Managed or Referenced files?

I'm using Aperture 1.5.6 for a year and although pretty familiar I still have a few questions about managed vs referenced files and they are:
1) Are all Aperture features available to both managed & referenced files. i.e., metadata, keywords etc. etc.?
2) If I choose to change referenced files to managed from my hard drives into the Aperture Library are those files duplicated or now only in the Aperture library?
Thanks

Despite this quote from page 140 of the User Manual,
"Choose whether you want the image files moved or copied to a new location by clicking the 'Move files' or 'Copy files' button".
If you choose to store them in their current location, they are neither moved nor copied.
If you choose to have them stored in the Aperture Library or elsewhere they are copied.
This is probably a good thing because, no matter what you do, it keeps your iPhoto Library intact.
DLS

Similar Messages

Change from managed to referenced files

My hard drive is full, so I'd like to move all the managed master files in my Aperture 3 library off my internal hard drive onto an external 'photos' hard drive as referenced masters instead. Although I feel like I understand the general principles of what's involved, I have some specific questions I'm hoping some more experience A3 users can help with:
What command in Aperture do I use to move all the managed master files in my Aperture 3 library off my internal hard drive onto an external one, converting them all to referenced masters? (I can only seem to find instructions for going the other way (consolidating referenced masters into the library) or for moving masters that are already referenced.)
After all my master files are converted to referenced masters, if the referenced external hard drive is disconnected, will I still be able to make adjustments to the 'off-line' files using the previews stored in the library? (e.g.: adjust colours, crop)
After all my master files are converted to referenced masters, if the referenced external hard drive is disconnected, will I still be able to edit the metadata for those off-line files using the previews stored in the library? (e.g.: change time, add keywords)
Time Machine automatically back-up the referenced master files on the external 'photos' hard drive? (I understand that this would at the very minimum require that my Time Machine external back-up hard drive be big enough to back-up both my internal drive and my photos external drive -- which it is.)
Regardless of the Time Machine answer in #4, if I duplicate the photo directory on my external 'photos' hard drive onto another external drive as a back-up, and then if the 'photos' hard drive fails, is it a simple process to get Aperture to point to the files on the back-up hard drive and use those instead?
Thanks everyone!! I really look forward to your feedback.

1. Under File use Relocate Masters for ... (project, library, depending on what's selected on the Library tab) and choose the destination on your external Hard Drive
2. You won't be able to make adjustments to the files once the Hard Drive is disconnected ( the masters are offline). You can only rotate the images.
3. Yes, you can make all sorts of metadata edits to off line masters as well as create albums, rate, etc.
4. Yes it will. You need to deselect your External Hard Drive from the list of excluded files to Back Up from System Preferences, Time Machine, Options.
5. The process to re link Aperture to your back up Masters on your 2nd Hard Drive is simple, but not automatic. Aperture keeps track of your Hard Drive on which masters are stored, so you'll need to use the Locate Referenced Files menu under File. Ideally, if you select the Library and use the Locate Refernced Files, you just point Aperture to the first file on the list and then select Reconnect All, but it can be time consuming depending on the size of your library.

Manage Aperture Referenced Files

I had thousands of files in Aperture, all referenced to an external hard drive. The hard drive is back-up and all the files are safe, but I dropped the original hard-drive that aperture was referenced too... Well, I didn't think it too big a problem, except that I had shot, and edited a few thousand more photos after my last vault back-up... I copied all my backed-up files onto a new hard-drive and thought I was OK... My aperture library looks in tact, except that Aperture thinks that it cannot find the Master files. Aperture Support tells me to simply "Chose File>Manage Referenced Files> except that it appears that I need to chose them all one by one! Is there anyway that I can relate all the Projects to their respective folders - they are all date sorted - in fact the filing system I use is YYYY-MM-DD-24HR-MN-SD-N, so identifying each file is actually quite easy, but I'm not very inclined to go through all the thousands of files I had saved, easier to just back-up from my last vault and then sort through all the lost work from the past few days, and learn to be more fastidious with the vault, and never ever drop a hard drive again!

Thanks. I did try that, but it would not allow me to select "Reconnect" unless I selected individual files and associated them correctly. I wasn't even able to do this for a project, let alone an entire library; but I can do it one by one!
I think my best bet is to just re-import my entire library... as it is well defined and sorted, so I can just use the file names already created and keep them in the current location. I may lose some editing, but most of the really important files have versions exported elsewhere.
My biggest question is: If the hard drive which stores referenced files is damaged again, how can Aperture restore to a facsimile back-up file on another drive?

Aperture Advice: Managed or Referenced Files

I've looked through a lot of the threads here and done some googling. It seems the answer is - "it depends".
So I was hoping I could get some advice on how I can maxamise my use of aperture.
System specs - Mac OSX Imac 2.66 GHz dual core. 4gb ddr2 Ram.
Part of the problem I'm having is that I have a huge number of photos to manage (it's around 350gb of photos) so because of this i'm keeping my photos stored on a fast(ish) 1 terrabyte external drive. At the moment i'm using a managed system but I'm told part of the pro's of aperture is that it's easy to change your file systems.
I don't have any need to edit my image masters, if i need to access photos i just export a version.
So am i right in thinking the best system for me, will be to keep a library file on my Imac but set managed storage to keep the masters on my terrabyte external drive?
Would really appreciate some advice on how I can best use aperture i've noticed that whenever it's open it's a total system hog. I basically have to close it if I want to use anything else on the Imac. Final cut express and aperture open is a no-no for example.
Any advice is greatly appreciated
Thanks
C
(Detailed system specs)
Model Name:          iMac
Model Identifier:          iMac8,1
Processor Name:          Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed:          2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors:          1
Total Number Of Cores:          2
L2 Cache:          6 MB
Memory:          4 GB
Bus Speed:          1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version:          IM81.00C1.B00
SMC Version (system):          1.29f1

Why managed, I am lazy! One click back up using vaults, simplicity.
I have multiple RAIDs, my old "slow" RAID now has my libraries on it, the new "fast" RAIDs are used for video.
I do run multiple libraries and the only time I have had an issue with missing files was when playing with referenced. That said many people enjoy running a referenced system, for the way I work managed is easiest. Disk space is not an issue, backing up is not an issue, what is it now, $100 for a 2TB drive, on site and offsite covered for $200.
Tony

Version/Referenced File name changes and managing reference files.

I had an issue with wrong version names for reasons of my own DAM workflow. I changed the name in the metadata portion of Aperture and changed the name in the drive the has the referenced files for the versions (and there are no duplicated versions, etc). When I go to manage the referenced files, I get the old version names popping up in the manage reference files window/dialog. the names I want show up elsewhere in Aperture and on the reference external drive, but not in the manage reference files dialog. Is there a way to ensure that all of Aperture knows my new version names and new referenced file names?

Oh, and I did restart the application, but not the machine.

Relocated originals to referenced -- file names changed

Hi all,
I think I was a little careless when I moved a year's worth of originals from managed to referenced files (on an external hard drive). All the files seem to have been renamed with a "root" from the last file that I had exported. I'm sure this was an oversight on my part and I should have taken a couple extra seconds to loof at everything.
Is there any way to re-re-name the files on the hard drive so that they have their original file name?
Thank you!

Is there any way to re-re-name the files on the hard drive so that they have their original file name?
Only individually and manually. Aperure does not remember, what the original file used to be called.
Or restore the library and the originals from your backup.
You can relocate the files again, sorted by date, and use a naming scheme close to the original filenames, perhaps by looking up the original names in your backup.
If your originals used to be called imgxxxx.CR2 or similar, you could re-relocate them with the naming scheme "Custom name with index" and set the custom name to "img".
Then edit the preset to let the counter start at the last used counter :

How do you convert managed files to referenced files?

I have exported all the files that I mistakenly saved to my aperture library.
since I've exported them by year and month I can easily incorporate them into my referenced files on various external hard drives.
but how do I now actually get the managed files in the aperture library out of the aperture library? (I am trying to make the aperture file smaller so that it can more easily stay on my laptop).
and is there a way to get rid of the managed files without having to reimport all the files and reimport all the metadata …

As I understand it:
You had a bunch of original image files and imported them into AP using managed.
At this point the original files are totally separate from AP, since AP has copies of the originals in its library file (a package). If you relocate, AP will not put the files back where they were, especially since you have moved some files around in the database.
If you haven't done much editing to the masters, consider creating a new library and a new import. Otherwise, try relocating a small amount of your projects to see how AP sets up the folders on the disk.
But AP will not automatically write the masters back to where the originals were - the relocate process involves you indicating where the files will go. As I recall, you have to choose a folder structure from several choices and these may not parallel the originals. Plus, as I said above, since you have moved files around the database, you will definitely not get the same layout as the originals.

Image size problem after converting from Managed files to Referenced files.

I recently moved to Referenced files for all my images. I use a plug-in (Graphic Converter 8.8.2) to resize all images to a consistent size (1440 pixels wide, landsacpe format) for a web app that I use (Sandvox). With Referenced files, when I drag and drop the externally processed image, it shows up at exactly one-half the correct size (720 pixels). As a test, doing exactly the same opeartion with an Aperture library utilizing managed files, there is no problem...it works as expected.
As a temproray work-around, I found that instead of dragging and dropping, I use the Aperture Export function, everything is correct. This is not really what I want to do because I have a lot of images to process.
This is Aperture 3.5 and Mavericks, but the problem was there with with Aperture 3.4 and OS 10.7.5.

Thank you for the suggestion and running the test. I changed the Preview settings to 1440, and then 2560 and finally, Don't Limit. Quit and relaunch Aperture between each setting. No luck.
But you gave me a hint: maybe the problem has to do with the images being first Managed and then moved to Referenced files. So I tried one that has never been a Managed file and everything works correctly! Don't know if this is a bug or a feature.
Mystery solved, but I still have a lot of images to reprocess.
Thank you for the help.

File management - changing "managed" to "referenced"

I've imported several thousand images as managed files and would like to change them to referenced to conserve disk space.
What is the easiest way to do this? And can it be done without disrupting the order of my folder/project hierarchy?
Thanks,
M

1. Select the images.
2. File>Relocate Masters...
3. Tell it where to move the masters to, including a sub-folder format if you want.
4. There is no step 4.
You'll see little alias badges added to the images in the Viewer pane, apart from that you won't see any functional difference within Aperture, assuming the HD with the referenced files on is mounted.
Ian

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.

Referenced files show up as managed

Using Aperture 3.4.1
I have about 10.000 images (each is a 125MB TIFF file) in Aperture.
As the AP library became very large (about 1,3 TB), I decided to go from Managed to Referenced.
So I used the "Relocate Original for Project" from the File Menu.
This worked fine, but..., unforunately Aperture crashed a couple of times.
So now I have about 200 images of which Aperture thinks they are Managed, although they have been moved to where I told Aperture to Relocate them as Referenced.
What I suspect that happened is:
- Aperture relocated the Original file to outside Aperture, then crashed before it had time to store the new File Status and the link to the Referenced file in thedatabase.
I have tried to Repair and Rebuild the database but to no avail.
If I try to Relocate Original -> Unavailable original files cannot be relocated.
I I try to Locate Referenced Files -> No Referenced Files
I cannot use Show in Finder, as Aperture thinks the image is Managed.
Anyone an idea how to solve this?
Would be greatly appriciated.
Jan

Léonie,
I do not get any error message.
Aperture just dissappears from the screen.
I have different Libary's.
1 filled with TIFF files that came from Nikon scanner (approx 10.000 images)
1 filled with a mix of RAW (from different camera's) and JPG's. (approx 20.000 images)
1 filled with JPG's (approx 3.000 images)
I had the crash with all Library's.
I am trying to go from managed to referenced.
The TIFF files are stored on external disk, connected through USB.
The other 2 library's store their referenced files on the local hard disk
All Library's are alson on the local hard disk.
But this morning I noticed that while the "Relocate Original for Project" was running, also Time Machine was running it's back-up job. Maybe that that has something to do with it.
From the logfile the entry's around the crash, and the first lines of the crashlog itself:
10/13/12 10:29:08.625 AM com.apple.security.pboxd: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSGetWindowTags: Invalid window 0x1e0
10/13/12 10:29:08.625 AM com.apple.security.pboxd: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
10/13/12 10:29:08.625 AM com.apple.security.pboxd: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSSetHideOnDeact: error getting window tags
10/13/12 10:29:09.037 AM com.apple.security.pboxd: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSCopyWindowColorSpace: Invalid window 0x1e0
10/13/12 10:29:33.785 AM Aperture: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSRemoveWindowFromWindowMovementGroup: Invalid window
10/13/12 10:29:58.905 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.502: ([0x0-0x65065].com.apple.Aperture[1011]) Job appears to have crashed: Segmentation fault: 11
10/13/12 10:30:00.708 AM ReportCrash: Saved crash report for Aperture[1011] version 3.4.1 (3.4.1) to /Users/imacjan/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Aperture_2012-10-13-103000_iMac-B eheerders-iMac.crash
10/13/12 10:30:24.097 AM com.apple.backupd: Copied 1798 files (5.4 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
10/13/12 10:30:27.080 AM com.apple.backupd: 3.88 GB required (including padding), 310.11 GB available
10/13/12 10:30:28.768 AM mdworker: (Error) ImportPluginLoading: Couldn't load plugin 'file://localhost/Library/Spotlight/VMware%20Virtual%20Machine.mdimporter/'
Process:         Aperture [1011]
Path:            /Applications/Aperture.app/Contents/MacOS/Aperture
Identifier:      com.apple.Aperture
Version:         3.4.1 (3.4.1)
Build Info:      Aperture-301039000000000~2
App Item ID:     408981426
App External ID: 11130653
Code Type:       X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [168]
Date/Time:       2012-10-13 10:29:53.834 +0200
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.7.5 (11G63)
Report Version: 9
Interval Since Last Report:          203614 sec
Crashes Since Last Report:           2
Per-App Interval Since Last Report: 104689 sec
Per-App Crashes Since Last Report:   1
Anonymous UUID:                      B540CD5B-922C-41AB-B033-2BE4DAECBD38
Crashed Thread: 13 Dispatch queue: com.apple.security.pboxd.xpcq
Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000018
VM Regions Near 0x18:
-->
    __TEXT                 000000010ec66000-000000010f3b8000 [ 7496K] r-x/rwx SM=COW /Applications/Aperture.app/Contents/MacOS/Aperture
Application Specific Information:
objc_msgSend() selector name: retain
objc[1011]: garbage collection is OFF
Thread 0:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0   libsystem_kernel.dylib                  0x00007fff8751367a mach_msg_trap + 10
1   libsystem_kernel.dylib                  0x00007fff87512d71 mach_msg + 73
2   com.apple.CoreFoundation                0x00007fff8fc2350c __CFRunLoopServiceMachPort + 188
3   com.apple.CoreFoundation                0x00007fff8fc2bc74 __CFRunLoopRun + 1204
4   com.apple.CoreFoundation                0x00007fff8fc2b486 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 230
5   com.apple.Foundation                    0x00007fff8afcef7b -[NSRunLoop(NSRunLoop) runMode:beforeDate:] + 267
6   com.apple.Foundation                    0x00007fff8b052b56 -[NSRunLoop(NSRunLoop) runUntilDate:] + 66
7   com.apple.Aperture                      0x000000010ede782b 0x10ec66000 + 1579051
8   com.apple.RemoteViewServices            0x00007fff8ed1823c __111-[NSRemoteSavePanel beginSheetForDirectory:file:types:modalForWindow:modalDelegate:didEndSelector:c ontextInfo:]_block_invoke_0 + 38
9   com.apple.RemoteViewServices            0x00007fff8ed1386a -[NSRemoteSavePanel sheetDidEnd:returnCode:contextInfo:] + 223
10 com.apple.AppKit                        0x00007fff91d6f047 -[NSApplication endSheet:returnCode:] + 275
11 com.apple.Aperture                      0x000000010f0db320 0x10ec66000 + 4674336
12 com.apple.RemoteViewServices            0x00007fff8ed169d5 -[NSRemoteSavePanel _handlePanelComplete:] + 386
13 com.apple.RemoteViewServices            0x00007fff8ed111c3 __45-[NSRemoteServiceConnection _setupConnection]_block_invoke_0141 + 69
14 com.apple.CoreFoundation                0x00007fff8fc4bdfc __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_BLOCK__ + 12
15 com.apple.CoreFoundation                0x00007fff8fc03f02 __CFRunLoopDoBlocks + 322
16 com.apple.CoreFoundation                0x00007fff8fc2bfa7 __CFRunLoopRun + 2023
17 com.apple.CoreFoundation                0x00007fff8fc2b486 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 230
18 com.apple.HIToolbox                     0x00007fff87f6c2bf RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 277
19 com.apple.HIToolbox                     0x00007fff87f7356d ReceiveNextEventCommon + 355
20 com.apple.HIToolbox                     0x00007fff87f733fa BlockUntilNextEventMatchingListInMode + 62
21 com.apple.AppKit                        0x00007fff91abb779 _DPSNextEvent + 659
22 com.apple.AppKit                        0x00007fff91abb07d -[NSApplication nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 135
23 com.apple.Aperture                      0x000000010f0da00d 0x10ec66000 + 4669453
24 com.apple.AppKit                        0x00007fff91ab79b9 -[NSApplication run] + 470
25 com.apple.prokit                        0x0000000110176be1 NSProApplicationMain + 387
26 com.apple.Aperture                      0x000000010ec759c2 0x10ec66000 + 63938
27 com.apple.Aperture                      0x000000010ec75314 0x10ec66000 + 62228
Thread 1:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.libdispatch-manager
0   libsystem_kernel.dylib                  0x00007fff875157e6 kevent + 10
1   libdispatch.dylib                       0x00007fff903ef786 _dispatch_mgr_invoke + 923
2   libdispatch.dylib                       0x00007fff903ee316 _dispatch_mgr_thread + 54
I hope this is readable.
Regards,
Jan

Manage referenced files?

As a newbie to Aperture, I'm uncertain how to bring my "referenced files" into Aperture so they will become "managed" and available to the Vault process. I am finding it a much better option to have all my files in one location for ease of backup. Any pointer w/b much appreciated
thanks

I guess I've not been clear.
I've referenced files in Aperture, they are located in Adobe Bridge folders. If I consolidate with move option they will leave Bridge? If I use copy option they will then be managed in Bridge but available in both locations?
I'm sorry to belabor this, but want to be sure to keep my Bridge files secure while I continue to evaluate Aperture. Thanks for your patience.
Again, thanks for your effort on providing this assistance.

Aperture Quits when using Manage Referenced Files

Hello everybody
All my images are on an external hard drive, but since the last Aperture update, It has several problems to connect them. When I try to reconnect them all using "Manage Referenced Files..." option, Aperture suddenly quits (whan I press reconnect button).
Is this normal? Is there anything I can do?
Thanks a lot in advance.
Message was edited by: Ainvar101

Hi,
It's entirely possible that if you were experiencing this frequently prior to the update, that errors have crept into the database. Does this tend to happen to all raws, old ones, or new ones?
Another consideration is that if the raws are large, then you may need to upgrade to 8GB.
Regards,
Calx

Manage Referenced Files dialog -- Hangs constantly in v2

The Manage Referenced Files dialog is hanging on my system costantly. It goes OK as I navigate to the first drive in the lower pane but hangs when I try to change to a second drive.
Message was edited by: thomas80205

I just tried archiving some more files to DVD and ran into this problem again. I've used the "Relocate Masters..." command to move the files to a folder on my desktop. Then I use Toast to burn them to DVD. When I use "Manage Referenced Files..." this is what happens:
It would appear that the PSD file isn't relinking because Aperture thinks the file size is smaller than it actually is.
Also, is there a way to contact tech support by email or phone?
MacBookPro Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Can I take a managed file and link it to a referenced file?

Is this possible?
I am creating a referenced library. Going forward, I know that I need to use only the referenced file to make new versions within Aperture. But going back through my old files, I have originals and then all the edited copies. These are only linked together in my head, because my practice was to make a copy of an original before working on it, so when Aperture imports it, it sees my copy as a new "original". I wondered if it is possible to reestablish any kind of link between my edited copies and the actual original file.
Thank you.
LCA

Sorry not possible. To Aperture every file imported is an original (master). There is no way to say this import is a version of that original.
You can come close using keywords and possibly stacks. It's not exactly what you are looking to do but at least you'll be bale to locate and group all similar images.

Managed or Referenced files?

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