Moving referenced photo structure to new drive

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Level 2

487 points

Moving referenced photo structure to new drive

Hello,

For my normal photography I use managed photo libraries. I also have an Aperture library for my Time-lapse photography, that library is referenced.
I have structure the referenced files such that they are first in a folder with the date (e.g. yymmdd) and then in a folder numbering the xth timelapse of the day and the subject (e.g. 1_Ice, 2_Clouds).
And each time-lapse has its own project in Aperture.

Now my hard drive is becoming to small and I want to move the entire Library (both the library file and the referenced files) to an other hard drive. while maintaining the same folder structure.

How can I easily do this?
I'd prefer not to simply move the files to the other hard drive and then reconnect each project individually, since I have 100+ projects.

If there is an easy way to do this, please tell me.

Mac Pro 2009+PowerBook G4, Nikon D80, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Oct 13, 2009 8:54 AM

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Answer 1

153957 Author

Level 2

487 points

Oct 14, 2009 12:56 AM in response to 153957

Any Advice? please, this is quite urgent.

Ah nevermind. I think Aperture is smart enough with the 'Manage referenced files' -> Reconnect All to look through other folders to fix all projects at once.

Message was edited by: 153957

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Answer 2

Ian Wood

Level 5

4,350 points

Oct 14, 2009 3:16 AM in response to 153957

There's no need to do it Project-by-Project, just go to the 'All Images' Smart Album and do it from there.

Ian

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Answer 3

153957 Author

Level 2

487 points

Oct 14, 2009 4:54 AM in response to Ian Wood

Yes, well I feared that since the images that I want to reconnect are not in the same folder Aperture would not be able to find them.

Apparently it is smart enough to approach it in such a way that it sees the new path for an image from one project and then sees if the same path modification works for the other images, from other projects.

One tiny problem however is that I renamed (through the Finder) some of the referenced folders once during another reorganization, while Aperture was open.
It seems that Aperture was smart enough to follow catch the path change and correct it for most referenced photo, but it didnt do so for some photos, so those have a different folder name in their path.

So here is an example of what I have going on now:

Old file paths that need to be converted to new hard drive:
correct paths:
Holocron/Aperture TimeLapse/TimeLapse D80/080301/1_Clouds/
Holocron/Aperture TimeLapse/TimeLapse D80/080412/2_Ice/

some of the wrong paths remained (from before the folder renaming):
Holocron/Aperture TimeLapse/TimeLapse D80/012_080301/
Holocron/Aperture TimeLapse/TimeLapse D80/016_080412/

Now after having moved my files to a new hard disc (named 'Hyperdrive')
Aperture correctly finds the first two paths if I point one of them in the right direction:
Hyperdrive/TimeLapse D80/080301/1_Clouds/
Hyperdrive/TimeLapse D80/080412/2_Ice/

But the wrong paths wont work because Aperture would fix the first one (for all photos with the same problem in that project) correctly.
Holocron/Aperture TimeLapse/TimeLapse D80/016_080412/ > Hyperdrive/TimeLapse D80/080412/2_Ice/
but because the folder names have changed so much, it is unable to find photos from other projects with the wrong paths names automatically.

So a lot of manual work remains.

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