organize projects by date?

What is your Aperture version?

I you are using the latest Aperture 3, you could create a smart album based on the date range:

Add a Calendar rule: Capture year is .... and set the source of the search to "Library".

Then select all images in the smart album and use the command "File > New Project"and enable "Move selected items to new project". This will create a project will all images from a given year.

Give the new project a name based on the year and you are done.

But usually I would not put all images from a whole year into ane single project. That makes it hard to work with the project, if you have to scroll trough thousands of images. Why not folders for each year, with smaller projects inside - one project for each separate shoot or occasion?

You still can browse all images from a given year by browsing the folder.

Regards

Léonie

I don't tend to have thousands of images for each year, just several hundred so it's not horrible to run through.

Then it is perfectly o.k. I have several thousand images a month, so I prefer to have one project per day and folders combining them. Otherwise I would soon be tired of scrolling.

lsb wrote:

OK, I've created the new smart album, but even though I have Aperture 3, when I choose Calendar, I don't get the option for Capture year, just three monthly calendars where it is not clear how to make a range.

Use the Date Rule to easily select a full year. ("Capture Year" "is" "####")

The Calendar Rule is clunky but useful. Make the first date of a range visible. Select it. (Only dates with Images are highlighted and selectable.) Make the second date of the range visible. Hold down the Shift key and click the second date. The entire date range is highlighted. Fullinstructions are here.

Each of the above can be used to make a Smart Album.

NB: Smart Albums are dynamic. Working on Images in Smart Albums can slow Aperture performance as it recalculates the Album contents when you make changes. You may want to filter for the Images you want, and then create an Album from the results. This Album, of course, will not dynamically update.

I can create a new project from this, but will these pictures be the original files so I can then delete my existing 2012 project which doesn't contain all files or will the images in the smart album be versions instead?

I guess I'm looking to get all originals in one project and wonder if creating the new project from the smart album will move original files to the new 2012 project.

When Aperture moves images to a new project it will always move all versions of the image to the project - and you do not see the original (master) image as a separate image version in Aperture. If you are seeing an image in one project and a look alike in another project, that other image is a duplicate with its own original image file.

@Kirby - I meant the Date rule - faulty memory 😝 I was at a Mac without Aperture when I answered that post.