Working with "Offline" images

Question

I'll be installing Aperture 3 in the next few days, and have decided to use a referenced image library since I've already invested significant time organizing my photos on external drives. I have a library of approximately 20,000 images, split more or less equally between digital photos and scanned images (mostly scanned negatives and slides). Since I won't always have access to my external drives, I'd like to make productive use my time when not "connected" to my images. I understand Aperture will allow metadata work on these offline files. A couple of quick questions:
1. My full image library (the 20k I reference above) can be split into 3 distinct groups (essentially separate Aperture Libraries), but I may find the need to use images from across these groups for different projects (photobooks, etc.). Can this be accomplished easily if the images are in different libraries? Do the performance benefits of smaller, separate libraries out weight the benefits of having everything accessible in one Library?
2. I'd love to be able to play with the metadata when I'm on the road (adding keywords, adding dates to scanned images, etc). What metadata is not available for update when the images are offline? More specifically, does Aperture allow one to work on Faces & Places when offline?
3. My Master image file structure is currently date based (Year and Month). If I find that I need to move images from one folder to another (I realize, for example, that a scanned photo was actually shot in 1943, and is in a folder for 1944), what's the best way to move the photo while preserving the link to the metadata file? Does Aperture have features to help organize (move / delete / rename, etc.) referenced Masters?
Thanks.
Max

Answer 1

Hi Max. A few specific answers and a suggestion.
Max Tomassini wrote:
I'll be installing Aperture 3 in the next few days, and have decided to use a referenced image library since I've already invested significant time organizing my photos on external drives.
The "since" is something you should consider. See my comment at the end.
I have a library of approximately 20,000 images, split more or less equally between digital photos and scanned images (mostly scanned negatives and slides).
That is not actually very many. Current hardware and software can handle that easily.
Since I won't always have access to my external drives, I'd like to make productive use my time when not "connected" to my images. I understand Aperture will allow metadata work on these offline files. A couple of quick questions:
1. My full image library (the 20k I reference above) can be split into 3 distinct groups (essentially separate Aperture Libraries), but I may find the need to use images from across these groups for different projects (photobooks, etc.). Can this be accomplished easily if the images are in different libraries?
No. All containers in Aperture hold images +from the Library+ which holds the container. In order to have images in a photobook, they must be in the Library.
Do the performance benefits of smaller, separate libraries out weight the benefits of having everything accessible in one Library?
No, not at the scale of your Library.
2. I'd love to be able to play with the metadata when I'm on the road (adding keywords, adding dates to scanned images, etc). What metadata is not available for update when the images are offline?
None, iirc.
More specifically, does Aperture allow one to work on Faces & Places when offline?
Yes.
3. My Master image file structure is currently date based (Year and Month). If I find that I need to move images from one folder to another (I realize, for example, that a scanned photo was actually shot in 1943, and is in a folder for 1944), what's the best way to move the photo while preserving the link to the metadata file? Does Aperture have features to help organize (move / delete / rename, etc.) referenced Masters?
Yes. You can move, delete, rename Masters easily from within Aperture. In point of fact, every file operation on a Masters should be done from within Aperture. It's a DAMS -- it does not like it when you use other programs to manage the assets you have committed to manage with Aperture.
Masters are moved using the command "File→Relocate Masters".
Thanks.
Here's what you have to think about and plan for. Because useful tools were scarce and under-developed, users were forced to rely on +File Managers+ in order to do +image management+. With Aperture 3, image management has come of age. Using Aperture, you no longer need to use +file management+ to create +image management+ utility.
In fact, I highly recommend that you do not -- and further that you embrace the capabilities Aperture gives you and replace almost all thoughts of file management with plans for image management.
I have several (longish) posts on this subject -- I'd like to think reading them is helpful. The short version is that with Aperture the primary storage and access structure you create (which shows on the Library tab of the Inspector) is for your images. There are very effective, robust tools to customize this to present a degree of utility un-achievable with a +file manager+. The tools are the various containers, the sorting options, and the filtering options. The only "rule" you need to keep in mind is:
• Every Master must be in a Project, and can be in +only one+ Project.
In practice, making Project equal to "shoot" makes observing this rule trivial (and also makes Aperture easy to use).
Aperture has built-in at both the image-level and the Project-level date and time sorting. +There is no reason at all to create an image storage and access structure based on date.+ This is worth emphasizing: you cannot use Aperture and not have a complete, robust, useful date and time storage and retrieval structure for every image and every Project. It's built in. Recreating it with your Library is redundant. Redundancy is wasteful.
The secondary storage and access structure is for your files. With a Library consisting of only Managed Masters, Aperture does this for you -- there is nothing for you to do. With Referenced Masters, you are responsible for the filing structure of your Masters. Think carefully about what you actually need from the file storage structure, given that you are going to develop a fully-customized image storage and retrieval structure within Aperture. My conclusion was that for photographs taken by me, all of my needs were met by putting them together in one folder (with no shots not taken by me) and file them all into sub-folders by Y/M/D. After making a couple of settings, Aperture does this automatically. The other set of images I manage are "shots not taken by me". These go into either a general folder ("Others Shots") or client-specific folders ("JaneDoeInc"). (Note: these last are not shots taken by me for a client, they are shots taken by a client and included in a Library I administer.) Those folders, too, are grouped by sub-folders as Y/M/D. The only reason I have created three distinct folder "trees" is because I need to administer (primarily back-up) each of them differently. Back-up of Referenced Masters is NOT done within Aperture. Your planning of your Referenced Masters file folder structure should be guided by your file administration needs (again, this is primarily about backing up the files you administer). The only file adminstration need I had was to keep separate my shots, some clients shots, and other "not my" shots.
You can -- and likely should -- leave your current Finder folder trees intact. But you should plan on leaving that whole structure behind. *Use Aperture as a DAMS -- not as a fancy file browser.*
Good luck. Ask questions.
Message was edited by: Kirby Krieger