Converting large referenced Library to Aperture 3--must masters be on-line?

Is it necessary to have the masters for an Aperture 2 Library on-line during the Library conversion process from A2 to A3? I don't plan to reprocess any projects during the initial conversion, and would prefer to leave my Masters drives off while converting.
Thanks in advance.
Gordon

From my experience, I upgraded with a lot of masters offline, I would say that you can do this - But you will open the door to some potential problems. I ran into issues with aperture continually trying to process offline masters, starting over at 0 everytime you relaunch, issues with thumbnails needing to be rebuilt...
I would definitely say you are on the right path to not "reprocess" automatically during conversion - as you can always opt-in to it later.
Also, since you already have a referenced master library this is how you should upgrade:
0. Rename aperture to "aperture 2"
1. Install aperture 3
2. Create a new blank Library in aperture 3 on the fastest most unfragmented disk you have available. (Preferably a separate disk than where your aperture 2 library is).
3. Use File->Import Library to leave your v2 library in tact and copy its contents into a new aperture 3 library. If anything goes wrong, you will have your v2 library in tact and can go back to it if you please.
4. You can switch between aperture 2 and 3, but you each app will overwrite each others preferences everytime you launch...

Similar Messages

Can you use iPhoto as your referenced library in Aperture 3?

Hi folks, new to the forum here and I've searched around older posts for an answer to this dumb question but can't seem to find it. Any insight much appreciated.
I'm a relatively new mac user, migrated over just under 5,000 photos from Photoshop Elements on the PC to iPhoto on my new iMac and very happy with it. I was going to get the new PSE for Mac to use as my editor with iPhoto, but now that Aperture 3 is such a ridiculously good price on the App store I've been testing that out and I love it!
So the question is, as I start to get more serious about my photography I would love to be able to use Aperture for everything - but the rest of the family just want the simplicity and great interface of iPhoto for the family shots. Can I / we keep importing, storing photos in the iPhoto library, and everyone else just uses that for the cropping, red-eye removal etc., but I can access the library in Aperture (sort of like a referenced library) make changes, add versions etc. without messing it up?
Hope that makes sense, and again, apologies for what must be the millionth time this question has been asked.
James

In a word, no.
Aperture and iPhoto are entirely different applications that work in very different ways.
The only communication between the two is as follows:
Aperture is able to parse the iPhoto Library to allow it to import the contents while stacking the Originals and Modified versions, preserving metadata and so forth.
Aperture can share its Previews with the iLife apps, including iPhoto.
That's it.
So, specifically, what interaction there is between the two is designed to facilitate migration from iPhoto to the more powerful app. After that, iPhoto has exactly the same relationship to the Aperture Library as, say, Pages or iMovie.
Regards
TD

IPhoto and Aperture referenced library issues

Hi,
For the last couple of days I've been busy trying to get my iPhoto/Aperture library to work properly. I recently created a referenced library using Aperture because of lack of space on my internal ssd. I can see all of my Projects, thumbnails, metadata etc. in both iPhoto and Aperture when my external drive is disconnected. However, there are two major issues:
1) Most of the video thumbnails are broken, both in Aperture and iPhoto. By double clicking a thumbnail of a video (.mov, .avi etc.) it sometimes starts playing (with the external drive connected), sometimes it doesn't, totally inconsistent. I can export the video and it works just fine.
2) While using iPhoto with the external drive disconnected, all Events are there, the thumbnails are there, everything looks ok, but I can only view some of the previews/photos after double clicking the thumbnails. A dialogue opens up saying "The volume for [imagefilename] cannot be found. Insert the disk or connect to the server volume..", but I can actually see the full size preview behind this dialogue. By clicking "Cancel" the photo dissapears and is replaced by a black screen with a grey exclamation mark. This does not occur while using Aperture, I can see all of my previews in full glory when the external drive is disconnected. However, with the external drive connected everything works in iPhoto (except above mentioned issue with videos).
Please boys and girls, I need your help on this one!
System information
OS: Maverick 10.9.1
Aperture: 3.5.1
iPhoto: 9.5.1
Thanks!
//Michel

1. Are these videos different formats? Or the same?
2. See my answer to your duplicate post.

IPhoto referenced library, importing

iPhoto looks like a pretty nice app, but I use my photos with a large collection of different picture utilities and keep copies on both Mac, PC and NAS drives. This made using iPhoto with a "referenced" library pretty much a must so all the programs can use the pictures easily.
So unchecking "copy into library" worked ok for me....but one little problem. When I insert an SD card it goes right to iPhoto and when you do an import the new pictures get copied straight into the iPhoto library. Can iPhoto do an import that just drops the files from the SD card into a selected folder?
If iPhoto can't import this way, how do you setup things so iPhoto doesn't automatically launch when you stick in an SD card? ie: just have the SD card (or camera) show up as a folder on the desktop.
Also, I've got hundreds of thousands of pictures in my collection from a lot of sources, does the iPhoto app have a library size or picture count limit?

iPhoto looks like a pretty nice app, but I use my photos with a large collection of different picture utilities and keep copies on both Mac, PC and NAS drives. This made using iPhoto with a "referenced" library pretty much a must so all the programs can use the pictures easily.
You really can not successfully do that - at best you will be working only with the original photos sans any modifications made in iPhoto
So unchecking "copy into library" worked ok for me....but one little problem. When I insert an SD card it goes right to iPhoto and when you do an import the new pictures get copied straight into the iPhoto library. Can iPhoto do an import that just drops the files from the SD card into a selected folder?
No
If iPhoto can't import this way, how do you setup things so iPhoto doesn't automatically launch when you stick in an SD card? ie: just have the SD card (or camera) show up as a folder on the desktop.
In the iPhoto preferences set action when a camera is connected to "do nothing"
Also, I've got hundreds of thousands of pictures in my collection from a lot of sources, does the iPhoto app have a library size or picture count limit?
250,000
LN

Just imported picture library from Aperture - Can't view Nikon D800 NEF files in LR5.7.1

Just imported a large picture library from Aperture to LR 5.7.1- Can't view Nikon D800 NEF files in LR5. The projects and files loaded - but no thumbnail view of the image

I have a Nikon D50 nef on my desktop. Double-clicking on it opens Photoshop, which launches Adobe Camera Raw. If you get that far and can make adjustments in the ACR panel, you are fine. That's what opens first.
Then you click "Open" in ACR and your nef opens in Photoshop and the document tab on top gives the .nef extension. You make your edits there, but if you close Photoshop, you won't save it as nef, it won't be in the Save file list. You save it as psd for example and close Photoshop.
You now have a nef with develop settings on your desktop and the psd you saved out of Photoshop.
All perfectly normal as J.J. said, Photoshop will edit the nef file, but it will be saved in a format other than nef.
Gene

Aperture - Converting Managed Library to Referenced Library?

I goofed. I've been using Aperture for a while, and I now realize that by importing my image files directly into my Aperture library on my 1TB iMac hard drive, this managed library is now 430GB... I need to streamline. I understand (now) the benefit of using reference libraries wherein the image files themselves are stored elsewhere (I have a 3TB external USB drive) and the Aperture library accesses/utilizes the files from that location. The big question - how do I convert my current managed library to that referenced library model? If I copy my entire 430GB Aperture library folder from the iMac hard drive 'Pictures' folder over to the 3TB external drive, it's still a managed library in that new external drive location but now with USB access times added to the Aperture work flow... correct?
I'm assuming I need to somehow 'export' my image files to the 3TB external drive, and then tell Aperture to build a reference library off of those image files - correct? If so, is there an specific way to do this? Also, if I create a referenced library as described above, I assume that in the future I will need to import image files from my camera to the 3TB external drive outside of Aperture, and then use Aperture to import them from that 3TB drive into the Aperture reference library via Aperture 'Import'... correct?
Thanks in advance for any insight here.

It's all a lot easier than you expect.
Libraries are neither managed nor referenced, they are just libraries. It's the images within the libraries that can be either managed (stored with the library) or referenced (stored external to it). So within a single library you can have a combination of both (if you have a reason to).
But the simple answer to your question is, select all your photos, and from the file menu choose "Relocate Originals". It will prompt you for where to store them. Create a folder on your external (eg "Masters" or "Originals") and chose a folder structure to store them in (I use the project name for subfolders - but more complex options can be created using 'edit'). Press relocate button and go have a well earned beer while it relocates them for you.
Andy

Converting from Managed to Referenced Library-File Structure?

I'm about to convert my fully managed library (170GB) in Aperture 3.6 to a referenced library. I understand I select the files and then relocate the masters. What's the best way to do that if I want to maintain some semblance of the Aperture files/folders structure in the Finder environment? Wha't the best way to select all files- just go to "Photos" folder and select all?
I understand that the file structure in Aperture should remain unchanged. What I don't want to happen is for all my photos to just be dumped into a folder on my hard drive with no organization. Within Aperture they are primarily stored in folders (years) containing projects (months) which have albums (various shoots in a given month). If I select all photos in library, does Aperture recreate its internal folder, project, album structure as folders in Finder?
As I recall, there is an option when relocating masters to put them in various folder structures. Is there an option to keep the internal Aperture folder structure? I'd like to make the managed to referenced conversion in as few steps as possible and ideally maintain the same or very similar folder structure.
Thanks, Steve

Images are not files.
Images are what you see in Aperture.
Files are data containers, represented in various ways in the OS X Finder.
Aperture is a database of Images.
Finder is a database of files.
Just as the structure of your Aperture Library ("Library" = database; to the detriment of their users, Apple insists on cuteness over accuracy) is for you to create to meet your needs, the structure of your Finder database is for you to create to meet your needs. Many OS X users' file needs are similar, and so OS X comes with Finder pre-designed and populated.
Concerning yourself about the _file_ organization of your Images' Originals is, imho, time wasted. You didn't care about it when they were managed. There is little reason to care about it when they are referenced.
I detail some of this in this reply to a similar question.
Do whatever comforts you. But note the following:
- You cannot (as Frank has already answered) duplicate in a file manager the structure you have in your Image manager. The Images in Aperture are not files, and in important ways they are not filed like files.
- Aperture provides robust tools for managing your Images' Originals. You can move them in and out of the Library at any time, and you can relocate them to another location outside your Library at any time.
- Don't ever use Finder to perform any operations on your Images' Originals. You should use Aperture and use only Aperture to perform any operation (other than back-up) on your Images' Originals.
- Speaking of backing up: you must backup Referenced Originals yourself. Neither Aperture's Vault feature, nor backing up your Library, backs up Referenced Originals.
Unless you have specific reasons for doing otherwise, I recommend sticking to "one Project for each shoot", and, if referencing your Images' Originals, filing them under a top-level Finder folder by Project, with one Finder folder for each Project.

Aperture 3 - will Chronosync work with referenced library?

This is a one-library, two-Macs question.
The iMac is where I do my main Aperture work. The MacBook also gets Aperture use, sometimes creating new projects (easy enough to merge when back at base), but mostly I think it will be used for generally read-only stuff: slideshows/albums for friends & family; sending in emails; inserting in blog posts etc. (And maybe doing some basic metadata/rating work on previews during downtime.)
I'm a fairly new Aperture 3 user, and am still getting to grips with my preferred method of managing files (many gigabytes of photos haven't yet been imported from standard folders). Until now I've been slowly building a managed library on the iMac, and using Chronosync to synchronise it with the MacBook. Of course it's quickly becoming too large for the laptop (not to mention a cumbersome process), and there's really no need for anything but screen-sized previews on the MacBook.
What I think I'd like to do is keep a fully referenced library on the iMac to a large external hard drive, generating previews for all images, and synchronising this referenced library between iMac and MacBook. I'm hoping that all I end up synchronising is the previews + metadata (I'll use the 'Dissect Packages' option) and what I'll end up with is a Library-lite preview version on the laptop that is, to all intents & purposes, a duplicate of the full-on referenced iMac library.
Does anyone else use this setup? It seems logical to me, but I don't know if there are practical limitations. It's maybe worth mentioning I'm a long time Chronosync user, and am quite used to the discipline of only opening certain apps (e.g. Mail) on one computer or the other before doing a sync, so I'm au fait with the paradox of one-way bi-directional syncs!
Any advice gratefully received.
G

I think you may find a better answer than chronosync is to change your iMac library to all referenced, then copy the library to the MacBook. You can use the merge feature in aperture 3 to keep it all current:
http://aperture.maccreate.com/2010/02/09/the-importance-of-libraries-aperture-3s -new-syncing/
As long as your library has previews in it, you will have all the images in your library available to see on the MacBook, and you'll even be able to do some jobs like rating and tagging on the laptop.

Aperture: Migration to new Mac (Referenced Library)

Apologies if this has been covered before but I've used numerous searches and don't seem to be hitting the right combination of terms to bring up what I want.
I currently have a flagging 2007 MacBook (OS 10.6.8; 2.16 GHz, 2MB RAM and only 7GB free of the 160 GB HDD). Aperture is struggling. Time to upgrade.
My Aperture Library is currently on the Mac and is 'Managed'. I have contemplated moving the 50GB or so of Aperture Library to an external HDD and going 'Referenced', mainly because I still have some images I need to work on (even though Aperture is for obvious reasons ponderously slow with frequent SBOD on this machine) until I decide what to upgrade to (Macbook 15" or iMac with more bangs for the buck) and wait for the latest refresh of the line that I choose.
Upon getting the new machine I plan to use the Migration Assistant to help with app/doc/settings transfer but what about Aperture? I am not sure if it's best to:
1) Get the new Mac now, migrate everything across (including Aperture and its Managed library) THEN move the Aperture library off the internal HDD to an external and going Referenced, or;
2) Go Referenced now. In which case when I eventually do then migrate Aperture to the new machine will it automatically 'point' to the correct location of the external HDD referenced library when what is left of Aperture copies across or is there and easier (or indeed more convoluted) process I will have to go through if I switch to Rferenced before getting the new Mac and migrating?
Accept of course with the new Mac the HDD will be so much bigger so there may actually be no need to go Referenced, at least yet. Try as I might, save for HDD space I don't see that many benefits to Referenced
On the new Mac front, while I like laptops, I find that the iPad and this Mac do most of what I want (e.g. surfing, mailing and running the odd few apps). While a new MBP would be appreciated part of me still thinks that the more bang for the buck iMac is the better investment. The only thing I MAY need to do is upload the occasional photo shoot on the move (by creating a new project) which, if stripped back to basics, this Mac miight still be OK for until I get back home and move the project to the iMac, reloacting to the masters to the referenced external HDD after.
Any help appreciated.

Hi,
some consederations you may want to keep in mind. There is no definitive answer for the perfect library setup - it will depend on the size of your Aperture Library, the amount of available disk space, on your workflow, and on your backup strategy.
I currently have a flagging 2007 MacBook (OS 10.6.8; 2.16 GHz, 2MB RAM and only 7GB free of the 160 GB HDD). Aperture is struggling. Time to upgrade.
On that machine you really need to relocate your master image files to an external drive or free disk space in a different way. With only for 4% of empty space on the system drive, even a newer Mac will be very slow. Try to keep 20% to 30% of your system volume free.
My Aperture Library is currently on the Mac and is 'Managed'. I have contemplated moving the 50GB or so of Aperture Library to an external HDD and going 'Referenced', mainly because I still have some images I need to work on (even though Aperture is for obvious reasons ponderously slow with frequent SBOD on this machine) until I decide what to upgrade to (Macbook 15" or iMac with more bangs for the buck) and wait for the latest refresh of the line that I choose.
For best performance the Aperture library should reside on your fastest drive, usually the System drive. If you want to go referenced, relocate the masters, but keep the library on the internal drive. Only if you have a very fast connection to your second drive, or two internal drives, it may be advantegous to move the whole library to the other volume.
Managed, referenced, or mixed?
Managed: A managed library is easier to handle, as long as it is reasonably small. With 50 GB Aperture Library you can continue with a managed library, as soon as you have more disk space available. The advantage of "Managed" is that you do not have to keep track of your masters on your own, and that they will be included in the vaults. You will need an incremental backup scheme that looks inside the library package however - like Time Machine, otherwise you will need to backup the whole library over and over again, even if you only changed one single image.
Referenced: If your Library gets larger, and you have several hundreds of GB, then a managed library becomes a nuisance and it is time to go referenced. Very large libraries are difficult to move or copy between disks; It will be wasteful to have several vaults, for each vault will include the same masters over and over again.
Mixed: The Aperture library on the system drive, most of the masters on an external (or second internal) volume. This setup is perfect for laptops with limited space on the internal drive, but it will require that you have a well ordered strategy where to keep your masters, since Aperture will not manage them for you. There are two pitfalls to avoid: Accidentally deleting or modifying masters from the Finder, or accidentally relocating them to a place where you store other images that are not your masters. When you have several similar images in the same folder, it can be very hard to tell which image is the master that you need to keep and which is a redundant copy.
The "mixed" setup is great, if you are on the road (bt will put mre strain on your memory or master management skills)- you still have your Aperture library with you and the master image files you are currently working on, but not the bulk of your masters. If you create high quality previews, you probably even will not notice, that most of your master image files are still at home.
Upon getting the new machine I plan to use the Migration Assistant to help with app/doc/settings transfer but what about Aperture? I am not sure if it's best to:
1) Get the new Mac now, migrate everything across (including Aperture and its Managed library) THEN move the Aperture library off the internal HDD to an external and going Referenced, or;
2) Go Referenced now. In which case when I eventually do then migrate Aperture to the new machine will it automatically 'point' to the correct location of the external HDD referenced library when what is left of Aperture copies across or is there and easier (or indeed more convoluted) process I will have to go through if I switch to Rferenced before getting the new Mac and migrating?
Accept of course with the new Mac the HDD will be so much bigger so there may actually be no need to go Referenced, at least yet. Try as I might, save for HDD space I don't see that many benefits to Referenced
From my experience, it is less troublesome to migrate a managed library with Migration Assistant. If parts of your Library are referenced, and you migrate the referenced masters as well, you may need to reconnect them, unless you only have to plug in the volume with referenced masters. Then Aperture should reference them correctly without extra trouble.
Try as I might, save for HDD space I don't see that many benefits to Referenced
Then stick to the managed setup until your library really becomes huge.
On the new Mac front, while I like laptops, I find that the iPad and this Mac do most of what I want (e.g. surfing, mailing and running the odd few apps). While a new MBP would be appreciated part of me still thinks that the more bang for the buck iMac is the better investment. The only thing I MAY need to do is upload the occasional photo shoot on the move (by creating a new project) which, if stripped back to basics, this Mac miight still be OK for until I get back home and move the project to the iMac, reloacting to the masters to the referenced external HDD after.
Any help appreciated.
I am still waiting for my iPad to be delivered - right now I take a MBP on the road. For the new shoots I create a new Aperture library, do most of the tagging while I still remember how the images have been taken, and when back home I import the new project into my main library.
Reagrds
Léonie

How do I transfer my referenced library to a larger external HD?

I am outgrowing my present referenced library. I want to transfer the library to a larger external HD. How exactly do I do this?
Thanks, Susan

Kirby is referring to your Aperture library. The item you are seeing in the Finder, displayed with a "fan of Pictures" icon and a filename extension ".aplibary" and "Kind = Aperture Library", like this:
An Aperture library is essentially a package, a folder with many items inside, but the Fider will show it as a single item.

OK to use Aperture to maintain iPhoto Referenced Library

I have Aperture and iPhoto. We are an OSX and Windows household. But thanks to the Windows 8 debacle, my wife (the diehard Windows user) has abandoned her PC with all regard to photos and videos (viewing, editing, sharing). Now, I use Aperture most of the time, but my wife uses iPhoto 100% of the time. I manage all the imports with Aperture. (I currently have one referenced library that I use in Aperture of all files and a second default iPhoto Library that is managed but only has post-2010 files in it. Both created in their respective programs, if that matters.)
Coincidentally, we are also at a point where we need to quit adding photos/videos to the PC or we'll exceed its backup capacity.
Now that she is using the iMac, I would like to get the Library organized and minimize my workflow and eliminate duplication. I do not have enough contiguous disk space for single managed aperture library. I have avoided proceeding because iPhoto and referenced files are not recommended by most of the experts here, for well founded reasons. However, now that both apps can use the same library, and Aperture handles referenced libraries so much better... why not go referenced now? I can leave the pre-2010 files on the PC, and keep all the post-2010 imports on the iMac, all in one Library. The fact that nobody is getting into the files on the PC virtually eliminates all the problems I've had in the past.
Is there something I'm missing?
Thanks for any thoughts on this, or hidden gotchas.

No assuming that you have the latest version of both iPhoto and Aperture so there is total interoperability between them
LN

Aperture & iPhoto referenced library issues

Hi,
For the last couple of days I've been busy trying to get my Aperture library to work properly. I recently started using a referenced library because of lack of space on my internal ssd. I've generated previews on all of my 40000 photos. I can see all of my Projects, thumbnails, metadata etc. when my external drive is disconnected. However, there are two major issues:
1) Most of the video thumbnails are broken, both in Aperture and iPhoto. By double clicking a thumbnail of a video (.mov, .avi etc.) it sometimes starts playing, sometimes it doesn't, totally inconsistent. I can export the video and it works just fine.
2) While using iPhoto with the external drive disconnected, all Events are there, the thumbnails are there, everything looks ok, but I can only view some of the previews/photos after double clicking the thumbnails. A dialogue opens up saying "The volume for [imagefilename] cannot be found. Insert the disk or connect to the server volume..", but I can actually see the full size preview behind this dialogue. By clicking "Cancel" the photo dissapears and is replaced by a black screen with a grey exclamation mark. This does not occur while using Aperture, I can see all of my previews in full glory when the external drive is disconnected. However, with the external drive connected everything works in iPhoto (except above mentioned issue with videos).
Please boys and girls, help me out with this!
System information
OS: Maverick 10.9.1
Aperture: 3.5.1
iPhoto: 9.5.1
Thanks!
//Michel

I don;t use iPhoto much so I'm no expert but looking at other posts asking a similar question sems to indicate iPhoto is not capable of doing this.
See Can iPhoto view pictures on a disconnected external drive in a unified photo library? for one example.
Again if Aperture is working correctly on the referenced images on the disconnect drive and iPhoto is not you will need to ask the iPhoto folks.
regards

How do I move a referenced library to new MBP?

I have a 500GB external drive containing scanned files of slides I inherited from my dad. (photos he took from 1940 - 2005).
I created an Aperture referenced library that works when I attached that external drive.
I'd like to move the files to a larger drive so that it can also hold my other Aperture and iPhoto libraries.
Can I safely move the original/referenced image files to a larger 2TB ext drive and retain the Aperture links etc?
What issues will this likely cause in Aperture? How do I avoid or correct such issues?
I have also just purchased a 2014 Macbook Pro 15, with the most current version of Mavericks and Aperture software.
The Aperture library was created on my 2009 MBP running OS 10.8 (not Mavericks)
Can I just drag and drop the existing Aperture library from the old MBP to the new MBP? - even though they use different OS?
Thanks in advance for any step by step guidance or advice.

The most secure method of moving Referenced Originals is to do this using Aperture. Select all the Images whose Originals you want to more, and run "File ▹ Relocate Originals", selecting the new drive as the destination. Be careful with the settings in the Relocate dialog. 500 GB of date will take hours to move.
You should be able to copy the Library to your new machine and run it. Once opened, you may not be able to open that copy of your Library on your old machine (and you may have to wait many minutes for Aperture to close the Library the first time you close it).
Do each of your two tasks (moving Library, moving Referenced Originals) separately, and confirm the success of the move prior to doing the second.
What you are doing is straight-forward. Just make a complete back-up of both your Library and your Referenced Originals before you do anything, and don't delete or over-write them until you have confirmed that the Library works correctly and that the Referenced Originals are where you want them to be and are correctly linked to the Images in your Library.

Error Message (Arrow and Exclaimation Mark in Yellow Triangle) Showing on Bottom Right of Some Photos after Merging iPhoto Library into Aperture

The strange thing is that some of these said photos with an error message have a normal thumbnail and can be opened fine, but the others (most of them) just have an empty space in the thumbnail as if the image can't be found.
I tried to Locate Referenced Files as Leonie suggested in https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3686982?tstart=0 but got this message 'The Selection Doesn't Have Any Referenced Files', so i presume that's not the issue.
In the thread mentioned above, Leonie mentioned something about not emptying trash. I did empty my trash recently, and started to think these images may have been poor quality ones i previously deleted in the iPhoto library … but that still doesn't explain why the error currently appears on some images which seem to work fine (these images are ok quality ones and there is no way i would have deleted them in the past).
Also - the 'Processing' message at the bottom of the browser seems to be spinning endlessly. I just left it for over 10 hours overnight and it's still going. Could this be linked to these error images which it's having a hard time finding/loading?
Quite baffled at the moment, and would really appreciate any feedback. TIA.
EDIT:
I just looked more closely. It appears that most of my folders have duplicates of the same image with exactly the same file name. And all the images with the error message have them on both duplicates (i.e. one on an image that has an empty thumbnail, and one on an image that's fine).
When i initially tried to import the library, it proceeded half way then failed. After opening the iPhoto library in Aperture first, and then doing the import again, everything worked fine. So, i'm wondering if the images with errors that are empty/blank may be the result of the failed 1st import.
What's puzzling is why they weren't overwritten (especially since all the file names are exactly the same). When importing the library, i chose 'merge' instead of 'add' when prompted, thinking that would solve it. Obviously not.
EDIT 2:
After reflecting on this, i thought one solution may be to:
a) Find all the error'd images that are empty/blank and delete them, and then
b) Find and remove all duplicates
So i followed Leonie's suggestion to create a Smart Album and use the 'File Status is Missing' rule.
But now, i see that there are images that i imported into Aperture months ago that have the same problem. And the new thing is that there are duplicates with errors where *both* images are visible (whereas for the iPhoto library i just imported, there were dupes where one version was blank and the other was visible and seemingly ok).
I'm really hoping there is a simple solution to this, and am awaiting some feedback before i try anything else.
NB. This is a super large (over 100GB) Aperture library that i am trying to consolidate everything into. It is Work In Progress and i was only going to back it up once the import of various iPhoto libraries was done. However, I'm wondering if it's better to just back up first - but if i do it now, the backup will include all these errors and duplicates. What would you guys do?

UPDATE 2:
The users in these 2 threads seem to have a similar File Status Not Found issue:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4086569?tstart=0
https://discussions.apple.com/message/17757686#17757686
Followed Leonie's advice to look for the (missing) masters inside the Masters folder, and indeed, they were missing. So, that confirms the reason for the error message.
If this does not work, because you have managed originals, inside the Aperture Library, look for your originals in the Aperture Library Package. Select the Library in the Finder and ctrl-click, then select "Show Package Contents" from the pop-up. In the Finder window that opens, navigate to the folder "Masters". Your missing images should be inside; the folder is structured by date of import.
Of course, the question is - why the masters for these few images are missing, when the other images in the same project that were imported/merged at the same time are fine.
Trying to do the library import/merge from iPhoto into Aperture again. Fingers crossed. Will report back on the result.

How do i import a large organised library from NAS into iPhoto without it re-organising my photos?

I have a large library of photos, (20,000 or so photos - 58 GB) stored on my NAS Drive, they are organised into yearly folders, and then individual event folders, among other folders such as 'favorites'. When i click import, and leave it to do its thing, will it re-rganise my photos on the NAS or leave them as they are and simply index them? (i have unchecked the 'copy photo's to iphoto library') Hope somebody can give me an answer.
Thanks in advance Gaz

It will index them as a Referenced Library but I strongly urge you not to do this when you have the Library on one volume and the photos on another.
iPhoto uses a very simple tool for workign with Referenced Libraries: Aliases. Aliases are perfectly good when the Library and the photo are on the same volume - the alias will track when the original moves and so on. However, if anything changes in the path to a file on another volume the alias will break, and you'll have to repair it manually. Now what happens if the path to the NAS changes... Like if you upgrade your machine, move the files on the NAS or on to another one? You'll find yourself repairing the aliases for everyone of these 20k photos, manually, one by one.
Iphoto is not the app for you if you want to do this. You can't put the library on the NAS (because the NAS is not an appropriate disk format for it). Aperture has no problems with this kind of set up.
There is a broader principle there though: If you use apps like iPhoto, Aperture, LIghtoom, how you organise the files on the disk is not important. It's just storage. You never access the files via the Finder or File Browser. You do every thing via the app - whether it be iPhoto, LR or Aperture. The point of these apps is tht you organise in the Applications, not on the HD.
Regards
TD

Converting large referenced Library to Aperture 3--must masters be on-line?

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