Pointing to the Aperture Database Over a Pipe or NAS

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Pointing to the Aperture Database Over a Pipe or NAS

Does anyone know if it's possible to point to an Aperture database file over a pipe, say like Tonido, or NAS tthat has the preimary Aperture DB on it, to view from another laptop remotely? I want do more than simply pipe in to look at files, but actually set up an arragnment that makes my primary Aperture DB location agnostic. Using Flickr or FB is too much work and Photosteam does not, evidently, let you select specific folders to share.

Thanks...

John Sevic

MacBook Air, iOS 5.0.1

Posted on Feb 4, 2013 8:20 PM

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Answer 1

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William Lloyd

Level 7

21,311 points

Feb 4, 2013 8:46 PM in response to jsevic

Accessing an Aperture library over a NAS is going to be slow (info is in a database and latency over a network is very bad), and could well corrupt the library (if the network protocol doesn't support Aperture's naming conventions).

The ONLY way you'd be able to do this safely is if you created an OS X disk image on the remote system and mounted it over the network. That would work, but again it's slow and I'd be very wary of doing it (I've had disk images corrupt before).

As strongly as I can recommend anyone not do something, I recommend you not develop a workflow that relies on using your Aperture database over the network. Putting your masters on a NAS device and using a referenced library is less risky and would perform better, but I'd still not recommend it.

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Answer 2

jsevic Author

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Feb 4, 2013 9:51 PM in response to William Lloyd

Thanks so much. I think the best way to state what I'm after are necessary conditions versus sufficient conditions. I have a 30 MB static IP pipe, and would like to allow my daughter access to all the photos we have of her when she was a baby, on her iPhoto. So, your point is well taken on the workflow issue. Just getting her to see and view the pics, and copy a few locally to her MBP, we be fantastic. We won't be doing image editing or processing through the pipe.

File corruption has been a major issue with Aperture, for me. It might be easier to simply give her a DVD of the pics, but we're talking tens of GB. Interestingly, it seems like location-agnostic workflows will become the norm, yet, as you point out, it won't be easy. I'll look into the image route before setting up an experiment with a few pics. Thanks so much for your help. Have a god evening...

John

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

194,785 points

Feb 4, 2013 10:51 PM in response to jsevic

John,

the necessary conditions as defined by Apple are defined in this article - and those exclude a network based volume: Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library

If you absolutely must: this article describes how to move a photo library (iPhoto or Aperture) to a disk image for sharing: iPhoto: Sharing libraries among multiple users

But as William Lloyd said - it is error prone and likely to cause trouble in the future. I would not trust my important images to such a setup.

Since you only want to share certain projects - why not use Aperture's built-in features for sharing over the network?

If you have Aperture 3.4.x and Mt. Lion, you can send her the baby picture's as a Shared Photo Stream and add to this stream, as you see fit, see iCloud: Using and troubleshooting Shared Photo Streams

Or open your Aperture library as an iPhoto Library: You can set up an iPhoto Library to share the Photos over a network to be browsed or imported by others from the Preferences panel:

See: iPhoto '11: Share your photos among computers on a network

Regards

Leonie

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Answer 4

jsevic Author

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Feb 4, 2013 10:56 PM in response to léonie

Excellent. That's what I was looking for. I knew iPhoto could do it, but didn't know Aperture had this capability, in terms if being treated as an iPhoto library. A virtual beer for you.

Thanks again...

John

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Answer 5

léonie

Level 10

194,785 points

Feb 4, 2013 11:37 PM in response to jsevic

You are welcome, John. 😀

If you have not seen these articles: I use iPhoto frequently again, since both applications share a unified library format.

Aperture 3.3: Using a unified photo library with iPhoto and Aperture

Aperture 3.3: How to use Aperture to merge iPhoto libraries

Cheers

Léonie

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Answer 6

jsevic Author

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Feb 5, 2013 3:23 PM in response to léonie

Vielen Dank. Meine Mutter wurde 1928 in Berlin geboren, also bin ich wieder viele Male gewesen, so lange wie '77, als es noch FDR und DDR. Wir haben gelernt, zu Hause Deutsch Ich hoffe, dass dieses makse Sinne weiss ich nicht mehr?

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