Difference between iPhoto and Aperture and photo storage

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Level 1

13 points

Difference between iPhoto and Aperture and photo storage

I'm thinking about upgrading from iPhoto to Aperture but I'm a little confused about the differences in the way photo edits are handled. The iPhoto to Aperture page says that Aperture stores photo changes in one photo rather than duplicating them, therefore taking up less space. BUT they also use a unified shared library. So how is it possible for Aperture to handle edits differently if the library is now shared between the two applications?

Posted on Jun 7, 2013 8:07 AM

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Answer 1

Yer_Man

Level 10

165,972 points

Jun 7, 2013 8:18 AM in response to jbryant705

That page is out of date. They both handle images in exactly the same way. Aperture may save you some space if you choose not to generate previews, but then you won't be able to integrate with other apps. Aperture has tools for dealing with referenced images that iPhoto lacks. That's the principle difference between them in regards to photo storage.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

200,639 points

Jun 7, 2013 9:42 AM in response to Yer_Man

Aperture may save you some space if you choose not to generate previews, but then you won't be able to integrate with other apps.

As Terence Devlin says. But being able to manage the Previews is quite a space saver. In Aperture you can selectively generate previews only for the photos that you want to share with other applications, and you can specify the size and quality of the previews you want. iPhoto on the other hand will always create previews for all photos, and all in very high quality. In Aperture I delete previews for redundant photos and keep the previews only for my highest ratest photos that I am likely to share with other applications and want to use as a screensaver or slideshow.

If you share your photo library between Aperture and iPhoto and edit a photo in iPhoto, then iPhoto will add a preview for this photo, even if you disabled previews in Aperture.

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