Aperture library size vs iphoto size

Good Morning. I imported my iphoto library to aperture and plan to dump the iphoto library. There is a significant size difference in the two libraries so I am worried that the aperture library didn't import something although all my photos appear to be there. The iPhoto library is 168 gb but the aperture library is 120gb. Is there something different about aperture that makes it a more efficient storage space? Thanks Dave

Terence,
When I originally imported iPhoto into Aperture I selected the leave in original location. If I want to make Aperture stand alone now, all I have to do is consolidate the masters correct? After, which I could delete the iPhoto library, or should I just leave things as they are and not worry that the iPhoto library holds the masters? Seems like this is just a user preference as I have not seen anything state one way is better than the other.
Thanks

Similar Messages

IPhoto vs Aperture library sizes

I installed the Aperture tral, left the photos in iPhoto and created a book. Didnt add any new pictures to either library. I then deleted the trial and purchased Aperture from the app store. Copied over the photos from iPhoto. iPhoto had 1 book and Aperture 1 book. The iPhoto library size is 110Gb and the Aperture library size is 90Gb, a 20Gb difference. It appears that all my photos are in both libraries. So no issues. I was surprised and the 20Gb diffeerence. Comments or thoughts if there is an issue pending that I may not be aware of.

Hve you synced with an iPod, ipad or iPhone? The cache for these devices can easily account for that amount of disk space.
Regards
TD

Reducing Aperture Library size

Sorry if this has been dealt with before (I did a search and found nowt).
I'm fairly new to Aperture, and my Library has grown to 14GB (14,000 files). All files are referenced on an external drive (31GB of referenced files). I use a MacBook Air with SSD, so I start with 56GB after formatting. There were lots of duplicate photos (because I merged my iPhoto library with some offline archives I had). So, it was time to get rid of the dupes.
I deleted about 3,000 photos, but the library didn't get any smaller. I deleted all of the previews, but that only freed up 2GB. When I regenerated the previews, it went back to 14GB. After recovering from a prolonged bout of consternation, I searched the web. It appears that thumbnails are not deleted when photos are removed. This strikes me as a bug, or at the very least, poor design. So, I went in and removed all of the thumbnails as described here:
http://brettgrossphotography.com/2008/04/24/aperture-library-slimming-the-size
After regenerating thumbnails and previews, my library was down to 6GB!
My question is: how do people on this forum deal with this unnecessary library bloat? I typically only keep a few percent of the photos from each import, so my library volume will again outpace the actual number of photos.
One possible approach is to create a new Aperture library from a vault. Because my files are referenced, it should create a new library from scratch and then generate the thumbnails and previews. Has anyone tried that? Seems preferable to opening packages and manually deleting files.
-Rick

After a weekend of investigation, here's some more info on Aperture library size:
1) I deleted another 1,000 or so photos, updated the vault, moved the library and then restored from the vault. The library size went from 6GB up to 7GB!
2) Looking inside the old library and the restored one revealed:
a) AP.Thumbnails files in the restored library were generally twice the size of the ones in the old one.
b) Looking at the AP.Thumbnails files with File Juicer revealed that the restored library had created thumbnails of the master files as well as the versions. The original library had thumbnails for some master/version pairs, but nowhere near as many.
3) I then deleted all of the AP.* files in the restored library, and got Aperture to regenerate the thumbnails. This reduced the library size to 5GB. The AP.Thumbnails files were much smaller.
So, my conclusion is that the best way to trim your library is to go in and delete all of the AP.* files, then regenerate the thumbnails. Restoring from a vault is not as effective.
Anyone have any intuitions as to why Aperture generates thumbnails for master files when there is an edited version? I'm fairly new to Aperture and have yet to see Aperture display thumbnails of masters if there is an edited version.

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.

How can I get my aperture library exported to iphoto?

Can anyone specifically tell me how to move pictures from aperture to iphoto? Thanks!

You can't import an entire actual Aperture library file into iPhoto.
But you can always create an album with all the images you want to export, select File>Export Versions and then export them to a folder where you can then import them from within iPhoto. You'll be making duplicates (just so you'll know that it will take up some additional disk space.)
If you have some sort of structure you want, you could do this with multiple albums so that iPhoto imports them as individual rolls.

Aperture library size vs iphoto

My aperture library and iphoto library have the same photos in them. Photos seem to be the same size and quality (I imported all photos from aperture into iPhoto). iPhoto's library is 20GB, Aperture is nearly 60. I'm guessing that while Aperture might be a hair bigger because of the previews (default settings there), 3x the size means something is wrong.
Is there a way to rebuild the Aperture library without losing all my albums/libraries?
While 60GB isn't the end of the world, I'm trying to move my photos to my laptop. And between photos and music, I'm really pushing my hard drive's capacity. That 40GB difference is going to mean I'll use iPhoto (09) vs Aperture (2), and I'm still partial to Aperture.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Message was edited by: unleashed

Thanks everyone for their help. Redoing the previews helped. I think I had the previews set to "do not limit" on my dekstop and had just pulled the aperture library to my laptop. Redoing those previews took 20GB off my library size.
I see where you're coming from with the referenced images, but for now, it just keeps things simpler for my to keep it all managed. It's a brilliant solution though, if I need to in the future I might go that route. Especially when you think about possibilities with having the referenced images on Time Capsule or something. I don't take that many photos, and I upgrade my computer every year or two. I'm hoping the laptop hard drive space will expand gradually with my photo and music library, and by the time I have to worry about it, there will be another solution.
As far as how I went from Aperture to iPhoto (Ernie), I did (from iPhoto) file > show aperture library > then pulled them all in. I know there are issues with this though, you might check the iPhoto forum if you have trouble, there are work-arounds I believe.

Aperture library size

HI all,
Can someone explain to me why after importing a 139Gb iphoto library into Aperture, the Aperture librbary file is 250Gb?
If I look at the 2 database they both have the same amount of originals and versions.
Is there any great advantage importing the iphoto library over just having Aperture open it as is?
thanks in advance.

and do I really need an aperture database if aperture can use the iphoto library database?
If you do not have any other libraries, that you would want to unite with your iPhoto libary, there is no need to convert the library by importing. The format is compatible.
iphoto previews folder (1.82 Gb)
aperture previews folder (123.3 Gb)
how do I reduce the size of the previews folder?
How many image versions do you have? That is an amazing difference in size!
You change the size of the "Previews" in the Aperture Preferences, the "Previews" tab. Generally it is recommended to set the pixel size of the previews to the screensize of your largest display and to pick a good quality setting. Compare the settings in the Preferences panel with your screensize.
After you changed the settigs for the Preview size and quality, delete the previews and update them.
To delete the previews select your images in the Browser, ctrl click, and use the command "Delete previews". Then check, if now the size size of the Previews folder is smaller.
Then create new previews by using the command "Update Preview". If that is not available, hold down the options-key and select "Generate Preview".
Regards
Léonie

Question about Aperture library size

I am storing my photos on a secondary drive. However, my Aperture library is just as large as the original source folder even though I am not copying the images into the library.
Shouldn't the library be smaller since it only references the images from another location?

If you changed the size and quality of your preview settings, it's not enough to just "Update Previews". You will have to DELETE the old previews and generate new ones.
(That's what my findings where)
To my understanding, previews are used
- if you use the Aperture "Quick Previews" functionality
- for synching with your e.g. iPhone
- in the Media browser dialog of e.g. iWork applications
(am I correct and complete?)
In my first days of Aperture 2 I increased the size to unlimited and the quality to 12, since "of course" I wanted to see the best possible quality of my pictures.
Now I learned that previews are not used in normal Aperture workflows, so I reduced the size to the lowest possible value of 1280 and the quality to 12.
This way I reduced the size of my library (30k JPEG photos, all referenced) from 108 GB to 33 GB.

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.

Aperture library size 0

My aperture library is obviously corrupted. In the finder, it shows up with size 0 bytes. However, something seems to be there because the finder becomes very slow when browsing to the containing directory and it takes Aperture several minutes to show an error message when I try to open it. Showing the package content does not work, either. Any suggestions what I could do (apart from restoring a backup)? I did nothing special to the library, so I assume an Aperture crash might be the reason for the damage.

Ack.
Too much time with the voodoo that is Photoshop optimization has infected people. Thankfully, Apple's applications don't need the same micro-management; which really for Adobe's application serves nothing more than employing people who defend their unnecessarily complicated products.
Seriously, the difference between block sizes will make like 1 ns of difference in loading an image. You're not going to notice a difference, speed wise.
Leave the block size at its default, is my recommendation.

Aperture Library Size slowing iMac even when Aperture is closed

I recently purchased an iMac 22 quad core running Lion, with all updates. It currently has 12GB of Ram, and 190GB free on the hard drive.
The iMac would load programs like Outlook within a few seconds and was very fast.
I purchased Aperture and migrated about 38,000 images, using the exisitng file structure from my PC. This took about 12 hours yo process, update images, etc...
Even if Aperture is closed, all programs now load much more slowly. Outlook can take 20-30 seconds to open, and lists of email and contacts now take as much as a minute to load.
This is only true for the user account with the Aperture library, as programs for other users seems to work fine.
I tried running disk utilities, restarting machine, but no difference.
Activity monitor shows no unusual memory, CPU or disk activity.
I started a new user account, and all worked fine again...until I again created an aperture library, and again, even if Aperture is not started, everyting else runs slowly.
Is there a file indexing feature that is overwhelmed by the addition of a large aperture library? (Deleting the Aperture library doe snot solve the problem-only startign a new user accountdoes).

dphughes wrote:
...in both cases maintaining referenced files stored outside the catalog/library. The Aperture library is 500% the size of the Lightroom catalog - even with restricted preview sizes and no vault.
If this is true, there must be a logical explanation that is giving Aperture users some benefit for the increased Library size. Sorry been a long time since I looked at Lightroom. Does it store the same size previews and thumbnails as Aperture? Since you are using referenced files and Aperture is using non-destructive edits and even new versions do not create duplicate files (only a new set of pointers to the referenced masters), one would think previews and thumbnails must be handled differently. Since you use both, what could it be?
The Aperture Vault is a separate library than the Aperture Library so having a Vault of course should not impact the size of the Aperture Library.

Vault size vs APerture library size and related questions

My aperture library is 50GB for some 65,000 referenced pictures...how does this compare with others? To me, it seems a bit big.
Also odd. The vault backup of my libarary is 9.1GB ONLY! How come?
I think that all of my pictures are referenced.....is there an easy way to check?
If I make a new fresh library and restore from the vault, what will I loose, if anything? Will I need to reconnect pictures or anything?

that seems about right to me. what's taking up space are previews and thumbnails. afaik, the vault doesn't hold any of those, only the database, albums, projects and configuration files.
if you restore from a vault, all the previews and thumbnails have to be rebuilt. you can save a little space that way, because the thumbnail files don't shrink when you erase photos or move them to another project, but personally i don't think it's worth the time and effort.
j

I'm trying to merge (unify) my Aperture library with my iphoto library and have doen the merge and consolidate functions in Aperture. I have found that this process increased my Aperture library form 30 to 39 gigs and duplicated many photos in the proces

I've just merged my Aperture and iphoto libraries and have found that my combined new Aperture library has grown from about 30 gigs (the total size of the Aperture and iphoto libbraries prior to merging) to 40 gigs. Also, in reviewing photos in the Aperture browser I find that photos appaer as duplicated, one photo with no tag (the original) followed by the same photo with a small tag (suggesting edits). HAs the merge process caused an unintended increase in library size? My initial reason do consolidate the libraries was to eliminate the "referenced" portion fo the Aperture library that refernced the iphoto originals. Any thoughts as to how I can get one consolidated non-referenced combined libray inside Aperture with no duplicates. I run a Time Capsule and can access backups of the original Aperture and Iphoto libraries if I need to repeat the process. Thanks for any help. Jim.

My initial reason do consolidate the libraries was to eliminate the "referenced" portion fo the Aperture library that refernced the iphoto originals
One for the Consolidate Masters command.
By importing the Library you brought over everything, lock stock and barrell, and your Aperture library still points to those referenced masters in the iPhoto Library.
Regards
TD

After migrating from iPhoto: Aperture library 81GB and iPhoto Library 17GB

I Have ~10K images almost all .jpgs. I just completed the "rebuild from masters" command after experimenting with Aperture for a while. I was surprised to find that my Aperture Library was 81GB and my remaining iPhoto library was 17GB. First of all I selected "move" from the "rebuild from masters" command so I thought my iPhoto Library would just disappear. When I open iPhoto all my pictures are still there. So why the large library size difference?
-thanks

How long since, you installed Aperture 3? You may need to leave the machine running for quite a while before things start to settle down. Sounds like you may be short of RAM and or a library with a lot of faces. Allan

"Show Aperture Library" missing in iPhoto '11

This is an issue that I had when using iPhoto '09 as well, but I thought upgrading to '11 might help.
It didn't.
I like to use Aperture to manage my more "professional" (and I use that term loosely) photography so that I can use plugins and have better editing capabilities. I also like to use iPhoto for more casual photo maintenance and sharing purposes.
Typically, I would just view my Aperture previews in iPhoto for sharing by clicking File>Show Aperture Library
Ever since I upgraded to Aperture 3, iPhoto hasn't shown the "Show Aperture Library" option.
Any ideas as to why this is or how to fix it?

Under iPhoto->Preferences->Advanced make certain the Copy Items to iPhoto Library is unchecked
You need to be very careful before making such a choice. You're changing the nature of your Library from Managed to Referenced. Before you do this you need to be sure of the consequences - i.e that you are now responsible for file management - and how, if you're not careful and don't plan your photo management appropriately, you can easily lose data.
As to the core issue: I certainly have that option checked and I also have the Show Aperture Library option.
Does the Show Aperture Library command go away if you re-check the option in Preferences -> Advanced
Regards
TD

Aperture library size vs iphoto size

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