Ask Apple for better iPhoto (Aperture) Library sharing!

*Some Background...*
My wife and I each have our own Mac and iPhone and we share a digital camera. Between the three camera devices we snap a lot of photos and we want easy access (over the network!) to each other's photos so we can both maintain a shared library. iPhoto 8.1.2 (iLife '09) allows some rudimentary sharing, but it's very basic and not centralized. So, all photos are accessible only when both Macs are on the network and iPhoto is running on each. If you search for "iPhoto sharing" in the forums or Google you'll see a LOT of people have the same needs.
http://www.google.com/search?q=iphoto+sharing
*My Humble Suggestion...*
How do I think iPhoto should work? You should have an option of establishing a "Master iPhoto Library". Either locally to share among users of the same computer or on the network for users to share between multiple computers. Whatever photos are added to a user's iPhoto Library may optionally be merged into the Master Library for all to see/edit etc. If the user wants they can move them to the Master or copy them (to retain their own version for editing as they see fit). They may also copy from the Master to their local library if they have a MacBook and want to take them on the go...
If Apple truly wants to provide a digital "hub" for it's users, they must provide this sort of sharing for their services. Families share contacts, photos, calendars, movies and music. This concept should be applied to iTunes, Address Book, iCal, Aperture etc.
+If you agree with this or have any of your own ideas please post here and PLEASE let Apple know+ ==> http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphoto.html
*Some forum posts/articles on suggested iPhoto Library sharing workarounds...*
http://bit.ly/aqh2Qv
http://oreil.ly/cBasBE
http://bit.ly/jA3NV
http://bit.ly/88yVbL
http://bit.ly/9lCqPq
http://bit.ly/7Vmmyq
http://bit.ly/bZz58Y

By all means make a feature request. Absolutely nothing will change unless you do.
But some points to ponder:
As I often point out when this one comes up, averaged out of the cost of iLife, iPhoto is a $16 application. For that you get a lot - and with a bit of work, you can even do much of what you want to do - but you don't get everything.
There are apps that will do as you want. They start around the $200 mark.
As to specifics:
You should have an option of establishing a "Master iPhoto Library".
Easily done.
Either locally to share among users of the same computer
Put it in the Users/Shared Folder.
or on the network for users to share between multiple computers
Go out an buy a NAS device. Put the iPhoto Library on a disk image formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) stored on the NAS. On a NAS it will not require another computer to be available. You might even be able to put in an USB HD attached to an Airport device.
Whatever photos are added to a user's iPhoto Library may optionally be merged into the Master Library for all to see/edit etc.
You can do this - along with all versions, metadata etc - with iPhoto Library Manager.
If the user wants they can move them to the Master or copy them (to retain their own version for editing as they see fit).
You can do that with either iPhoto Library Manager or basic iPhoto Sharing.
They may also copy from the Master to their local library if they have a MacBook and want to take them on the go...
Ditto.
Regards
TD
ps. Some of these links are well out of date. For instance, with iPhoto 09 there is no longer a need to manipulate ACLS to share Libraries. One of those links is labelled "10.4 only" and you need a minimum of 10.5.6 for iPhoto 09.
Message was edited by: Terence Devlin

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sno-man:
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It's only late afternoon in our little clearing in the orchard. We have about a year before sundown, and several months after that before darkness swallows our hole.
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So your Aperture library is in fact a previous iPhoto library.
Correct. When I purchased Aperture, I imported from my iPhoto library. And I guess they are shared.
I am still not quite sure about the state of your iPhoto/Aperture library. Depending on when you bought Aperture, you may have imported the iPhoto Library into a new Aperture Library; then you now have an Aperture library, or you may have simply opened the iPhot Library in Aperture, keeping it an iPhoto Library. The Finder can show you what it is.
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I appreciate the help so far. Right now I'm doing the generate preview thing again, which is taking awhile. But I'm guessing that since my iPhoto and Aperture libraries are linked and shared now this won't matter much. I will still only see iPhoto listed in the Media Browser..
Let's talk about that part of your question when we know for sure, if you already imported your iPhoto library or simply opened it in Aperture. If your library is an Aperture library with an imported iPhoto library inside there may be additional complications.

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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.
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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.

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Setup:
iMac 3.4ghz i7 16GB RAM
OSX 10.8.1
iPhoto 9.3.2
Aperture 3.3.2
I'm having an issue that's driving me nuts. I'm not sure how to articulate this properly so I'll walk you through the issue.
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Okay, as I'm working through this I see that I have to add the "Admin" account to each file with "read only" permission. Simply changing the "everyone" account access does nothing.
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Also, I added a password to the user account. It did not change how files are output.

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