how do i create disk space?

I like the idea of putting it on my ipad and referring to it on my imac. does it tell you how to set up a training account or do you know? thx!

A few things:

1) Never use a backup drive (such as a TimeCapsule or TimeMachine drive) for anything other than backups. Even though you see lots of empty space available and it's tempting to use it as extra disk space... don't do that. All drives eventually fail (even backups drives). If a backup drive fails and you were storing the Aperture Library on it, then you'd lose your originals (in the library) AND you'd lose your backup both! That would be very bad and of course completely defeats the whole point of having backups.

2) The Mac's HFS+ filesystem will strongly resist becoming heavily "fragmented" (heavy fragmenting can really degrade disk performance and make your whole machine seem slow) as long as you never let it get too full.

I'd suggest keeping it under 90% full and the more free space you keep, the better off it'll be.

3) This is one of those things that probably a lot of us who have been using Aperture for years take for granted, but I've realized that not everyone knows that when you delete pictures in Aperture, they aren't really deleted. Aperture has it's own "Trash" can (look up under the "Library" section in the Aperture sidebar). Right-click the trash can and you'll see an option to "Empty Aperture Trashcan" which really just transfers those files to the Mac's main trash can (down on the dock) which you'd also need to empty. Only then are the images really gone and the disk space is recovered. If you've been deleting files, but never emptying the Aperture Trash can, then you might still be consuming a lot of space unknowingly.

4) You can create as many Aperture Libraries as you want. For convenience sake it's nice to just have one. You can have just one and still keep the biggest consumer of space (original RAW image files) on an external hard drive as "referenced" masters, but I don't usually recommend this casually. "Referenced" masters means that Aperture no longer "manages" them itself and it becomes YOUR job to manage them. If YOU don't manage them then you can ultimately shoot yourself in the foot. I considered "referenced" masters to be something you should probably only do if you completely understand what it means to have "referenced" masters, think you can do a good job managing them, and wont do any of the things you're not supposed to do (e.g. never directly edit the "master" -- even though you see it sitting out there on the disk and it might be tempting.)

HI TIM-Thanks for the information. However, I am not actively using Aperture as my internal HD is too full and I can't get it to run properly. I only have a 250gb HD with over 20,000 images on it in iphoto. I have been working on some of the tips I've read to increase space and I thought i could move my photos onto an EHD to save space.

I am really confused by your answers. I'll refer to them by number so you know what i mean (hopefully)

1. If i understand correctly you are saying that whatever EHD I use to do a complete system backup for, don't use it for anything else....in other words, don't access files or photos, etc?

2. I am CLUELESS as to this.

3. This I get, as iPhoto is the same except i think when u empty the iphoto trash, it's trash and not moved to the trash on the dock. even so-i am a stickler for emptying my trash....don't like seeing stuff in it.

4. At this point, I still shoot in jpeg format. i don't want to start shooting in raw until i know how to deal with those images as well as the concern for the amount of space raw images consume. If I move all photos from iphoto to Aperture as a managed library, would i then delete them from iphoto once i'm sure all the files moved successfully? I definitely don't want the task of managing them and would prefer to use the power of Aperture..kind of one of the reasons i am switching. As far as the rest of #4-I'm not sure what u mean by putting the raw-original files on an EHD as referenced masters....i thought the original files were masters, not referenced masters. my understanding is that referenced just means kind of like a shortcut on a desktop would be that points u to the original. Am i misinterpreting the definitions?

thanks so much and i appreciate your help.

For #1

All I meant to say is that if when you make backups (and you should always make it a habit to maintain good backups because every hard drive will eventually fail.) MANY people look at a hard drive they bought to make their backups and think "Gosh there's a lot of extra disk space on there... I could be using that to store more of my stuff." But if you keep your working data AND your backup data on the hard drive, then when the hard drive eventually fails, you'll have lost everything (both the working files and the backups). That's why I emphasize keeping backups and working data on separate disks.

For #2

A disk drive stores files in little "chunks" on the disk called "blocks". Little files can usually fit into just a single "block", but big files can require several of these "blocks". If you need to save a big file, (and lets say it needs 10 "blocks") the Mac will try to find a spot on the disk drive where all 10 of those blocks are all near each other. In doing so, when it goes to open the file, all of the data is essentially in one convenient place so it can read all of the data quite quickly.

If the disk is nearly full then there wont be a nice convenient space for a large file (e.g. you wont have 10 blocks in a row which are not being used.) This will force the Mac to tuck data wherever it can and that means the disk drive might have to go to 10 different locations to read just one file.

This slows down your computer... not just for Aperture... for everything. By making sure you have a fair amount of free space on the disk drive (at least 10% of the disk space should be free, but the more free space you can give it the better off you'll be.) you'll keep your computer running faster.

For #3

Perfect! I have several friends with Macs (most of them run iPhoto). The trash in iPhoto works the same as it does in Aperture. I was surprised (I probably should not have been) that they had never noticed that iPhoto actually has it's own "Trash" can. They assumed that if they emptied the "Trash" on the Mac's dock, then they had freed up the space.

For #4

This is the most complicated. RAW does take much more space than JPEG.

But the main point here is that the Aperture library uses two different kinds of data to load and render an image. (1) it uses the original 'master' image (sort of like the 'negative' that comes out of a film camera... this image is never directly edited or manipulated in any way.) and (2) it maintains a list of every adjustment you've made to that image. BUT... #2 is just a list (the adjustments are not stored as images).

When you view an image in Aperture in which you've already made many adjustments, Aperture does two key things. First it opens the "master" image and displays it, and second it reads through the list of the "adjustments" you've made and it re-creates those adjustments on-the-fly. When it finishes processing the list of adjustments you will see an image that looks just like it was when you last left it.

In contrast, iPhoto does not maintain a list of all of the adjustments you've made. iPhoto actually edits the image as you adjust it and it re-saves a new copy of the image with all of those changes. So if you were to later decide that you liked all of your changes except one, and wanted to undo that one change, you cannot do that with iPhoto (you can "undo" the last thing you did as long as you haven't saved.) Aperture is completely different. In Aperture if you don't like just one of your changes, you can selectively turn off that change (or just change it to something you like better) without affecting any OTHER change. This is much more powerful.

Since the "master" image data can be large (especially if it's RAW) and the "adjustment" data is just a list (e.g. text data and uses hardly any space at all.), and since Aperture is used by professionals... many of whom shoot a LOT of images in a day/week/month/year, Apple makes it possible to separate where you store the "master" images vs. where it stores "everything else" (the adjustment data as well as all the other data that Aperture manages for you.)

If you store the original "masters" somewhere else, Aperture calls these "referenced" masters. If you import your masters into the Aperture library then Aperture calls them "managed" masters.

In a sense, "referenced" masters is a somewhat advanced concept. I have some ground rules for using "referenced" masters. Before using them you should (a) understand how they work, (b) have a good reason to use "referenced" masters (other than "well it sounds like a good idea") (c) have good organizational skills (Aperture wont organize "referenced" masters for you... that's up to you. So you should probably have a good scheme for keeping track of everything.) (d) you should not attempt to directly manipulate any image once it becomes a "master" and is used by Aperture.

Still confused about "referenced" masters?

If so, then just select the option that says "Store files: In the Aperture Library" when you do an import and you wont need to worry about any of this. Aperture will manage everything for you (it is quite good at it) and the only thing you'll need to do is make sure you don't run out of disk space.

Thanks again tim! You are a wealth of knowledge and I can't tell u how much I appreciate your time and effort to help.

I had it backwards as I thought managed was the opposite of referenced images. I think for my limited skill level it would be best to let Aperture do the work and continue to familiarize myself with the program.

One last thing... Do u recommended moving my iPhoto library to aperture and leaving iPhoto behind or keeping it? One of my reasons is the file structure differences. I have to keep reminding myself that events in iPhoto are projects in aperture, etc. and it's confusing enough as it is! Since there is so much more organization available in aperture I'd like to take advantage of it. Plus the fact that it is non destructive editing and saves more HD space. And better editing tools. I have photoshop elements and it's not very intuitive to me so I'm hoping I can do most of my editing in aperture .

Thanks again

Tim's essay is really great, and I'd recommend that you transition yourself over to Aperture and leave iPhoto behind.

But while doing that, make sure you have a way back. Make certain you have multiple copies of your 20,000 images in whatever forms you like, and don't delete iPhoto version until you are comfortable with Aperture.

So you'll need more than one external hard drive. A small investment considering the value of those images to you.

Now back to your question about accounts. I'm guessing you have one account maybe called "1macprincess" on your Mac. Let's assume that's the name. If this is the only account you have set up, then it must be an "administrator" account, since you have to have at least one administrator account.

Using an administrator account fir your daily work is a bad idea, since an administrator account has the power to change anything on your Mac. In other discussions, you'll see people say things like "all my applications have disappeared, what do I do?". This is because they accidentally deleted all their apps when using an administrator account. If that were to happen using a normal account, OS X will say "no way" and require that you provide an administrator's ID and password to authorize the destruction of your apps! Much safer.

What you really should do is set up an administrator account. Do this through System Preferences - Accounts. Make sure you choose a very secure password for this account, since it holds the keys to every bit of data on your Mac, including the apps and system. Then log out of 1macprincess, log in to the admin account, and change 1macprincess to being a non-admin account, with a strong password. This account will be powerful enough to destroy any of your 1macprincess data, so should have a good password. Then make an account called "training" or something else that you like. In this account, you will only do training stuff. The userid "training" will only be able to destroy its own data, and can not even see 1macprincess's data. You must store nothing of value under this training account, and it can therefore have the simplest of passwords. Even one letter if you want a smile life. After all, the only data at risk is your training progress.

So you'll have three accounts

1macprincess which is NOT an admin account, in which you'll do all your normal work

1mactraining or whatever which is NOT an admin account, in which you'll only do training, and

"princessadmin" or some shorter name, which will be used when you are making system changes, or whose name and password will be entered by you if you attempt to make system changes from a non-admin account.

Just remember that if the system is asking you for administrative authority, don't automatically give it unless you believe the request is justified. It may be that you have downloaded malicious software or have plain done something silly like tried to inadvertently delete an app by pressing the wrong keys on the keyboard.

It iscreally unfortunate that the setup instructions for Mac don't explain the need to have admin and non-admin accounts.

Good morning John- thank u- great information. When I set up the non admin accounts I understand about using the training one for training. If I understand correctly when the other non admin account is the working one. I would use the admin sign in only for system changes, updated, etc?

I love the idea of an aperture training account- I could practice everything there first. Brilliant!

You can set up non-admin accounts for any purpose. Visiting friend or family for example. I have a special account for Facebook usage, since I don't trust Facebook. I don't want their website to have any chance of accessing any of my files, emails or browsing history.

System updates and app installations can be done under any of these accounts, but you'll have to authorize the action by providing the name and password of the admin account. If you have a significant amount of change, then log out of the non-admin account and log in as admin. You'll have fewer authorizations to perform. But read each authorization message carefully, and look at the details item.

Hai Professional please help me am new in apple 5s, my 16 gb full so not able to sign up email and anything so how can i expand my disk , any idea? can i add more disk space here? registered to my company , my web design company server have lots of space can i share that space? please help

Sounds like you have an iPhone question. This forum is for Aperture, which is an application for a Mac computer. You should check the iPhone area of Apple Discussions and see if an answer already exists. I am sure it does.