Flickr, Facebook and Aperture 3.1

This isn't a feature IT'S BUGGY SOFTWARE.

The Aperture Product Manager, programmer and QA should be ashamed this product was released:

I have three Aperture libraries, 15-20,000 pictures in each. I used Aperture to upload maybe 20 pictures from each library to my Flickr account (same with Facebook)

I have a Pro Flickr account with 3,000+ pictures in dozens of sets and collections.

I install Aperture 3.1 and it decides to download all 3,000 pictures to my current library! I didn't ask it to do that. It just does it. If I try to delete those new albums Aperture will delete the file on Flickr! All the view counts, Flickr IDs (I have websites pointing to my pictures on Flickr) and notes that Aperture doesn't even use would be gone. That whole "feature" is poorly documented and not thought out.

What are they thinking?

I quit Aperture after a few dozen pictures had "synced" and figured change my Yahoo/Flickr password and I wont have to worry about Aperture doing anything stupid. Except that even after a password change, Flickr had pre-approved the connection to my Aperture application and it resumed! Once you have given Aperture access to your pictures there is no way to revoke it.

I had to go into Keychain and delete the Aperture Flickr password used for syncing

- Why would the Aperture people think I want to download (sync) all my Flickr and Facebook files into whatever library I happen to be in?

- I noticed that even if I had a Flickr File ID in the metadata field, Aperture downloaded another version... Listen dummies: my Aperture masters are RAW, if I wanted to keep a bunch of Flickr (or Facebook) jpegs around on my computer I would have kept a version!

- Why can't I select which pictures I want to sync and to what folders? [Mr Devlin, before you answer, I do use a 3rd party plug in to upload pictures to Flickr and it does record the Flickr ID, but just because I gave Aperture the ability to sync one set with 20 pictures of my kids, I did not give it permission to download everything.]

I suspect many of you Aperture people with lots of replies were also Beta testers.. Didn't anybody catch this FU?

Please... we need a point release fast!

Not related, but even after all this problem, iTunes still sync with a Smart Album.

Unless you did something wrong, it didn't download any files from Flickr to your library. You can verify that by trying to do any adjustments to files on Flickr that weren't put there by the Aperture Flickr Sync. It won't let you, because the files are remote (stored on Flickr).

What it's done is add all your sets to a new Flickr category on your sidebar, and this allows you to use the Flickr sync to upload to pre-existing sets (which you couldn't do before). I believe you can tell Aperture to download photos, if for some reason they're not in your library already, but I'm not entirely certain on that just yet. Didn't have much time to play around with it last night.

Also, you can revoke Aperture's access. You have to go to your account settings on Flickr, and go through the applications you've authorized, and remove Aperture from that list (and any other apps you don't use anymore, or just don't want having access).

digitalFlack wrote:
I have three Aperture libraries, 15-20,000 pictures in each. I used Aperture to upload maybe 20 pictures from each library to my Flickr account (same with Facebook)

I have a Pro Flickr account with 3,000+ pictures in dozens of sets and collections.

I install Aperture 3.1 and it decides to download all 3,000 pictures to my current library! I didn't ask it to do that. It just does it. If I try to delete those new albums Aperture will delete the file on Flickr! All the view counts, Flickr IDs (I have websites pointing to my pictures on Flickr) and notes that Aperture doesn't even use would be gone. That whole "feature" is poorly documented and not thought out.

DarkHorse777 was actually correct in that Aperture did not download the images, just previews. Also, Aperture doesn't create any previews until you actually click on the Flickr album shown in your sidebar. The big thing here is that you don't want to delete the Flickr album as that would delete the images on Flickr as well. When you click on the Flickr album the account becomes synced. To disable this, go to the File menu and hover the cursor over Web Accounts. Then you will have the option to disable the sync with Flickr. If you do attempt to command+delete the album, you will be given the option to download the images off Flickr first into Aperture.

After that you won't see all those Flickr albums in the sidebar and the account will no longer be synced. The images that came down from Flickr after you disabled the sync will be moved to the Aperture trash. You can actually drag the images out of the Trash as once you unsync the account, Aperture downloads a full size image at that time. So you'll want to empty the Aperture trash and then empty your System trash to eliminate the images from your machine.

It must have downloaded something. Even with my network disconnected the previews are still there. If I tell the search HUD to show managed files it shows the "synced" files taking up space. You are correct, it says the actual file is remote but that if I delete the local version the one on Flickr will be deleted.

- I did not ask Aperture to manage my Flickr account this way
- I do not want or need 3,000 extra previews in this Library (especially for pictures I have RAW images of already), will it duplicate the Flickr previews again if I open another library with twenty synced pictures? I'm not going to try
- Aperture should let me disconnect, I shouldn't have to do it at Flickr or in the keychain, and good luck trying to figure out how on Facebook. Also if I do it at Flickr my import plug-in might not work.

I really have a hard time imagining who thinks users want 3,000 or 5,000 preview images brought down from Flickr or Facebook if the software is not even going to remember the filename or caption, or at least be matched up to the master using the Flickr ID.

I understand Apple's paternalism for iPhoto users (I don't like it, but I understand they shoot to serve the lowest common denominator), but "Professional" programs should not remotely delete a picture that could be linked to Getty or Wikipedia just because the user didn't want some useless and duplicative previews wasting space in the library.

Apple has $60B in the bank. They should buy an Aperture plug-in company that has a clue on how professionals and serious amateurs want to use the photo management software.

When Microsoft didn't have a media management program they bought iView Media [of course the ruined it in the process]

digitalFlack wrote:
- I did not ask Aperture to manage my Flickr account this way
- I do not want or need 3,000 extra previews in this Library (especially for pictures I have RAW images of already), will it duplicate the Flickr previews again if I open another library with twenty synced pictures? I'm not going to try
- Aperture should let me disconnect, I shouldn't have to do it at Flickr or in the keychain, and good luck trying to figure out how on Facebook. Also if I do it at Flickr my import plug-in might not work.

In Aperture go to:

File>Web Accounts>Disable All Accounts

That should do the trick.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I still haven't reconnected Aperture since deleting the keychain entry. I will delete the previews with the network disconnected since using Aperture remote as a Flickr file management system doesn't seem intuitive.

Why do I have to have either all pictures or none?

AP 3.0 let me just synchronize a handful. I used it for convenience and a plug-in for serious uploads without duplicating masters or versions.

Presumably users already have their pictures in the Aperture Library, how does having another disconnected preview help?

Like many users, I live in Aperture everyday, these oversights are just annoying. Apple could have used the programmers time to add feature and let the 3rd parties worry about syncing and uploading files.

I also think this is a bug. As others, I started using Flickr years before Aperture 3, and used Aperture 3 in the past few months to upload photos from Aperture to Flickr. Therefore I had thousands of photos on Flickr that I have uploaded in the past with Flickr Uploadr. After installing 3.1 all those photos (or their previews) started to appear in Aperture. (In fact, they are still downloading as I am typing this, and this has been going on for hours now)

Since those photos are not connected to projects in AP3, I have no use of them. I don't want them to be there. But I want to keep the sets that I have uploaded from AP3, and which are therefore linked to projects. I want to keep managing those from AP3. But I don't want to see all those old sets.

I - like many other Aperture+Flickr users - also want to be able to prohibit AP3 deleting anything from Flickr. I am just not comfortable with the idea that anything can delete photos from Flickr. That way you loose data (comments, view stats) that are not even stored in AP3, therefore not backed up anywhere. Yet, I find it comfortable that I can update photos from AP3, and therefore I don't want to completely turn off my Flickr account in AP3.

Tough choices. But this part of AP3 is far from being perfect.

Did you tried to delete the web account from preference

Preference-web-accounts and delete your flickr account from there

I have long been using Flickr as a backup site, starting with iPhoto via FlickrExport. When I switched to Aperture 3 I started using the same method, but later realized the advantages of auto syncing.

Unfortunately, it is acting destructively--I have now had a Flickr album disappear spontaneously, twice, when I was trying to add new photos (by drag and drop within Ap3)--and the Flickr photos seem to be gone as well. There were no dialogs about did I want to keep anything on Flickr. This is not what you want to happen when you deal with over 10K photos. This surely is a bug, but the fact that the photos of a Flickr set (not just the set itself) can get deleted by accident is very bad behavior. Has this happened to anyone else?

I would like to see a selective sync: one-way auto-updating to Flickr with newer versions of Aperture photos, but never deleting a Flickr photo from Aperture. Short of that, it looks like I will have go back to manual Flickr management.

I totally agree with the idea that this is a BUG or a POORLY DESIGNED interface with Flickr. I have hundreds of images on Flickr. I use Flickr to keep photos online, and then pull them from Flickr to my account at Imagekind to offer them for sale. I have also enjoyed posting to groups and even getting into competitive groups with awards, but since the update to 3.1, Aperture has deleted some of my most commented photos from Flickr. Also, here's a nasty bug, If I have a photo in more than one set, when Aperture auto-syncs photos, it adds a copy of the picture for every "set" it is in, since all the sets (treated as "albums" in Aperture) have downloaded a preview of the picture back to my computer. I have one photo that repeatedly shows up as a new upload every time I open Aperture. Does anyone know of a 64 bit compliant Flickr uploader? If one exists, I'm going back to that to upload photos. Some of the images Aperture deleted from Flickr were heavily viewed and commented photos. It took weeks to get them the visibility they earned, and now all records of that is lost thanks to Aperture 3.1. I have never liked the way Apple chooses to manage online images from within their apps, both iPhoto and Aperture. Auto-syncing should be an OPTION, not mandatory. I should be able to tell the computer exactly what I want uploaded, and be able to put all of the information in at the level of Aperture, and not have to go to Flickr to modify anything. This seems logical, but it appears to be a "last minute add-on" that was not well thought out. Aperture is supposed to be a "PRO APP" but when I am not given control over features like this, it feels more like another "social networking" app that treats my content the way it wants to. I too have several libraries, and have photos uploaded from each of them. Frustrating to know that I can't keep my hard drive on my laptop cleared of older photos without risking them being deleted from Flickr. ugh. HELP APPLE!!!!

Thanks for the warnings -- and the ideas of how to fix the problem or at least minimize it. My Q is == I went into the Preferences and WebAccounts and was going to select Disable Flickr account - and it says 35 albums will be removed from the library - they remain on Flickr -- So am I correct to understand the following:

1. I can disable the Flickr account
2. if I do, all the accounts listed under the FLICKR title in the Library will be removed/deleted from Aperture = but the original images WILL remain in Aperture, just not in albums as such [tho I suppose I could keyword them to know they are on Flickr]
and
3. Pics will still be on Flickr, just not in separate albums in Aperture.???

I don't think you rprocedure will do what you think it will do.

My experience was that disabling Flickr in Aperture while connected to the Internet will delete your original pictures in the sets on Flickr! No way to recover them or the comments, favorites, groups, etc.

I would suggest a different procedure just to be safe, and its easy to test:

Before disabling the account in Aperture, disconnect from the Internet. Remove your Ethernet cable and turn off AirPort so there is no chance of accidentally deleting folders or pictures on Flickr. On my first test, I just changed my Flickr password, then I disabled Flickr in Aperture and the Photo Set still disappeared when I deleted the Folder and Previews in Aperture!

Apparently the Flickr API allows an application to stay connected (once approved) even if the user subsequently changes the password.

Once disconnected, in Aperture drag one Flickr folder to the trash, something with no important pictures in it, created for this test. Empty Aperture's trash so the folder and its previews are gone into the system trash. Empty the System Trash. Quit Aperture. Reconnect the Internet. Login to Flickr with Safari and see what happens when you launch Aperture, the syncing is totally not under your control.

Be very careful.

JF

Your best bet is to go to Flickr FIRST, de-authorize Aperture, THEN go in Aperture and delete your Flickr account. There is a very nice uploader available for a small charge by the people who made Flicker-uploaded lite, that works with Aperture 3.x in 64bit mode. It let's you upload to groups as well as your photostream, and allows all the tags and other info to be input before uploading saving you time.

Message was edited by: Stephen Durrenberger1

Message was edited by: Stephen Durrenberger1

Thanks much to you and Stephen below....I think this is going to take more attention than I can give it now but I'll save these instructions and do this very carefully! Appreciate the help.