Projects and Referenced Images

Hi - I have been using APerture 1.5.6 for a while but am suddenly confused and have several questions:
1)Most of my images are Referenced and exist on my hard drive in various folders with various titles. If I get rid of the Aperture Library, my referenced files will still be on my hard drive untouched including all the versions I have made - is this correct?
2) If I get rid of the Aperture library (delete it) all that will be lost is the names of my projects - is this correct?
3) Which brings to me to this question. The projects in Aperture do not match the names of my folders under Pictures on my hard drive. For example - on the hard drive I have a 2009 Folder and within this folder have Winter 2009, Fall 2009 and so on. In Aperture I have a 2009 Folder with many projects with names (like Sam's Birthday) which do not match the folders on my hard drive. Sam's Birthday project for example is in the 2009 Fall Folder. How do I reconcile this so all my projects are created as folders in the the right Parent folder in my hard drive. If I export the project is just duplicates the photos and I don't want this. Thanks so much

pavillion wrote:
1)Most of my images are Referenced and exist on my hard drive in various folders with various titles. If I get rid of the Aperture Library, my referenced files will still be on my hard drive untouched including all the versions I have made - is this correct? 2) If I get rid of the Aperture library (delete it) all that will be lost is the names of my projects - is this correct?
No. "Referenced" means the Masters images reside where you left them, not in the Aperture Library. But versions only live in the Library so deleting the Library would delete all edits and versions.
3) The projects in Aperture do not match the names of my folders under Pictures on my hard drive. For example - on the hard drive I have a 2009 Folder and within this folder have Winter 2009, Fall 2009 and so on. In Aperture I have a 2009 Folder with many projects with names (like Sam's Birthday) which do not match the folders on my hard drive. Sam's Birthday project for example is in the 2009 Fall Folder. How do I reconcile this so all my projects are created as folders in the the right Parent folder in my hard drive. If I export the project is just duplicates the photos and I don't want this. ...I don't want to ditch Aperture. I want my hard drive to reflect the same organization as the projects/catalogue in Aperture.
Personally I recommend trying to avoid what I call "folder-think," or thinking about digital image files the way we thought about film originals. Of course digitally we still have file folders, but any given folder is not necessarily relevant to the location of an image file (unlike with film, where only one folder has all the film in it). Dozens of folders in Aperture can all "point" to the same image version.
Apply keywords as needed in Aperture to allow you to easily correlate the image files that you renamed when you imported into Aperture with the folders outside of Aperture. In the future you may want to do what I do. After a shoot copy images from CF to a named folder on the hard drive like 20090314-SJoneswedmstr. Then when that folder is imported into Aperture name the Aperture folder 20090314-SJones_wed. Also include 20090314-SJones_wed as a batch keyword during import along with other important keywords like Jones, wed, etc.
2) So if I want to save the image modifications I have done on Aperture, I have to export the version of each modified image to my hard drive? ...I assume I need to do all this MANUALLY.
I don't really understand the question. The Aperture Referenced-Masters Library automatically saves all the edits/versions and links to Masters. Masters do need to be separately backed up from the Library, but that to me is natural anyway because IMO Masters should be fully redundantly on/off site backed up before ever importing into Aperture.
4) One more question. I am trying out photomechanic and what I really want to do is use Aperture in conjunction with Photomechanic as I am told Photomechanic is a better organizational tool.
I don't know who told you that but I disagree and unless you already have long experience with Photo Mechanic I would just stick to Aperture. One learning curve at a time is plenty!
HTH
-Allen Wicks

Similar Messages

Exporting projects with referenced images

I want to import referenced images from an external hard drive, edit them and then export the project in order to archive it. Is this something that I can do now? Will I end up with a bunch of referenced previews in my library and an exported project that can link back up to the master images that are on a separate hard drive?
Antonio

No, this only exports a "copy" of your projects and does not remove the master image. It is still in the Aperture Library. I am also trying to find an easy way to move the entire project outside of the library and still maintain a reference link to wherever I move the images to. Any thoughts?

Saving and referencing images

Okay, I can get the charting component to set a directory where it will place the image.
1) What path should I tell it to write the image to?
2) How do I reference that image with a URL?
I hope that makes it easier for y'all to understand and, hopefully, answer. Thanks! --Shibli

Hi Shibli,
I think you misunderstood.
You should read the <a href="https://www.sdn.sap.comhttp://www.sdn.sap.comhttp://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/servlet/prt/portal/prtroot/docs/library/dotnet/pdk%20for%20.net/developer's%20Guide%20PDK%202.0%20for%20.NET/How%20to/ThirdPartyChartControl.htm">how-to</a> more carefully.
The how-to relies on the fact that a server can return to a client not just html, but also stream files. In order to do that, it changes the mime type and sends the file as a stream.
So what we do is write a portal component that is called actually TWICE. once for the html, and once AGAIN for the image!
first we set the source of an image control to itself (plus a query param).
like this:
Image1.Source = this.iViewPath + "?Chart=Pie";
This will eventually render like this: <IMG SRC="sameiView?Chart=Pie">
when the browser will receive this, it will call the same component AGAIN, only this time in the page load we will intercept the query and not render the regular html but return the actual image as a stream! (see how-to for the code)
Now you still have the question of how to write this code that will stream the image to the client. This is done by either "saving" the bitmap from the chart control directly to the output stream (like in the how-to), or if the chart control can't provide a real bitmap, and can only save a image somewhere (which is very strange by the way), then we will ask the chart to save the image somewhere first and then we will read it from there again to a bitmap, and then "save" it again, this time to the output stream. In both cases we need to change the mime type to "image" (as in the how-to).
Hope that clears up the confusion,
Ofer

Managing Events and/or Projects With Disk Images

I came across this method of managing Events and Projects a while ago. I finally got around to giving it a try. Personally, I really like this method.
It's simple.
It keeps things very well organized.
It's easy to open only the project or events that you want.
It's easy to consolidate and back up once you're done.
It takes some workload off FCP X by not having to always open up all your Events and Projects.
So, I thought I would share this for those of you who were not already aware of it.
This is my workflow: (based on the link below)
I create a Disk Image (named for the Event/Project).
(Note: There are two places to create the name, I use both, keep them the same)
I open up FCP X.
I typically put only one Event on this Disk Image.
I then reference whatever Media I need in this Event.
I usually don't bother to copy the media. (except when I'm done and I archive it)
You can create multiple Events, if you feel the need for additional organization.
Then I create however many Projects I need.
(since Projects equates to Sequences from prior FCP versions)
I have a unique Disk Image for each Event/Project that I work on.
To use them ...
First, always make sure FCP X is not running.
Locate the Disk Image in finder.
Double click on the Disk Image and it will Mount on your desktop.
(assuming it's not already mounted on your desktop)
Open up FCP X and it will load the Event(s)/Project(s) in the Disk Image.
If you don't want to work on an Event/Project in FCP X (make sure FCP X is not open), in Finder, simply Eject the Disk Image.
Now when you open FCP X, it won't be there.
Its not gone, but since it's not mounted on the desktop, FCP X simply doesn't see it.
To get it back (obviously quit FCP X first) simply double click the Disk Image in Finder and it remounts.
Open FCP X and you can see it's back.
You can open (double click to mount) as many Event/Project Disk Images as you want.
Just make sure you mount and un-mount disk images when FCP X is not running.
If find this to be a great workflow.
Many thanks to Steve Martin of Riple Training for posting this method.
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/fcp_x_managing_disk_image_martin.html

Re the final commercial spot. What I am getting at is if all my media is optimized and therefore in ProRes, and I export in ProRes using the current settings, then shouldn't the media needed to rebuild the project be the same or close to what an exported Quicktime would have been?
Perhaps the notion of "used clips only" is not what it says then. I took that to be the "media managed" feature otherwise why is that wording there. I guess "used" actually refers to all of the media for the project and associated events rather than just for the project. This is misleading because the DUPLICATE operation and menu prompt only appears as a result of requesting an action on the project item.
There are aliases in my original event folder, but before I started this process tried to get FCPX to consolidate media for the project and it already was according the app. Truth is, some of the media is outside of the FCPX required folders. So it's strange that it says it's consolditated, but it's not and yet in duplicating the project it moves the references to the new volume only to point back to the old volume.
So my next question would be: Is there no feature to back up only what's needed to rebuild the final project (edit) reliably. Moving the project moves everything. According to the FCP manual, it seems using the Duplicate feature is the way I should be archiving. However if by "used clips only" FCP X means all media and refrerenced events, then I guess there's nothing for me in here. However then, whey would there be an option (after choosing duplicate project) an option to Duplicate Project and referenced events. If "used clips only" means all media, then there's no difference between the 2nd and 3rd Duplicate Project options.
Thanks Tom.

Exporting projects that reference images in other projects

Hello, all. I'm wondering if anyone out there has had luck exporting projects that reference images in another project. I've just given this a try, and I get empty images (dotted gray outlines that can't be multi-selected and can't be "managed" as referenced files, even though it knows where the original file should be).
Here's how I have things set up:
1. main project with referenced images
2. secondary project with an album that references images in the main project (secondary project shows 0 images, but album in secondary project shows N images)
I export the secondary project, and import it into another Aperture instance. All images show up as dotted outlines.
Furthermore, if I go into list view, the Activity Monitor does something bizarre. It shows the # thumbnails remaining as a moving target. See the video below for an example.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Screen captures:
Missing images as dotted outlines:
http://echeng.com/temp/aperture-missing-images.png
Small video of thumbnail creating bug:
http://echeng.com/temp/aperture-thumbnail-bug.mov

I do this sort of thing constantly and things a whole lot more complicated. It works fine on all three of my laptops and my macpro. I actually just tried to simulate the exact conditions you describe and I will tell you what happened.
1)Create new empty project in library A called "export"
2)Create new empty album in that project.
3)Dragged multiple images from different projects (all referenced) into that new album.
4)Used file->export project with the consolidate images checked. Imported that project into a new/different library.
All of the images showed up and they all showed up as managed masters as expected. So I then relocated the masters from that project and did the same thing in reverse, back to the old library. I ended up with another project called "export (1)" with all of the images referenced and having nothing to do with the original project or the original referenced masters - as expected.
I did the testing not to figure it out but to validate that nothing had changed or broken since the last update.
You are either not doing what you think you are doing or your library/library is forked - you may want to try a rebuild or just create a brand new set of libraries and try to validate that it will work with a brand new set of libraries to try to isolate the issue to 1 - your existing libraries or 2 - your installation.
RB

Anyone care to write up a workflow solution using referenced images?

So, I'm having a little bit of a hard time figuring this out, but I think I got something. I'd like others to share their thoughts and opinions about how to get a good referenced workflow going. Maybe we can come up with an efficient method of working on, say, two machines with only one folder of images and a way to archive them efficiently too.
I'll post what I think I can now do with Aperture 1.5.
1 - I shoot a bunch of shots, in the field, and download them to my Powerbook
2 - I rename the raw files in the finder (my preferred choice) and save them out to an external hard drive
3 - I fire up Aperture on my laptop and import those pix from my external hard drive as referenced images. This does a couple of things: One, it keeps my internal laptop hard drive from filling up and, two, it will allow me, when I get back to my fast killer desktop, to transfer, or work on, the images from this external hard drive.
4 - I doodle away, in Aperture, on my laptop until I'm happy.
5 - When finished, I can export a copy of the project I just worked on to the external drive, but make sure that the "consolidate images" option is off (no need to have 2 copies of the RAW file on the same external hard drive). This will give me, on the external drive, a project with all the adjustments (and preview images) along with a folder containing the RAW files. I'll also have a copy of the project on my laptop hard drive as a backup (I suppose I'd have a backup of the raw files on a burned DVD or another hard drive too).
6 - I get back to my desktop and plug in the external hard drive.
7 - I import the project from that external hard drive. Since the RAW files are still on the hard drive, there's no problem with the project finding the actual files.
8 - But, I do not want to work the files from the external hard drive (speed is an issue). So I copy the folder of RAW files to my internal hard drive and delete the RAW files from the external drive.
9 - Aperture tells me (through the badges underneath the thumbnails) that the RAW images are no longer connected to the project.
10 - I select all the images in the project and right click (or control click) and choose from the contextual menu, "Manage Referenced Files."
11 - From the dialog box that appears, I navigate to the internal hard drive where I copied the RAW files to and choose to "reconnect all images." The badges under the thumbnails update to let me know that the images are back online.
12 - I futz with the images some more and do whatever else I need to do.
13 - Done. Job finished. No need to have access to RAW files anymore, although I want to keep preview images in Aperture for websites, email, etc.
14 - At this point I think I can do several things. I can export the project and "consolidate images into exported project," and archive that exported project to whatever medium I use for archiving. Or I can just archive the folder of RAW images and eventually delete them off my internal drive. This last option will leave me with preview images inside Aperture (along with badges that tell me the originals are offline). I can back up that project using the vaults method that comes built into Aperture. That way I'll have several copies of the project (with the JPEG previews) and offline RAW files (also copied and archived) that I can reconnect at anytime I want to in the future. This will help keep my Aperture library smaller and more manageable with plenty of backups.
How does that sound?

I tried out something like your flow, though I attempted to let Aperture do the intake step right to the Aperture library on the laptop and then work to a portable drive by exporting the consolidated project (I tried my iPod as a temp drive which worked just ok) from there.
The G4 17 in - lorez - is pretty marginal for Aperture. Working with a few images was just ok, but I really don't think it's up to a couple of gigs of NEF files. What I wanted to accomplish the same goal - a reference set of pictures on the working hard drives with originals offline and archived in a couple of places.
But after trying this I'd say your scheme of importing to the portable drive and working in the finder and renaming with ABetterFinderRename prior to any import is a better one. The more I can hold down the Aperture's processing overhead the better. The other thing I plan to try is to use iPhoto for the first look. No messing with the images, but I can look at them and toss out the garbage, do some tagging and then, on the G5, let Aperture import the resulting file structure from the portable hard drive and carry on with your scheme.
Once the images are to my liking in aperture I can export a finished set for iPhoto on my Laptop for emails and etc.
After messing with this for awhile, I don't see anything in your workflow that is not going to work.
I imagine as time goes on that lots of people will be going through all these steps. I hope the designers can figure out some simplifications. A media manager in Aperture, much as the one in Final Cut Pro would be welcome for much of this. Or droplets or buttons with the more tedious bits of the workflow included would be welcome.

Vault restoration with referenced images - SEEKING HELP

Long story short: I have, had, a library that contained both managed and referenced images. 2 vaults set up for managed images, RAID system set up for referenced images.
Rebuilt library the other day because Aperture was moving kinda slowly. Followed the typical protocol of backing up first then rebuilding and to later back up again. In the middle of rebuilding, Aperture froze (Activity Monitor said Aperture was using only .50% of resources) and hung there for over 8 hours. Force quite wouldn't work. Had to hard restart.
Problems surface with the primary library. Decide to restore from recently backed up vault. Worked for only 13 projects but hung/froze again on the 14th project for another 8 hours.
Freaking out that my redundant back up system completely doesn't work, I put the managed projects back together in a new library by going into "show contents" of the vault and importing projects individually. This took another day of work. Managed projects are working just fine now and are backed up once again.
Referenced projects will not import at all. I can not reconnect them to their referenced images in any reasonable manor. The only way I've figured out how to do this is by hand, placing the referenced master image file into the "show package" content file of the said image. This is a daunting task for the 7 weddings of 700-1000 image each. Even if I do this, there is no guarantee that the project will import with out issue.
Anyone know how to do this? Does anyone know what happened here? Any thoughts would be greatly helpful.
Thanks in advance,
cd
Mac Pro 2x2.66GHz, 4 GB RAM, duel HD displays Mac OS X (10.4.10) MacBook Pro 17" 2.33 GHz 3 GB RAM

Andreas Yankopolus wrote:
Dudley,
I'm experiencing the same problem on my MacBook Pro: Aperture will periodically show all of my reference masters as being disconnected. They're on the laptop's internal HD, which is the only one connected to it. Quitting and restarting Aperture usually reconnects them temporarily.
My main piece of advice is to not install Leopard. It's been nothing but trouble for me, my wife, and a friend that's done so. If there was an easy way to drop back to 10.4.11, I'd do so in a heartbeat.
Hi, Andreas
I think there is something else going on. (would like to know what it is). We've been on Leopard/Aperture combo since day one and running without any hickups on PPC, Intels and Laptops.
Is there anything that seems to trigger this disconnect?
victor

Backup of referenced images

I am new to Aperture. I have my library on my mac and referenced images on an external hard disk. I can backup my library using vault and I can backup my referenced images by copying tmen to another hard disk.
If my fiirst hard disk goes down how do I link the copy of the referenced images back to aperture

Welcome to the forums Jeffrey,
In the Aperture menus you'll find an item called "Manage referenced files".If your drive fails, Aperture will immediately see those files as missing and tag them accordingly. You can then use this interface to relink the photos to your other drive. In fact, you only have to select 1 of the missing files and Aperture will do the rest. You can check it out in the User Manual.

Moving project and events and continue to edit

I'm working on a MBP, I have the project and events on that computers drive. I'm fast running out of space and therefore I would like to move project and events to external HDD and continue to work on project from the same computer MBP. What is the best method to achieve this?
I know I can move the project and referenced events but will I be able to continue to work on the project unhindered.
Thanks
Jeff

One more question, if I move another project that uses the same events folder, how would I go about that? Do I choose just move project? Or do I again choose move with referenced events? Would that duplicate the events folder?
Thabks

New iMovie and stretched images

Trying out the new iMovie, slowly resolving many of my initial fears (projects IN events?) — but one thing has stuck: I do a lot of movies using still images and these are causing a real headache.
The "updated" projects from the old iMovie have very odd positioning of the clips containing photos: you can see in the attached screen shot that the image, which used to fill the screen, is now dropped to lower left. I could crop it manually — but I have 100 of these!
And creating a new project and dropping images in stretches the images from 4:3 (or whatever they are) to widescreen, with no evident way to avoid it or change it.
Anyone else seeing this? Anyone see a fix?

Tom,
So talking frame size, scanning them in at 72 dpi, would still project a smooth, clean looking image? For the projector, the frame size will be pretty large (as in 120" 16:9 diagonal). Would this 72 dpi still be efficient enough?

Imported images into single project are split into managed and referenced

I've noticed a behavior twice recently that I can't seem to trace. Background: Big Aperture library on its own internal drive, gets re-copied to new drive every month or so. 439,591 images. Probably about 350-400 GB on a 500GB drive.
Last night, I was importing by reference 956 images from two separate cards (537 and 419 images) simultaneously (one FW400 Lexar reader, one USB SanDisk reader). — something I do often
The import was very slow. Seemed like it was hung up, but I remained patient. Eventually it finished.
The project now has 956 images, with 137/537 managed and 310/419 managed, even though the import was set up to be referenced.
The directory where they were supposed to be stored has 920 items.
Drilling down into the Aperture library contents shows Two directories in Masters for that date, one with 137, one with 310.
This tells me that in the process of the import, Aperture managed to turn 956 files into 1367 total, between the three places, and create a confusing problem that I have to work out manually.
Looking back in the masters section, I see that it appears to have possibly happened a few other times.
Has anybody else observed this behavior? Anybody know how to solve it? Aperture has been making me nervous lately.
I should add that I've already tried repair permissions and repair database. I'm a little nervous about the rebuild database option.
Message was edited by: hallerphoto
Message was edited by: hallerphoto

I've noticed a behavior twice recently that I can't seem to trace. Background: Big Aperture library on its own internal drive, gets re-copied to new drive every month or so. 439,591 images. Probably about 350-400 GB on a 500GB drive.
Last night, I was importing by reference 956 images from two separate cards (537 and 419 images) simultaneously (one FW400 Lexar reader, one USB SanDisk reader). — something I do often
The import was very slow. Seemed like it was hung up, but I remained patient. Eventually it finished.
The project now has 956 images, with 137/537 managed and 310/419 managed, even though the import was set up to be referenced.
The directory where they were supposed to be stored has 920 items.
Drilling down into the Aperture library contents shows Two directories in Masters for that date, one with 137, one with 310.
This tells me that in the process of the import, Aperture managed to turn 956 files into 1367 total, between the three places, and create a confusing problem that I have to work out manually.
Looking back in the masters section, I see that it appears to have possibly happened a few other times.
Has anybody else observed this behavior? Anybody know how to solve it? Aperture has been making me nervous lately.
I should add that I've already tried repair permissions and repair database. I'm a little nervous about the rebuild database option.
Message was edited by: hallerphoto
Message was edited by: hallerphoto

How can I tell whether a project has managed or referenced images

Hi all,
Another noob question.
I started working with Aperture and imported about 20GB of photos from my hard drive into one big project. But I can't remember whether I imported them as managed or referenced images. I want to clean up my drive and delete one set of these if they're duplicates.
Is there an easy way to determing if the images in the Library are managed or referenced? I've looked all over for an answer, but can't find one.
Thank you!

The "badges" in the lower right corner of each image will tell you if the image is a "referenced" image.
See this page for an explanation of the badges: http://documentation.apple.com/en/aperture/usermanual/index.html#chapter=11%26se ction=9%26tasks=true
The badge icon will either be a small rectangle (which represents your photo) with an arrow (indicating that the real photo is elsewhere -- aka "referenced", or it will the rectangle will have a red slash through it, meaning it's a referenced image but the master is currently offline.
There's a third possible icon... which is yellow warning triangle (has a "!" in it) with the arrow. This means the referenced master was not found (e.g. the Mac can find the filesystem & folder, but your image is not there.) This means someone decided to delete or move images in the filesystem -- bypassing Aperture.
On a related note... it is possible to change your mind about whether you want images to be "referenced" vs. "managed". The "Aperture" -> "File" -> "Relocate Master..." will allow you to pick a folder on the hard drive and Aperture will copy the masters to that location -- converting a "managed" image into a "referenced" image. The "Aperture" -> "File" -> "Consolidate Master..." will do the opposite... it will convert a referenced image to a managed image, but does offer the choice of whether the "copy" vs. "move" (e.g. do you want to leave a copy of the image out in the filesystem which is no longer associated with Aperture vs. have the only copy of the master living inside the Aperture library.)
Message was edited by: Tim Campbell1

How do I move projects from aperture to create space and keep images on external hard drive

How do I move projects from my iMac aperture 3 to an external hard disk so I keep all originals and create space on my iMac

Do you want to move your complete Aperture library to an external volume or only selected projects?
Get yourself an external drive that is formatted MacOS X Extended (Journaled) and connect it to a fast port, Thunderbolt, USB 3, for example.
As a precaution repair your Aperture library using the Aperture Library First Aid Tools (Repairing and Rebuilding Your Aperture Library: Aperture 3 User Manual) and make a current backup, before you proceed.
To move all projects to that drive simply drag your Aperture library to the external drive. Then click it in the Finder to launch Aperture on the new library and test it thoroughly, before you delete the old library.
To move selected projects to the new drive, select the projects in Aperture and use the command "FIle > Relocate originals" and select a folder on the external drive as the destination in the File Chooser. See: Aperture 3 User Manual: Working with Referenced Images
Regards
Léonie

Creating project as Disc Image after 1 1/2 hours it appeared to be finished but there was message that there was a multiplex error. Checked and no yellow triangles, music on computer, any ideas.

Creating project as Disc Image after 1 1/2 hours it appeared to be finished but there was message that there was a multiplex error. Checked and no yellow triangles, music on computer, and all resources on computer, any ideas??

Hi
And
• free space on Start-Up hard disk ? How Much ?
• Brand and type of DVD used
• Burn Speed ?
• Did You try to first do a "Save as a DiskImage" ? If so - Did it work ?
Yours Bengt W

Can you move events and projects to disk images in iMovie 11?

iMovie 08 allowed you to move events to disk images and keep them there. In other words iMovie 08 saw disk images the same as a hard disk. iMovie 09 lost this and could not recognize disk images. Can an iMovie 11 owner tell me if this functionality has been restored. I liked being able to keep projects in progress in encrypted disk images and away from prying eyes. Thanks!

Yes you can do it with Finder.
I move projects and Events into and out of temporary folders with Finder nearly every day.
Problems arise when you have Events and Projects with identical names on more than one drive. If you're going to do that, put the files on one of the drives into another folder somthat FCP X doesn't recognise them - or eject one of the drives.
Andy

Projects and Referenced Images

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