Store Files - Aperture Library or Pictures

Newbie here.
First question asked when importing photos from iPhoto is where to store the images - Aperture Library, Where they Are or in Pictures. I have not been able to find anything from Apple to explain the advantages of these choices.
Looking at the discussions, I get the impression most people use the aperture library.
Does anybody have some pros and cons for these options? Or maybe just some words of widom?
Thanks muchly.

Both referenced and managed solutions have their advantages and disadvantages. If you research managed vs referenced Aperture 3 library you will find a ton of good info. Also, as suggested above, User Manual can be of great help.
However, I would recommend using referenced library. If you have 10 000 or 100 000 thousand photos and would like to at any point switch to other program or also use another editing software in addition to Aperture 3, you may run into issues and lots of work. Having used Aperture for about 8 months, I just reloaded entire Aperture 3 and created brand new setup with referenced library. I created folder structure on the hard drive that is reflected in Aperture's folders and projects. For example, starting with the root folder on the hard drive.
hard drive folders                            Aperture 3 structure
Photos
Travel                                             folder Travel
   American South-West '08                folder American South-West
     Utah                                              folder Utah
      Bryce Canyon                                 project Bryce Canyon
       Arches                                            project Arches
        Canyonlands                                    project Canyonlands
Of course this is only an example. Everybody's work flow will be different, one solution can't fit all here but in either case, I would definitely recommend referenced model.

Similar Messages

My MacBook Pro hard drive is almost full and I wish to store my Aperture Library on an external drive, how do I do this and is the use of USB2 suitable or do I need to use a Firewire external hard drive?

My MacBook Pro hard drive is almost full and I wish to store my Aperture Library on an external drive, how do I do this and is the use of USB2 suitable or do I need to use a Firewire external hard drive?

You'll get better performance if you use a Firewire hard drive (especially if you buy a 7200 RPM drive). Firewire's IO speed is significantly faster than USB 2. USB 2 has a theoretical max speed of 480 Mbps except that it has extremely high over-head. The fastest speeds you can typically get are about 300 Mbps. Firewire, on the other hand, has very little overhead. The fastest speeds you can get are very nearly 800 Mbps. You will typically be constrained by the maximum read/write speed of the drive, not the speed of the I/O on the Firewire bus. Now if you had one of those nice shiny new Macs with the Thunderbolt I/O and a Thunderbolt drive (Light Peak) ... I think they alter space and time so that your data arrives before you know you want it.
Also... unless you want to buy a solid state drive (very expensive), try to keep your hard drives from becoming much more than about 60% full if you want great performance. A nearly "full" hard drive is, on average, only about half as fast as the same hard drive when nearly empty.
USB 2 will work perfectly fine... just not as fast.
Also... it's much safer to move the entire Aperture library than to "relocate masters". Your images must be managed. You can Aperture manage them, or you can manage them. But someone has to manage them. If you "relocate" them so that they are no longer stored inside the Aperture library then you'll need to work out a system of how you decide to organize things and it's critically important that you don't start moving files around or deleting things without Aperture's knowledge. If you do, you'll break the links to your masters and start having problems with missing masters. If you have Aperture manage the library then you don't need to worry about any of that stuff.... it's safer.
Do make backups (use the Aperture Vault or use some other backup program, but make sure you back up your work if you care about it.) There are only two kinds of hard drives in the world: (1) those that have failed and (2) those that are going to fail. There are no exceptions to this rule. Hard drives are cheap. Backup software is built into Aperture and into your Mac.

Can I store my Aperture library on an external Hard Disk?

I have a MacBook Pro with very few free space on its internal hard drive. My Aperture library is getting very heavy and i would like to move my Aperture library to an external HD. I know that you can keep files where they are and see them in your aperture library, but the thing i'm trying to do is to STORE AND OPEN MY APERTURE LIBRARY (.APLIBRARY FILE) FROM AN EXTERNAL HARD DISK. Is this possible?

It is possible to put the Aperture library on an external HD as long as the HD is formatted correctly see: Format external drives to Mac OS Extended before using with Aperture
However keep in mind that depending on the HD type and the way it is connected to your Mac performance may be an issue. For the best possible outcome the external drive should have a large cache, high RPM and be connected via firewire.
The other option to explore is to put the masters on an external drive and keep the library on the internal. This will give you relatively good performance using a standard USB drive.

How do I create a new Aperture library from pictures I moved from IMAC?

I moved my Photos to External Hard drive from MAC . Can I create new aperture library in EHD?

As I wrote as long as both programs are latest versions they share the same library structure and can open each others libraries.
Open Aperture and then select File->Switch to Library. If the iPhoto library shows up in the list select it. If it does not select Other/New… If the iphoto library shows up in this list select it if not select Other Library and find, select and open the iPhoto library.
At this point there are a few things you can do depending on your situation. You can just leave the library as is if you do most of your work in iPhoto. Or you can turn the this library into an Aperture library.
To make it an Aperture library open Aperture and create a new empty library as you did before. Now go to File->Import->Library and select the iPhoto library. The iPhoto library will be imported and converted to an Aperture library.
While all of thsi is safe you the iPhoto library it is alwasy a good idea to have a bakup of the library before starting just in case.
regards

Using Reference Files - Aperture Library still larger than file storage

Still new to Aperture, and so far LOVE the metadata tagging functionality, but am troubled by the huge size of the Aperture library. Here's my stats so far, after a couple of days of importing, with no image management done so far other than assigning some metadata...
# photos managed as reference files=1175
Size of folder where reference files are stored=883MB
Size of Aperture library (.aplibrary)=1.44GB
My expectation would be that the ratio of Aperture library to reference file folder would be about 1/10. But 1.6/1 seems way out of whack. I selected all photos within Aperture and then selected "Manage Reference Files..." and all 1175 file references showed up. On that basis, I'm pretty confident that the jpegs aren't being copied into the Aperture library. But I cannot explain why the library continues to be 1.5+ times as large as the reference file folder.
This seems to defeat the purpose of keeping reference files external from Aperture.
Am I missing something, or is this to be expected? If these ratios hold, then it seems if I end up managing 10GB of photos I will incur another 15-16GB of storage requirement just for Aperture to do its thing.
What is Aperture doing with all that hard drive storage space?

By default, Aperture creates previews of all of your images. A preview is little more than a JPEG copy of the original. The size of these are determined by the settings in Aperture's preferences. When you're dealing with RAW images, the size of the previews are significantly smaller than the master image, but if you're working with JPEGs, then the previews can balloon the library to as large (large when you add up the thumbnails and duplicates) as the referenced files.
You can reduce the size of the previews, or delete them and turn them off all together if you're not sharing your photos with other iLife & iWork apps from Aperture. There are some other reasons you may find them beneficial, and this article will help you determine if they are right for you:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304499

Transfering aperture library via vault to new comp

I apologize in advance if my question already have been answered in another thread. But I couldn't find any threads matching my problems.
I recently bought the new iMac after my old 24" could not handle the pressure anymore. I wanted to move my aperture library from the old to the new. And ofcourse I wanted all info (adjustment changes and so on) to come with in the move. After reading a few threads on the subject I created a "Vault" that I later opened up in the new comp. At a fist glance everything looks great in aperture but when opening up a picture to make adjustments it says "image offline".
On my old comp I can see (where my pics are stored) two aperture files:
Aperture Library
Aperture Library_original
…so far so good.
But then that are tons (well, many) folders named like my projects in aperture. And not folders within the aperture library file but stand alone…if that makes any sense.
What am I doing wrong? I get all the pics over to my new comp with the help of Vault but can't edit any of my pics from a few months back (when for some reason aperture started to create folders outside the library file)
On my new iMac i have 2 files
Aperture Library
Aperture Library_old
...so no folders got transfered
/Jonatan, sweden

It looks like your Aperture library were a referenced library. When you imported your image files you did not import the originals into the Aperture library, but stored them in folders outside the library. That are folders named like your projects that you are seeing. When Aperture needs to access the originals to render edited versions, it will reference the image files in those folders, see this section in the Aperture 3 User Manual: Aperture 3 User Manual: Working with Referenced Images
When you create a vault, Aperture will only include images that you imported into the library, not the originals you stored outside. You need to copy the folders with projects as well to your new mac and reconnect them to the image versions, otherwise you will not be able to edit your images.
But it looks like you did create these folders outside accidentally and did not intend to use referenced original files. If that is so, I'd suggest to repair this, by consolidating your library.
Select the "Photos" view in the source list of your Aperture Library and select all your images at once.
Then use the command "File > Consolidate Originals" from the main menu bar. This will move (or copy) all referenced images from the folders outside into your Aperture library.
When you now create a vault, it will contain all images. Use this new vault to recreate your Aperture library on your new mac. You can also simply copy your Aperture library itself to your new mac. You do not need the detour using a vault.
BTW: Where Aperture will store the originals image files depends on the settings in the "Import" panel. Make sure the "Store Files" option is set to "In the Aperture Library".
Regards
Léonie

My Aperture Library does not want to open.

Hi Guys,
I am trying to Reference my Aperture Library, so that I keep all my RAW (original) files on my external hard drive, and only work on the Version files in Aperture. I am having a BIG problem with it. My Aperture library does not want to open now at all....
Can someoen please guide me through this, step by step??

Hi Frank,
Well, I just switched back to how it was now, so everything works as normal.
I can tell what I want to do, though.
I am currently working on the Aperture Library IN APERTURE, so when I import HUGE RAW files (1000x at a time), it will tell me very quickly that there is not enough space. So what I would like to do is:
I would like my library to look like this:
I want to import EVERYTHING and KEEP THEM THERE for ever.....
Because at the moment, I work on my RAW files, I export them as:
-RAW
-With watermark
-Without watermark
onto my HardDive in folders.
Then I delete them off my library IN Aperture, because I need to, there is not enough space.
So when someone contacts me and they want 10 images of eg.Street food of Phuket, that are HIGH resulotion, or made b/w or whatever, then I have to re-import a RAW to re-edit it to what the client wants.
Do you understand were I am going with this??
So now, I woud like to know, HOW to put my Aperture Library on my harddrive, and keep all files IN APERTURE so I can work on them whenever I need to, and of course export them as I want, but still keep them in Aperture.
But I am having problems with this whole referenced thing and in moving my library to my HD. I have tried dragging my Aperture Library (in Pictures) to my HD, it copies, and then when I hold down the OPTION key and open Aperture, I go to Other Library:
and choose my Aperture Library on my HD which I have copied from PICTURES:
Then I get this.....
And this is where I STOPPED..........
I really appreciate you helping me Frank, thank you so much!!!!!!
Lourika

Aperture library on external drive for multiple computers

I would like to store my aperture library and all masters on an external hardrive (with a backup). Ideally I'll be able to only transport this external drive to work to edit photos and return home to my personal computer and continue where I left off. I've tried something similar but ran into problems with lost adjustments, etc and am wondering what the simplest method is that others have discovered.
Cheers

All the editing work is stored in the *****.aplibrary file.
THe most obvious way will be to keep it on the external drive. If you experience it is to slow with USB you could probably have a better performance with FW800. Probably not so much with FW400.
I have no experience with ***-aplibrary on external drive. Probably ist it to slowdown the editing.
The best way to edit on 2 different macs will need in my opinion some extra preparation.
Set both Aperture in exactly the same way pointing to referenced files on the external drive.
Keep the *****.aplibrary file on the HD of the mac you are using and at the end of your work copy it somewhere (may be on the same external HD where you keep the referenced masters). Before starting to work on the second mac copy this ****.aplibrary on it. You will need to do the same reversed to go back to the other mac.
This will probably give you the fastest editing but you will need time to copy the *****.aplibrary files, may be a lot of time. Even if you use a program like Tri-Backup to do the copy you will se that even if the *****-aplibrary has few changes it takes a lot of time to overwrite the older copy.
Keep projects and libraryes as small as possible, or you will waste more time coping it compared to the more speed in editing.
This is only my opinion, and I am not 100% sure of it. I'm giving it to you only as a suggestion you could try and see if it works for you.
Regards
Walter

Aperture library and photos folder

Hi.
I have a file '' aperture library'' that is 40gb on my mac's hdd and a folder named my photos on an external hdd that is 80 gb.
Is it possible to move them all to one place to organise them better without losing my photos.
I have already organized with projects and i need to free space on my mac .
thank you

I have a file '' aperture library'' that is 40gb on my mac's hdd and a folder named my photos on an external hdd that is 80 gb.
Are your Aperture library and the folder "My Photos" on your external HD related in some way? Does this folder contain referenced originals, or are this photos that are not in your Aperture library?
You can simply drag your aperture library to an external drive, when you want it somewhere else. And if your folder "Photos" has nothing to do with Aperture, you can drag it in the Finder somewhere else as well. But id the folder "Photos" contains original image files that Aperture references, you need to use Aperture's "Relocate original" command to move the image files to a different place.
Regards
Léonie

How do I move my Aperture Library to Synology NAS

I am trying to set up a Synology DS1512+ and want to store my Aperture library on it. I'd appreciate any tips on how to best move the library from my iMac internal drive to the NAS device. The main reason I purchased the DS1512+ was to store my library on a device which I could expand as needed and which provided some data redundancy in case a drive fails.

Aperture will not open the library on a drive that is not formatted MacOS X Extended (Journaled), at least the newest Aperture versions are checking the formatting of the drive.
In addition to that - Apple advises against using network volumes, see: Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library,
There is a risk of transmission errors and database corruption.
Also, the access to a NAS will be a lot slower than on a directly connected drive. Aperture will be less responsive. It is preferable, to have the Aperture library on the fastest drive you have.
See this long thread in the "More Like this" to the right: Re: Nas (Synology DS413j) and Aperture
If you want your NAS primarily for backup, create a writable disk image on the NAS with the correct formatting, and store the library on that disk image.

Change Imported Files from Store in Current Location to Aperture Library

Aperture Newbie
I have chosen to import my files by using the Store Files: drop down selection "In the Aperture Library". That is what I prefer.
However, I accidentally imported a large selection fo files and chose the Pictures folder instead of the In the Aperture Library selection. Is there a way to change it without removing the pictures and re-importing. I've done a lot of edits on the pictures in this project and would rather not start over.

He's the Lion's meow (or is that roar?).

I just bought aperture and downloaded it from app store. when I try to open the app I get a warning message that says: There was an error opening the database for the library "~/Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary". The only option the is to quit. What is

I just bought aperture and downloaded it from app store. when I try to open the app I get a warning message that says: There was an error opening the database for the library “~/Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary”. The only option the is to quit. What is wrong?

Hi,
not sure what the problem might be, but you can try the following:
While pressing ALT+CMD on the keyboard, click on the Aperture icon in the dock: Aperture then opens in a special "recovery mode", and you're prompted to choose what kind of repair you need: Repair Permissions / Repair Database / Rebuild Database
Considering the situation, I'd recommend you to try "the "Repair Permissions" option first.
If that isn't enough (and it may well be the case), then go straight for the "Rebuild Database" option; it's a non-destructive opration anyway, but since you've just installed Aperture you shouldn't have anything valuable in the default library...
NOTE: if you do have some pictures in the library, instead, do a backup first! Time Machine is your friend
Another option would be to launch Aperture while keeping only the ALT (option) key pressed: Aperture will ask you what library you want to open, or you can choose to create a new one from scratch.
Good luck!
Corrado

Should I store my cr2 files in the aperture library?

I have noticed aperture slowing, pausing and even crashing recently. I was wondering if storing too many cr2 files in the aperture library might cause this. At this time I have a little over 6000 cr2 files in the aperture library.

Generally, no. And generally, size alone is not a problem.
I regularly run Libraries with 30,000 24 MPxl Images, both from the system drive or from external drives, and have no problems.
I built up a Library of 1 MB JPG Images to 300,000 Images in order to test Aperture and did not encounter any problems except with Faces.
Although I haven't tested it directly, my sense is that Aperture performs better with large Libraries when the Images' Masters are Referenced and located on a separate drive from the Library. Put the Library on your highest-performing drive (almost always the system drive); put your Referenced Masters on a fast drive.
The first things to check if Aperture begins to behave poorly are (off the top of my head):
- drive space (Aperture needs a lot of free space on your system drive
- other programs (Aperture is hardware intensive; a poorly written utility can slow the OS a little -- but that little can hobble Aperture on that machine)
- Library corruption (Force-quitting can do this -- run "Repair")
- File fragmentation (OS X does a good job preventing this, but I still recommend defragmenting large Libraries once a month. Copying to a second drive, and then copying the copy back, defragments files.)
- Also, make sure your copy of Aperture is up-to-date.

Aperture library file size ?

Hello,
I have all my pictures on a specific drive. I don't want aperture to import the files into this aperture library, i only want the files to be referenced. So when i import the pictures from the drive, i select "Store in Current Location". And it seems to be ok (meaning when i click on a file and say show in finder, it shows the drive in question), only my aperture library (even when i import files as referenced) ... increases it's size drastically, no matter whether the files are stored in the library itself or if they are only referenced ... how come? I want to avoid a 100GB aperture library file!!
Can someone explain to me how this works?
regards,
k
(i just bought aperture 3)
Message was edited by: whateveraliasidontcare

K,
Aperture stores many little JPG files for every photo that is in your library (whether referenced or managed). There are thumbnails and previews for every photo unless you run out of space or turn off previews.
Your library should not increase by the *same size* if you store a photo *by reference* as if you store managed. For a managed photo, Aperture will have your original (master) plus the thumbnails and previews. The referenced will have only thumbnails and previews. You can browse your Aperture library by right-clicking and viewing the package contents. You can then look (*but don't ever touch!!!*) at what exactly Aperture is managing. You will see pictures with the same and/or similar names are your original, but you will see they are different sizes. If you see your original, then something is out of whack.
I hope your "100GB" library was just an example. If you store by reference, you would need a LOT of photos to make the thumbnails and previews take 100 GB.
nathan

Iphoto and aperture library file folder problem

Hi all,
I have a problem.
I want to have aperture and iphoto folders organized as itunes files fiolder. is possible?
I see in my aperure library that master folder (I have selected the option copy files in library) there are many and many date folder (many of them are empty) and I don't like this method of organization.
if I don't check the option to copy files and keep my database with only thumb, I have the problem that if I modify or delete a photo the original remain untouched.
please there are solutions?
davide

"(where?)"
Where you specify. Please see section 6 on this page (the User Manual is slightly out-of-date -- substitute "Original" for "Master"):
Choose a location for the imported files by doing one of the following:
To store imported masters in the Aperture library: Choose “In the Aperture Library” from the Store Files pop-up menu.
To store imported masters as referenced image files, audio files, or video files in their current location: Choose “In their current location” from the Store Files pop-up menu.
To store imported masters as referenced image files, audio files, or video files in the Pictures folder on your hard disk: Choose Pictures from the Store Files pop-up menu, and then choose whether you want the files moved or copied to the Pictures folder by clicking the “Move files” or “Copy files” button.
To store imported masters as referenced image files, audio files, or video files in a location other than the Pictures folder: Choose “Choose” from the Store Files pop-up menu and select a folder. In the dialog that appears, choose a location to store the imported masters, then click Open. Choose Project Name from the Subfolders pop-up menu to specify that the files be stored in a folder with the same name as the project. Choose whether you want the image files moved or copied to the new location by clicking the “Move files” or “Copy files” button.
" (are you sure? I don't find this option)"
I'm pretty sure. From
Deleting Images from the Browser
If you delete the last version in a version stack, Aperture asks whether you want to delete the master. If you confirm that you want to delete the master, the master is moved to the Aperture Trash.
When an image is represented in the Browser by a single version, you can select the version and delete it, and the corresponding master is deleted as well.
When you empty the Aperture Trash you should get a dialog box similar to this one. Note the field with the check box:
(Screenshot)

Store Files - Aperture Library or Pictures

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