Projects to Albums

I am a new Aperture user. I just created 3 projects, corelative to my first 3 imports. I now realize that they should be 3 seperate albums, all living within one project. Is there any way to reconfigure the 3 projects into 3 albums under a single project, and if so, how? Thanks.

Thanks. It worked, though it appears to have copied the files (or at least created alias's to them). So now they appear in both the old and new projects and I'm afraid to delete them in the old for fear that I will loose them... How do I figure out where they reall are? thanks.

Similar Messages

  • Projects and Albums out of order

    It used to be Projects and Albums would line up in alphabetical order when created in Aperture Libraries. It hasbn't been happening for me in recent updates, and I can't find a way to set this in preferences. Even worse, some times albums won't let me change their order — they snap into different order than I drag them in. Don't know what's happening.

    When you drag any project or album, Aperture switches to Manual arrangement of all.
    Click on the gear icon at the top right of the Library list Sidebar, choose Keep Projects and Albums arranged by, and choose alphabetic if that is what you want.  You can't modify by dragging, though.
    Ernie

  • 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

  • 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.

  • Projects and Albums: quick question...

    So, I have some "projects" that I want to delete. But first, I want to move the images to another "album" or whatever.
    So, I drag all of images from one project to another album.
    But then, when I click delete on the actual project, I get a dialog box telling me that the master images are going to be deleted. Sure enough... the images are gone. Not catastrophic, I got them back in.
    But I am trying to figure out how to do this. Must be missing some simple function.
    How do you move images OUT of a project, and then delete that project without losing the images that you've moved out? What am I missing?
    rick
    G5 / DP 1.8 / 2gb RAM / ATI X800   Mac OS X (10.4.3)  

    <...>
    How do you move images OUT of a project, and then
    delete that project without losing the images that
    you've moved out? What am I missing?
    <...>
    Another option (if your albums are all inside projects) is to export the project the albums are in and then re-import - when you export a project that has albums with pictures from other projects, all of the files (master files and versions from stacks) that you had put in that album will be copied into the exported project and thus return when you re-import that project.
    If you don't have the albums you want inside a project, you can just create a new project and move your albums inside of it.
    It is probably safer though just to move the files into a new project so you don't miss anything! I wanted to give you another option though in case that was too annoying.

  • 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...;-).

  • Restored vault on a new Mac and the projects and albums show up but there are no photos.

    I recently purchased a new MacBook Pro.  I currently have about 33,000 photos on an older MBP.  I created a vault (I thought) of my old Aperture library and saved it to my Time Machine.  I restored it to the new MBP, which took forever, but after the restore the projects and albums I created show up on the new MBP but there are no photos.  In the 'About My Mac' storage settings it says there is 162.68 GB of photos on my computer (which is the same size as the photos on my old MBP).  How do I find them?!

    If you want to remove the movies & videos from your iPod Nano in order to transfer to your computer, connect your iPod Nano to your computer.  Double click your iPod Nano icon.  Double click the DCIM folder.  Your recorded video content will be in your DCIM folder.  Drag the video content onto your desktop & place them where you want. 

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Aperture Library.aplibrary .... does it contain projects and albums?

    Hi guys
    I'm having to completely start again with my Mac, reinstall OSX and add everything all over again and I was wondering...I have quite a big Aperture library (6GB) and was wondering if the Aperture Library.aplibrary file that's in my Pictures folder and backed up on my External HD also contains the projects and albums that you've created?
    Thanks
    Steve.

    I think it confirms that. The Library is not "in Aperture" but the normal one is on the same drive.
    If you create a New User Account, and as that New User use the Finder to open the copy on the External, it should tell you beyond any doubt. Do you know how to create a New User Account? If not, see:
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/8235.html
    Ernie

  • What's the difference between "Library" and "Projects and Albums?"

    In the navigation panel, under Library I click projects and of course see all 16 of my projects displayed to the right.
    Now, under the "Projects and Albums" 3 of those project are listed. Only 3. If I try to delete them so as not to have these 3 appearing in both places, I get the warning that photos will be deleted.
    So my questions: why is there a library top level and also a "Project and Albums" top level? And why does the latter only show 3 of my 16 projects? Finally, I think my projects should all appear in just one place.
    Any ideas?
    Cheers

    iMovie enables you to edit video footage - typically from a video camera - add titles, effects, etc.
    iDVD enables you to create an authored DVD of your iMovie, complete with DVD menu, chapters, "extras", etc and can be played in a conventional DVD player.
    20" iMac Intel Core Duo 2GHz 1GB RAM   Mac OS X (10.4.7)  

  • Updating linked projects and Albums

    Hi all, I'm new to Aperture. I keep all my photo's on a NAS box and have linked them into Aperture with Import Folders as projects storing files in their current location. Everything seemed great, it didn't fill my HDD up with 1TB of pictures and it kept my folder structure. I though i had it all sorted, but when i add files to the folders on the NAS box they don't get added to the Aperture projects/Albums.
    When i try to do another import it just stupidly creates a copy of the projects and albums inside the ones i already have!
    Basically is there a way to use Aperture in this way where i don't have to fill my HDD up with my pictures that i already have stored on a NAS box and that i can update when i add new pictures to the NAS box (preferably automatically) without having to delete all the aperture content and add it again?

    Dave,
    Welcome to the user-supported Aperture discussion group.
    When i try to do another import it just stupidly creates a copy of the projects and albums inside the ones i already have!
    I might suggest reading the page of the manual before you call it stupid. It works as designed and as documented as far as I can tell.
    [http://documentation.apple.com/en/aperture/usermanual/index.html#chapter=4%26se ction=9%26hash=apple_ref:doc:uid:Aperture-UserManual-91292IMP-1056494]
    Basically is there a way to use Aperture in this way where i don't have to fill my HDD up with my pictures that i already have stored on a NAS box
    Yes, using referenced masters, which I believe you have already done.
    that i can update when i add new pictures to the NAS box (preferably automatically) without having to delete all the aperture content and add it again?
    Well, yes, but you'll have to change your workflow.
    Aperture is not designed to import a whole computer's worth of files and sort out the duplicates every time. It is designed to do that once to initialize your library. After that, you must import individual folders or photos.
    You will be in charge of telling Aperture what to import, unless you set up some Hot Folders and folder actions. People do this for tethered shooting all the time. Still, that will be only for a particular folder. There's no way to make Aperture look "next to" what it imported previously and see if there's anything there.
    nathan

  • Projects vs Albums vs folders

    Hi
    How do you guys organize your photos?
    Im thinking about having 1 project per year and create albums for "events" like trips, birthday parties... you name it
    Tell us a little about your organizing workflow!
    Thanks

    It sounds as though you did not read what I posted at the second of the two links I pasted in for you. I recommend it .
    The task you face is to create an +access structure+ for your images.
    Your images must be in a container.
    You can have as many containers as you like. Almost everyone prefers having more than one.
    You can group those containers. Group them so that you can find them more readily. (Remember, you are creating an +access structure+ .)
    The +access structure+ can, and imho, should be different from your +output structure+. I suggest that you put your images in one place in order to retrieve them, and that you put virtual copies of the retrieved images in another place when you are preparing them for output.
    In Aperture, the container through which you access you images is called a Project. This is, imho, indescribably poorly named -- but the name is a given, and is immutable. No matter what, your images have to go somewhere -- stick them in these containers called "Projects".
    Group your "Projects" using Folders.
    When you have a project (small "p") for which you will be preparing and outputting images, create an Album. If you have parallel projects (small "p"), use Folders to group them by kind.
    You'll end up with two "trees" in your Aperture garden:
    . a nested Folder tree of containers which hold your images: those containers are Projects
    . a nested Folder tree of containers which your projects (small "p"): those containers are Albums
    That's (basically) what I do. Read through the long posts linked above for more.
    The number one suggestion I have is to cleanse your mind of the misleading label "Project". Just think of them as bins which hold your images. Make each bin hold a shoot (much like a "roll" -- if you've ever seen those antediluvian strips of sprocketed plastic) and you'll be well on your way to working with Aperture in a way that is simple and smooth.

  • Projects and albums and confusion

    I searched for a solution to this issue, but probably wasn't using the correct search terms.
    My current setup has a Project called Plant Material.
    I also have an album called 'Plant Material'. This is because many times I photograph something that puts the photo in a different project, but the image contains plant material.
    This is one of my main issues with Aperture, and I suppose that Albums were created to solve the problem of one mage in many projects.
    Now, though, I have decided after a few years' using Aperture (and yes it can take that long to get the feel of it) that I want all of my Plant Material images in one place.
    Does it make sense to use an Album for this? If so, I suppose I would still have the Plant Material project? When I am working with the images, would I always work with the images in the album?
    –Michael

    RB:
    I knew someone would say that. And it does seem to play to Aperture's strengths for sure. However, I have a custom field called 'Scientific', where I put the names of the plants 'Quercus virginiana'. In order to organize as you smartly suggest I would need a keyword to find all the critters.
    Say I did. Then what? A smart album makes sense but is SLOW. Makes sense though.
    And then back to the other question: how the **** do I combine a project with a folder, when some of the folder contents are in the project?
    Oh, and what a delightful picture on your web site:-) Whoever said girl geeks aren't hot? Oh, wait, that person was shot over at BoingBoing, right?
    Michael

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