IWeb and Aperture: any updates since October?

Question

I've shared the difficulties that others have discussed in getting Aperture, iWeb and iPhoto to play nice together.
I use Aperature now because I have so many photos, and I was having to rebuild my iPhoto cache every day (to the tune of 15-30 minutes), plus I want versioning and better organizational stuff, etc. I distinctly remember hearing in the promo material that Aperture was going to be seamless with iWeb, and it was the main reason I decided to take the leap.
I'm wondering if anyone has made any progress of getting these two apps to talk better to each other? And does Aperture automatically update iPhoto with versions? How do you import additional iPhoto images into Aperture without having to re-import the entire library? Any word from Apple?
Thanks,
Kiki on the Big Island
PowerBook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  
PowerBook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  
PowerBook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

Answer 1

Aloha G,
Thanks, and since you asked, here's my usual workflow:
I am a digital painter, which means I use digital photos to provide the pixels that I paint with, using primarily Corel Painter.
I shoot photos and import them into iPhoto for cropping and minor color fixes. I then export the photos to Painter. That means I copy them to the desktop folder that I use to collect all the bits and pieces that will be part of the painting. (That might be a Projects Folder in Aperture).
I then proceed to produce between 5-15 versions of my painting, doing incremental saves. These are full sized files.
When I finish a painting, I export it back to iPhoto as a full sized JPG.
Then I export from iPhoto AGAIN to get a smaller, low-rez file to my project folder on the desktop. I have not figured out how to make a low-rez duplicate in iPhoto without exporting and importing.
I then re-import the smaller file back into iPhoto, and put it in an album with other low-rez paintings, ready to go into iWeb and onto my web site.
I may have to also generate other full size versions to print my paintings in standard sizes -- 5x7, 8x10, etc.
Average file sizes are in the 5-50MB range, though they can get larger.
In my dream world, here's what I'd like:
I'd like to be able to import into a photo handling program. I'd like to edit the photos in Painter directly from iPhoto (which I can do, but iterative save means I save the iterations...where?) Painter complains that Aperture's files are not in a format it can use. I don't see anywhere in Aperture's Preferences to change the way the files are exported for an outside editor.
I'd like the photo program to allow me to do versioning (which Aperture does nicely; iPhoto does not), so I can print whatever sizes I need. I also want the photos to be push-button connected to iWeb because I have already invested a lot of time in creating an iWeb site.
I'd like not to have to create full-size duplicates because of storage issues.
And, now, I have a new problem since the previous post. I currently have Aperture referencing my iPhoto library.
I'm thinking that I will just wait for Aperture to resolve what seem like fairly easy fixes. Meanwhile, I thought I would hand-split my iPhoto library into smaller individual libraries to reduce the cache load. BUT, when I tried to export my iPhotos into smaller libraries, I cannot do it. I cannot drag a photo to the desktop now.
Is that because Aperture is now managing the photos?
Thanks for all your help...
PowerBook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.8)