Sharing Aperture Library in House of Macs

I have a house full of Macs but only one with Aperture 3 software. I'd like to make the Aperture library of family photos available to everyone on our Airport network in order to:
1) Allow everyone to see, use, and enjoy the photos
2) Not accidentally do any damage to the originals stored in my Aperture library
3) Make all of these photos available to everyone should I come to an untimely demise (since my user is of course password protected)
My thought on a solution is to make a copy of all of the photos to my Time Machine hard drive so that they are available to everyone on the home Airport network but I haven't found a simple solution to doing this. The simplest would be to just have a copy of the library continuously in synch on Time Machine, but:
1) I don't know if this is possible
2) All of the other Macs in the house just have iPhoto
Does anyone out there have any suggestions on how to accomplish my objective?
Thanks!

The easiest and safest way to do what you want is to put your photos on a Photo Sharing site like Flickr so that
A: anyone with a web browser can see them and download them
B; You have an off-site back up as well
You can easily password protect the photos on Flickr so that you can limit access to them, so only family can see them.
Iphoto is of no use in the scenario you describe. Like Aperture iPhoto has to import the photos to see them so everyone will have all the photos on their Macs as well as whatever you put on the Time Machine drive.
Also, TM likes to have that drive to itself so you might run into problems there.
Regards
TD

Similar Messages

Share my aperture library on two differents mac

Hello I need to know how and if I can share my aperture library on two differents mac (one iMac and one Macbook). I' d like to work on my project also on my macbook at home with wifi and also outdoor if possible...
Thank you for the help .....
Mollialba

The safest way to do what you want to do, would be to put your Aperture Library on a small external disk that you can connect to any machine you want. Apple does not support network access to the Aperture Library, so you may run into problems if you put your library onto a network volumn, see this support article:
Aperture: Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3252
However, you could decide to keep the master image files on a network volumn and have a local copy of your Aperture Library on each machine, but then you would have to take care to synchronize the two copies of your library regularly.

Sharing Aperture library with another user on the same mac

Hi
I just upgraded to Aperture 3.3, on a MBP running Lion (10.7.4) - I am trying to share the library with my wife so that each of us can retain our separate accounts and preferences and be able to edit/print/add pictures to the library
I've seen some other posts, suggesting creating a separate directory outside of /Users which I've done: I've created /ApertureLib and moved the library there. I made sure I set permissions for owner, group and others to read/write/execute
When i try opening the library through my wife's account it tells me that "the library is being used by (null), you must first quit (null) to use this library"
I added sticky bits, tried to set ACLs, no dice...
any suggestions?
Thanks!
PS: all of the image files are actually stored on a NAS box and mounted via AFP. I tried moving the Aperture library to the NAS box but the performance was atrocious. so I kept the library on Macintosh HD and just reference the picture files from the NAS share.

PS: all of the image files are actually stored on a NAS box and mounted via AFP. I tried moving the Aperture library to the NAS box but the performance was atrocious. so I kept the library on Macintosh HD and just reference the picture files from the NAS share.
That is the safest solution. The Aperture library should reside on a local volume, MacOS X extended formatted. Your NAS probably is neither local nor formatted MacOS X extended, see
Aperture: Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library
I am trying to share the library with my wife so that each of us can retain our separate accounts and preferences and be able to edit/print/add pictures to the library
Aperture is a single User program. Only one of you can use Aperture at a time. So you hvae to quit Aperture in your account, before your wife can launch it from her account. Also make sure that iPhoto is not using the library.
One big problem with sharing a Library are permissions and ownerships. When you make changes to an Aperture Library and add images, you are the owner of the added images. The safest way to share a library therefore would be to put it on an external volume or onto a separate partition of your hard drive. Then you can set the "Ignore ownership on this volume" flag and share the data with out permission problems. To set this flag on a volume, select it in the Finder and use "File > Get info" from the Finder's main menu bar (or press cmd-I).
Regards
Léonie

Sharing Aperture Library (at work)

We have 3 iMacs at work. We want to be able to share photos from one Aperture Library (print, email, etc.). Every Mac has it's own Apple ID, copy of Aperture (latest version), and we're all on the same WI-FI network. We do not have a shared server. Is there a way to share on Aperture Library? What is the best way to do this?
TIA!

Hi Jake. I was hoping someone with a better grasp of hardware than I have would respond, but since they haven't yet, I'll post what I know and perhaps your post will get a second look.
Aperture is a single-user application. There are some work-arounds that can be effected for multiple-user use, but they will never be more than work-arounds, with the associated in-elegance. Multiple-user image databases exist -- as you can imagine, there is a market for them -- but they are expensive. (Two commonly recommended here are Extensis Portfolio and Canto Cumulus -- search this forum and you'll find threads on sharing an Aperture Library among multiple users.)
The easiest and most robust way to share a Library is to put it on an external drive, and have whoever needs to use the Library use the drive. From a computer and database perspective, this is the same as having only one user, and is as safe and secure as you'll get. Is it possible for you and your coworkers to put the Images you all want to access in one Library on one external drive and share it this way?
Aperture cannot be successfully configured with the Library on anything but locally-mounted drives. WiFi or a wired networked installation is contra-indicated in the User Manual. A more thorough account is here: http://www.apertureexpert.com/tips/2010/8/3/network-drives-nas-and-aperture.html
Note that for simple sharing of files, Finder is a pretty good image file browser, with nicely usable search functions and the ability to display images in a grid and via Quick View.

Sharing Aperture Library with Other Computers on the Home Network

Hello,
Forgive me if this question has been asked before, if it has, I missed it.
I have a mac on which I have Aperture and have taken the time to edit all of our family photos (cropping, color management, red eye reduction, etc.), so, after having done all of this, my wife, when showing her friends photos and such, would like to be able to have access to those photos on her mac laptop. But, I called Apple on this and their tech support guy made it sound like the only way to do this would be to create a web gallery for each set of pictures. And, I have to say, that solution seemed a bit extreme for sharing pictures within a home, not to mention the logistics for creating web galleries for tens of thousands of photos. So, the other option that occurred to me was that I could export all of the pictures into a directory and then have her iphoto import all of those pictures, however, there are two problems with that: 1) she is not up to date with new photos that have been added to Aperture and 2) the subfolder structure isn't preserved (i.e., it's just a huge mass of photos not a groups organized according to event).
So, my question is: does anyone know a better more practical way to do this? I would think it would be something that Apple would foresee and have a fix for but maybe not.
Thank you very much,
Ken

+"Single User License. This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on one Apple-labeled desktop computer and one Apple-labeled laptop computer so long as both computers are owned and used by you."+
I own an iMac and I pretend to buy an Apple laptop as secondary computer for my home, just after vacations, as now I have some more important expenses that should deliver new set of photos into Aperture library.
iMac is in use by me, and my wife, and kid. I assume that it will be legal to install copy of Aperture on my new laptop. So I will end in same situation as you are today. In my opinion it will be legal to use Aperture on both computers, as both are in possession of my family, and at least in my country we are somehow single entity (we pay common taxes from our joint income etc.) - it depends on the marriage settlement, however we've choose it that way.
In this case I'll simple export library and import it on my secondary computer. I own my iMac, and I'll own my Macbook Pro. At the same moment my wife own them as well. I'm not sure about your situation, but it might work for you. The questions is, is it really legal?

Sharing Aperture library with iPad: a little annoyance...

When editing a photo with a 3rd party plugin (or Photoshop), Aperture creates a 2nd version in TIF or JPG. This image is stacked with the main image. 9 times out of 10, the image edited should become the primary image I want to see, with the RAW (or original master) becoming a backup in the stack.
I wish there was an option for iTunes/iPad to sync only the top image of the stacks within a giving event. If anyone knows of a way to do this currently please let me know.
Thanks!

PS: all of the image files are actually stored on a NAS box and mounted via AFP. I tried moving the Aperture library to the NAS box but the performance was atrocious. so I kept the library on Macintosh HD and just reference the picture files from the NAS share.
That is the safest solution. The Aperture library should reside on a local volume, MacOS X extended formatted. Your NAS probably is neither local nor formatted MacOS X extended, see
Aperture: Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library
I am trying to share the library with my wife so that each of us can retain our separate accounts and preferences and be able to edit/print/add pictures to the library
Aperture is a single User program. Only one of you can use Aperture at a time. So you hvae to quit Aperture in your account, before your wife can launch it from her account. Also make sure that iPhoto is not using the library.
One big problem with sharing a Library are permissions and ownerships. When you make changes to an Aperture Library and add images, you are the owner of the added images. The safest way to share a library therefore would be to put it on an external volume or onto a separate partition of your hard drive. Then you can set the "Ignore ownership on this volume" flag and share the data with out permission problems. To set this flag on a volume, select it in the Finder and use "File > Get info" from the Finder's main menu bar (or press cmd-I).
Regards
Léonie

Two user accounts sharing aperture library constantly repairing permissions

My girlfriend and I each have a user account on our iMac. We have our Photo Library in a shared folder so we can both access it when using Aperture. However, every time I want to use Aperture, I have to first repair permissions. After doing this, everything runs fine.
Then, when my girlfriend tries to access Aperture, SHE has got to repair permissions first or Aperture gets hung up.
Basically, it appears that when I repair permissions in my user account, it messes up the permissions in her user account and vice versa. Has anyone ever experienced this behavior before and have they found a solution?
Thanks,
Rick

It is not sufficient to have the library in a shared folder. That will not help with the permissions inside the Aperture library package.
The safest way to use an Aperture library from two differnet accounts is to move it to a disk or disk partition that has the "Ignore Ownership on this volume" flag enabled. Then you can take turns using the Aperture library from your accounts.
The procedure is explained in this document for an iPhoto library, but it work also for an Aperture library.
iPhoto: Sharing libraries among multiple users http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1198
Just remember, that any disk you are using for an Aperture library will have to be formatted for Mac:
MacOS Extented (Journaled).
My media drive with the Aperture library looks like this in "File > Get Info":

Does OS influence/affect shared Aperture Library?

Just ran into this problem. I set up my mom's Aperture Library on an external FW800 drive to be shared between a new 24" iMac (2009) and a 17" PowerBook G4, each with a backup vault local to the startup drive. The reason I did this is that she travels frequently, and this way her Aperture library can be identical on both machines at any given time. With iPhoto, it was a tremendous pain to get everything synched.
At the time (early August), both were running the latest versions of Leopard and Aperture. No problems. However, she insisted on upgrading her iMac to Snow Leopard (against my warnings and advice) and now she is having problems. The PowerBook is non-Intel so its OS cannot be upgraded beyond Leopard.
When she recently tried to open Aperture on her PowerBook with the shared Library on the external drive, it worked fine until she tried to quit, then the application hung and she had to force quit. Now Aperture on the PowerBook comes up but all of her photos and vaults are MIA, plus it won't quit without having to force quit. The library on the external drive shows 21+GB in size, so I am hoping that it is not corrupted by this. She hasn't had a chance to try it with her iMac at home since she is currently traveling. Hopefully the backup vault on her iMac is still viable.
Any advice on what to do? Do I need to downgrade her iMac to Leopard to get the shared library issue corrected? Will Aperture need to be reinstalled from scratch on the PowerBook? I am 2000 miles away, so it is hard to tech support this over the phone.

Wow, this is not encouraging. I have a slightly different version of this problem. I had my Aperture library showing up (and updating as I expanded it) in the Media Browser, and all was well until I bought a new Mac and transferred everything over from the old one. For whatever reason, not everything makes it over. Now, on the new Mac, my Media Browser only shows images from Photo Booth--not even iPhoto! I feel your pain and share your ire.
Someone mentioned September (not coming soon enough). Is there speculation that Aperture will be updated (finally!) when Snow Leopard releases?

Sharing Aperture Library

I'm running Aperture 3.1.3 (in 32-bit mode) on OS X Lion. I used to be able to share my Aperture photos with iWork, in Mail, and in the Screensaver, but now I cannot. I have "Preview Sharing" turned on in the Aperture Preferences. I've tried trashing the "com.apple.iApps.plist" file in my Library/Preferences folder. Still nothing. Any suggestions?

I've had the same problem, across all Apple's own applications, including desktop and screen saver.
I followed your suggestion, and it worked, but only in part.
My Aperture Library long ago overwhelmed my MBP's SSD, and had to be moved to an external drive.
It seems that preview sharing is incapable of working in this configuration: The various media inspector windows acuratrely reproduce the entire hierarchy of my Aperture directory, but are unable to recognise any photos in it.
This is major failing on Apple's part: what's the point of a media inspector that can't recognise media - especially given that every piece of the system - hardware, OS, and application were made by the same company.
So much for brand loyalty.

AppleTV: sharing aperture library on external disk

I moved my Aperture library from the iMac to an external hard disk in order to free memory capacity on the iMac. Adjusted the settings in iTunes in order to instruct AppleTV to use the Aperture library on the external HD. It fails completely. Checked the permissions of the library on the HD and they are R/W, so that cannot be the issue. Anyone familiar with what I have missed?

USB2 is a poor connectivity method for hard drives on Macs, adequate for backup where speed is unimportant but bad news for a Library. Aperture performance is largely about the Library, so you want it on a relatively unfilled internal drive, definitely not on an external USB drive.
Hard drives slow as they fill above 40% or so. Take enough data off the internal drive to maintain at least 100 GB free space and keep the Aperture Library on the internal drive with Referenced Masters on external drives.
In the future buy large hard drives (currently the 1 TB size is cost effective) that have multiple connectivity methods that include Firewire800 and eSATA. One good source is OWC: <http://www.owcomputing.com/>.
Good luck!
-Allen Wicks

One Mac, Two Users, One shared Aperture Library

Hello
I recently bought a new DSLR camera. As the camera is much more advanced comapred to my former one I also wanted to improve my editing capabilties by switching from iPhoto to Aperture.
I (USER 1) started Aperture, created a new library in the same directory my iPhoto library is stored in, chose "Import -> iPhoto library -> keep files in the original location"...a couple of hours later the library was indexed and usable.
Now I wanted to take the next step. To optimize disk storage and to avoid duplicates the iPhoto library was used by two users, the imports, edits... one user made were available to the other user (on the same Mac) and vice versa. The idea was to do the same under Aperture. So USER 1 assigned "read & write" rights on my library file to USER 2 as well (as I said, file is stored in the same location as the iPhoto library where 2 users, 1 library already worked). I signed in as USER 2, started Aperture and first had to create a new library file. Then I changed the library file to USER 1's (shared) library. This worked in prnciple, however "Projects", "Faces"... were not displayed. Aperture showed as many blank fields as USER 1's library contains pictures. Some pictures were displayed after a couple of minutes but the system didn't appear as if it would also try to make the remaining pictures available. So I checked access rights on the library file again (USER 2 had all rights required), closed Aperture on USER 2, reopened Aperture under USER 2 and got the message, that access rights are not sufficient to access the library file of USER 1.
What am I doing wrong? Could it be that what is possible under iPhoto (2 users, 1 Mac, 1 shared library file) is not possible under Aperture?
Thanks for your help in advance.

Update:
I installed Windows via Bootcamp, added a second partition to the system. It worked, Windows took ages to download all the required updates but anyway, it worked. So I started up again with OS X Lion, now splitting my OS X partition into two (than had 2 OS X and 1 Windows partition) and adding all my iTunes content to the second. Then I created a new Apperture libary on that second partition, imported all the projects into it and, hey, it worked as well, no files showed "unsupported file format" anymore. So I thought I was through it all...but only until I tried to start from the Windows partition again, it didn't work. Under OS X I could see the Windows partition and all it's content, however the Bootmanager didn't provide the option to startup with Windows. So I had to clean the second OS X partition again, deleting the Bootcamp partition and then doing all the painfull Windows installation again. Now I'm at the point where I have 1 Mac OS X Lion partiton and a Bootcamp partition containing Windows 7...
Now my question: Could it be, that Bootcamp 4 under OS X lion can not run Windows on another partition than the second one? In other words: If I now split my OS X partition into two to have all the iTunes and Apperture content on this second partition, will the third partition (Bootcamp) again not work anylonger? The Bootcamp help is not very precise in this point, it only talks about the installation process of Windows 7 that is only running when there is only one OS X partition, it does not at all say that - after installing Windows on the Bootcamp partition - the OS X partition must not be changed to prevent Windows from "dying". Does anyone out there have any experience on this, what will happen if I now split my OS X partiton into two with the second partition only containing iTunes and Apperture content and "ignore ownership" enabled? WIll Windows die again or did I do something wrong with my first try?
Thanks for your help in advance.

Sharing aperture library between two computers in same house

How do I go about sharing the same library between two computers in the same house? I would like to take some or all photos around with me on my laptop and be able to have them also at home for use by my family. Will I have trouble with changes and keeping things in sync? Would I locate the library on a portable drive on our home network? Thanks,
Todd

cut and dry ???
are you wanting to constantly move the external around from machine to machine ??? or are you looking for simultaneous access ???
if you had a library on an external and moved it between computers, it could work ... just be careful to always have the external connected before starting aperture, else it will create a new null library for you ...
you could have db issues if you tried to have two people access it at once ... i dont believe that the aperture db could handle multi access at once ... not robust enough ... no locking of records, etc ...

Sharing Aperture library with iPhoto on another Mac

I've got an iMac in my office with Aperture, latest version, where I keep my master photo collection. I've got a Mac Mini in my living room, hooked to a big screen TV, with only iPhoto. The iMac is cabled to a 1 GB Time Capsule, while the Mac Mini connects to my home network through the Time Capsule WiFi network. I'd like to be able to slideshow selected Albums through iPhoto on the Mac Mini that are stored within Aperture on the IMac. File sizes average 7 MB, one folder can have 500+ images.
Is this possible? If it is, would it be too slow over WiFi? Should I just buy a second disk for the Mac Mini and duplicate the library?

No. The Aperture database is not comprehendible to iPhoto.
Allan

Sharing iTunes library on PC and Mac

I have a 2011 model MacBook Air setup to dual-boot OSX Lion and Windows 7. I have a 3rd partition on my drive, formatted as FAT32, so that both Windows and OSX can access shared data files, like music, pictures, documents, etc.
I'd like to setup my iTunes library on this shared partition such that the library is shared between both PC and Mac modes, so that when I add a song while in iTunes in OSX, it shows up in Windows and vice versa. Ideally, iTunes on both operating systems would read from the same data files and save hard drive space in the process.
Is this possible, and if so, how can it be done?
Thanks in advance.

Hi,
See if these Links for Home Sharing add any light to the problem
Understanding
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3819
Troubleshooting
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2972
How to
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2688

HT201340 OK! Now what do I do with my Aperture library from my old mac that will not open on my new Mac with a different operating system? do I just loose all of the pictures ?

I just bought a new Mac Book Pro and I had Aperture on the old one. Went to open it with the new OS and it says it wiil not open. How do I save my pictures and use them on the new computer?

Hello Pete from another old guy,
It sounds like you have an older iMac than the 2006 and newer model this forum covers. The problem is that, in 2006, Apple changed from PowerPC to Intel processors and third-party developers soon stopped making new software for the older processors. That's why you cannot upgrade Flash player--the current version requires a Mac the "2006 and later" processor.
However, not having a current version of FlashPlayer should not affect your ability to download. If you try downloading, do you get an error message or does something else happen?
Do you have another web browser like FireFox or Camino on your computer?
but would love to get my MAC back up to date and running right.
Well, "running right" may be doable but "up to date" may not be. You are already at as high a Mac OS level that a pre-2006 Mac can use. We need to pin down your variant to make recommendations. From your Apple menu at the left end of the menu bar, do "About this Mac":
That brings up this window:
Let us know what yours say for "processor." The two choices are "PowerPC" as in the example, or "Intel." If you have an Intel processor, you have more options available.
Awaiting your report,
Allan

Sharing Aperture Library in House of Macs

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