Clarification on how the Aperture 2 Trial works -- and why

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Level 1

115 points

Clarification on how the Aperture 2 Trial works -- and why

As some of you have discovered, we have set up the Aperture 2 Trial so that it can NOT automatically upgrade an existing Aperture 1.5 Library to v2 until you actually authorize it as a licensed copy.

This was done intentionally to protect customers from inadvertently upgrading a library they subsequently would not be able to open. Since Aperture 1.5.6 can't read a v2 library, we didn't want anyone to unthinkingly upgrade their existing Library using the trial, only to discover 30 days from now, that unless they actually buy Aperture 2, they can no longer access it.

The Aperture 2 Trial is intended to take the app on a test drive. You can import new images into it and even import whole projects that you created in Aperture 1.5. It is fully functional and can support a library of any size you choose to create. But to actually upgrade you existing Library -- a one-way "no turning back" process -- you need to license it.

This way, you're not converting your library into the up-to-date format until you know you'll be sticking with Aperture 2 and it is completely safe to do so.

We've modified the text on the Trial download page to make this clearer. Hope this helps!

Joe Schorr
Sr. Product Manager, Photo Applications
Apple

Posted on Feb 12, 2008 1:06 PM

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Answer 1

Ansuz82

Level 6

8,285 points

Feb 12, 2008 1:08 PM in response to Joe Schorr

Great to have the clarification. Any word on when we'll get our keys?

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Answer 2

Feb 12, 2008 1:12 PM in response to Joe Schorr

The clarification is very welcome. I have been struggling on this for a while. You say that you can import projects from 1.5 How is that done? Do you need to export them first from 1.5?

This is all as clear as mud...

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Answer 3

Ansuz82

Level 6

8,285 points

Feb 12, 2008 1:13 PM in response to prbarnard

To get it into the TRAIL - do this:

1) Open 1.5.X
2) Drag and drop the project to the desktop
3) Open 2.0
4) Drag and drop the project into the Project Tab
5) Convert.
5) Rinse and repeat.

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Answer 4

Feb 12, 2008 1:21 PM in response to Ansuz82

Thanks. That does the trick. Its a shame I had elected to use Apples own managed library. If I had used referenced files it wouldn't have been a problem.

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Answer 5

Feb 12, 2008 1:36 PM in response to Joe Schorr

This is an excellent policy and I strongly support the reasoning behind it. However, I've run into one bug with cycling between the two libraries - if I run Aperture 1 after running v2 it will tell me that it can't open "Aperture Trial Library"; if I run Aperture 2 after running v1 it will try to get me to recreate the trial library. Selecting the library and using "Open With" works but is clunky.

The second issue is that most of the things I want to be better in v2 involve scalability. Aperture 1 was great until you had more than a few images, made more than a few adjustments, etc. and this is hard to test with only a small library. It would be very nice if the trial had a command to import the existing library into the trial - I have tons of disk space and would much prefer a representative trial.

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Answer 6

Feb 12, 2008 1:36 PM in response to Ansuz82

If I do that, do I get to keep all of my edits?

Or, am I starting over with just my raw files?

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Answer 7

Ansuz82

Level 6

8,285 points

Feb 12, 2008 1:38 PM in response to Mark Stockwell

Everything transfers - including edits.

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Answer 8

Feb 12, 2008 1:43 PM in response to Chris Adams3

To parrot Chris: Aperture with 100 images is completely different bird than Aperture with 10,000 images. For me, I can't really testdrive it without my current library. That way I could compare apples to apples (no pun intended).

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Answer 9

Feb 12, 2008 3:54 PM in response to Perry Kibler

It's pretty easy to export all your projects, and then import them into Aperture 2.0. Should take less than an hour for 10,000 photos.

That's what you're going to have to do.

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Answer 10

Feb 12, 2008 3:54 PM in response to Ansuz82

I tried this but didn't get any of my RAW files...only jpegs. Any idea why?

Thanks.

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Answer 11

dotnet

Level 1

120 points

Feb 12, 2008 4:03 PM in response to prbarnard

prbarnard wrote:
Its a shame I had elected to use Apples own managed library. If I had used referenced files it wouldn't have been a problem.

Why not? The only difference between a managed and a referenced library is the location of the masters. Those are identical for v1.5 and v2.0 libraries, by definition. It's all the other stuff contained in the library (regardless of whether referenced or managed) that needs to be upgraded on import from 1.5 to 2.0.

Cheers
Steffen.

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Answer 12

Zandr

Level 1

25 points

Feb 12, 2008 5:14 PM in response to dotnet

Referenced vs. Managed does matter, since running with managed masters means you need to duplicate all the files in your library to try out Aperture 2.0 in a "loaded" environment.

Joe, I see what you were trying to do, but I don't think you thought it through. As my library is around 1TB of managed files, this is going to take a lot of time and a lot of disk to get to the point where I can evaluate anything.

Can I restore from a 1.5.6 Vault?

My cynical side says that you decided this would just cause us to upgrade anyway, since the time involved is worth more that $100 to most of us. I hope I'm wrong there.

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Answer 13

Feb 12, 2008 5:35 PM in response to Zandr

While I'm not nearly at 1TB of photos, I would agree with Zandr, it's just easier to pay for the upgrade. However, I'm still a little sore at paying for v.1, which was a pretty flakey beta; so I think I'll wait on v.2 until there's a trial I don't have to mess with that much. Or I'll wait until it gets a lot of reviews where real people (not Apple's marketing team or fanboys) are saying it's a huge speed increase. Or I'll just skip a version.

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Answer 14

kiwifiz

Level 1

8 points

Feb 13, 2008 12:59 AM in response to Joe Schorr

Is this why my trial version of aperture 2 has expired already???

I did have a look at trial of Aperture 1.5 last year, but stuck to a much faster lightroom on my 1.67 powerbook. I now can't make a valid comparison because my trial expired after my first opening!!

Not very helpful for convincing me to shift to Aperture 2.....

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Answer 15

Feb 13, 2008 1:02 AM in response to kiwifiz

call your local apple support number

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