Aperture 3.2.3 and iPhoto 8.1.2 running on Mac OS X 10.7.5: Can I upgrade to the latest Aperture and iPhoto versions but stay on Mac OS X 10.7.5 safely?

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Aperture 3.2.3 and iPhoto 8.1.2 running on Mac OS X 10.7.5: Can I upgrade to the latest Aperture and iPhoto versions but stay on Mac OS X 10.7.5 safely?

I have a late 2009 iMac with 4 gb RAM and Mac OS X Lion (10.7.5). I have been very happy with my iMac and am not in any hurry to replace it.

I have Aperture 3.2.3 and iPhoto 8.1.2.

I see that the 3.4 version of Aperture and iPhoto '11 can now share libraries. This would be a great feature for me since I still have a separate '09 iPhoto library that I've not yet imported into my Aperture 3.2 library. It would be nice to be able to work with both libraries relatively seemlessly and not have to import, delete, etc.

Are there any gotchas to upgrading to the latest of iPhoto and Aperture while staying on Mac OS X Lion?

I look forward to any recommendations or references to relevant articles that I may have missed.

Thanks in advance,

Andrea

Message was edited by: lowcountrybird

Posted on Jul 23, 2013 10:50 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

mende1

Level 10

93,538 points

Jul 23, 2013 10:53 AM in response to lowcountrybird

Of course not. Both iPhoto '11 and Aperture 3 are compatible with OS X 10.7.5.

As you have Aperture 3, you just have to open  > Software Update, and install the most recent version. Then, make a backup of your Aperture library before opening it, and finally, open Aperture. It will upgrade the library.

Respecting to iPhoto, open the Mac App Store and purchase iPhoto. Then, make a backup of the iPhoto library, and finally, open iPhoto. It will upgrade the iPhoto library to be used with iPhoto '11.

You will be able to use the upgraded libraries in both Aperture and iPhoto. To choose the library you want to use with Aperture or iPhoto, open one of them holding the Option (Alt) key

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

194,761 points

Jul 23, 2013 11:12 AM in response to mende1

Andrea,

As mende1 says, both Aperture 3.4.3 and iPhoto 9.4.3 work very well with Lion 10.7.5.

And if you are planning to use both applications in parallel, I can highly recommend the upgrade. In fact, after upgrading to the unified library I have imported all my iPhoto libraries again, because the import was much better, since I now could import the originals and the edited versions as an entity, and would not have to split them into two separate images.

Only the Shared Photo Streams will not be available without upgrading to 10.8.2.

If your mac is not maxed out with 4GB RAM, you might consider to add more RAM for faster performance, but 4GB should do, if you do not want to run other RAM greedy apps in parallel.

Have you seen these support documents?

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

Aperture 3.3: How to use Aperture to merge iPhoto libraries

Good luck!

Léonie

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Answer 3

Jul 23, 2013 11:45 AM in response to léonie

Thank you very much for the links and the warning about the Shared Photo Streams.

I may look into upgrading RAM if possible and upgrading to Mountain Lion.

Thanks again.

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Answer 4

mende1

Level 10

93,538 points

Jul 23, 2013 11:48 AM in response to lowcountrybird

Good luck

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Answer 5

Jul 23, 2013 11:53 AM in response to mende1

Thank you for the quick response.

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Answer 6

Jul 23, 2013 11:56 AM in response to lowcountrybird

Yes you can do it fine.

I do recommend minimum 8 GB RAM for zero-page-outs Aperture usage even though 4 GB "works." My 2011 MBP with 8 GB RAM would page out RAM when running an aggressive Aperture/Photoshop workflow; an upgrade to 16 GB RAM took page outs back to zero.

HTH

-Allen

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Answer 7

Jul 23, 2013 12:02 PM in response to SierraDragon

Thanks, SierraDragon. I checked and I can upgrade to as much as 16 gb RAM for the late 2009 model iMac. Very happy to find that out. I will upgrade RAM and then upgrade software.

Thanks,

Andrea

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Answer 8

Aug 11, 2013 6:57 PM in response to mende1

As a follow up, when I click the Apple icon in the upper left and select Software -> Update, I do not get an option to update Aperture. I do get the option to update through the App Store, so that is what I will use.

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Answer 9

léonie

Level 10

194,761 points

Aug 11, 2013 10:55 PM in response to lowcountrybird

s a follow up, when I click the Apple icon in the upper left and select Software -> Update, I do not get an option to update Aperture. I do get the option to update through the App Store, so that is what I will use.

The AppStore will only show Aperture and iPhoto updates that are compatible with your MacOS X version 10.7.5. You can check what will be installed in the "Updates" tab of the AppStore, before you hit the "Update" button.

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Answer 10

Aug 12, 2013 5:43 AM in response to lowcountrybird

I highly recommend upgrading to Mountain Lion if your Mac will allow. Both these latest photo app versions run better in Mt Lion than in Lion, believe I say that as one who is limited to Lion on my 8 Core Mac Pro and thus cannot run them in a 64 bit Kernel, but use Aperture very well on my rMBP running ML.

Ernie

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