Organization - Projects/Folders/Albums

Greetings. I'm trying to organize my pictures so I can view groups of them in the browser in a logical (to me) way.
Let's say I have a Project - Negatives. Within the Project there are Folders - 1961-1970, 1971-1980, 1981-2000. Within the Folders there are Albums - one for each roll of film.
Intuitively I would expect that selecting one of the Folders would show all the images in its Albums in the browser. But it shows nothing - presumably because Folders don't contain images.
How would I view all the images in all the Albums in the 1971-1980 Folder in the browser short of tagging each image in each Album with the name of the Folder and using a text search?
I thought about making Negatives a Project, and the date containers, Folders, but then how would I view all the images in the mutiple date projects in the browser - without also showing any other projects (slides, digital, etc).
I guess I'm looking for a search by "Folder Name" capability but I don't see it.
Thanks.
brian

mmm good question.
clicking on 'blue' folders will show every image within them.
clicking on 'gold' folders; i.e., those within projects; will not show their images.
there are two choices that I can think of at this moment. other people may have better choices.
1. within the Negatives project, create your folders and the albums within them. additionally, create a smart album in each folder which shows images from the Negative project based on date ranges. unfortunately, this will require that the images have date EXIF information. if you're scanning negatives, then the images might not have this information and this smart album method will not work.
2. instead of a Negative project, create a Negative folder. then within the folder, create a project for each period. you can then create albums within these period projects and everything will pretty much work the way you planned.
#2 might be your best option.

Similar Messages

Workflow with projects, folders & albums

hi, would anyone like to give a brief description of the workflow they employ with regard to using the above?
for example,being a wedding photographer i have a folder called weddings then each wedding is a project with a reference number and each selection of images for conversion or selection to print is in a seperate album under that project. however i am coming unstuck when i have print orders from relatives that i want linked to that wedding project but need them to have their own ref number.folders everywhere with tenuous links to related projects.
if anyone can describe their methods i would be most grateful.
thanks, aidan.

My workflow won't help you since I don't shoot weddings but my comments about your workflow may:
- You are definately on the right track putting each wedding into a separate project.
Do you print in house or send out to a service?
- Why not make a folder under the wedding-project for each customer's print order, you can name the folder to match your invoice or job #
- Inside the order-folder make a series of albums for each print size.
This seems like a lot of work but keeping track of print orders for many customers can never be easy. I only shot one wedding (my son's) and I set up a lifepics pro account ($35), linked it to my webiste and let people order from that.
http://www.thomaswhitephoto.com
I will bet you $100 or half of my Aperture rebate that within a year you will see a print service for shooters like you (weddings, events, etc.) linked into Aperture, probably run by Apple.

Organizing with Folders vs Projects vs Albums vs Stacked Photos

Question - Longtime Apple user, but relatively new to Aperture. Working on organizing a large collection of photographs, and am debating whether to organize by Project and grouping similar Projects into folders, or whether to use Projects as my major subdivisions, and organizing within projects using Albums or Stacks.
I realize that there's probably no right answer, so I'm hoping that anybody reading this note could take a quick minute to share the philosophy they apply to organization, as well as any concrete advantages or drawbacks to Projects, Folders, Albums, or their own method.
Thanks for sharing!
Mark

Projects are, imho, badly misnamed. Aperture was designed with the general plan that one shoot would be one Project. Projects have one salient characteristic (which separates them from other ways of grouping images) -- each Master must be in a Project, and can be in only one Project. Because of the above, you should conceive of Projects as the master (small "m") and enduring holding bin of your shots. I think of them as boxes, or as binders ("binders" implying, somehow, something more long-term than "album").
However you end up organizing your collection in Aperture, the one method I recommend against is using Projects as your major subdivisions. They weren't designed to be used this way, they shouldn't have more than a few hundred Masters in them, and you are likely to outgrow that system of organization.
I stick with "one shoot = one Project". If I have three separate shoots on one card, I import the files in three separate sets, each with the Masters specially re-named, into three separate Projects. I then use folders to organize my Projects. I use Albums for sub-sets of Projects with more than 60 or so images -- I do a lot of my processing by Project, and I find 60 images is about the most I can easily handle at once. I use Albums also for actual projects (small "p") -- e.g.: a series of cards for sale, or work for a client.
All images are keyworded (again, a per-Project task). I use color labels to indicate the level of development of an image. I use stars to indicate the value of an image (rejected, not yet rated, best of stack, worth keeping, among the best in Project, worth publishing, excellent).
Keywords, color labels, ratings, and Project names give me enormous specificity in creating Smart Albums, which I do extensively.
Additionally, I do three things which I think are uncommon.
. I move my Projects according to the status of their development, and
. I separate my intake, storage, and processing areas from my output areas, and
. I never use Folders to organize by date.
I do this because for me Aperture's two overall functions are best treated separately. Those two overall functions are, generally, Intake and Output, or to be more specific, "Import, Develop, and Store" and "Gather for export, Prepare for publication, and Export". The top-level folders in my Library are
. Administration Smart Albums
. Raw (inputs)
. Cold Storage
. To Serve
Admin Smarties includes "5-stars", "Managed Masters older than 45 days", "Masters Missing", "Printed 17x22", "Re-take", and the like.
"Raw" is the top-level of a folder tree which includes "Just Imported", "Described not Stacked", "Stacked not Keyworded", "Keyworded not Picked", and "Picked not filed". I move my Projects into the appropriate folder. Note that this works well in Projects view -- one can drill down to any level of the Library tree and see at a glance which Projects are where.
"Cold Storage" is where I put all fully-processed Projects (and remember, for me "Project" just means "Shoot" -- if you ever used a non-digital camera, same as a box of slides or a sleeve of photos). I organize these as I see fit. I try to put Projects where I think I will look for them. Clients have their own folder(s). Other photographers have their own folders. On the personal side, I have folders for Portraits of friends, Family, Events, Trips, Indoors, Urban outdoors, Rural outdoors, Close-ups, Test shots, etc. Each of these is further subdivided. I have an entire folder sub-branch just for fine art still-lifes.
The last of the top-level folders holds a large sub-set of folders for output. None of these folders have Projects in them (Projects, for me, are +storage containers+, not output containers). I create a folder for each output project (small "p"), and use Albums as needed. In theory, every image that shows in the output side of my Aperture structure should already have been selected ("picked") and optimally developed as an image (the rating and label tell me the status of the image). What is left for me to do is final selection, pre-press, and export.
No where in my Library structure is any accommodation made to date (other than the "one shoot = one Project rule). The is no reason to organize an Aperture Library by date -- date organization is hard-coded into Aperture at both the Project and the Image level. Since it is already hard-coded into Aperture, I prefer to use the Library organization tools to create a storage and output structure which gives me a level of utility on top of date organization.
In general, I keep my Projects view (the Viewer, not the Inspector) grouped by Library folders and sorted by date (most recent first). If I want to view all my shoots (Projects) by date, I simply ungroup them in Project view. If I want to view them by year, I click the "Year" grouping icon. I find Project view, and the built-in grouping options, quite useful.
When I need to view all of my photos in date order I simply use "Photos" view. Note the sophisticated filtering options available using the "Date" and "Calendar" rules. In general, I set Photos view to sort by either "Import Session" or "Date -- Descending". I regularly use List view when in Photos view.
I complete my set-up with specific file-naming and Project-naming conventions. The important thing here is consistency -- set it up right from the get-go, and stick to it rigorously, and you won't have to second-guess your searches or filters.
Hope that helps. It's a lot of overhead -- but I have and take a lot of shots, I work in spurts, and I valued a system which would let me start and stop at nearly any time and always let me know +by structure+ the status of any shot or image or Project or project -- while remaining flexible and expandable.
My example should at least give you some ropes to use as you simultaneously shape and climb your Aperture mountain. I strongly recommend setting up a practice Library using, say, 10% of your images, and using to for a couple of weeks, tweaking it as you go, before "casting it in stone" and importing your entire collection. Aperture is broad and powerful -- take the time to know and understand it, and you will find your use of it immensely rewarding.
Good luck.

Organizing for stock library. Projects, folders or albums?

This may have been talked about to death, but I cannot find a thread that fits my question.
I have a growing library of images in Aperture. I am also a stock photographer by living. My library in Aperture is somewhat haphazard and I'm trying to organize it so that I can have it make sense. I do not sell my photos as stock myself (I submit to several agencies) so I'm not sure that I need to file my images so that I can get to them if a client needs a shot. That's what the agencies are for.
My work flow is something like this:
1 - shoot pix
2 - import and edit (read: delete) images in Aperture
3 - prepare and submit images to agencies
4 - next....
I do find myself taking pix of many of the same subjects, so I do want to organize them in Aperture.
My main question is, what is the best, or most efficient, way to organize major subjects in the library, with Projects, Folders, or Albums?
For instance, I shoot a production with models. That could be a project titled " August 14 production." When the submission is done, i could archive the entire project to save space. But, suppose I want to keep some around to submit to a different agency. Is a project the best way to store this?
Also, I find myself shooting a lot of NYC landmarks. Should each landmark be in its own project, or have it be an album in a project called NYC, or should it be a project in a folder called NYC?
I'm really not sure what the most efficient filing method is for my business.
Any discussion and/or advice is GREATLY APPRECIATED!
Antonio

gustavus:
n attempting to relocate a folder it did not end up where intended and I cannot find it.
I hope you are referring to doing the relocation from within iPhoto and not in the Finder and the library package. Any moving, renaming of files and/or folder inside the iPhoto Library Package while in the Finder is tantamount to the cardinal sin of iPhoto, Don't tamper with files in the iPhoto Library folder from the Finder. That will mess up your library to where you may have to start over with a new library.
Can you describe where these folders and albums were located when you were moving them?
Do you Twango?
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've created an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. It's compatible with iPhoto 08 libraries and Leopard. iPhoto does not have to be closed to run the application, just idle. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.

Organization - Project, Album and Folder

I am looking for suggestions or recommendations on how to organize my photos in Aperture. I am photo hobbyist taking pictures of family and events.
I currently create a new project for each shoot. As a result, I have a lot of projects.
Does anyone have suggestions on a good way to organize the photos in Aperture for somebody who takes occasional pictures?

A very short version of one method. Adapt to suit:
Read this first.
Stick to "One Project = One shoot".
Organize your Projects using Folders.
- Don't organize them by date. Use Projects View to see your Projects by date (as well as by whatever Folders you set up).
Set up a top-level Folder called something like "Output".
Create Albums for every output set (I'd like to call these "projects" but that gets confusing) you need to make.
Drag Images into those Albums (or create them populated by selected Images). Remove the Images you don't want to publish (removing from an Album does nothing to the Image in other Albums and its Project). Publish ("output") the Images you select. Save your Output Albums for re-use.
Organize your Output Folder using sub-folders.
Think ahead about naming conventions for Masters, Projects, and Albums. Use names that will always let you find what you look for. Stick to them.
Keyword your Images. Keywords are to help _you_ find things. Apply Keywords _you_ will use when you want to find the Image.
Use Faces for family members and friends. It works well and can be a fantastic aid.
Use Places as needed, or if you have a camera that stamps the GPS coordinates.
You end up with three top-level Folders:
- Smart Albums (customized to help you find things and make Albums)
- Input & Storage (your Shoots)
- Output
Aperture is (brilliantly) mode-less. You can adjust any Image from any container. Adjust them whenever you want. Use a color label to indicate "Adjusted & ready to publish".
That should get your started .

Memo field for keywords, folders, albums or projects

Hi -
I'm reading the manual and liking what I learn.
My pc-based DAM is very capable and has a couple of features that I'd like to know if Aperture has, but that I'm not seeing where to find them.
I would like to be able to include a memo-field, or post-it note, about any of the following:
Example 1: Keywords
Keyword = Mary and Associated Memo = friend from nursery school
Keyword = Joan and Associated Memo = mother's brother's wife's mother
Keyword = Candlesticks and Associated Memo = family heirloom from Austria blah blah blah
I don't want to put the description in the IPTC caption field, because the info isn't about a particular photo, and I certainly would not want to include it with every photo. Just a one-time description
Example 2: IPTC sub-location
Sub-location = 7 Smith Street and Associated Memo =we lived there from 1941-1943 and loved the large dining room
Example 3: Project
Project = trip to Peru and Associated Comment = Jane raised $4000 to pay for her expenses for this trip and volunteered in a small town as a teacher blah blah blah
You get the idea, I think.
A work-around, assuming Aperture doesn't have this ability (yet!), would be to create dummy empty images, include the text in the caption field, and enter the corresponding metadata. I would use icons for the dummy image (icons designating About this Person, About this Place, About this Event....)
Example, keyword = So, whenever I retrieve images of Joan, I also get an About this Person dummy image, with the description of who she is.
Feedback?
Ideas?
Plans for Aperture to include something along the lines of Excel's comment which can be associated with a cell, or perhaps Speech Bubble explanations?
thanks
Marion in NY

Chuckcars wrote:
I am in process of doing some rearrangement to make Projects as the main box (the file drawer) with headings like: iPhone, Assignments, Events, Landscape, People, Travel. Then, a specific folder under the project. Then, an Album under the Folder.
This should be started as a new thread -- do so if you have any questions.
Strongly recommend using Projects as intended (see comments by Frank and DLSCreative in current thread ^1^ and long comment by me in another thread ^2^ ). In your case that would mean Folders with the headings you've selected, the (most likely) Projects, then Albums (and perhaps more Folders).
^1^ http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2716711&tstart=0
^2^ http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2654297&tstart=0

About Folders, Projects and Albums

I set up a Folder named "X" that contains a particular Project "Xx". Within that Project there are different Albums "Xxa...z". Clicking on the Folder should give me an overview of all the versions placed in the underlying Project and its Albums. But it does not. Only a few versions appear. I created some New Projects within that particular Folder and imported a number of different files in those new projects. None of the imported files show up when selecting the corresponding Folder. I have other Folders holding more Projects and Albums with no problems at all. What could there be done to resolve that one issue with Folder "X"?

Thank you to respond. There were no errant search criteria in that folder. Meanwhile I resolved the issue by creating a new folder in the root and dragging the projects and albums to it. After that I deleted the folder that turned out to be corrupted (?) I still don't know what went wrong, but the new folder works out fine.

Can I use the albums/project/folders in Aperture to display photo's with Apple TV ?

Can I use the albums/project/folders in Aperture to display photo's with Apple TV on my TV?

Yes, select the photos you want to share via the iTunes advanced menu.

Working with projects and albums in the browser

I have already posted a question about how to find a project or album. If you have TONS of projects and albums how do you find a specific one in the browser? I cannot see any way to sort other than alphabetically and there is no way to search project or album names.
By the same token, and this is my new question, how do you easily display in the viewer all the files in a project? (a project may contain albums with images that are not stored on the root level of that project, so highlighting the project in the browser does not display them). Or similarly, how do you display in the viwer the images contained in several albums? There eseems to be no way to simultaneaously selct albums or projects. You can have several tabs open but not see the images together in the viewer. In fact to make a slide show off all the images in one project you have to create an album and manually put in all the images.
Similarly, there is no way of making a smart album of all the images in a project or determined albums, which would have been a work around for all these issues.....
Am I missing something really obvious????????? It all seems so basic. Even iphoto lets you do these things! HELP, APPLE!!!!!!!!
several Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Hola Francisco,
Aperture is a much more powerful software than iPhoto and it's crucial to understand the way its library works to get the most of its organization capabilities.
Master images can only be placed (physically) inside projects. These are then image containers. An album only has links to images, and this links can go to any project. So even if an album is inside a project it could be displaying images that are not inside that project but somewhere else (if you drag and drop from other project previously).
On the project panel, projects are display in alphabetical order, but you can also use blue folders to organize projects. My project panel is organized as follows:
Project '1. Imports': A project created to automatically recieve all the photos when a card is inserted in my card reader. I use a hot folder with automator for this.
Blue folder '2. Smart Albums': This blue folder has all the smart albums I need to quickly find any image in the library.
Blue folder '3. Work': This folder has all the projects related to my work.
Blue folder '4. Travel': Contains projects of my travel photography divided by country.
Blue folder '5. Portrait': Contains projects of portrait sessions.
Blue folder '6. Social & Events': Contains projects of differents events I shoot.
Project '7. Templates': Contains photoshop templates to create 9 in 1 frames, etcetera.
As you can see I use numbers in front of every name to keep them in the order I want. Then the metadata does the rest, I add keywords to easily find ANY image in seconds, doesn't matter how long I did it.
A Smart album will search inside the whole Library if you create it at 'All images' level, then you can drag it to a folder to organize them if you want.
I'd recommend the book by Ben Long and Orlando Luna, it made me squeeze all the potential of Aperture, way beyond the manual that came with the program.

Storing in projects vs. albums

Hey!
I've been doing an internship for 7 months now and I've been taking pictures like crazy, I'm up to 4200 and counting.
Currently I'm storing all photos in a project called internship and each event (like roadtrips) are in separate albums.
Recently I noticed that aperture is getting kinda slow so I started thinking, could this be because of all 4200 photos being in the same project?
How are you supposed to organize your photos?
You can either do what I do today or you could switch places of projects and albums (so you have one album in the root and many projects), you could also use folders. Which way is preferred?
Thanks
Nicklas

Good advice above.
Ansman wrote:
Currently I'm storing all photos in a project called internship and each event (like roadtrips) are in separate albums.
Instead, let each road trip or perhaps one day's shoot, or morning shoot be an individual Project, aiming for that goal of (a) logical time-based organization and (b) no more than ~500 pix per project I have not personally tried to quantify the impact of Project size on performance.
"Internship" can be a folder with all the relevant projects in it.
Note that an Album is just a collection of pointers to Versions, so Albums can be created and discarded at will, changing nothing and taking up negligible space. Very powerful tool. Albums are often created by searching on Key Words, another very powerful organizing tool in the database of image files.
Recently I noticed that aperture is getting kinda slow...
Aperture is a very demanding application that can slow down for lots of reasons. Hard drives and RAM are the two main reasons that a workflow slows - and they interrelate. Setup changes, workflow changes and/or version changes can also be causative.
HARD DRIVES
Hard drives slow as they fill so keep drives underfilled. No more than ~70% full is a good maximum guideline, but less full is faster. A hard drive 80% full performs more slowly than a 50% full hard drive. Even a hard drive used solely for backup should be not allowed to exceed ~85% full for stability reasons.
The Aperture Library should be on a fast underfilled internal drive. Reference Masters to external drives as needed to keep internal hard drives underfilled. Use Firewire 800 (thunderbolt on 2011 Macs) rather than USB for external drives when possible.
Back up originals on external drives prior to import into Aperture or any other images app. I cannot overstate how important that is, and various manuals, texts, etc. present workflows that skip that critical step. Also back up the Aperture Library using Aperture's Vaults, which are designed for that purpose.
RAM
Your workflow may be running out of RAM and therefore "paging out" to disk. Page outs slow operation a lot and can lead to instability.
You can evaluate whether or not you have adequate RAM by looking at the Page Outs number under System Memory on the Activity Monitor app before starting a work session; recheck after working and if the page outs number (manual calculation of ending page outs number minus starting page outs number) increased significantly during operation your workflow is RAM-starved. Ignore the pie charts and other info in Activity Monitor.
If page outs increase significantly during operation you can add RAM or simply try to run Aperture by itself. Switching from 64-bit operation to 32-bit operation will also make some additional RAM space available.
On my 2006 MBP with its max of 3 GB RAM I always did a restart prior to a heavy Aperture session to clear any memory leaks and make sure no other apps were open. Browsers in particular will often suck RAM Aperture would otherwise be using.
The problem with running a RAM-deficient workflow like I did is that along with slower operation, page outs can reduce overall stability - - and instability always seems to present at the worst times, like in the midst of processing a time-critical project. It does help a lot to keep a really really clean workflow.
If your test of page outs does show that you are paging to disk the speed of your drives and drives connectivity become even more important than normal. The use of solid state drives (SSDs) frequently reduces the impact of inadequate RAM.
OS 10.7 does seem to utilize more RAM than OS 10.6 does, and that makes sense because over time evolving OSs and evolving apps take advantage of evolving hardware.
IMO all Aperture users who can should routinely bump RAM to at least 8 GB. Two good sources of third-party RAM (Apple overprices RAM) are Crucial and OWC http://eshop.macsales.com/.
HTH
-Allen Wicks

Projects and Albums. Could they have been more ambiguous?

Aperture is feature packed and does a great job editing images. What it doesn't do so well is make it clear EXACTLY what the difference between a 'Project' and 'Album' is. Could someone offer a CLEAR explanation as to what exactly a 'Project' is and why one would use it instead of an album or folder? Case in point. I processed about 400 images yesterday. Some were imported into a 'New Project' directly off the CF card. Others were imported as a folder into the 'New Project'. The folder that was imported was brought in as an album by Aperture. The images imported from the CF card itself are all contained in the project AND the folder. I know there is only one copy of each as the album versions are referencing the master file. But, I now want to move the processed images into an album and then export it. Exporting is another topic altogether...
TIA.

Dan Donovan wrote:
A photo can exist in one and only one PROJECT. Conversely, one photo can exist in as many ALBUMS as you like. The previously mentioned playlist analogy for Albums is great. One song can be in many playlists.
I look at Projects as photo shoots. The raw files from each of my photo shoots are kept in their own project. When I see the word Project, I automatically think "photo shoot".
So, where do albums come into the picture? If I shoot an executive portrait session on 7-12-08, I may create an album with just the favorite photos from that shoot. The album is a way to keep a certain group of images easily accessible. Then, what if the client wants to pull together portraits from that shoot and several others? In that case, I can create ANOTHER album with the exact same selects from the 7-12-08 shoot, PLUS images from any other shoot as well. The bottom line is that albums give you the opportunity to have the same photo in many locations.
Folders are a way to organize your projects, albums, websites, books, etc.
Great explanation thanks. But, you had to go and complicate it by mentioning folders...;-).

Sorting and organization of folders etc.

Hello. I've ran into some problems recently with my lightroom files etc.
I have an external drive that i keep my images on. I have about 24,000 photos on my drive, both ranging from personal, commercial, events, portraints, landscapes and weddings.
My problem is that it runs so slowly, working isn't really easy with it at all.
How can I get more organization? I wanted to work on my current projects on my ssd for speed, and then archive them on my external, how can i go about that?
Is it worth having a catalog for each bunch of photos. i.e one catalog for weddings, one for portraits, one for events etc.
Any extra pointers/tips on how to better sort everything?

Folders can contain other folders, albums, slideshows, etc. But albums can only contain photos. If you're trying to drop an album or folder onto an album you won't be able to do so.
As If you can drag photos to albums then you're not experiencing the Helvetica font issue. If you can't then do as Terence suggested and make sure the Helvetica is activated using Font Book.
Do you Twango?
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've written an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.

How to rganize projects in albums

I have a number of projects under Library Albums, one project per day, like events in iphoto. So when trying to organize, creating an album per month, then putting all the projects in a month in to this alum it is not possible - I must be very stupid, how do I do this?
Or should I read aperture = "feel stupid" that is how I read it today
/k

One method is to use Folders. Folders in Aperture contain Projects and Albums (and other Folders), but do not contain images. So create Folders for each month, and drag the Projects for each of that month's days into the appropriate Folder. Then if you want, you can create albums as subsets of each days shots. So your structure could be:
Folder (Month)
..... Project (Day)
..... ..... Album (Subject)
At least, that's how I understand it.

Ideas for structure of projects ans albums

Hi!
I am new at Aperture and i do not have any idea how to import my existing folders of pics into the Aperture library. My pics are organized in folders and subfolders like year / month / shoot-name.
When I imported by "Folders as Projects" I saw, that I counldn´t move the masters from the project folders, which were named as year.
I´m thinking about project-names at top level like "holidays", "Studio-shoots", "family" a.s.o. Has anyone got a ready-for-use structure which I could use or modify?
thanks in advance!
Sandro

Hi!
I am new at Aperture and i do not have any idea how
to import my existing folders of pics into the
Aperture library. My pics are organized in folders
and subfolders like year / month / shoot-name.
When I imported by "Folders as Projects" I saw, that
I counldn´t move the masters from the project
folders, which were named as year.
I´m thinking about project-names at top level like
"holidays", "Studio-shoots", "family" a.s.o. Has
anyone got a ready-for-use structure which I could
use or modify?
First of all the way that Aperture works best is along the lines of who the folders imported - you have top level folders, then more folders under those to some depth, then under those (eventually) you have projects.
If you start with a project at the top level it will grow really big and be hard to manage in terms of import and export - and folders will not work quite like you might think in terms of seeing images.
You can't actually add images into folders themselves, they have to go into projects. If you want images at the level of a folder the thing to do is place a new project in that folder.
As far as organization goes, I am currently using a structure that looks like:
Subject->Year->Month->ProjectName
It's kind of wierd to keep using dates in the title of folders when you have things like smart folders but I find it easier to navigate and find things.
Also I have albums that live somewhat outside that structure like:
Subject->BestOfAlbum
Some are smart folders (something like a best of album can just query ratigns) or collections I manually assemble.

How to set default sort order for all folders/albums/etc

This is driving me nuts, having to change the sort order from manual to file name every time I change projects or folders (and I have a lot of both). Is there a way to set the default to just sort by file name ascending? Or sort by timestamp (that's date + time, not just date)?

Chuckcars wrote:
I am in process of doing some rearrangement to make Projects as the main box (the file drawer) with headings like: iPhone, Assignments, Events, Landscape, People, Travel. Then, a specific folder under the project. Then, an Album under the Folder.
This should be started as a new thread -- do so if you have any questions.
Strongly recommend using Projects as intended (see comments by Frank and DLSCreative in current thread ^1^ and long comment by me in another thread ^2^ ). In your case that would mean Folders with the headings you've selected, the (most likely) Projects, then Albums (and perhaps more Folders).
^1^ http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2716711&tstart=0
^2^ http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2654297&tstart=0

Organization - Projects/Folders/Albums

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