Q: Problem moving from iPhoto to Aperture3

I am not sure if I understand you fully

• Your Aperture Library resides on your MBP ans contains some managed, recently imported images.
• Your Aperture Library references many masters that are stored inside an iPhoto Library on an external volume.
• You cannot work with the referenced masters when the external drive is not connected.

Right?

Now you want to move your Aperture Library to that same drive and merge the referenced masters into the Aperture Library.

I do not see the advantage - it may look more tidy, but you still will not be able to work with your library unless the harddrive is connected?

What you want to do, is possible and fairly easy, but it is not recommended.

• Your Aperture library should be located on the fastest drive (for performance reasons), and that usually is your internal disk.

• With your projected setup you will not be able to use your Aperture Library at all, unless the external disk is connected.

If you want to go ahead nevertheless, you need to copy your Aperture Library to your external disk and then

select all referenced images in the browser and from the File Menu select "Consolidate Master". This will move or copy the masters into your Aperture Library.

If you select "copy" your iPhoto LIbrary will stay as it is, the move will corrupt your iPhoto Library - so you better make sure you have backup.

What I really would recommend to do is the following:

• Leave your Aperture LIbrary where it is on your internal disk. So you can work without the external disk connected and have the advantage of speed.
• Consolidate only your most recent projects into your Aperture Library (or those you want to work with right now).
• If you want to get rid of iPhoto for good, then relocate all masters that still reside inside iPhoto to a Folder on your external harddisk, after backing up your iPhoto Library., then remove this Library.

Regards

Léonie

The only problem with going this way is that according to your fist post you aren't sure exactly what you have done. and that is a recipe for disaster.

You wrote

What I think I seem to have done is copied all my iphoto's across to an my external Hard Drive..... which is where my iphoto library now resides.... but and all my subsequent photo's after the move have gone straight into my Aperture Library on my macbook.

You seem to have setup a mixed managed masters (the images on the external disk still in the iPhoto library) and referenced masters (all the images you imported since switching to Aperture) on you internal disk.

Now there is nothing wrong with a mixed setup like that as long as you have set it up consciously and for a purpose, If it just happened because of some problem or mixup it will cause you trouble down the road.

By having the library split like that at a minimum your backup strategy will be more complicated then it needs to be. The masters on the external will not be backed up when you backup your library. If you need to move things again later you will need to track down where what is. And as your library grows in size getting this all worked out will only be more difficult.

You really should take the time now before you get to much further into Aperture to get this straightened out.

good luck

a recipe for disaster.

Hello Frank, that are very clear words, right on the point as always.

From what do you infer the mixed masters? To me "all my subsequent photo's after the move have gone straight into my Aperture Library" seemed to mean managed masters?

Regards

Léonie

I read the OP's post as saying that he imported his iPhoto Library into Aperture and those images are on the external drive but that he is importing new images as stored in the Aperture Library.

This from his first post: (emphasis added)

Therefore I cannot edit 95% of my photos without having the extrenal drive plugged in as it says images are offline, and the others I can as they are in the Aperture Library on my MBP.

As this is the Aperture group I am assuming the it in the above quote is referring to Aperture. So if Aperture is telling him the images are off line then they are referenced on the external drive because the Aperture library is on his MBP.

If I'm wrong about this and he is refering to iPhoto here then I'm really confused and of course if he is saying that part of his images are in iPhoto and part in Aperture and he is going to stay that way then he is still asking for problems down the road.

Either way he has to clear this up and decide how he what's to proceed because leaving it in the current state is  a recipe for disaster

Message was edited by: Frank Caggiano

Thank you for the clarification, Frank.

I am an optimist, and when in doubt, I tend to hope for the best, you seem to suspect the worst, and probably is that by far the wiser way to do it.

Please be our guardian angel at this tricky stage of the operation and chime in again if you spot further trouble.

@ Kevin,

Either way he has to clear this up and decide how he wants to proceed because leaving it in the current state is  a recipe for disaster

To make really sure you know exactly where each of your masters are, here is a three stage plan: Back up your System drive and your iPhoto Library before you proceed.

1. consolidate all of your masters into your Aperture library
2. then relocate all your masters to a dedicated folder on your external drive, back up the folder with your masters
3. Create a small working set of current projects: Now make up which of your projects and their masters you want to work with in the near future (working set), then consolidate these few selected masters inside the Aperture Library.

This should give you with a little extra work the setup I recommended to you, and hopefully take care of Frank's concerns.

How to achieve "1.": That will depend on the amount of disk space available on your main drive. If you can afford to consolidate the Aperture Library right in place where it is now, then do just that, otherwise copy you Aperture library to the external drive, then consolidate the masters there.

Open the Aperture library in its new location, select all  images in the browser and from the File Menu select "Consolidate Master ...". This will move or copy all your masters into your Aperture Library.

How to achieve "2.": select all  images in the browser and from the File Menu select "Relocate master ..." and relocate them to your external disk.

By now you should have exactly the setup you were asking for in your original post.

Now to my suggestions for a setup to be able to work without always having to connect your external disk (3.):

• copy the by now much smaller Aperture library back to your internal disk, if it is on the external disk
• and consolidate the masters of your current working set into the Aperture library

Post back, if there are still questions

Regards

Léonie

o.k. then just try it and follow the steps outlined in my previous post just till  step "1.0":

• move your Aperture Library to your external disk and consolidate all of your masters into the Aperture Library as described above.

Then try if you are happy with a workflow that requires to have the external disk always connected to your MBP.

If you are, then stick to your plan, with  that setup you will always know where your images are. Dont forget to backup your library regularly.

If you find that you want to be able to use Aperture without the external disk, then relocate your masters outside Aperture and move the - now considerably smaller- Aperture Library back to your internal disk, consolidate a small current working set of masters into this libary.

Don't worry, once you have consolidated all  of your the masters inside Aperture, you should be safe - the danger was to have too many different places where data are stored and maybe not to know exactly what is where.

leonieDF wrote:

 

Thank you for the clarification, Frank.

I am an optimist, and when in doubt, I tend to hope for the best, you seem to suspect the worst, and probably is that by far the wiser way to do it.

 

Well either you haven't been troubleshooting system and user problems for long or else you have lead a very blessed life   Oh the stories I could tell you!

Please be our guardian angel at this tricky stage of the operation and chime in again if you spot further trouble.

Guardian Angel only comes with the upgraded support package, but i'll See what I can do.

Anyway until the OP tells us exactly what he has done if the libraries he his talking about are Apertures iPhoto's or a combination it's difficult to decide what to tell him. As he is only responding to you you might ask him if he imported his iPhoto library into Aperture of if he simply moved his iPhoto library to his external disk.

That would be  a start.

Hello Kevin,

are you thoroughly confused by now by our mixed advice and cautions? I am worried by your silence.

Here is one more question for you: Sofar I assumed that you already imported all of your iPhoto Libraries into Aperture as referenced masters, after moving those Libraries to your external disk. Is that correct? Frank Caggiano seems to doubt that.

So will you please tell us exactly what you have done with the iPhoto Libraries sofar? Have you imported the images into Aperture or simply moved the Libraries to your external disk as Frank suspects?

That would be very helpful to know.

Regards

Léonie

Well either you haven't been troubleshooting system and user problems for long or else you have lead a very blessed life   Oh the stories I could tell you!

well I was born on a sunday under a lucky star ...

I have been teaching students in computer science for a long time now, and there would be plenty of stories to share, but detective work from afar, not being able to try out the system myself, that I really have not been doing for a long time. It takes a lot of experience to think of the right questions to ask, and to spot the hidden hints in the answers given. I admire your skills as Sherlock, to notice a small activity indicator in a blurred screenshot or to read between the lines.

So it appears from the OP's last reply that he does have a split setup, the images imported from iPhoto are on the external drive and new imports are going into the library on the MBP.

I would really recommend he gets all the masters at least on one drive and either go with an all managed or all referenced setup.  It will be a lot simplier for him especially at the beginning while he learns Aperture. And backing up will be simpiler also.

regards

I agree