Managing referenced masters

Hi, I am trying to manage my library that I have saved on my external hard drive (aperture library is on the local drive - photos on the external drive). I would like to make changes (simple things like renaming or creating new folders) to the library on the hard drive using Aperture but at the moment when I do this none of the changes seem to change in the external drive, only appear in Aperture?

makaulay wrote:
Thank you Leonie. But then if I spend a lot of time organising my photos
The problem is that "photo" now can mean many things. In order to speak about software, we need to specify the meaning of "photo" each time we use the word.
Aperture is not a file manager. It is an Image manager. You are used to thinking that photo=file. When you use Aperture, you abandon that tautology. Letting go of hard-learned knowledge and habits can be difficult.
Here is a post about it. I suggest reading the whole thread.
If you want file management, don't use Aperture. If you want image management, you commit to using Aperture and only Aperture to do the file management tasks that remain for any file you import into a Library.

Similar Messages

New user - managed or referenced masters?

I finally jumped and bought Aperture after having outgrown iPhoto and gone through the Ap2 and Lr demos.
Now begins the process of migrating my current and old photos into Aperture.
Right now I've got less than 15k photos. I have an organization scheme in mind, but I'm looking for advice as to whether I should go managed or referenced.
I realize that this isn't an all or nothing decision (it is really a project setting), and that I can change my mind later if necessary.
Managed:
+ simple
+ vaults backup images and Ap-specific data
- doesn't play well with Time Machine
Pros for referenced:
+ can span multiple drives
+ works well(better) with Time Machine
+ can easily share masters with other apps (I don't plan to)
- vaults only backup Ap-specific data, not images
Have I missed anything?
Any recommendations?

I prefer Referenced Masters even on a Mac Pro. IMO it makes for a clean backup workflow and a forever-logical organization. And Referencing Masters ensures that the size of the Library will always be small enough that it need not cause a hard drive to exceed 50% full and reduce speed.
• Finder-copy images from CF to a labeled folder on the intended permanent Masters location hard drive.
• Eject CF.
• Burn DVD copies of the original images.
• Eject DVDs.
• Import images from the hard drive folder into Aperture selecting "Store files in their current location."
• Review pix for completeness (e.g. a 500-pic shoot has 500 valid images showing).
• Reformat CF in camera, and archive DVDs of originals off site.
Note that the "eject" steps above are important in order to avoid mistakenly working on removable media.
-Allen Wicks

Can't reconnect Missing Referenced Masters

I have a library which is a mixture of Managed and Referenced Masters. Library on SSD and Referenced Masters on HDD.
A very small number of Masters have gone AWOL and I can't reconnect them. Using Spotlight, I can locate the actual Masters with Finder - they are just where I expect them to be, in a subfolder in a Folder called "Aperture Masters" on my HDD.
Here is an example
The badge on this image looks like this
When I choose Update from Master, I get this message
So then I try to reconnect via "Locate Referenced Files..." and get this message
These images are findable by filtering on "Missing" or "Offline"
All but one have the badge with the arrow and the yellow triangle.
One has a badge like this (a kind of inverted MobileMe sourced badge
Any ideas on how to reconnect?

Interesting. The User Manual I was reading is a PDF and it defines the badge as this. Note that the badge is flipped in the two versions and the PDF doesn't mention FaceBook or Flickr.
Seems I should re-download the User Manual

Referenced masters: How can you tell where a photo's master is?

After reading many recommendations on this site, I have set up my main library on my internal HD with referenced masters on an external HD.
Now I need to import a job which I shot out of state and which was saved as a managed library on my MBP. So I copied it to an external drive and then Imported it into the main A3 library. That worked just fine but it seems like it copied all the masters as well as the versions from that new library into the main one.
Before I try to relocated them, how can I tell where the master for a particular photo is located?
Thank you very much.
Bo

Versions are always in the Library (they are text instructions saved to a file and applied on-the-fly to the Master in order to produce the image on screen (mostly)). Masters are either in the Library (in which case they are "Managed"), or not in the Library (in which case they are "Referenced"). The Library is a "package". A package is a container of files which shows as a single file to the user.
Badges tell you the status of the Master on which the Version is based. No badge = Managed. Referenced Masters show a badge. Off-line Referenced Masters show a modification of this badge. Versions with Missing Masters show yet another version of this badge.
Badges can be toggled to show or not via the Metadata Overlays. All seven of the Metadata Overlays can be customized.
Use the filter Rule "File Status" to filter for "Managed", "Referenced", "On-line", "Off-line", and "Missing".
If you want to move all Manage Masters to your external drive, in Photos view filter using the "File Status" Rule set to "Managed", then select all and "File→Relocate Master".

Can't import referenced masters into Library

I've used referenced masters for years, since Aperture 1. Now I'm trying to import, and I get the error "Insufficient disk space". Here are the details
OSX 10.7.5
Aperture 3.4.1 (Just updated)
Current RAW Folder                              110 GB
Current Aperture Library                         9.9GB
Free space on startup disk                    13.3 GB   (not a lot, I know)
Space required (according to aperture)     3 GB
Folder I'm trying to import                         19.4 GB
Camera Nikon D7000, files NEF format. No previous problem with this camera.
If 100GB can be represented by 9.9 GB in the Aperture library, why does it want 16.3 GB to import 19.4 GB?
I have "Store files in their current location" selected in the Import pane.

Gil I think there are a couple of basics you need to come to grips with.
Assuming your Aperture library is on your start up disk and that you only have 13GB free, DO NOT PLACE ANYTHING ELSE ON THIS DRIVE, until you clear out some space adding more files to this drive is only asking for trouble.
So Aperture.
100GB is represented by 9.9GB, yes, Aperture has created previews of the referenced files and has a database to describe them = 9.9GB, 100GB of master files/images still reside on the other drive though.
The folder of files you are trying to import, 19.4 GB, you say you are now using a managed file workflow, that being the case Aperture now copies the files into the library, so there is no way that 19.4GB will fit into 13.3GB, plus there will then be an additional 1-2GB, based on 110GB=9GB, of space required by Aperture.
I hope this makes sense.
Moving forward, get youself two external drives, have you library, managed or not, along with any referenced files on one drive, the other drive use for your back up.
Tony

Backing up Referenced Masters

Would like some advice on what you consider the best approach to backup when using a mix of Reference Masters and Managed Masters in the library.
My understanding is that you cant use Vault on Referenced Masters and cant use Time Machine either.
Your advice is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
LArry

Just to be clear, all edits and adjustments, along with thumbnails and previews, regardless of managed or reference masters, are stored in Aperture Library.
Just use Vault to backup your Aperture Library (that has managed masters and adjustments, previews and thumbnails). Your referenced master, simply needs to be backed up by duplicating the files on another drive than where is resides. I simply save may referenced masters on two separate external drives when I read them off the card on exactly same folder/directory structure. If you get a RAID drive (other than RAID 0), it will do this for you automatically.
Many people use multiple Ap Library and is not an issue, but not typically for the reason you've brought up. Rather, one for business and another for personal, or one each for major clients.
Cheers

Referenced masters or library on external drive?

My Aperture library with managed masters has outgrown my macbook pro. Is it better to switch to referenced masters on an external drive or move the whole library to an external drive and continue with managed files?
thoughts on this, please...

Matthew Bergsma wrote:
Keeping your library on one drive and your masters on another has noticeable speed benefits.
I totally agree with that.
I store my files on a ReadyNas Duo that mirrors the images using two hard drives. Gives you some protection when a hard drive dies.

Lost my referenced masters after update 3.0.1

Dear all, after the update to 3.01 a few hours ago I have no more access to my referenced masters.
When I try to open Photoshop or other plug-ins there is an error message.
After having so much trouble with the update from A2 to A3 whilst getting them fixed with your help here, I`m looking forward to waste another week-end.
Actions so fare done:
shutdown and restart, no progress
cmd + alt restart, no progress
recover latest update from time machine gets me a library file which is 1/3 of the size of the original lib (11GB vs. 33.3GB). No pictures can be seen, only colored stripes, activity window showing me that the program reworks 44.000 objects. I`m not very optimistic to get my library back.
Any other ideas.
Regards
TikTok101

I'm having a similar issue, my refrenced images (stored on a network drive) are fine but my managed images (stored in the aperture library) are missing. I have the previews but not the images.
I have repaired and restored my library niether have worked
I also restored my hard drive using time machine to A2 and the images are still missing

The Best Method To Backup Referenced Masters?

I cannot find in Aperture help any mention of backing up the referenced masters which seems odd that Apple would consider backing up managed photos on the internal Aperture Library while not considering the very common (and supported by Apple) method of working with referenced masters on external hard drives.
This is what I am doing: I am using super duper to clone the HDD with the referenced masters to another external drive. If the HDD with the referenced masters dies I just hope that I can somehow reconnect the masters on the other HDD.
Is there a better way to back up those referenced masters? Perhaps a method I am not aware of from within Aperture to make it easy to use or reconnect the back up images?
Aperture 3, MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard

It makes me wonder. Since Aperture places the backups and therefore "knows" the location, does it in the event of losing the originals, have a dialog box or other means for "finding" and reconnecting to the file backups?
afaik, no. Kirby, do you know differently?
But there is of cause the "File > locate referenced files" window, that will allow you to reconnect the versions with their masters. But you will have to point Aperture to the location of the masters.
I am a fanatic with keeping at least two but preferrably 3 copies of everything in at least two different formats.
and preferably in two different places, see Kirby Krieger's post - "offsite location".
And if you are very concerned about the safety of your images, you will create the first backup of your masters directly from the card - before the images enter any image editing software.

Aperture 3 - Deleting Referenced Masters in Finder

Here's my scenario: I've recently installed Aperture 3, and imported many iPhoto Libraries into it. I currently have just over 100K photos in a managed library, and performance is slow. I'm switching now to referenced masters to (hopefully) improve performance. I suspect that I have several thousand duplicate photos (could be as high as 10K duplicates because my wife has mangled the iPhoto libraries over the years).
Once I've finished converting from managed masters to referenced masters, my plan was to run a duplicate checking app to delete all the dupes using the finder. The question is - if I delete a referenced master in the finder, will that screw up my Aperture library?
I did attempt to use Duplicate Annihilator on Aperture itself, but because my library is huge it would take about a week to complete, and I can never go seven days without rebooting (I travel a lot). I think because I have so many photos, I need to delete dupes in the finder.
Any advice would be appreciated . . .
- Nick -

The one drawback to doing it outside of Aperture is that you will be left with a bunch of missing files.
You could setup a filter with *File Status* missing and then if you're sure there isn't anything in the result that is truly missing just delete them Aperture.
Haven't done this myself so can't say for certain it won;t cause problems but I don;t see why it should.

Referenced masters

Just installed the trial last night. Like a lot of people, I just dove in, imported everything, and started cleaning up my hard drives (before reading the difference between aperture managed and user managed photo locations and the difference between projects/blue folders/brown folders/albums).
After importing all my photos (5000ish), I did the responsible thing and deleted them.
Luckily, I actually (for once) had a backup.
I'm not sure what I did wrong, but 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2006 imported just fine. 2005 got 'referenced'. Of course, I didn't find that out until I'd spent all night organizing 6 years of photographs.
So, I thought I'd sort by badge, delete all the 'referenced' files and reimport 2005. So far so good. If I select all images, then choose file>managed referenced files, it says I have none. Still looking hopeful. However, if I go to consolidate masters (just to make sure I'm not messing around with 'referenced files' again) it says it can't consolidate because there are missing masters.
I'm guessing (hoping) that this is just Aperture's way of helping me to find my sense of humor. But I thought I'd check with more experienced users to find out if there is something else I'm doing wrong.
G5 DP 1.8 (4GB RAM; ATI x800) | MBP 2.16 17" (2GB RAM) Mac OS X (10.4.8)

In the general metadata view, for each image Aperture lists a "Master Location" - for an offline master it should say where it expects that master to be.
I would try copying the real master files wherever that is pointed to, then retsart Aperture...
It cannot consolodate masters (bring them back into library) without first knowing where they really are.
If Aperture says the master location is inside the Aperture library, still try to put the master where it points to within the library.

Aperture not seeing referenced masters on Samba share

Hello all,
I have moved my referenced masters from my laptop to a Samba-mounted RAID server. I go to mount the Samba share and for some reason, Aperture won't see my referenced masters. It also shows the volume as being offline, when I know for a fact it is mounted, and can browse the Aperture masters directory to find each and every master...
Is there any way to get aperture to see these masters?
Thanks,
-Noah

OK, this is a long shot, but it happened to me once.
I tried to relocate some managed images to an AFP share which I thought was mounted but wasn't. Because the path that I wanted to relocate to was already loaded I just clicked OK and this is what happened - Aperture created a Folder in /Volumes/ with the name of the AFP volume. So later when I did mount the volume none of my referenced files showed up. This is because while the name on the desktop was correct the Path to it was /Volumes/AFP-share 1/ instead of /Volumes/AFP-share/.
So in short look in /Volumes/ (you can get there by using the Go-->Go to Folder menu in the Finder and typing /Volumes/) and see if there is a folder in there that should not be:-) If there is check to see if there are any images in it and move those to your desktop before deleting the folder.

Libraries work flow managed referenced

I'm a photographer and reaching a library that is pushing 1T. I don't see a performance isue as much as the backups I run are painful - even the vaults. I back on two other network drives as well, so I could be out of commision for a day.
What are the pros doing out there ? Are you using referenced or masters ? Do you keep one big library or smaller contextual libs and why ? Are there any really good tutorials on heavy workflow? I have decided to use three different managed libraries, one for Archival, Current, and Professional. I can then run Vaults on all three seperatly on an external drive.
I am curious about other folks experience and the workflows they've settled on //
JJ

IMO
• Multiple Libraries are self-defeating to the concept of an images database because they prevent global searches like keyword searches. Only for very specific and unusual reasons (like specific-client security of some kind) should there be more than one Library. Creating multiple Libraries for organizational or drive space purposes is misguided thinking.
• Large Managed Libraries are a bad idea for the reasons you are experiencing. They can be done well, but only by true mass storage experts with sophsticated large-drives setups.
• The Library on an internal drive with Masters/originals referenced on external drives is preferable for all but a small Library.
From a previous post of mine:
The Library with its Previews lives on the internal drive and is always accessible. Masters live on external drives. The Library is backed up via Vaults and originals are backed up to redundant locations using the Finder before import into Aperture.
Personally I have images managed on the internal SSD until editing is complete then convert to Referenced-Masters.
Database Physics
Aperture is designed to bite into small chunks at a time, so TBs of data do not bother the app itself. However, handling super-large batches of data like 1.5 TB on consumer hardware tends to be problematic.
Slower speeds seem to exacerbate handling large data chunks.
IMO referenced Masters make far more sense than building huge managed-Masters Libraries. With referenced Masters one has no need to copy a 1.5 TB sized file. A I find that even (2011 MBP) copying 5-15 GB-sized batches of RAW/JPEG files copying fails with some frequency, enough so that I always verify the copy. Failures copying 1500 GB to a drive as a single file should be expected based on my experience.
• Hard disk speed. Drives slow as they fill so making a drive more full (which managed Masters always does) will slow down drive operation.
• Database size. Larger databases are by definition more prone to "issues" than smaller databases are.
• Vaults. Larger Library means larger Vaults, and Vaults are an incremental repetitive backup process, so again larger Vaults are by definition more prone to "issues" than smaller Vaults are. One-time backup of Referenced Masters (each file small, unlike a huge managed-Masters DB) is neither incremental nor ongoing; which is by definition a more stable process.
Managed-Masters Libraries can work, but they cannot avoid the basic database physics.
Note that whether managed or referenced, original images should be separately backed up prior to import into Aperture or any other images management application. IMO after backing up each batch of original images importing that batch into Aperture as a new Project by reference makes by far the most sense. Building a huge managed Library or splitting into multiple smaller Libraries is less logical.
HTH
-Allen

Referenced masters both in Ap3 and Ap2

I have referenced masters on an external HD that I access through our wireless network. Even though I have specified where the master images are, Aperture seems to forget or not have the correct drive name available. This is inconvenient bc now I have to locate external masters and reconnect them again. It's getting pretty annoying. Is there any way to stop this behavior? Also, tonight on Aperture 3 I tried to reconnect masters but it kept selecting a PSD file and when I clicked on the associated master file, it would not ungrey the Reconnect All button and eventually Aperture crashed.

To convert managed masters to referenced masters gp to File->Relocate Masters..
To have imported images made referenced in the Import Window chhose the location you want the masters stored:
Seelct a location or create a new one.

Changing Library into Referenced Masters

A dumb new to Aperture mistake!
I had been establishing my Aperture Library as Masters on an external HDD referenced from the Aperture Library in Pictures on my internal HDD.
Unfortunately when I decided to import my iPhoto Library I was distracted by phone calls etc and was rushing and I managed to import it to the external HDD but as an entirely new Aperture Library and NOT referenced from the Aperture Library on my internal HDD.
How best to fix this? Can I simply change some setting s to make it referenced masters along side the photos I had first established as referenced masters or do I need to delete the photos on the external HDD and then reimport (the original iPhoto Library is fine and safely on another HDD). If so what settings should I make sure I have when choosing import parameters so that it all ends up as referenced masters?

Either way will work. You have a referenced Library on your internal HDD; the masters are in a folder on your external HDD.
When you imported your Iphoto library, you inadvertantly created a new managed library on your external HDD (the Mistake Library). The Mistake Library has your iPhoto masters inside of it.
So you can either relocate those masters to the masters folder on your external HDD (a quick process, as the files are not physically rewritten) and then import the Mistake Library (which is now a referenced library)into your main Library, as I described.
Or
just delete the Mistake Library and reimport the iPhoto Library into your main Library on the internal HDD, making sure that you specify the iPhoto masters are to go in the right place on the external HDD. This is what you described above.
Either will work. The first option is probably a bit quicker though. Your way is simpler.
Good luck

Managing referenced masters

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