Editing iPhotos in Aperture

I've had Aperture 3 for a week now, and I'm pretty well up to speed on the features. Three things are still puzzling me:
1) Is there a way to share Aperture photos with another Mac on my home network? This was easy in iPhoto, but I don't see the capability in Aperture so far.
2) The latest iPhoto has nice formats for e-mailing photos, but I don't see anything like that in Aperture - am I overlooking something?
3) Last and most importantly - I got Aperture primarily because of its implied ability to easily edit iPhoto photos, but it appears that I need to go through the cumbersome process of importing the photo into Aperture, then exporting the edited photo back to iPhoto. Is there an easier way? If not, I'm regretting this purchase. I'm already convinced that I need to keep using iPhoto for books, e-mails, and sharing, so it's kind of pointless to have Aperture if you can't easily sync edited photos back and forth with iPhoto. Thanks.

Hi J,
Welcome to the user-supported Aperture discussion group. Make sure you read the [Terms of Use|http://discussions.apple.com/help.jspa] that Apple has us abide by.
Aperture is not a "superset" of iPhoto, so just because there is a particular function in iPhoto does not mean you will find it in Aperture, or that it will work quite the same if you do find it.
1) Is there a way to share Aperture photos with another Mac on my home network? This was easy in iPhoto, but I don't see the capability in Aperture so far.
You need Aperture to read the Aperture library, so you'd need Aperture on each computer to open a library. However,it is ill-advised to have more than one instance of Aperture point to the same library.
Some people have had success using iTunes to manage syncing Aperture's previews to other devices. However, I'm not sure you can have iTunes sync between two Macs. (I only use it for music.)
2) The latest iPhoto has nice formats for e-mailing photos, but I don't see anything like that in Aperture - am I overlooking something?
What sorts of formats are you talking about? You can export your photos from Aperture and use them to your heart's content, but I'm not sure in what way you need to "format" a photo.
Last and most importantly - I got Aperture primarily because of its implied ability to easily edit iPhoto photos,
I'm not sure where you got that implication from. You can easily import the iPhoto library, including masters and the existing adjustments you have made, so in that way you can edit "iPhoto photos". However, Aperture only allows adjustments of photos in its Aperture library.
but it appears that I need to go through the cumbersome process of importing the photo into Aperture, then exporting the edited photo back to iPhoto. Is there an easier way?
Yes, the easier way is to use Aperture as your main library and export only the things that you need to use in iPhoto. Import them into iPhoto temporarily and get rid of them in iPhoto when you're done. That's exactly how I used to do slideshows, since pre-Aperture 3 had atrocious slideshow support. I also do that to make calendars in iPhoto. (I would agree that it would be great if the iPhoto calendar functionality were lifted into Aperture insted of going the extra step of going "backwards" to put photos into iPhoto.)
I'm already convinced that I need to keep using iPhoto for books, e-mails, and sharing, so it's kind of pointless to have Aperture if you can't easily sync edited photos back and forth with iPhoto
Aperture wasn't designed to be the sidekick of iPhoto. Aperture gives you the tools to get your photos out of iPhoto and to start using Aperture. iPhoto, on the other hand, doesn't have the ability to read the Aperture library. There's no reason to expect that every adjustment you make in Aperture is something that iPhoto can mimic if it were able to read an Aperture library. "Going the other way" isn't a function built into either program.
nathan

Similar Messages

I am unable to change location for editing photos. I tried the advanced drop down menu in iPhoto and have 2 locations for editing-iphoto and aperture. I want to add photoshop. Can anyone help? Thanks.

i cannot change editing location from aperture to photoshop in iphoto. i followed directions to advanced tab in iphoto and have 2 choices for editing photos-iphoto and aperture. any suggestions on how to change the sites? thanks.

Not sure why you would have Aperture there as it's not an editor.
To change, just select Aperture again, and this will give you the dialogue to change the choice.
Regards
TD

Editing iPhotos in Aperture, getting them back to iPhoto

So I'm trying out Aperture and I like it a lot. I find it a lot easier to use than PS.
However. Since my girlfriend is of a simpler state of mind when addressing how much a photo needs to be edited she only wants to use iPhoto. (i.e I stared using Mac and forced her to use iPhoto and she's not interested in changing application to manage photos yet again)
I thought I would be able to just in settings select "Edit in Aperture" and it would be easy peasy from then on. But it seems like when choosing to edit a photo, all it does is import the picture to Aperture and any editing won't automatically go back to iPhoto but I have to basically re-import the edited photo. Seems a bit stupid to me, why be able to select Aperture as editor if it starts a whole new project and doesn't keep it to iPhoto?
As I understand when using PS as editor, when saving an edited photo it goes back to iPhoto and updates. But this doesn't happen with Aperture?
Is there some thought behind this process or am I just a noob that can't find the correct setting?

There is a definite thought process behind this. Simply, you misunderstand what Aperture is.
It's not a Photo Editor like Photoshop, it's a digital asset manager, like iPhoto. Put another way, it's a replacement for iPhoto not Photoshop.
Like iPhoto, it's a database. It will only operate on images that have been imported to it. However, as Aperture has a true lossless workflow, when you process or edit a photo there is +no file to save+. Your edit decisions are recorded on the Aperture database and applied to the image each time you view it, share it, print it or whatever.
However, you don't have to export from Aperture/Import to iPhoto, you can simply share the Previews (Aperture Preferences) and then use the File -> Show Aperture Library command in iPhoto. Then drag the pics across from the Media Browser to the iPhoto Window.
As to being able to set it as a External Editor - well you can also set Chess as one.
Regards
TD

Using Aperture 2 to Edit Iphoto 08 Library

I imported my Iphoto 08 library into Aperture 2 as reference images so I can still view my iphoto library on my HD Samsung through my PS3 using Medialink, after I edit the images with Aperture. My question is will there be any problems if I edit / delete / change images in my iphoto using Aperture ? Are there any tricks or things to be careful about ? I don't want to corrupt my library. I am a recent convert to mac (SR Macbook) and iphoto 08 did a great job with importing and initial organizing the mess of photo from all my windows machines. Aperture 2 seems to have better editing and file management of my resultant 25000 + library. I'd like to use both iphoto and Aperture together.

I import into Iphoto first for a couple of reasons. If I have some videos on my camera, which i usually do, Iphoto will capture them for viewing or editing later. Aperture won't. Second, Time Machine works with Iphoto, not with Aperture. So backups are automatic with Iphoto. With Aperture, you can backup with vaults. I import all my images into Aperture (as referenced images) mostly so I can manage them, IE, organize using metadata, and place into folders by year / month, etc. Also, when you do edit in Aperture, no extra copies are made, like in Iphoto, because, Aperture takes the master from the iphoto library and applies your edits on the fly. You can continually edit and change the image in Aperture and it only will render and make a new image / master when you want to export.
As far as keeping track of various version of images, after organizing and editing in Aperture, you can place a rating on images, or place them in an album of good stuff (which is just a link to the real image), to then export into a new iphoto event of good stuff, etc
Alternately, you could import the images into Aperture as masters, and Aperture will make another copy, which means you'll have two of each image taking up twice as much space. Depending how many images and how much hard drive space you have will determine if this works. You could keep either or both Aperture and / or Iphoto libraries on external hard drives. You could import directly into Aperture and only export good stuff into iphoto, if you don't have any videos to manage and you're willing to backup with Aperture vault.
I setup the external editor in Aperture to use CS3 PS. When you select edit in external editor, Aperture renders a new master which you edit in PS and end up with a new master in Aperture.
Good luck. I went through several workflows with Aperture trial and almost gave up. In the end though, after I saw what Aperture can do, Iphoto along wasn't good enough and I came up with something that works for me.

How are edited iPhoto pictures represented in Aperture?

Hi all,
I'm a relatively new Aperture user, and apologize in advance if the answer to my question is common knowledge. (I did my homework first, but perhaps didn't search on the right keywords.) I imported a few thousand pictures from iPhoto to Aperture, and had Aperture copy them into its library instead of referencing them from iPhoto's library. For most of these imported photos, Aperture now shows me stacks containing the "iPhoto Original" and "iPhoto Edited" pictures -- even in cases where the "edit" is as trivial as automatically rotating a picture that the camera flagged as being in portrait instead of landscape. No worries so far.
I assumed that the "iPhoto Original" was treated as an Aperture master image, and any "iPhoto Edited" copies were stored as versions in Aperture. I just had Aperture relocate the masters from this project though, and was quite surprised to see files being written to disk for both the "iPhoto Original" and "iPhoto Edited" pictures. The sizes of the files were roughly the same, which makes me think that my understanding must have been flawed. Is it the case that Aperture treats "iPhoto Edited" photos as separate masters? If so, does that mean that if I make additional edits in Aperture to an "iPhoto Edited" JPEG, Aperture will end up generating a third-generation JPEG to represent the result? (The "iPhoto Original" being the first-generation JPEG, the "iPhoto Edited" version being a copy of that JPEG, and my Aperture-created version being a copy of a copy of the original JPEG.)
I'd appreciate it if someone could let me know how things actually work under the hood.
Thanks,
Brad

It's frustrating to learn that Aperture didn't import the edited iPhoto images as versions!
Hello Brad,
I know, I wasn't happy with that either, but Aperture has no chance do that with older iPhoto libraries, short of reverse engineering. The older iPhoto versions simply did not store the edits in a non-destructive format like Aperture, just version and original pairs, and that is what Aperture will import. It's only the recent iPhoto versions that make it possible for Aperture to create master-version pairs.
When I imported my iPhoto Libraries I deleted the extra master files - depending on the edits I had done, I either kept the original or the edited version and made a backup of the iPhoto library, just in case I ever would need the second version. If you really want to invest into a newer version of iPhoto and import again, you could try to use the "Lift and Stamp tool" to copy the metadata tags you already applied to the images that you reimport to Aperture.
Regards
Léonie

External edits (PS CS 6) do not transfer from iPhoto to Aperture

I am sharing my main Aperture libary between Aperture and iPhoto. It works well, only external edits are problematic, when done while browsing the library in iPhoto.
When I open the library in iPhoto and edit a jpeg photo in Photoshop CS6, I can see clearly the edited version in the browser, for example, after applying the oil-paint effect in CS6.
But in Aperture the edits do not show: After switching from iPhoto to Aperture the externally edited image is still showing the original version, no indication of an external edit in the badges, no new version generated.
But when I drag the preview from the browser, the preview is showing the edits done in Photoshop CS6.
I suspect, because iPhoto is not creating a new quasi master like Aperture, and the external edits are witten to the preview of the edited version, the only way to access the external iPhoto edits will be by exporting the preview.
I tried this, because I wanted to avoid the creation of tiff or psd files as quasi masters, when doing external edits on jpegs, but when the edits are invisible in Aperture it will be no great help. Now, is that a bug or a feature?
Aperture 3.5.1, iPhoto 9.5.1, PS CS6

So, to clarify, what's happening is that the Thumbnails are not updating to match the changes made in Photoshop?
Where is your Library? On your start-up disk? On an External? If on an External, what format is that?
This might be a form of corruption, try Back Up and try rebuild the library: hold down the command and option (or alt) keys while launching iPhoto. Use the resulting dialogue to rebuild.
Maybe I need to reset the Preferences?
Perhaps? Try trash the com.apple.iPhoto.plist file from the HD/Users/ Your Name / library / preferences folder. (Remember you'll need to reset your User options afterwards. These include minor settings like the window colour and so on. Note: If you've moved your library you'll need to point iPhoto at it again.)
*What's the plist file?*
For new users: Every application on your Mac has an accompanying plist file. It records certain User choices. For instance, in your favourite Word Processor it remembers your choice of Default Font, on your Web Browser is remembers things like your choice of Home Page. It even recalls what windows you had open last if your app allows you to pick up from where you left off last. The iPhoto plist file remembers things like the location of the Library, your choice of background colour, whether you are running a Referenced or Managed Library, what preferences you have for autosplitting events and so on. Trashing the plist file forces the app to generate a new one on the next launch, and this restores things to the Factory Defaults. Hence, if you've changed any of these things you'll need to reset them. If you haven't, then no bother. Trashing the plist file is Mac troubleshooting 101.
Is it because I a have accumulated about 5,000 images in my library and the program is maxing out?
iPhoto 09 is good for a 250,000 images so you've got a little headroom yet...
Regards
TD

Can you use your iPad as a Wacom Bamboo to edit photo with iphoto or aperture ??

Are you able to use your iPad 2 like a Wacom Bamboo to edit photo in iPhoto or aperture ?

iPad VOIP apps... https://www.google.com/search?gcx=w&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=best+ipad+voip+ap ps

Print quality difference between iphoto and aperture...?

when ordering books, is there a print quality difference between using iPhoto and Aperture? or are they sent to the same lab?
it's possible i may have some setting wrong, but when i order a book using iphoto, i never really feel the quality is that great. it's good, i just feel it could be a lot better. the print quality sort of reminds me of newsprint, albeit high quality newsprint. similar sized prints made at home on my basic 3-in-1 printer look better.
thanks...

Previews are what you view on your display. When you import a photo into Aperture (and I'm pretty sure iPhoto as well), your computer automatically generates a preview for quick viewing. The original images are stored in your library, but it is the preview that you see.
In Aperture, you are able to set the size and quality of these previews. When sharing photos between Aperture and iPhoto, the process is as follows:
Let's say that your images are stored in Aperture, but you also want to be able to view them in iPhoto without taking up too much room on your hard drive. Essentially, if you were to import the originals into iPhoto as well, you would be storing two exact, yet separate copies of the same image on your hard drive. As you are aware, with large images (whether JPEG's, and especially RAW) this would put quite a tax on your storage capacity after not too long.
So, you have your images in one or the other (in this case Aperture), but you want to play around with them in iPhoto. What you can do, is open iPhoto, go to the File menu and then select, Show Aperture Library. This will open a window with all of the contents of your Aperture Library. You can then drag any images you want into iPhoto . The only thing is, you are not dragging the original JPEG's, but rather, the previews of those images. If you have those previews set to a lower quality (again for capacity concerns), you will only have lower quality and lower detailed images in iPhoto. These images might not be ideal, or even suitable for printing high quality prints. The previews that you generate in Aperture though can be adjusted to be extremely high quality with no size limits.
My thinking was that since you mentioned Aperture, it sounded like you had experience with working with it and with ordering a photo book through Aperture. I guess you were saying that you ordered via iPhoto, weren't happy with the quality and were wondering if Aperture created books were better.
Anyway, if this is the case, I cannot answer that for you. I have never ordered a book through Aperture. If the quality of your images is good, you should be able to get a decent product no matter where you order it from. There is not doubt that the materials used and the print shop that does the work makes a difference, but if your images are good, you should still get a decent product through iPhoto. Perhaps iPhoto isn't the way to go though if you have had poor experiences with them.
If you haven't used Aperture yet, I would highly recommend it though aside from the photo book aspect of this thread. It is a stellar product.
I hope this helps.
Message was edited by: macorin

What is the best way to organize photos? iPhoto or Aperture?

I am a mom taking tons of photos of my young children. On my old PC I used to organize everything within "My Pictures" by Month & Year (May 2008). I am a very organized, linear person and don't like to change the way I do things midstream so I am having a hard time figuring out how to organize our family photos now that I have switched to a Mac with iPhoto and Aperture. In the future I hope to learn about Aperture's professional tools (which as a mom & not a professional photographer I currently do not use). I would love to take photography classes at a local community college someday...
My questions are as follows:
1) What is the better way for ME to store our photos? Should I be uploading to iPhoto or Aperture? I basically want all of my "master photo images" in the same location in an organized fashion. I am hoping to do this without clogging up my computer. At this point I am thinking at the end of each year I will burn the year's photos to a disk for save keeping. But until then...
2) Is the "library" the over-arching place where all photos are stored? In general, I am having a hard time following the hierarchy of where my photos are being stored, how to organize them and how to completely delete bad photos.
3) Can I do everything I can do in iPhoto in Aperture? Obviously I know I can do more but is it as easy to edit/fix up photos?
I have listened to/watched several tutorials on both programs and have read through many other folks' questions/answers but I am still not sure of what to do.
I really appreciate any help/advice anyone is willing to give!
Thanks!

I'm not a professional either, just a grandma with a love of digital photography who takes lots of photos. We used to live in a motorhome full time, so we had lots of opportunities to take many photos.
I personally like Aperture better than iPhoto because I like to use some of the NIK software/plugins where I can do the adjusting right in Aperture and don't always have to send the photos to PhotoShop. Also you have a bit more flexibility as to file set ups with Aperture. In iPhoto you don't have as many nesting capabilities. iPhoto is great, but pretty basic.
I had my photos set up as files on the PC, long before I got my first Mac. So I set them up the same way. I'll try to explain
In Finder:
Pictures (in side bar on left in Finder)
Folder - My Photos
2nd Folder - by year
In the year folder I have a folder by date ie: 20000722 (year,month,date) and the photos from that date in there.
Once I got to using Aperture, I have my years set up as "projects" and the dates set up as "Albums". When importing the whole set of photos into Aperture, it was easy. I highlighted the "library", then did a right mouse click and selected "import folders as projects". That imported the photos into Aperture the same way I have them in finder.
Once everything is in Aperture, and you have new photos to add, I make an album under the corresponding year and import.
I do all my photos as referenced and don't duplicate them again, as I have them backed up in a couple of other places.
IMHO you can't back up enough! Don't wait and do it only once a year! Hard drives have a way of crashing and you'll loose all your photos. Use DVD's, thumb drives, ext. hard drives or what ever works for you. But always back up.
When I take my photos off of the memory card, I immediately send a copy to the back up external HD. Once the photos are adjusted etc. I make sure I have a copy elsewhere too. Only then do I erase them off of the memory card. Might be a bit redundant, but I'm not about to loose any of my photos. When we lived in the motorhome we were always aware of the possibility of theft or fire. So I got in the habit of taking some time to reduce the size of the photos and keep them on a thumb drive that I kept out of the RV. If anyone broke in or we had a fire, I'd still have the photos. Maybe not the originals or the bigger size, but we wouldn't loose them either.
If you want more info on non professional filing, send me a PM and I can send you a photo of my file hierarchy . (suemach (at) mac (dot) com)
Allie

How do I migrate iMovie project data/pointers from iPhoto to Aperture?

This may be a rather tricky question but here is what I want to do. I have 22GB of Photo's/Video's in iPhoto that I originally used at some point in the past to create some travel home movies. I currently have about 44GB of Photo's/Vid in Aperture. I like Aperture so much that I never use iPhoto anymore.
I've started moving just the albums with pictures in iPhoto over to Aperture. (simple enough) But now I have a lot of space I need to free up.
My question is possibly broken down into 2 parts.
1) How do I move albums with photo's & video to Aperture and index them accordingly without affecting the iMovie projects that link to the original iPhoto data?
I want to keep my iMovie projects the way they are, in editable form, thus eliminating the need for iPhoto, so I can clean up 22GB.
2) In iMovie, on the left window pane, it says "iPhoto Library" & "Aperture Library", with all the old iMovie projects pointing to the iPhoto library. Would moving the rest of my iPhoto library into Aperture automatically purge iMovie editable video projects?
I've backed everything up onto an external hdd, so I would sincerely appreciate any help on this topic. It sounds complicated, but I think it should be fairly straightforward. However, I thought I'd ask the community before actually attempting to do so.
Again, appreciate your help folks. Thanks.

Thanks for your suggestions, However I tried to do a simple test on one very short iMovie project and this is what has occurred:
Setup: (iPhoto '11, iMovie '11, Aperture 3.1.1 - All up to date)
to understand what's going on, prior to what I did below this is how my projects are setup, iPhoto has an event & album tagged F1 Montreal Weekend '08 with both photo / video. (my test project for the purposes of trying to get this to work) iMovie has a project I created based on that photo video and it's saved as an iMovie project called 'F1 Montreal' with references to the iPhoto database.
Action:
First, in Aperture, I imported the whole iPhoto event above which brought over all 192 photos and about 36 videos. I then filed it in aperture under my new way of storing albums/videos and created a smart album for video within the Aperture project. Once I verified all the data is there, I then trashed the iPhoto event and album mentioned above to free up some space since it's now in Aperture. Finally, i closed both iPhoto & Aperture and loaded up iMovie.
Results:
The project 'F1 Montreal' shows up as normal, with all its edits and such after clicking edit project. However, there is a little yellow exclamation mark that says this on every slice of video:
"This clips media file is not currently available.
/users/{me}/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Masters/2008/F1 Montreal/{moviehere}.mov"
After some research on what this is and how to fix it, it seems there's no menu option to repoint the movie files to a different location, am I missing something or have I moved / merged these files the wrong way? Apparently there is some help in the iMovie help file that shows how to reconnect data, but I can't find it anywhere.
I would really appreciate any additional help on how to do this. I'm sure someone's tried doing this before, yes?
Thanks!

Comparing counts after conversion: iPhoto to Aperture

Well, I just finished a major conversion from iPhoto to Aperture. 47,000 photos and videos in a 303 gigabyte iPhoto Library. It was a long and winding road, and I learned a lot about how to compare counts of photos and videos between iPhoto and Aperture. I hope this information helps someone spend a few less hours on the task than I had to.
After an iPhoto-Aperture library conversion, the first check you'll probably want to do, to confirm all went well, is to compare the number of photos and/or videos reported from each application. You'll probably compare the overall total, and/or the total for important subgroups (say, all photos keyworded "family".) Here are some things to be aware of:
- You can run iPhoto and Aperture at the same time, even if Aperture is referencing the photos in their iPhoto library locations. This can make various count comparisons easy. Sometimes though I found the apps suddenly bogged down, and I had to quit one of the two to recover (this was on a 4GB 2.93 GHz iMac).
- Whether your Aperture "stacks" are open or closed affects the photo count reported by Aperture. If you edit an original photo in iPhoto, in the end all you see is edited photo, the original is preserved but tucked away unseen. In terms of a photo count, you still have just one photo. When this photo is imported into Aperture, it comes in as a 2-photo stack (original & edited). If you stacks are closed, your counts should match; if your stacks are open, Aperture will be higher.
- Photos "hidden" in iPhoto come in as "rejects" in Aperture (i.e. a rating of "X" on a scale of X,1,2,3,4 or 5 stars). When the search box in Aperture says "Showing All," you are including the rejects in the count (that is, the count appearing at the bottom of the window in browser mode). If it says "Unrated or better," the rejects are not being counted. Make sure you are consistently including or excluding hidden/rejects when comparing numbers.
- Formats supported by iPhoto but not by Aperture. I have some old (pre-OS X) screenshots in PICT format. Viewable just fine in iPhoto, but they do not get imported into Aperture.
- Some video formats (in my case, MPEG1 Muxed) are imported into Aperture, but are not playable within Aperture, and do not show up if you filter on File Type = Video (that last part seems just plain wrong behavior).
- Every count I saw in Aperture included videos, even when the count was labeled "Photos" (e.g. "23,434 Photos"—you'll see this under Projects, if you group by folder)
- I did have a few items that were *just plain skipped*, with no error dialog, by the import. Scary. But in every case, there was evidence of a problem in iPhoto: I would see a fine thumbnail, but if I tried to open the photo or video, I'd see a gray exclamation point where the photo/video should appear. In every case I successfully found an valid original (in the iPhoto "Originals" folder) and moved it manually into Aperture. Problem is, are you going to try and view every photo you have in iPhoto, checking for exclamation points? I tracked my missing photos/videos down by painstakingly comparing counts in matching slices of time (say, August 2006) in iPhoto and Aperture. When I narrowed a count discrepancy to a set of 100 pics or so, I compared thumbnails between the 2 apps until I found the item missing from Aperture. Not fun.
I hope this helps somebody. Now that I've made the switch, I have a love-hate relationship with Aperture. Mostly love. But that is a separate post. Aperture is also my first Pro app from Apple, and iPhoto and Aperture make a fascinating case study in contrasting user interface design (freedom from choice vs. options galore). Also a topic for another post.
Mike M

Hey, thanks for the comprehensive post. It helped me quite a bit and probably saved me a lot of time; I'm sure it did the same to a lot of people who didn't have an account here as well.

Failed import from iPhoto to Aperture - what's the best solution?

Hello
After some years of using iPhoto I recently upgraded to Aperture 3.2.2. In connection with that and before opening Aperture, I bought a new external hard drive and moved my iPhoto library to it, following Apple's instructions on how to move an iPhoto library to a different drive.
When I opened Aperture and was given the option to import my iPhoto library (of some 30,000 images), I chose, because I thought it was safer, to allow Aperture to access the images in my iPhoto library as referenced images rather than to store them in the Aperture library.
Unfortunately, the import was incomplete. I decided to try to import again, in the same way, to see if that would result in my having all of the iPhoto images. The re-import was also incomplete. Worse than that, although I had told Aperture not to import duplicates, it imported for a second time many of the images that it imported the first time. I now have in Aperture two separate large but incomplete iPhoto libraries.
After this, I learned that before using an external drive with Aperture I should have formatted it to Mac OS Extended, which I had not done. Other research I have done suggests that a surprising number of people have significant problems in trying to move iPhoto libraries to Aperture, but I have not found a case that addresses my problem.
My idea now, subject to any advice anyone can give me, is to move the iPhoto library back to the Mac's hard drive (there is enough room, but little spare), delete everything on the external drive, format the external drive to Mac OS Extended, re-organise some of the iPhoto events, 'delete' the 'contents' of the Aperture library (without affecting of course the contents of the iPhoto library) and try again (possibly by importing the iPhotos this time on an event by event basis).
Is this a good idea? If so, I would be grateful for any suggestions about how to take these steps. In particular, the step of deleting the contents of the Aperture library without affecting the iPhoto library. Are there other better ideas? If so, what?
Thanks very much in advance for any help anyone can offer.

My idea now, subject to any advice anyone can give me, is to move the iPhoto library back to the Mac's hard drive (there is enough room, but little spare), delete everything on the external drive, format the external drive to Mac OS Extended, re-organise some of the iPhoto events, 'delete' the 'contents' of the Aperture library (without affecting of course the contents of the iPhoto library) and try again (possibly by importing the iPhotos this time on an event by event basis).
If there is nothing in your Aperture library that you need to keep, that is a good strategy.
But some suggestions:
Before you move your iPhoto Library from its current location (which will render the Aperture library useless, because it is referencing inside iPhoto), check if you accidentally have imported any images as managed into Aperture: create a smart album with the rule "File status is managed" at the top level of the library albums. This way you will see, if you have any images only in Aperture, that need exporting, before you delete the library.
Also right now the best option to import from iPhoto into Aperture is by importing complete libraries, not single iPhoto events or albums. If you import Libraries, Aperture can combine the iPhoto Originals and the edited versions into "Master-Version" pairs and save considerable space. This is only possible by importing the complete library, for more deatails see this recent thread:
Correct Answer Re: Aperture Loses iPhoto Edited Images
I advise against referencing the masters inside iPhoto, for it is risky. If you open iPhoto and accidentally edit or modify the referenced master in any way, then the reference will be broken. It would be safer by far to create a backup copy of your iPhoto Library and to import the image files into Aperture or to relocate the imported files as referenced masters somewhere else, after you imported them.
Post back, if you have more questions.
Regards
Léonie

IPhoto to Aperture Library Transfer Oddity

Or maybe I should have just said iPhoto Library oddity, since Aperture seems fine, and in the end, seems to have done what it should have.
Let me explain:
A few weekends ago, I started to transfer my entire iPhoto library from iPhoto v7.x (current version) to my Aperture v2 library. I started my iPhoto library over three years ago, using iPhoto v5 and OS X 10.4, later upgrading to iPhoto v6 via iLife ’06 in mid 2006, and finally iPhoto v7 via iLife ’08 last Fall. I then upgraded to Leopard and Aperture v2 this past Spring.
After transferring some 46,000 photos (with most being RAW + Jpeg pairs) from iPhoto to Aperture, I noticed that a there were a large number (approximately 1,800) of stacked photos were one photo was an iPhoto Original RAW photo, and the other was an iPhoto Edited RAW photo. The curious thing is, I didn't edit all of those RAW files in iPhoto, I only edited a select few dozen of them. It should be noted that all of the edited and original Jpegs pairs were also stacked, and the orientation of all of them looked fine.
As it turned out, all of these mysteriously edited photos were shot as verticals, none were horizontals. And when looking at the unstacked pair, the edited photo was properly rotated, but the Original iPhoto RAW photo was not, despite having its orientation listed as portrait. When I rotated an Original iPhoto RAW photo to correct it, the orientation was changed to landscape, even though the photo was displayed in portrait mode.
Upon further digging, it seems that all of the vertical photos that were imported into iPhoto v5 were affected, as were some of the vertical photos that were imported by iPhoto 6, but none of the photos imported be iPhoto v7. I don't remember the exact dates that I imported them and when I upgraded iPhoto, but the timeline seems close.
I also noticed recently when using iPhoto that the info display panel listed some of the RAW photos as “Jpeg (From Nikon RAW)”. I have not spot checked these files yet, but I suspect that these are the photos that resulted the creation of the Original & Edited iPhoto stacked pair in Aperture.
I do realize that iPhoto converts RAW files to Jpegs if you edit them, and I would expect that it does not when you don’t edit them. However, it would appear that iPhoto v5 always did when it rotated them, iPhoto v6 did some times, and iPhoto v7 doesn't.
I’m puzzled as to how these RAW files got edited in the first place.
I can only guess that it happened as either:
1) The result rebuilding the cache at some point, or
2) Possible as a result of a conversion process for the iPhoto updates, or
3) How iPhoto handled RAW files, particularity with iPhoto v5.
But as to why these particular files were affected, and most of the vertical shots were OK, I don't know. Any Ideas?
As for the iPhoto edited RAW photos, I plan to delete them since there doesn't seem to be a point in keeping them, because I have the original RAW file, and the original and edited Jpeg versions. They were easy to find using keyword and Aperture excellent filtering tool.
Incidently, I've also had some problems with the "Black Frames" problem and also the "Unsupported File Format" error with photos that were directly imported into Aperture. I hope that my photos are not corrupted.
Other than that, I'm really liking Aperture2 a lot!

My iPhoto library shrunk drastically when I switched to Aperture, from around 13.8GB it dropped to 9GB. I was worried at first but everything appears to have showed up.
The only things that I can attribute it to is the fact that when an image is imported into iPhoto with auto rotate data, the image is duplicated before it is rotated in Aperture it is not.
iPhoto duplicates the image on virtually every modification.
My iPod photo cache was quite large as well, but Aperture does not import this.
Videos you may have in iPhoto will not be imported into Aperture.
I also get the feeling that preview and tumbnail data is more optimized in Aperture.
If you are unsure backup your iPhoto library to an external drive as a read-only disk image, then if you find any problems with your photos in Aperture you can go to the disk image and get them.

How do I rebuild a common library used by both iPhoto and Aperture?

I'm using a common library for both iPhoto and Aperture—latest versions of each and Mavericks. I'm finding photos that are in the library that seem to have fallen out of their events or projects. When I open those events or projects, the folders are empty, however the photos are still in the database. How do I rebuild this library so as to recover my original organization?

it will not matter, if you rebuild in iPhoto or Aperture.
You rebuild the library by launching either Aperture or iPhoto while holding down the key combination⌥⌘ (option-command) and double-clicking the Aperture or iPhoto icon. Keep holding down the keys, until you are seeing the Library First Aid panel. Select to Rebuild the database.
Back up your library before rebuilding.
When I open those events or projects, the folders are empty, however the photos are still in the database. How do I rebuild this library so as to recover my original organization?
Where are you seeing the photos, that are missing from the projects, but are still in the database?
Rebuilding will collect photos, that have lost the connection to the edited versions, and show them in a "Recovered Project". It will not restore them to the original projects, if it is not clear, what where the originals belong to.
Have you checked, if you have filters set, that are hiding the photos? Check the search fields in the browser and the Info panel, if they are cleared and set to "Show All".

Work with both: iPhoto and Aperture (or Lightroom)

I have iLife '09 and the newest MacBook pro with Leopard (last edition) and I am New in Apple Scene.
All my photos now are imported in iPhoto. How can I organize lot of photos, when I want to work with Aperture (or Lightroom)? Do I need then iPhoto? Or only organize all photos in Aperture?

Aperture, Lightroom and iPhoto all cover the same ground in different ways.
iPhoto is aimed at the domestic market. It's very user friendly and works very well with Point and Shoot cameras especially.
Both AP and LR are focussed firmly on the Pro Shooter shooting high volumes of RAW. They both have significant learning curves.
That said, there is much to be gained as an Amateur photographer using either app if you are shooting RAW. Much less so if you you're shooting jpeg.
You can download trials of both AP and LR.
AP works in a limited fashion with iPhoto. You can share your Previews with iPhoto, for instance, and there is a facility to easily migrate from iPhoto to Aperture. You can migrate an entire library or just particular photos.
LR is utterly unaware of iPhoto. There is a third party plug-in that facilitates exporting from LR to iPhoto. There is no easy way to migrate from iPhoto to LR.
Subject to the caveats above about shooting RAW: I would use Aperture as the primary organisational and processing app. I choose AP because it's much more powerful that iPhoto and because it has excellent OS integration entirely missing from LR.
Regards
TD

Editing iPhotos in Aperture

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