Smart Album/File organization anomaly...

Don't know if this is a bug or is to be expected...I wanted to set up a smart album to track a certain keyword, and have this album organized in a (blue) folder called "Projects"...target images are from many other Projects in the library. In the "Projects Folder", there are other Projects (shoots) from specific clients, but this album is for a theme across Projects...
Anyway, when I tried to add the smart album by highlighting the "Projects Folder", Ap associated the smart album with the "nearest" real Project (and limited the smart search criteria to items associated with the project)...I had to set the smart album up under "Library" and after it was setup, MOVE it to the "Projects Folder"...not exactly intuitive, but understandable, and it works FINE once its there...
FYI.
cheers,
david
MP, PB12 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Afraid not.
Regards
TD

Similar Messages

Smart album file size (megabytes) and/or file size (hxl)

Hi,
Is it possible to create smart album like:
pic being < 50ko
or lentgh being < 480 ?
Thanks
Benoit

Afraid not.
Regards
TD

New Album from Smart Album makes NEW VERSIONS of all files? Bug?

Got what I think is an oddball bug here, but see if any of you have experienced it.
Making a new album of the contents of a Smart Album with about 600 images resulted in the SBOD, a lot of time and disk activity and the creation of NEW VERSIONS of all the files populating the new album. This, of course, also doubled the number of files in the original Smart Album, since the keywords used are a match. First thinking it might be something I had not read in the manual, I grabbed the book and could not find this behavior listed…..so….my expected result is a new album with the identical contents of the Smart Album selected as the source.
I am creating a presentation for a client whose work is in multiple projects in a ~150GB library. All images are heavily keyworded, so making Smart Albums of specific elements of the work was easy. My intended workflow to get through this mountain of pix was to make Smart Albums of specific elements, then make New Albums from each, manually edit and reorg these albums individually, then combine my edits into a single book file.
Now the structure leading to this problem is as follows:
1) I created a single “main” folder to store all projects and other elements and hierarchy for this client. Clicking on this folder returns some 8500 images spanning multiple projects…all as expected.
2) At the top level of this “main” folder, I made about 20 Smart Albums to presort the main elements I wanted to include. I made the first Smart Album by clicking the icon in the top bar. The rest of the smart albums I made by duplicating the previous Smart Album, then changing keyword selection. I would select the new keywords I wanted, then de-select the ones that were from the album I had duplicated. The reason I did it that was for speed, there is little delay in displaying the items that were already searched for, and a significant delay in going from new. Anyway, somewhere in this process, I decided to organize my workflow further, so I created a new folder (calling it Smart Album Selects) at the same level as the Smart Albums, and then dragged the Smart Albums into the new Smart Album Selects folder. Still, no problem.
3) Later in my session, I went to create another new Smart Album, and this time I did so already in the Smart Album Selects folder. When I opened the HUD to select the keywords, the Keyword area and check box were greyed out!!! Weird, I though….so I simply duplicated an existing Smart Album from my Smart Album Selects folder, opened the HUD, and sure enough, all my keywords were there. I changed the keyword selection, and went on with work. During the day I did this same operation 3 more times, making 4 Smart Albums created the same way.
4) OK…here is the strange behavior. To make my new custom album from the Smart Album selects, I selected one of the Smart Albums, and clicked on the New Album icon. Got the expected dialog, make with 1 image or all images, selected all images, and instead of a new album popping up moments later, I got the SBOD, and the Activity Monitor said Aperture and my hard disk was cranking away. About 4-5 minutes later, Aperture became responsive again, and had created a new album. However, upon inspection, the album contained NEW VERSIONS of all the images that were in the Smart Album, about 600 files.
5) I went back and clicked on a different Smart Album in the same spot in the hierarchy…but it was one of the first ones I had created (meaning I built this BEFORE reorganizing into the Smart Album Selects folder). Tried making a new album again, with 1 image, worked fine, popped up instantly. Tried selecting 4 images, same thing, worked fine. Selected All, made album, worked fine.
6) Went back to the Smart Album I had the problem with, this time selected 4 images, make New Album, and sure enough the New Album had NEW VERSIONS of the pix again…OK, I went back to the top of my folder hierarchy, my “main” folder and made a brand new Smart Album by clicking the icon, and selecting keywords. Made a new album from that, no problem, popped up instantly, no new versions.
7) I then re-made all my Smart Albums at the top of the folder hierarchy, and they all work fine creating new albums. I got back to the task at hand…hopefully there is enough data here to let the Aperture engineers find this problem…Assuming, that is it is not just me misunderstanding some element in the program.
Sorry for the length, but has anyone else run into this??
PowerBook G4 1.67 2GB RAM 128MB ATI Video, External FW Drives for library Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Nope, all the images at this point in my workflow have been unstacked, with the non-picked members of the original stacks discarded.
Now that it seems I am not the only one who has witnessed this behavior, what I am really trying to find out, is what is the definitive proper operation of this according to the Aperture group at Apple.
Assuming I have opened a Smart Album with images displayed, and no images are selected.
Is the correct behavior:
1) Selecting New Album makes a new Untitled Album (very quickly) with the identical contents of the Smart Album....OR...
2) Selecting New Album makes a new Untitled Album (slowly) with NEW VERSIONS of the contents of the Smart Album. (Also, depending upon the number of images, typically brings up SBOD and makes Aperture unresponsive until it is complete.)
Now what I expected to happen was #1, as it is what happens when I select New Album when a project is selected. Given Apple's human interface creedo for intuitive operation, I think this is the most intuitive choice, because I can't think of a good reason I would want to double the number of versions of all files in an album, unless I expressly told the app to do this.
Could an Apple guy provide the definitive answer, please...
Thanks in advance for your help.
PowerBook G4 1.67 2GB RAM 128MB ATI Video, External FW Drives for library Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Hello, failing miserably here, cant import nef files from aperture 3.1.2 to iphone 4. I am syncing with the projects and smart albums and I am only able to sync the jogs and psd's Anyone out there to aid this frustrated photographer??

hello, failing miserably here, cant import nef files from aperture 3.1.2 to iphone 4. I am syncing with the projects and smart albums and I am only able to sync the jogs and psd's Anyone out there to aid this frustrated photographer??

See my reply to a later simplified version of your question. I don't think that either iPhone or iPad recognize RAW files such as NEFs. And the iPhone is not designed to be a mass storage device like a portable flash or portabel hard drive for temporary storage of files, if that's what you're after. As I mentioned in my previous reply, I have an iPad and have been experimenting with it as a tool for photography, hoping that it would be a nice travel tool for backing up and viewing photos from my Nikon dslr. But both the iPad and iPhone just are not set up to do that well. Both show photos nicely, but organization of photos is very frustrating since you can't create albums on the iPhone or iPad, but only back on your sync computer. (There is one very powerful photo organization app called SortShots, but you import photos to it and it organizes and stores the images wtihin the app not using the native photo app. It doesn't work with NEFs either.) I don't know of any RAW processing software for either device.

Changing file name in a smart album?

I have created several smart albums in iphoto 6, i am also in the process if updating my photos in iphoto by renaming them. My smart albums use the file name for their search criteria. But i have noticed several of my photos would be better in a different smart album i created, so i change their file names to something more relevent, but they stay in this original smart album, i would have thought they would automatically be romoved from this smart album???

bege:
Welcome to the Apple Discussions. If you change a photos title in a smart album or anywhere else its name should change in every instance it is in the library. Users have reported smart albums not updating unless the quit and relaunch iPhoto. Give that a try and see if the name is the same everywhere. It should. I don't remember what the fix was for that situation but you might do some searching for "smart album not updating" or something like that to see what you find.
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.

PSD files smart album...

Hello. I have lots of PSD files in lots of albums and rolls, and I want to put them all together in an album.. How I can do this? Using the ".psd" sufix doesn't work either with File Name or Version Name categories... Can anybody please help...?? Thank you

You should have no trouble doing this.
Just create a Smart Album at the root level of your Library (click the Library icon, then create the Smart Album to do this). Click the magnifying glass icon next to the Smart Album's name to open up the Smart Settings HUD for the album and type ".psd" in the search field.
Also important: Turn on the Ignore Stack Groupings checkbox at the bottom of the HUD. The insures that the Smart Album will look INSIDE your stacks and not just at the "picks" when looking for .psd files.
The result should be a Smart Album in which all your PSD files are automatically shown. I just tried it on my system and it worked perfectly.
Joe Schorr
Sr. Product Manager, Aperture
Apple

AVI files - Search results different from Smart Album

I've noticed that when I use the iPhoto Search to filter all movies (.AVI files) that all my clips come up (eg. 700 clips in 2007). However, with a Smart Album I have set up to display the .AVI files, the last several weeks of clips seem to be missing (eg. 630 clips from the 2007 album). I've checked all the Smart Album criteria and they are correct. Is this a glitch in iPhoto or is there some other explanation?

macblueduck
Two possibilities:
1. There's something different in the later files that don't match the criteria of the search
or
2. Spotlight (as it is this that indexes the Library) is not working correctly. Try opening the Spotlight Preference Pane and go to the Privacy section. Drag the Pictures Folder in there, leave it a few moments and then drag it out again. This should force Spotlight to re-index the Folder.
Regards
TD

Whats the difference between and Album and a Smart Album

OK, just upgraded.... So, whats the difference between an Album and a Smart Album?
Also, I like to organise my stuff, so if I create a folder for each year, and then a project within that year, why is it that the photos are always in both - and then again if I chose to create an album specific to a project, they are there again.
So it might look:
          Folder (2012 Equine Photography)
               Project - Specific Events
                    Album - Big Barn Dressage May
Does this mean the individual photo is stored 3 times and using 3 times the space?
Thanks guys!

Mrsthebraggster wrote:
So it might look:
          Folder (2012 Equine Photography)
               Project - Specific Events
                    Album - Big Barn Dressage May
Does this mean the individual photo is stored 3 times and using 3 times the space?
No. Conceptually the Master only lives lives in the single (time based) Project you import it into. Albums are just collections of pointers that point to images in various Projects.
"Big Barn Dressage May" could be a Project, but only if it is only one day and a limited number of image files; otherwise an Album. "2012 Equine Photography" should be an album or a Folder of Albums. "Specific Events" could be an Album or a Folder of Albums.
A Project should not be used as a Folder.
From an earlier post of mine:
Folders are indeed flexible organizational tools but IMO often overused. Folders can effectively hide contents from view and therefore require users to remember how folders are nested and what is inside them. Folders were the only way to deal with single-original film, but are IMO limiting to image database thinking.
The way I look at it conceptually:
Aperture is a database (DB), and each image file lives in one Project.
Albums are just collections of Pointers that point to individual image files living in one or more Projects. Since they just contain pointers, albums can be created or deleted at will without affecting image files. Very powerful. And Albums of pointers take up almost zero space, so they are fast and do not make the Library size grow.
Keywords can be applied to every image separately or in batches. Keywords are hugely powerful and largely obviate the need for folders. Not that we should never use folders, just that we should use folders only when useful organizationally - - after first determining that using keywords and albums is not a better approach.
As one example imagine the keyword "flowers." Every image of a 100,000 images Library that has some flowers in it has the keyword flowers. Then say we want to put flowers in an ad, or as background for a show of some kind, or to print pix for a party, or even just to look for an image for some other reason. We can find every flower image in a 100k-image database in 2 seconds, and in another few seconds create an Album called "Flowers" that points to all of those individual images.
Similarly all family pix can have a keyword "family" and all work pix can have a key word "work." Each individual pic may have any number of keywords. Such pic characteristics (work, family, flowers, etc.) should not be organized via folders.
So by using keywords and albums we can have instant access to every image everywhere, very cool. And keywords and albums essentially take up no space in the database.
Another approach is to use a folder "Family" for family pix, a folder "Flowers" for flowers pix and another folder "Work" for work pix. IMO such folders usage is a very poor approach to using an images database (probably stemming from old paper or film work practices). Note that one cannot put an image with family in a field of flowers at a work picnic in all three folders; but it is instant with keywords.
HTH
-Allen

How to make a smart album of "Today's images?"

So despite my near-constant complaining, I am still using Aperture for one jpg-only project (I won't let it anywhere near my raw files.)
This project gets a few hundred frames daily, and will continue to accumulate indefinitely.
I want to organize it with smart albums by date shot. Mostly, I want to be able to see everything I shot today.
So far the closest I've come is to sort by "Within the last 1 days" - but that includes yesterday too. Any ideas? Am I missing something obvious?

I've also thought about this, but more in terms of
the "Last Import" smart album as in iPhoto, to show
the images that were part of the last import. I know
I can create one to show images from specific
imports, but I don't want to keep modifying the smart
album every time I do an import.
Actually in iPhoto it is called "Last Roll". But anywayz...
I'm looking for exactly the same thing ... The one thing I miss from iPhoto is the "Last Roll" smart album. When I drag in a few dozen images with various file dates, various names, etc. it's real hard to find them again to further organize them, assign ratings, assign keywords, etc. The "Last Roll" feature was great and I could really use something like that again.
Anyone know how to make a "Last Roll" type smart album?
Thanks,

PSE 9 Organiser - Smart albums & album categories

Is it posible to move Smart Albums into an Album Category, as the drag and drop is not working for me. I can creat normal Albums and drag them in to an Album Category but Smart Albums do not appear to allow themselves to be moved from the highest level where they are created?

Smart albums are smart for two reasons. The first one is that with a database system like the Organizer, storing a query takes so much less disk space and avoids cumbersome tables and indexes...
The second one, as I stated, is that the definition of criteria instead the listing of individual files will work even if you add files or delete them. This may be considered an advantage... or a disadvantage if you want to 'freeze' the result of the query. That's why I think the only simple way the software could do this would be to duplicate the result in a normal album (or collection). I do not see any reason it could not be done automatically, but the user would have to be aware of this change in some way. I am convinced that would entail much confusion for many users.

I have uploaded photos from the past and they are grouped by dates. How do I seperate those photos into their own folder/album so that I can easily identify the contents. Also, what is the difference between Album, Smart Album and folders?

I have uploaded photos from the past and they are automatically arranged by date. As a result, there are many events grouped into one library/event/folder/album (not sure of the proper terminology) I'd like to separate them into folders/albums/smart albums so that I can easily identify the contents. How do I do that and do I delete the originals?

It would be good to take the tutorials and learn iPhoto - these are for the previous version but the concepts are the same and much of the command is the same - and it would be a worthwhile investment of time to take the iphoto tutorials - http://www.apple.com/findouthow/photos/ - they are very helpful and will save you a lot of time and frustration. - also the tutorials in iPhoto Help will be helpful - while iPhoto is easy and intuitive it does have a learning curve and it will save you time and pain if you spend a few minutes learning the basics
as to organization - events are generally time based and are the basic automatic organization - you can merge and split them to make them work better for you but they are not a good way to do detailed organization - best to leave them time based
albums are logical things that contain photos and are just pointers to the photo in the event so they take no extra space and all changes to a photo anywhere are reflected everywhere
Smart albums are the same except they are automatically filled based on the criteria you set when you create them
Folders are containers that you create and a folder can contain albums, smart albums or other folders so they are a big help in organization - like a vacation folder that holds folders for France, USA, China with each of thos folders holding albums of photos from the country
LN

Aperture ... Bug .... timezones and smart albums

Hello everyone,
i've just jumped into the mac world a week ago, just bought my first macbook ! Yeah !
I decided to give Aperture a try, and given i've played with it now for 2 days, if this bug I found is really there, NO WAY am I going to pay for such software !
I've been using Picasa on PC for the past couple years now.
Its handling my photo library extremely well: over 50gb of photos, 10 years worth of photos.
So after looking at all the Aperture videos on the apple site, I decided to give it a try to replace my picasa, since there is no picasa for my new mac.
The bug I found (and I'm a newbie !, 2 days of playing, struggling to import my pictures, and bam ... bug .... hummmm).
I tried importing only 1 folder in my library.
I'm french and this summer, went to USA for holiday. Western deserts and all.
So, I took my folder:
2008 08 09 - USA Grand West
And tried importing it.
It contains around 100 photos of the 1st 3 days of the trip.
My camera was set to French time, so at import I appreciated the "Change time thingy" and set it to Los Angeles time.
Did the import in a new project.
Great.
All pictures in the project. Exif Date updated to los angeles time. GREAT !
Now.
I want to have them show up on a day to day basis.
So, I created smart albums giving the date I wanted.
August 9 2008, August 10 2008 and August 11 2008.
It DOES NOT WORK ! BUGGGGGGGG
photos taken on the 3rd day, having correct EXIF date metadata, show 11/08/2008 for the date (correct), however they are not shown in the August 11 2008 album !
They are shown in the August 12 2008 album !
Reason !
The smart album is using the wrond date. The French one.
Since there is 11 hours difference.
Some late August 11 (Los Angeles time) pictures are pushed to August 12 (early morning French time).
Am I the only one with this bug ?
The only fix I found for now that works, is adding 3 rules to the smart albums:
- exif: day of the month = 11
- exif: month of the yar = 08
- exif: year = 2008
That works.
However there is NO WAY, i'm setting up 50gb worth of smart albums having to apply 3 specific rules to compensate for a bugged out calendar rule that does not work.
Any ideas ? fixes ?
Thanks
Regards
Tim

Hum, i'm not sure I understand what is going on, or what you are describing.
you say: "... Aperture is correct in it's assertion the image was taken on 12th"
I dont understand.
When i've done the import, and look at that pictures metadata, the date/time is corrected. It shows up as 15:42 20080811 (youre writting).
So if the metadata is correct, I really dont understand how the computers time and timezone has any effect on the smart albums ... could you explain ?
Unless what you are suggesting, is that the smart album date is applied to the computers time zone, and thus when searching for the files, it automatically does a conversion of the time of the picture to fit the computers timezone => thus my 15:42 20080811 set to Los Angeles time zone, is researched using a French timezone and thus found on 00:42 20080812 ?
Wow, if so, this would be a stretch !
And if this is the answer, I do not understand the "feature" to import using a different time zone, and not be able to search according to it ?
There is effectively no point?
In respect to the workaround you describe. Its effectively what I did, I sorted using 3 criterias: exif day of the month = 11, month of the year = 08, year = 2008. And for some reason that works !
Would there be another workaround? Instead of using the TimeZone panel, import them untouched, and doing a batch Time change on the pictures once imported and leaving them at the same Paris timezone, but compensating for 9 hours, effectively, bringing them to 15:42 Paris time, instead of Los Angeles time ?
If my memory is correct when having played with this, the batch time modification, did not compensate the days: Effectively, clicking 9 times on the down arrow when showing 00:42 12th did not change the 12th into an 11th ...

ITunes\Apple TV 2 Not Updating Aperture 3 Smart Album Photos

Hi,
Even after both updating the Preview photos in the Aperture 3 Smart Album and waiting for several hours, my iTunes photo link to the Apple TV 2 still shows the OLD pictures (and the photo count) from when I first linked the album. The link is off by scores of photos that have since been added.
In attempting to remedy the out-of-date Album link, I have:
closed all programs,
restarted the computer,
linked and unlinked the photo album.
The photos on the Apple TV still show old versions of the pix, since revised. I don't know where these are coming from since they have been updated. They must reside in the ATV's memory. I'd like to flush that out and replace with the new versions!
QUESTIONS:
--> Is there a way to get iTunes to see the updated Smart Album that resides in Aperture 3?
--> Can I force an update of the Smart Album photos to the Apple TV?
Perhaps there is a secret incantation and dance?
Thanks for your help!
Don

I figured it out. The Aperture Smart Folder was actually being updated in iPhoto!
The story...
I recently upgraded to the new commonly shared Aperture \ iPhoto file format and imported all my iPhoto photos into my Aperture library.
Unknown to me, Aperture was saving changes made in Aperture to the old iPhoto file (package) -- with no notice, advisory, or infornation to this effect!
Mind-numbingly confusing, but once I deduced that my Aperture Library was now kinda fronting for some data stored in iPhoto, I could link to the Smart Folder stored there.
I intend to export the whole mess to an entirely new Aperture Library to be entirely (I hope!) in an Aperture environment.
If you lose information in Aperture, try looking in iPhoto!

Smart Album Keyword Bug

I have a library of 17,440 “Referenced” photos, grouped across multiple projects, none of which contain more than about 400 photos. Prior to importing these images into Aperture, I had already keyworded all of them; the keywords are embedded within the image files.
707 of these images have the keyword “Cruise_Ship” (photos of or on a cruise ship). I then created a smart album with a SINGLE filter, “Keyword = Cruise_Ship”. I have no other filters selected, I have no other keywords selected in the keyword filter, and at the top of the keyword filter, I have selected “Include ALL of the following”.
However, instead of the 707 expected images, this smart album actually displays 5336 images. I have verified, via the metadata browser that in fact most of these images DO NOT contain the keyword “Cruise_Ship”.
So, I tried the following (in order). After each step, I once again checked the contents of the smart album, and in each case it displayed 5336 images instead of the correct 770:
Repair Database
Repair Permissions
Rebuild Database
Reboot Computer
Rebuild Database
As one last attempt, in the Keyword HUD, I renamed the keyword “Cruise_Ship” to “CruiseShip” (no underscore). The HUD correctly indicated that that keyword was used in 707 versions. I then in fact changed the keyword in those versions. I then created a NEW smart album, with the only filter being “Keyword = CruiseShip” (again no underscore) and once again the smart album incorrectly displayed 5336 images.
I am using Aperture 3.0.3.
I’m out of ideas...

I can't say I have the same bug. However, I do have one that might be worth checking on.
On my Aperture 3 here the keyword panel padlock works back to front, i.e. if it's displaying an open padlock icon, the keyword panel is actually locked, rather than unlocked as it should be, and vice versa.
This stumped me for a while, as I also kept finding unauthorised changes happening to my keywords. Now I know to operate the padlock opposite to what I expect, it does stop any unauthorised changes.
(yes, I submitted a bug report).
Cheers.

Smart Album "Managed" doesn't behave as expected

Hello,
I have a smart album in my library that I use to track managed files ("file status = managed"). My expectation is to click on this, it shows me the files under library management, I select them all and then Relocate Masters to a folder in the file system.
This works well with one exception. Lets say I have a relocated image and I edit this in the external (PS) editor. When I come back to Aperture, I have 2 files in a single stack - the master which is relocated and the new version which is not.
When I select my Smart Album, I would expect to see the new version that was just created. However, it doesn't appear. If I go back to the 2 images and split them out of the stack then go back to the smart album, the version IS shown.
I clearly don't want to split all my stacks or micro-manage every new version I create. Is this standard behavior? Is there another way for me to achieve this?
Thanks

This might work. Click the magnifying glass to the right of your smart album name. This will bring up the dialog box to set the parameters of the smart album. At the bottom left corner, check the box for "Ignore Stack Groupings". This should allow the smart album to search through all of the stacked photos and not just the images on top of the stacks.

Smart Album/File organization anomaly...

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