How can I sync my large aperture photo library between 2 macs?

Question

I have read various solutions to this, but quite frankly cannot determine which is the best for my situation.   I keep my master library on my iMac and use a Macbook when traveling.  My objective is to be able to share the master library on my Macbook and when I return from my travels, upload a new master library for my iMac.  My confusion relates to how A3 uses references for masters and I do not want to lose that logical link when switching back and forth.  I am completely willing to take my A3 external drive backup and use it to upload to the Macbook and then reverse the process when I return.  Will this work?  I have over 20k photos so using Mobile Me or some "cloud" will be much too slow.  Both Mac's use Lion.  Thanks for your help.   David

Answer 1

I could have sworn that I read about a work flow which would be what you need over on http://aperture.maccreate.com but cannot for the life of me find it now.
The closest I came was this: http://aperture.maccreate.com/2010/07/30/share-libraries-between-aperture-users- and-use-dropbox-to-simplify/
From what I remember of the workflow, it focused on leaving the masters behind on the iMac (larger drive) and setting the preview to maxium resolution so that you can view the photos while on the road.
It was something along the lines of:
Set your preview size to maxium
Make all photos referenced instead of managed.
Copy/move your now small library from iMac to laptop
shoot out in the field, import photos as managed.
Move the library back from laptop to iMac
make photos from the recent shoot referenced instead of managed.
If you do the copy/move thing then you have to plan ahead and move the library to the laptop before heading out. This is because Aperture won't let you merge two libraries if they're copies of the same library.
If instead you select a number of (or all) projects and select "export as project" you then have two different libraries - one for your laptop and one for your iMac. You can then merge the two libraries to get photos from one to the other.
Allen points out that merging libraries repeatedly isn't super stable. I don't know; I've never followed this process. This is just what I remember from http://aperture.maccreate.com
What I usually do is make a new library out in the field and just import that into my main library when I get back to to my iMac. Works for me. Of course, I can't show off my older photos, but that's what flickr is for.