Could someone please help me import my iphoto photos into aperture? They are now just referenced files.

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Level 1

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Could someone please help me import my iphoto photos into aperture? They are now just referenced files.

Hello,

I am a longtime iphoto user and installed aperture this past december. At that time I imported all my iphoto photos as referenced files and kept them in their iphoto location. Since that time, every photo I took was uploaded directly into aperture and stored there. I am now comfortable enough with aperture that I would like to use it as my primary photo viewer / manipulator and would like to merge my two libraries into one single aperture library. Unfortunately, I cannot figure out how to do this.

I tried consolidating all originals yesterday, however this did not seem to have any effect. I then tried reimporting my iphoto library, however, this simply duplicated many of my events (and the duplicated ones were not even adjustable via aperture, and each photo had a little exclamation point in the lower right corner). Both of these attempts did nothing to combine my aperture projects and my iphoto events (which are now seen as a seperate iphoto tab under projects). I am aware that I can now switch to my iphoto library within aperture in version 3.3, but I just want everything stored in one place and in my aperture library. Can someone please help me with this?

The only thing I can think of is deleting all of the iphoto events from aperture and then reimporting them, but I am scared I will either delete something permenantly or that they will simply reimport as referenced files and remain within iphoto.

Please help!

Thanks,

- Mike

Aperture 3, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Jul 26, 2012 12:00 PM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

194,653 points

Jul 26, 2012 1:20 PM in response to mrem

Mike,

I am not quite clear about the current state of your iPhoto and Aperture libraries. It looks like you have plenty of broken links to referenced masters in either library. Whatever you do now, it is very important to ensure that you have a working backup, both of your iPhoto Library and your Aperture library, before you try a major reconstruction.

I tried consolidating all originals yesterday, however this did not seem to have any effect.

In what way did it not have any effect? From the effects you are describing, it looks like all your original master images have been removed from the iPhoto Library and are now inside the Aperture library as managed masters - at least, this would explain, why trying to import the iPhoto library resulted in duplicated projects (and the duplicated ones were not even adjustable via aperture, and each photo had a little exclamation point in the lower right corner). You removed the original masters from the iPhoto library, and now you could not import it, since the originals are now in Aperture.

For me it looks, like you simply need to delete the iPhoto images marked with an exclamation mark, for these are already bound to images that you imported earlier. It is perfectly o.k. that the recently imported iPhoto Library appears in a separate section of the projects in your Library Inspector Panel. Each iPhoto event should appear as a project. Aperture will put them there, so you can find them easily.

You should check now, if the originally imported images, that you imported as referenced, are now managed. If you enable badge overlays you should see no longer any arrows on the thumbnails of your earlier imports. Also, if you select one of these images, you should be able to toggle between original master and version by typing the "M" key.

Define some smart albums (File > New > Smart album) based on the file status: Add a rule: File status is.

One smart album: File Status is referenced
One smart album: File Status is managed
One smart album: File Status is missing

The first album should be empty.
The second album should show all your images you originally imported from iphoto as managed, and that you recently consolidated.
The third album should show your recent import - the images imported from iPhoto after you consolidated the originals to Aperture and removed these images from iPhoto.

Post back, when you have checked the file status of your images in Aperture and we can be sure were the images are exactly.

Regards

Léonie

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Answer 2

mrem Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 27, 2012 6:38 PM in response to léonie

Thank you for the quick response.

Everything is backed up via time machine so I feel safe in that regard.

I went ahead a deleted the pictures marked with exclamation points and then created the smart albums as you suggested. To my surprise, all of my files are managed files.

What I still do not understand is why all of my photos that were originally in iphoto still appear to be stored in the "iphoto > events" folder on my computer even though they are managed files in aperture. Will this cause any problems? I still don't like how all my iphoto events are seperated in the library toolbar from my aperture projects - Can I simply rearrange them?

Thanks again for you help!

- Mike

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Answer 3

giordajl

Level 1

4 points

Aug 11, 2012 1:31 PM in response to mrem

I'm in the same situation. Did you ever figure out a solution to your second follow up question about rearranging the complete, consolidated Aperture library so you don't have a separate iPhoto section?

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Answer 4

léonie

Level 10

194,653 points

Aug 11, 2012 1:52 PM in response to giordajl

rearranging the complete, consolidated Aperture library so you don't have a separate iPhoto section?

Aperture imports the iPhoto events as regular Aperture projects. You can simply drag them to the other Aperture folders you have, after the iPhoto library has been imported, or drag images from the imported iPhoto projects to the Aperture projects. Also you can rename the imported projects and folders. Only you cannot edit the books you imported from iPhoto or the smart albums. I'd recommend to keep thse items in the iPhoto folder, so you can remember, that these albums and books will behave differently.

Regards

Léonie

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