Managing a cloned Aperture library

Hello all,
I'm working with a referenced library system on my laptop and I make incremental backups of my OS using Carbon Copy Cloner.
I have just realised that the cloned libraries are copying all the new info but do not take account of deletions I have done in Aperture i.e. they are much bigger than the library on my laptop.
I always plan to have all my projects in the Aperture library. From time to time I will relocate referenced images on my internal HD to one of the externals so as to free up space. But that is the only deleting I would do. If I ever want to remove a project then I would export it and save this exported project to both of my externals.
Bearing in mind the above, is there any danger if I change the cloning options of the library to 'delete any items which do not exist on the source'?
Ross

Hi Chez
The following might work for you...
1) Right-click on the cloned Library file on your external drive.
2) Choose Compress "Aperture Library". This will produce a compressed version of the Library in a zip file.
(I did this on my iMac at the weekend before carrying out my Aperture 3.1 upgrade. Just under 6000 referenced images have my ApLib file at 8.8GB. The zipped file is 6.5 GB and took somewhere between 45 minutes to an hour to complete compressing. Your iMac has a more powerful processor, but your library file is a bit bigger. You're probably looking at about an hour to an hour and a half. NB you'll require enough free space on your external drive to accomodate the new compressed file, which will probably be about 12GB or so, if mine was anything to go by. Ideally you'll have a lot more free.)
3) Drag the zip file back over to your Pictures folder. (This should go a heck of a lot faster than dragging the library itself ever would. That's because you'll be dragging a single huge file, rather than a hundred thousand small files - there's less overhead.)
4) Rename your broken Library file. (You might just want to keep it around until you're back up and running again.)
5) Double-click the zip file - it will decompress and create a replacement "Aperture Library" file. (That's why you rename the old one.)
6) Launch Aperture and run the maintenance described below. You'll definitely want to repair Permissions on the library - and that might be enough to solve your problems. If not, step up to the Repair Database step. If that's not enough, go the whole way and try the Rebuild Database.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3805
All being well, you'll be back up and running after that. All told, you're probably talking about a couple of hours - and much of that is just kicking things off and letting them run in the background. If you follow these steps and it fails, you'll still have your cloned copy intact on the external drive.
Good luck!

Similar Messages

Moving a cloned Aperture library

I recently cloned my iMac's hard drive with SuperDuper to an external drive before doing a Time Machine restore of my entire iMac drive. The restore went fine but I forgot that Time Machine doesn't back up my Aperture 3 library (I understand TM backups while Aperture is open can cause problems). So the TM restore wiped out my Ap library.
I tried to copy the cloned Ap library on the external drive back to the main drive but mid-way I get a permissions problem. I'm sure this issue is caused by cloning, but I'm not sure how to solve it. I tried changing the permissions inside the Aperture lib folders but to no avail. I do have a vault that's about a week old that I can use to restore, but I'd rather use the cloned version if possible since it's current. Alternatively, I am able to open the cloned library; I suppose I could export all the projects into a new library on my main drive, but it's a big library (16gb or so, referenced) and I think it will take forever. Would it be faster to make a vault from the cloned library and do a restore on my main drive (something I've never done)? Or is there some straightforward way to copy my cloned library back to my main drive?

Hi Chez
The following might work for you...
1) Right-click on the cloned Library file on your external drive.
2) Choose Compress "Aperture Library". This will produce a compressed version of the Library in a zip file.
(I did this on my iMac at the weekend before carrying out my Aperture 3.1 upgrade. Just under 6000 referenced images have my ApLib file at 8.8GB. The zipped file is 6.5 GB and took somewhere between 45 minutes to an hour to complete compressing. Your iMac has a more powerful processor, but your library file is a bit bigger. You're probably looking at about an hour to an hour and a half. NB you'll require enough free space on your external drive to accomodate the new compressed file, which will probably be about 12GB or so, if mine was anything to go by. Ideally you'll have a lot more free.)
3) Drag the zip file back over to your Pictures folder. (This should go a heck of a lot faster than dragging the library itself ever would. That's because you'll be dragging a single huge file, rather than a hundred thousand small files - there's less overhead.)
4) Rename your broken Library file. (You might just want to keep it around until you're back up and running again.)
5) Double-click the zip file - it will decompress and create a replacement "Aperture Library" file. (That's why you rename the old one.)
6) Launch Aperture and run the maintenance described below. You'll definitely want to repair Permissions on the library - and that might be enough to solve your problems. If not, step up to the Repair Database step. If that's not enough, go the whole way and try the Rebuild Database.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3805
All being well, you'll be back up and running after that. All told, you're probably talking about a couple of hours - and much of that is just kicking things off and letting them run in the background. If you follow these steps and it fails, you'll still have your cloned copy intact on the external drive.
Good luck!

Managing size of Aperture library

I am a wedding photographer and shoot 10k-12k images per month. Other than latest projects, I move all my Master files to external drives, keeping only previews on my iMac. All my master files are always 'referenced'.
My concern is that the Aperture library itself is getting too large in size, its approx 70 GB. On expanding the library ('show package content), I notice that the Previews folder itself is 50+ GB.
- Do the preview files take up so much space?
- Is there a way to reduce the size of the Aperture library itself (without splitting the library into smaller ones n shifting them elsewhere)
How do others address this issue?

Using your own words, you have a concern rather than an issue.
My advice is simply don't worry about it. It's remarkably common for people to take their working system and try to apply some preventtive maintenance to it and inadvetently turn it into a non-working system! Just look through the kind of issues raised here to see many examples.
Aperture is designed to handle the volumes with ease and if the current size is not presenting any actual problems for you, I'd just let it get on and do its thing.
Having said that, storage management and planning is important, but you aleady have the lions share of that side of things under control with the use of referenced files and external drives.
The actual library is (among other things) your index into your external drives and the images they contain.
Thumbnails and Previews are the visual element of that index used for browsing and sharing your collection.
Thumbnails are used for browsing and are not optional. So previews is where you have the most opportunity to control the size.
However, keep in mind it's a trade-off; make smaller or lower quality prieviews to reduce the space they take up (in preferences), and they potentially become usuable in fewer scenarios. Elect not to keep the previews for some (or all) images, and you lose the ability to share them through iLife/Media Browser.
Previously I had a smaller internal hard and so needed to make this trade-off, and my approach was to only keep previews for my top rated images, as these were the ones I would be sharing in slideshows and online. However being a pro, I doubt this kind of trade off would work for you. It needs to be tailored to your own usage, for example perhaps keep previews for all projects for 3 years along with those that you elect to reperesent your portfolio.
Andy

Aperture library resides in external HD

My main Aperture library is not present in my Mac when I disconnect it from the external HD. This is troublesome when I travel without the external HD. How can I establish my main library in the Mac?

A quick addendum, make sure Aperture is closed when you copy the library. Probably won;t be catastrophic if it is open but it will slow things down. Also the estimated time to copy will seem outrageous at first especially for a good size library. In most cases that time is way out of wack and will become more reasonable as the copy proceeds but if you are copying from a USB 2 drive expect it to take some time, possibly even over night.
Most likely your originals are managed in the Aperture library, that is the default and if you did;t change any settings that is how it should be. You can run a filter on your library to check to see if any files are reference.
Select the Photos icon in the Library tab of the inspector, then set the following filter (hopefully the images below will be visible)
First select Add Rule and select File Status
Then in the File Status rule select Referenced
If nay thing shows up in the display you have some referenced files and you will need to handle those a bit different;y when you copy. If this is the case post back.
regards

Aperture - library management and external HDD question

Hi all.
I have just graduated from a point and shoot to a Panasonic GH2 (love it), and have now begun using Aperture 3 rather than iPhoto on my early 2008 MB Pro to manage my photos going forwards. Of course, I’ve now discovered that Aperture is quite the resource hog and so it’s upgrade time (darn, “have” to buy a new ‘puter!). I have a 2011 MB Pro (2.3Ghz i7 with 512GB SSD) on order and 8GB of DDR 3 arriving from Crucial. Since I have this brand-new-computer opportunity I want to make sure I’m organising things properly before I start transferring things across, and so have a few Aperture-related questions. (In case it’s relevant, I’m shooting in RAW+JPEG. So far I’ve been using RAW as master, but have since learnt it might be a good idea to import JPG as master and switch to RAW only when I need to make corrections, so I’ll probably do that going forwards.)
I understand that moving to referenced masters on an external drive might be a good idea and save me precious SSD-space. To that end, questions are:
1. Can anyone recommend a companion external HDD for Aperture and the 2011 MBPro? I guess either FW800 or Thunderbolt are the way to go. The Lacie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt might be an option but is this overkill for Aperture masters or would FW800 be sufficient. I’ve also seen the G-Tech G-RAID mini, Lacie Rugged – thoughts welcome.
Key requirements are a) as compact as possible, and b) bus powered.
2. What kind of performance can I expect if I go down this route? Is there going to be significant loading/processing delay whenever I switch to a new image?
3. How will Aperture cope with (eg) syncing photos to iPad / iPhone if the drive containing the masters isn’t connected? Put another way, are JPG renders saved in the Aperture library (i.e. on my MBP SSD) or with the masters?
Thanks in advance to anyone who responds!
Aljrob

Aljrob_UK wrote:
...I have a 2011 MB Pro (2.3Ghz i7 with 512GB SSD) on order and 8GB of DDR 3 arriving
...I understand that moving to referenced masters on an external drive might be a good idea and save me precious SSD-space.
1. Can anyone recommend a companion external HDD for Aperture and the 2011 MBPro? I guess either FW800 or Thunderbolt are the way to go.
...Key requirements are a) as compact as possible, and b) bus powered.
OWC (an excellent vendor) has the Elite Pro Mini hard drive that meets your specs:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/EliteALmini/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
Thiunderbolt drives are not mainstream yet but eSATA and FW800 both work well. The multiple connection methods of OWC drives allow very desirable flexibility when purposing/repurposing drives.
Note too that the MBP optical drive can be replaced with up to a 1-TB hard drive DIY or OWC will do it for you. That is what I am doing with my 17" 2011 MBP.
2. Is there going to be significant loading/processing delay whenever I switch to a new image?
SSD latency is orders of magnitude less than hard drives. Switching to a new image even fast hard drives with fast connectivity add significant latency delay. To avoid that what I do is leave (Referenced) Masters on the SSD until all editing is complete (which may be a few weeks). Only then do I use Aperture to change the Referenced Masters location from the SSD to a large external drive.
What kind of performance can I expect if I go down this route?
With Masters on the SSD and 8 GB RAM imports/exports are very fast and all Aperture editing is essentially instant. You will be pleased!
Suggested workflow steps for Referenced Masters:
• Use a FW card reader or MBP slot to copy to a file folder on the SSD (never directly into Aperture or any other images management app). With fast camera cards copy times are quick, but cheap slow cards can slow this step down a lot.
• Eject and physically disconnect the card reader.
• Back up that file folder on external drive(s).
• Only after backup is complete, reformat the camera card in-camera.
• Import images into Aperture from the file folder on the SSD.
HTH
-Allen Wicks

Help in managing Aperture library

Thanks for your time.
I think I am getting too many photos on my Mac. I'd like to be able to effectively manage the images there but I am having a hard time figuring out where to get help.
Is there a way to see what images are using the most space? There are some I have worked in external editors and I notice they are coming back into Aperture as much larger files, i.e., 1.5 MB before and 27.5 MB after.
And is there a good FAQ someplace about general dusting and cleaning and deleting of unneeded files?
Thanks!

Modern digicam workflows require increasing amounts of mass storage. Sorting/deleting IMO only provide limited benefit. Bottom line is image handlers need lots of scalable mass storage.
Single-drive computers are limiting to the volume handling of modern digicam image files. Those of us with single-internal-drive computers like laptops or iMacs IMO should use a Referenced-Masters Library. If you are not using Referenced Masters now is the time to set up with Referenced Masters rather than Managed.
External drives that are not eSATA decrease speed, so your Library should stay on the internal drive. Use external drives to relocate data from your internal drive so that there is room for a (Referenced-Masters) Library there.
When using Referenced Masters the Library does not actually hold the large Master images themselves. That way even a laptop drive can hold an Aperture Library of 100,000 images by referencing Master images that live on external drives.
To store Master images by "Reference," when you go to Import on the right hand side of the import window you must select "Store files in their current location." Obviously at some point referenced Masters must be on external drives to keep from overfilling any single internal drive.
In general IMO graphics users do not give enough attention to hard drives setup that really is very important for graphics performance optimization. A few comments:
• Aperture users' mass storage needs tend to increase very quickly.
• The location, size/speed/fullness and connection method of hard drives can have a huge impact on performance within any given specific setup. Internal better than external; with external eSATA better than FW800 which is better than FW400, and USB2 unacceptable except for backup-only.
• Hard drives slow as they fill. A good rule of thumb is not to fill any drive more than 70%, and for best speed keep important drives no more than 50% full. Drives will operate more full but at a performance cost.
• Without careful management a single internal laptop hard drive will become overfilled.
• Your laptop allows up to 500 GB internal drive size. Since drives slow as they fill, an option is to replace the internal HD with a 500 GB drive and keep it less than half full to optimize operation.
Some of the reasons that I prefer Referenced Masters to Managed Masters are
• The much smaller Library is easy to keep on a faster underfilled drive.
• Vaults are much smaller; hence easier and more likely that multiple Vaults will be created.
• An infinite number of Masters and originals can be stored on as many drives as necessary and backed up ad nauseam using the Finder, backup software, Time Machine, whatever. Using Referenced Masters, Aperture (and any anomalies that a complex app like Aperture might introduce) are not in the Masters backup loop.
-Allen Wicks

Aperture Library-referenced and managed-how to add to...

I'm trying to put all my images in one library.
Right now, I have a library that contains some referenced images, and some managed images.
I want to make the entire library referenced. That is, I want all of th original images stored seperatley from the Aperture Library.
Should I reconnect (consolidate) the images that are currently referenced and then proceed to make all of them referenced, or can I select the images that aren't referenced and add them to the same folder where my other originals currently stored?
Thanks

For the ones currently managed: File -> Relocate Masters. or Relocate Original
Regards
TD

Aperture Library on Internal HDD with Managed Video Files

After spending quite a few hours reading through the discussions on how to set up Aperture Libraries and the best practices on where to import files and how to treat them (managed/referenced), i'm finally about to dive in, but there's still one unresolved question which i hope someone can shed some light on ...
From what i can gather:
1. It's best to keep the main Aperture Library on your Internal Startup Drive
2. Use a mix of Managed and Referenced files
3. Keep Highly rated Photos and Recent Ones as Managed
4. Relocate older Managed Photos to an External HD to limit the size of the main Library
5. Managed and Referenced files are not fixed, they can be changed at any time
6. If possible, it's best to keep everything on one big Library so that all files can be found in one place, instead of using multiple libraries
My Internal HD is only 212GB and there's only about 100GB free at the moment. I've got a 2TB and another 1TB (USB connected) External HDD as well.
If i am just working with photos, i could probably juggle things around with the 70+GB avail space on my Internal Drive (assuming 10-15% is left free), but even then, it will be quite a tight setup that doesn't leave much room for growth. The thing is, i've got lots of large video files which are taking up most of the space, and there doesn't appear to be much option to keep them as managed files within the main Aperture Library.
As it is, my iPhoto library (which i've just moved from the Internal HD to the External HDD) is already about 90+GB (over half must be from videos). And i've got 200+GB more photos and videos to import into Aperture too. Before starting, i really want to make sure i've got a suitable infrastructure and system, but the rather limited space i've got on my internal Drive and the large storage requirements for my video files has got me stumped on how to proceed.
For users who have quite a fair bit of videos, what's the best way to use Aperture with managed files on the Internal drive? Is it just a matter of getting as large a Startup drive as possible, getting a Firewire connected external drive (that's faster than the USB connected ones), or is there some better work around?
One option is to keep the videos as referenced files, but (i think i read) that they won't be visible in Media Browser (and iMovie?) unless they are managed. After importing and cataloguing the videos in Aperture, i would like to access and edit them in iMovie, which is why i thought it would be essential to keep them as managed files.
Thanks for any advice and thoughts shared. It's been a long journey over the last few days to do backups, upgrade to Mountain Lion, buy Aperture, upgrade iPhoto, and read through countless discussions in these amazing forums. Hopefully, that first import is only around the corner.
Message was edited by: Paddy99

Paddy99 wrote:
Thanks for your feedback Kirby.
You're welcome. Sorry more knowledgeable folks haven't chirped up.
You're right, getting a larger internal drive is the way forward. It appears that (from Apple) 750 GB seems to be one of the largest sizes
I would call OWC (or browse the site) and see what the largest drive you can install is. You might also look into replacing your system drive with an SSD, and putting a large drive in place of the Super Drive (if you have on).
750 GB should be big enough to comfortably hold your currently-being-worked-on video files. If it's not, you should probably upgrade to a Mac Pro.
You can put not-currently-being-worked-on files on external storage (in Aperture-speak, convert them from Managed Originals to Referenced Originals). Aperture makes it very easy to convert your Originals from Managed to Referenced and back.
(Just to be clear, the distinction is whether or not the files are inside the Aperture Library package. You could have Referenced Originals on your system drive.)
I've currently got a mid-2010 MBP, so i think there's a USB2.0 and a Firewire 800 port. I presume getting a External HD connected via Firewire 800 is a good temp solution.
Yes, it is. FW-800 works fine for Libraries and for Referenced Originals. I don't recommend relying on USB-2 (FW-400 is OK as a part-time compromise). Note that the performance needed for a Library is much higher than that needed for Referenced Originals (they are read into system RAM). If you need to cut corners, the first place to do it with the storage for your Referenced Originals.
There must be many other video heavy iPhone users who come across this issue with iPhoto or Aperture, but it's strange that there aren't too many discussions about this topic.
Aperture is really a photography workflow tool. The DAM is excellent -- and it can handle video. But nearly everyone who works regularly with video uses other programs for their workflow.
Message was edited by: Kirby Krieger -- corrected formatting.

I am trying to import aperture library from macbook to new imac the import window sees the external harddrive but does nt see library. I can open library as a refernce library but cannot import onto hardrive as managable files Tried to do as a backeup t

I am trying to import aperture library from macbook to new imac the import window sees the external harddrive but does nt see library. I can open library as a refernce library but cannot import onto hardrive as managable files

I may be misreading what you are trying to do but you don't import libraries via the import window. You use File->Import->Library..
If this doesn't resolve your problem post back with more detail of what you are doing and what is happening.
regards

Reformatting Aperture Library

Hey all! I'm hoping to get a more informed opinion about a restructure of Aperture that I need to do. If you've talked to me already, you know that we managed to entirely delete our Aperture library by accident, and basically haven't stopped freaking out since. The story had a happy ending, and we found that we had somehow managed to restart Time Machine backing up to a RAID drive (it was hiding inside of a sparsebundle, and this took an unfortunate amount of figuring out on our part), and so the vast majority of our pictures were okay. So I want to create two new aperture libraries, one for clients and one for family. The HD library is a hot mess, and I was planning to restore it to the most recent version on Time Machine, and then delete duds to buy space, and then re-import the photos that we have loaded since the last backup. But there isn't memory space to copy in the old library, and obviously there isn't enough space to write a second copy to be able to look at and compare with to make sure there's nothing glitchy or missing.
My only other thought is that I would have to trash the current library and empty the trash to buy the space to start two new libraries from scratch and reimport the masters, losing all of the version information.
I guess another option could be to delete everything I can from the current HD library, empty, and then try the restore function.
I'll give you a brief description of where things are right now...
HD library-houses masters from Nov.9 onward. Has all the original project structure from before the master deletion accident.
RAID-Time Machine backups in a sparse bundle
-I copied all masters out of the backup folders and into other folders on the RAID. I wanted to make sure they stayed accessible.
Many masters are both on the HD and on the RAID, except for family pictures going from January 2012 to October 2013. They are only on the RAID.
Your input is valued! I'm pretty nervous about screwing this up.
Naomi

Are you or were you using more than just TimeMachine? that should be, redundant backup sets especially for important files should be a must.
Why RAID? too much for a single 3-4TB drive to handle your backup needs?
RAID1 may sound good but having two separate backup sets and methods would be better.
Sounds like you need to invest in a new drive or two, anytime you talk of "having to trash current library." Why are things being left in Trash? temporary for now while you try to rebuild and get your files and Aperture library catalogue back in shape.
You don't say how large - and that is something I would be curious and want to know as to what to do going forward. Many users put Aperture on a pair of SSDs for speed and improved performance on PCIe SSD controller which helps, and that also frees up your 4 drive bays (booting from an SSD is also a wise idea from performance standpoint).
At least gets you an external backup which is always good and off line when not needed and free up drive bay for work files and drives. I assume your RAID is using two internal drive bays or is that not so?
Using a USB3 PCIe (or SATA3/USB3 combo) and something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Security-Local-Backup-WDBFJK0040HBK-NESN/dp/B00E3RH6 1W/
Another piece of the puzzle, Carbon Copy Cloner to manage and backup your system (bootable backup) as well as your data (one volume to volume but can archive copies and versions). One reason I use and recommend CCC, so you will enable the checksum for all file copies to insure their integrity.
Clone your system:
How to Clone a Volume
Using Cloning as a Backup Strategy
See also Erasing a Drive, How and Why to Partition a Drive, RAID.
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7032/carbon-copy-cloner
From www.macperformanceguide.com tips:
A robust backup approach must have at least the following properties:
Physical risks—not subject to the same physical risks as the original data, e.g., stored well away from the source computer.
Different hardware—a backup stored on the same drive as the original is not a backup. Multiple backups on the same drive of the same data are one backup; they all are lost together; they are only semi-redundant.
Redundancy—in the event that a backup is needed, a single backup will not do; it becomes an original. Hence a bare minimum of two full backups is essential (three or more preferred on separate drives).
Data integrity—a backup might be initially fine, but that is not guaranteed to last over time. A program like IntegrityChecker for down-the-road data validation is important in some situations, including DVD and BluRay backups: how can it be known that the files remain intact?
Tips
Eliminate potential for user errors: use cloning and establish naming conventions .
Eliminate potential for hardware confusion: mixing many too-small and old drives for partial this and partial that is a serious risk (from complexity). Migrate to large external hard drives with a long lifespan (enough capacity).
Redundancy can include mixed storage types, e.g., hard drive backup, DVD or BluRay disks, cloud storage.
Hard drives do not last forever and should be replaced every 3-4 years. They should also be erased at least once a year, and a fresh backup made (to re-magnetize and to force use of the drive on which data is stored).
Always perform manual “sanity checks”: do not assume the backup process has worked. At the least, use the Finder Get Info window on the original and the backup.

ITunes doesn't see Aperture Library - iMovie doesn't see Aperture Library

Issues:
Nearly all of my videos in the Aperture/iPhoto library do not show up when I select iPhoto library option in iMovie and iMovie is unable to locate them in any other way. Sometimes the option to select the iPhoto library is completely missing.
iTunes does not recognize my Aperture library, and I get the following message:
"Your Aperture Library could not be found. Open the preferences window in Aperture and enable the preference to share previews with other applications." After reading through forums and multiple Genius Bar appointments here is most of what I have done:
Created multiple new Aperture libraries, selected them in Aperture, rebooted, switched back and forth - Note: iTunes DID recognize the new blank libraries
Booted Aperture with the Command + Option keys and run all three options to repair permssions and even rebuilt the database
Booted Aperture with the Option key and selected the library I was using all along (this worked for someone in a forum)
Opened iPhoto (not Aperture) and selected an option to share photos
Run "Verify Disk Permissions" many times under Disk Utility
Run "Repair Disk Permissions" many times under Disk Utility
Reinstalled OSX
Reinstalled Aperture
Reinstalled iTunes
Reinstalled iMovie
Run a virus and malware scan (no issues)
Verified that Aperture was set to share previews and had a Genius go through all of my options to ensure they were correct in iTunes, Aperture, and iPhoto
Have ran "Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs" from the Command + Option + R recovery partition multiple times. Each time it just hangs for hours, the latest attempt ran for over 24 hours before I finally stopped it.
Oh yes, and I found and deleted the file com.apple.iApps.plist
None of these things fixed either of my issues. According the the Genius at my last appointment, now I have to call Apple Care and pay to get support. I must have misunderstood what the Genius Bar was about when I bought my Mac and why I purchased the One to One training. Before I call Apple Care, I was hoping someone might have run across this and can help me.
I asked the Genius if I now need to just create a new Aperture Library and move all of my content to it (that was the last resort for someone in a forum); however, he was concerned that even if this might work that I probably have deeper permission and/or other issues that need to be addressed and that doing so would not fix the root cause.
Thanks for taking the time to read through this issue.

Understood. I thought perhaps the period meant that I was finished and just needed to call Apple Care and fork out the fee.
The formats are primarily .MOV straight from the iPhone. Since going to a Mac, I have pretty much given up on using my Sony Handycam for family videos due to the pains of having to locate, identify, convert, and export AVCHD video to watch on Apple TV. It is just too easy to take video with my iPhone and import it and immediately watch it, although the quality is nothing close to a dedicated video camera, especially indoors and in lower light. All of the video formats in Aperture are supported and most all of my older home videos and Sony Handycam videos are sitting on an external drive (hoping that one day I will have the time to figure out a decent workflow to access them after I work all of the bugs out of iMovie). Great thought though.
All my content is managed. After a handful of One-to-One sessions at the Apple Store, I finally learned that you could not reference videos in iMovie and had to either have them in the iMovie Events directory or in iPhoto (at least that was what she said). Their solution was to import the videos into iPhoto so they could be easily accessed in iMovie. After I had issues mentioned in this post their solution was for me to purchase Aperture that could handle larger libraries. This was supposed to fix the issue and allow iMovie to see my videos. When that didn't work they said that I needed to purchase Final Cut Pro. I'm just a Dad who wants to make a few memorable home movies for his family and I don't think that I should have to purchase a $300 application, especially after paying a premium for my Mac and the iLife software, which I am deeply regretting. But I digress.
I have repaired permissions again and am in the process of repairing the library and will rebuild it again if that doesn't work. It is taking longer so I won't be able to post the results until a later time. Definitely worth a shot to try this again.
If this doesn't work I will take the time to create a new Aperture library. Like I previously mentioned, this was the last resort for another gentlemen who had a similar issue. After doing this it might explain why the "Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs" from the Command + Option + R recovery partition is getting hung up and not working. I'll post the results at a later date. If I could save just one person the time, gas, and stress I've experienced it would be worth it.
One additional question? I read a gentlemen's post that passionately argued against ever using iPhoto, Aperture, or iMovie to ever manage video files. He suggested using folders and a file naming system similar to what I used when I was on a PC using Adobe Elements. Do you have any thoughts on that?
For my situation, I have two concerns:
I'm afraid this would not allow me to watch the videos on Apple TV as simply as I can now (although I don't know this to be the case for certain). If the videos aren't in my photo library, I'm not sure how I would be able to access them through Apple TV.
Since I'm a proud Dad I have hundreds of video files spanning many years, so I also don't want to lose the ability to quickly peruse my event library and find content that I want to import into a project in iMovie. At one point I imported some video files to edit that weren't stored in iMovie, and I could only see the file name and date and had to guess if there was content on it that I wanted. When you have hundreds of clips like I do that isn't practical.
He argued that these programs were never meant to manage content and worked much more efficiently using this method. I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts.
Thanks again.

New to Aperture - Library vs Reference files

I'm coming to Aperture from Picasa, which replicated and managed my folder structure as it appeared on my hard-disc, which was nice.
Am I better off importing images into my Aperture Library, or managing the folder structure how I want and just having Aperture work with the reference files?
I'm not a pro-photographer, just a pretty basic user, so will not have loads of large raw image files. What's the benefit of using the Library over using Reference files? I've tried Google-ing but everything I've found just addresses folder/project management within Aperture.
If I use the reference option, can Aperture manage my photos on my hard-drive in the same way Picasa could (ie if I moved a photo from one folder to another in Picasa, it also moved on my drive)
Thanks

Hi TxH,
Welcome to the user-supported Aperture discussion group.
I'm coming to Aperture from Picasa, which replicated and managed my folder structure as it appeared on my hard-disc, which was nice.
If you use Aperture for even a little while, you'll realize that the structure of your photos in your hard drive is not as important as how you organize them in Aperture, especially when you start making albums, which merely contain a pointer to the image in your library. You can have a picture in many albums, but your library (and therefore hard drive) only contains it once.
Am I better off importing images into my Aperture Library, or managing the folder structure how I want and just having Aperture work with the reference files?
That's a matter of opinion. Some people are very opinionated that using referenced files is the only way to go, some are opinionated the other way. Sometimes there really is a better solution for you depending on what you are doing.
What's the benefit of using the Library over using Reference files? I
You will find loads of conversation if you search this discussion group for "managed" and "referenced".
You will always have a library. Your managed pictures will live in the library and you won't have direct access to them through Finder (and you should not want direct access to them for the most part). Your referenced pictures live wherever you tell Aperture to take them from, but the bookkeeping parts of the Aperture library/database are still stored in the Aperture library package.
Benefits of managed include: you don't worry about where the files are; Aperture backs them up if you use its vaults; they are always with you.
Benefits of referenced include: you know exactly where the files are; your Aperture library is significantly smaller than if all your photos were in the library; you can find them with Finder if that's important to you (and a lot of people think it's important to them but then realize they only think that because they're really not using Aperture to its full potential).
If I use the reference option, can Aperture manage my photos on my hard-drive in the same way Picasa could (ie if I moved a photo from one folder to another in Picasa, it also moved on my drive)
Yes. I've never used Picasa, but Aperture allows you to "relocate" your photos in order to manage their external directory structure. You can also choose to "relocate" a managed master to make it referenced.
nathan

Sharing the same Aperture Library between two Mac's?

gents does any of you manage to share the same Aperture Library between your iMAC and a MacBook?
How can I do it without risking to lose anything or to jeopardize the integrity of my library backup?
the idea is to work on Projects while I am on the move and placing them back into my Main Library sitting on my iMAC at home...
Thx!
P

For each project you want to work on, CTRL + Click the project and "Export -> Project as new library". These new temporary libraries can be moved to your MacBook for working on.
When you come back, import the libraries back to your main Aperture Library with "File -> Import -> Library" and choose to merge your changes. The changes you made will be added to your main library. The temporary libraries can then be deleted.
Deleting them avoids the temptation of working on them later, possibly creating conflicts. It best to export new copies from your main library each time you work away so you know you have current up to date versions.
-Najinsky

Can't sync Aperture library with multiple user accounts

I have created the aperture library on my main computer account and have synced photos to my iPhone with no problem. I created an account for my wife on the computer and she has admin rights. When I try to sync photos from Aperture onto her iPad I get the error message: You do not have enough rights for this operation. I checked the permissions on the Aperture library and she has Read+Write rights. Is there a solution so that we both can use Aperture for the management of our photo library but still have separate accounts?

yes, as best as I could tell.
This is a library I use for my desktop wallpaper (rotating 5 seconds apiece, random pics) so the images are kept in a folder separate from the library, which is one of the few that I permit to copy images and manage their location.
So I deleted those four images from the library, deleted their album, and reimported them from the main folder, and recreated their album, and all was well.
I presume one of them got corrupted, but the odd thing was that iTunes complained the phone couldn't be synced, and in no way indicated a fault with a file being synced.

Can I use aperture library on more than one machine

My situation is thus:
I have a Macbook Pro on which my Aperture Library resides, in wherever Aperture decided to put it when I bought the software.
I now have a iMac, which obviously will be better than the Macbook for photo editing.
But I want to be able to take my Aperture Library with me when I take the Macbook out and about, and if necesary still edit on the Macbook.
Is there any way to share the Aperture Library, so that I can edit on the iMac, but leave the library on the Macbook, and then edit on the Macbook if I wish.
I am the only user, and will only be using Aperture on one machine at any one time.
I have searched archives but not managed to find the answer.

Is it possible to simply share the directory that contains the necessary file(s).
If your Library is in the location that aperture picks by default, then it will be in your "Pictures" folder - look for a file with a name like "Aperture Library. aplibrary".
What you will need to share depends on your import strategy for the master images. If you use managed masters, and all your master images reside inside the Aperture library, then you simply need to make this library file accessible or copy it to an external disk.
If on the other hand your masters are referenced, then I would recommend to consolidate them into the library before you share the library and then share the consolidated library.
If you will share your library over the network or just by moving it to an external device is really up to you, but you might consider the following pros and cons:
- If you want to profit from the faster CPU on your iMac, then you should keep the library on the fastes volume that is available, and a network volume might be much slower than a directly connected volume.
- if the network fails during a critical operation your library might get corrupted, if it resides on a network volume - there have been quite a few problems reported in this forum.
That is why I suggested to use your Macbook as directly mounted external volume, that leaves the library in its place on the Macbook Pro - no need to copy - and you have a very quick and stable connection, but the decision is yours to make. You will have to be comfortable with the workflow you choose.
HTH
Léonie

Managing a cloned Aperture library

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