanks everyone!! I really look forward to your feedback.

1. Under File use Relocate Masters for ... (project, library, depending on what's selected on the Library tab) and choose the destination on your external Hard Drive
2. You won't be able to make adjustments to the files once the Hard Drive is disconnected ( the masters are offline). You can only rotate the images.
3. Yes, you can make all sorts of metadata edits to off line masters as well as create albums, rate, etc.
4. Yes it will. You need to deselect your External Hard Drive from the list of excluded files to Back Up from System Preferences, Time Machine, Options.
5. The process to re link Aperture to your back up Masters on your 2nd Hard Drive is simple, but not automatic. Aperture keeps track of your Hard Drive on which masters are stored, so you'll need to use the Locate Referenced Files menu under File. Ideally, if you select the Library and use the Locate Refernced Files, you just point Aperture to the first file on the list and then select Reconnect All, but it can be time consuming depending on the size of your library.

Aperture won't locate referenced files

I get I dialoge box that says there are no referenced files associated with this picure but I spotlight finds it in a split second. Half of my pictures look blank after importing my Apeture library into my new iMac. Any suggestions would be deeply appreciated.

Half of my pictures look blank after importing my Apeture library into my new iMac.
How did you transfer your Aperture library to your new mac? From a TM backup? Did you copy it?
I get I dialoge box that says there are no referenced files associated with this picure but I spotlight finds it in a split second.
When do you see this message? Are you trying to reconnect the versions to the original files with the "Locate Referenced Files" dialog?
but I spotlight finds it in a split second.
Where does Spotlight find the originals? Inside the Aperture library or in a folder outside?
Please explain more.
Regards
Léonie

I updated to Mavericks and Aperture 3.5. After the update, Aperture doesn't see referenced files. I get "No Referenced Files"

I updated to Mavericks and Aperture 3.5. All my images are referenced on a stand-alone drive. After the update, Aperture displays thumbnails, but I can't edit because Aperture doesn't see the referenced file ("image offline") and when choose all of my images and I run locate referenced files ... I get "No Referenced Files." I don't get the screen to "look" for the files.

Did you make a clean install and restore the library from a backup? No.
Or did you install the new system amd new version on top of the old system? Yes.
What version did you upgrade from? 3.4
Is your Aperture library onyour internal drive or also on an external drive? External
During the update, has your Aperture library been moved in any way? No, its still where it was on the external drive.
Thanks for your help. Ideas?

Version/Referenced File name changes and managing reference files.

I had an issue with wrong version names for reasons of my own DAM workflow. I changed the name in the metadata portion of Aperture and changed the name in the drive the has the referenced files for the versions (and there are no duplicated versions, etc). When I go to manage the referenced files, I get the old version names popping up in the manage reference files window/dialog. the names I want show up elsewhere in Aperture and on the reference external drive, but not in the manage reference files dialog. Is there a way to ensure that all of Aperture knows my new version names and new referenced file names?

Oh, and I did restart the application, but not the machine.

Aperture indicates referenced files are offline

I keep my referenced images on the hard drive of my imac, and I have checked in finder that all of my referenced images are in their usual locations. Aperture will not let me adjust or export images because it thinks my hard drive is offline. If I try and adjust or export an image, I get the following message. "The selected master image is either offline or not found. Please reconnect it and try again." If I select "Manage Referenced Files", Aperture indicates my home directory is offline and does not show my directory tree on my hard drive.

Hi,
Could you tell me how you resolved this problem and got Aperture to recognize
your referenced files?
I also use TM to back up my computer, and all my referenced photos are actually stored on the TM.
This setup has worked beautifully for 6 months now, and suddenly my photos are "offline".
I can still see the files with the Finder, and also on TM and can successfully import them with
Aperture. The newly imported files are then recognized by Aperture as online. But all other files in my projects and albums are either "offline" or "not found".
I can't seem to get any where with 'Manage Reference Files'. For example, "reconnect" and "reconnect all" are both greyed out. 'Show in Finder' also indicates that the 'volume on which the files reside is offline'.
I am using a Mac Book Pro, OS X 10.5.4.
I am beginning to think I'll have to re-import all my files and re-create my projects. There must be some way to get Aperture to recognize the location of the referenced files.
Thank you for any assistance you can give.

Aperture 3 doesn't see Network Drive that holds masters of referenced files

Hi
I created a new referenced library with about 35000 images and for the few days it worked fine. The Referenced files are located on a Drobo that is connected to My Mac OS X server. I connect to it Via AFP.
About 2 days ago, I opened the library and the library does not see the referenced files. When I choose a file and select 'Locate referenced Files from the File menu, the locate window pops up and it shows the Drobo as being offline, even though I have mounted it, and outside of Aperture, I can access it and use it - it is definitely mounted. the "Mount" button is greyed out in the Locate referenced files window, and when I select the file using the file browser in this window, which I am able to do even though Aperture Shows the Drobo as Offline Volume Status section above, the "reconnect button remains greyed out.
I have rebuilt the library, rebooted the server, unmounted and remounted the Drobo, and no matter what I do, it does not see the referenced files.
Can anyone help me recoonect these files?

I am having the exact same problem in Aperture 3.0.2. Aperture says that 529 files in a particular library are "offline" when they are on a mounted volume. The external volume on which they reside is very much ONLINE despite the fact that Aperture says it is offline.
In fact that same volume shows up in the bottom half of the window that pops up when you select the files in Aperture and choose "Locate referenced files". I was able to successfully reconnect several thousand files by simply navigating to the files that Aperture identified as "offline" in the bottom window. But these 529 (out of a total of 4266) won't reconnect and in the bottom window the pixel dimensions for the file I'm trying to reconnect are missing. If I navigate to the files in the Finder the pixel dimensions are shown. I was able to reimport some of the so-called "offline" files on the "offline" volume. There were originally 572 that would not reconnect, and I reimported 43 of them, leaving me with 529 that should be connected, but aren't.
Last week I spent several hours on the phone with the tech support team at Apple, but they so far have been unable to help me solve this problem. I could just reimport the files, but then would have to lift and stamp adjustments for all 529 files and get rid of the "offline" masters. One of the tech support people was going to research whether it might be possible to somehow do a "force reconnect", but hasn't gotten back to me about this.
The external volume on which these files reside is an OWC Qx2 which is a 4.5 GB Raid 5 connected via firewire 800. In addition to being completely accessible outside of Aperture, I have run Disk Utility on it, and it verifies.
I am hoping that Apple will come up with a fix for this problem soon.

Keeping externally-edited images as referenced files

I use a MacBook Pro and would like to keep all my masters on an external disk due to space constraints. Aperture's support for referenced files is perfect for this since I can keep preview images on the local disk and have them available even if I'm on the road.
The problem I have is that I use Photoshop to edit the bulk of my images. Whenever I do so, the new version is created as a managed file within the Aperture library. Is there a way to have Aperture create the new version as a referenced file in the same directory as the original? Having to remember to relocate a master each time I do an edit seems tedious.

It will always put the edited version in the library. However you don't have to remember what is in and what is out: create a filter on the library (or project or whatever) that shows you all the images that are managed (+ menu, File Status) and then relocate them with File > Relocate Masters.

"Can't move referenced files to trash"

I was clearing my rejects from a project- 1400 of them! They were all referenced. At the end, I got an error message saying Aperture can't move referenced files to trash because I don't have access to the trash on that volume.
It removed them from the library but left the images on the drive- 1400 of them! (Seems like it would have let me know BEFORE removing them from the library!)
Anyway, I isolated them on the drive by relocating the masters that remain in the library which left the files from the removed images in place. It would have been ugly if I were deleting rejects library wide instead of within a single project.
The permissions in the Get Info window were fine, and the disk is formatted properly so I verified and repaired the disk in Disk Utility. No problems were found, but this resolved the issue of the volume not having access to the trash.
Anyone else ever seen anything like this?
DLS

It doesn't sound like it's an issue with the files themselves, but rather with the trash.
I haven't seen it, but I can see how that could occur. Each volume tends to have its own Trash folder. It's hidden, typically called .Trashes and at the root of the hard drive. I have had Trash-related issues outside of Aperture in the past (likely of my own doing). The issue with problems like these it it's nigh impossible to establish cause and effect… you could do something and not notice the problem for days or even weeks, in a completely un-related way.
I doubt that "Repair Permissions" is responsible for the fix, unless the files were on your boot volume. RP has no effect outside of a boot volume.

Relocated originals to referenced -- file names changed

Hi all,
I think I was a little careless when I moved a year's worth of originals from managed to referenced files (on an external hard drive). All the files seem to have been renamed with a "root" from the last file that I had exported. I'm sure this was an oversight on my part and I should have taken a couple extra seconds to loof at everything.
Is there any way to re-re-name the files on the hard drive so that they have their original file name?
Thank you!

Is there any way to re-re-name the files on the hard drive so that they have their original file name?
Only individually and manually. Aperure does not remember, what the original file used to be called.
Or restore the library and the originals from your backup.
You can relocate the files again, sorted by date, and use a naming scheme close to the original filenames, perhaps by looking up the original names in your backup.
If your originals used to be called imgxxxx.CR2 or similar, you could re-relocate them with the naming scheme "Custom name with index" and set the custom name to "img".
Then edit the preset to let the counter start at the last used counter :

Aperture Quits when using Manage Referenced Files

Hello everybody
All my images are on an external hard drive, but since the last Aperture update, It has several problems to connect them. When I try to reconnect them all using "Manage Referenced Files..." option, Aperture suddenly quits (whan I press reconnect button).
Is this normal? Is there anything I can do?
Thanks a lot in advance.
Message was edited by: Ainvar101

Hi,
It's entirely possible that if you were experiencing this frequently prior to the update, that errors have crept into the database. Does this tend to happen to all raws, old ones, or new ones?
Another consideration is that if the raws are large, then you may need to upgrade to 8GB.
Regards,
Calx

Manage Aperture Referenced Files

I had thousands of files in Aperture, all referenced to an external hard drive. The hard drive is back-up and all the files are safe, but I dropped the original hard-drive that aperture was referenced too... Well, I didn't think it too big a problem, except that I had shot, and edited a few thousand more photos after my last vault back-up... I copied all my backed-up files onto a new hard-drive and thought I was OK... My aperture library looks in tact, except that Aperture thinks that it cannot find the Master files. Aperture Support tells me to simply "Chose File>Manage Referenced Files> except that it appears that I need to chose them all one by one! Is there anyway that I can relate all the Projects to their respective folders - they are all date sorted - in fact the filing system I use is YYYY-MM-DD-24HR-MN-SD-N, so identifying each file is actually quite easy, but I'm not very inclined to go through all the thousands of files I had saved, easier to just back-up from my last vault and then sort through all the lost work from the past few days, and learn to be more fastidious with the vault, and never ever drop a hard drive again!

Thanks. I did try that, but it would not allow me to select "Reconnect" unless I selected individual files and associated them correctly. I wasn't even able to do this for a project, let alone an entire library; but I can do it one by one!
I think my best bet is to just re-import my entire library... as it is well defined and sorted, so I can just use the file names already created and keep them in the current location. I may lose some editing, but most of the really important files have versions exported elsewhere.
My biggest question is: If the hard drive which stores referenced files is damaged again, how can Aperture restore to a facsimile back-up file on another drive?

Aperture referencing files to time machine HD instead of from 'working' HD

Every once in a while I will go into a project see the "broken link" icon on my previews. In Finder I check the location I have all my images stored (and initially referenced) on an external HD. They are there.
I go to File>>Locate Referenced Files and see the referenced images have been changed to a location on my separate Time Machine external HD. I locate them and everything is fine but it's annoying.
I don't not have Time Machine on automatic because I have a laptop and like to choose when it backs up. I've looked through other Time Machine/Aperture problems and couldn't find anything. Does any one know of a setting, advice, or have experienced this at all?
Thanks.

Thanks. Sorry, for the delay to answer your questions:
I'm the only one managing the files, and it has happened quite a few times now. The files are in multiple projects ranging from recent imports to projects from a few years ago.
I didn't need to use "File→Relocate Master ..." just the "File→Locate Referenced Files" because my masters are still intact on my working HD. It says that my previous location was on "Volumes/Time Machine/photography/...etc." when I always import masters to "Volumes/My book/photography/...etc"
Does Aperture notice if I move master files because my thought is that Aperture is noticing my TM copying files to another HD and then referencing those instead of my original working HD I import to. Then, the next time I open Aperture it cannot reference the Time Machine files.
Is it because I have TM (USB) backing up my internal HD and my external working HD (FW800)?

How do you convert managed files to referenced files?

I have exported all the files that I mistakenly saved to my aperture library.
since I've exported them by year and month I can easily incorporate them into my referenced files on various external hard drives.
but how do I now actually get the managed files in the aperture library out of the aperture library? (I am trying to make the aperture file smaller so that it can more easily stay on my laptop).
and is there a way to get rid of the managed files without having to reimport all the files and reimport all the metadata …

As I understand it:
You had a bunch of original image files and imported them into AP using managed.
At this point the original files are totally separate from AP, since AP has copies of the originals in its library file (a package). If you relocate, AP will not put the files back where they were, especially since you have moved some files around in the database.
If you haven't done much editing to the masters, consider creating a new library and a new import. Otherwise, try relocating a small amount of your projects to see how AP sets up the folders on the disk.
But AP will not automatically write the masters back to where the originals were - the relocate process involves you indicating where the files will go. As I recall, you have to choose a folder structure from several choices and these may not parallel the originals. Plus, as I said above, since you have moved files around the database, you will definitely not get the same layout as the originals.

Aperture Advice: Managed or Referenced Files

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for