Advice for Organizing Images for my needs

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Level 1

8 points

Advice for Organizing Images for my needs

I started using aperture 5 years ago and stopped because my intial organizational concepts were flawed so I ended up with a mess and got discouraged. I want to use Aperture for a completely different need at this time so I want to start fresh on the right foot. My needs don't seem to fit in with anything I've found online.

I am a surgeon and I photograph my patients before and after surgery. I take 10-15 photos of a patient each time and I may end up with 1000-2000 images on my camera before I get around to enter them each time. I need to be able to organize the photos by patient, perhaps keeping images separated for each patient by date, or by 'before' and 'after' although it's not uncommon for patients to have multiple surgeries- so somehow organizing each pagtient into specific dates makes the most sense.

My issue is that if I import 2000 images into a project at once and I then break them down into an 'album' for each patient and 'folders' under each patient's album for each date photos are taken several issues come up...although this strategy is the only logical way I can come up with. First, I need to somehow keep track of which of the 2000 images in the Project have been placed into albums and which ones have not. In the end, every image needs to end up in one and only one album. Is there a way to keep track of this in Aperture? Can I somehow look at all the images in a Project and know which ones have or have not been distributed into Albums? Alternatively, is there a way for me to 'Move' the image out of the Project into an Album? It's imperative that every image imported gets categorized under the appropriate patient's name.

Next, in this scheme, would I put images from the Project into each album as well as each folder under each album? Or is the 'album' merely a header underwhich the folders are listed just for visual ease of organization? Perhaps it's still my philosophies from my PC days getting in the way of my reasoning. Also, if there's a way to keep track of photos that have not yet been placed into albums, is there any reason to use a new 'project' for each import? EVentually I'll end up with lots of projects.

I'm open to suggestions but I'm afraid to get started until someone who knows better than me gives me some advice.

Thanks in advance.

Posted on Feb 8, 2014 6:50 AM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

200,705 points

Feb 8, 2014 8:01 AM in response to psurgery

First, I need to somehow keep track of which of the 2000 images in the Project have been placed into albums and which ones have not. In the end, every image needs to end up in one and only one album. Is there a way to keep track of this in Aperture? Can I somehow look at all the images in a Project and know which ones have or have not been distributed into Albums? Alternatively, is there a way for me to 'Move' the image out of the Project into an Album? It's imperative that every image imported gets categorized under the appropriate patient's name.

I'd reverse the rôle of projects and albums. As you probably remember from your first experiments with Aperture, the basic container of images is the project, and each image is stored in exactly one project. Albums reference the images in the projects, and one and the same image can appear in several albums or none at all.

My suggestion:

Import your 2000 images a day - they will appear as one big project. Enclose that project by a folder.
Split that initial project into several smaller projects - one for each patient.
Add albums to the "patient" projects - one album "before surgery", one album "after surgery". You could use smart albums for this, based on keywords for the different kinds of images.

This will ensure, that each album will only show images for one patient, since the albums will be local to the patient's project and separated by the keywords "before surgery" and "after surgery".

Perhaps these User tips may help:

My notes on design considerations:

New to Aperture? Some Considerations when Designing your First Aperture Library

Kirby Krieger's introduction to the rôle of projects, folders , and albums.

The Well-Trod Path: a Beginner's Guide to how Aperture's major parts inter-relate

Feel free to ask more 🙂

Regards

Léonie

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Answer 2

psurgery Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 8, 2014 8:23 AM in response to léonie

Wow...Not what I was thinking at all- but now that I read what you wrote a few times to digest it fully, it makes sense to me. So take the large project and split it up into smaller projects- one for each patient. This forces the original grouping to shrink as photos are categorized into patient projects. How do I 'split' the projects? Can I do this at once? What I mean is like putting photos of a single patient into something like a stack, doing this for each patient, and then splitting each 'stack' into it's own project? Or do I need to do one at a time?

Now the idea of using 'Smart Albums' based on keywords- is there some way to automate this? I mean force every project that's created to have specific smart folders under their heirarchy? Or must I do this manually for each patient project?

So in the end, if I'm understanding correctly, my original project that was used for the import will be empty (so I can delete it.) Each patient will have their own 'Project' that basically holds all the 'Master' images (well not really the Master because that's kept in the Library...but the 'Main' image, and each project will then have 'Albums' or 'Smart Albums' beneath them in heirarchy containing a 'Version' of the master.

Do I have this right?

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

200,705 points

Feb 8, 2014 10:06 AM in response to psurgery

How do I 'split' the projects? Can I do this at once?

Not at once. You can auto split on IMport in two hours gaps, if that helps. You can also use auto stack to stack images taken in quick succession.

Then select several stacks - with photos of the same patient and use the command "File > New Project ⌘N" to create a new project from the selected stacks.

Each patient will have their own 'Project' that basically holds all the 'Master' images (well not really the Master because that's kept in the Library...but the 'Main' image, and each project will then have 'Albums' or 'Smart Albums' beneath them in heirarchy containing a 'Version' of the master.

Do I have this right?

Yes, that is what I meant.

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Answer 4

léonie

Level 10

200,705 points

Feb 8, 2014 10:29 AM in response to psurgery

Now the idea of using 'Smart Albums' based on keywords- is there some way to automate this? I mean force every project that's created to have specific smart folders under their heirarchy? Or must I do this manually for each patient project?

You can set up the structure - a project with albums and smart albums once, and then use the command "File > Duplicate Poject structure" to create empty copies of the project. Then simply drag the photos of one patient to the copy. This way you do not even need to split the original big project. Just drag the stacks with images of one patient to the copied project structure. Dragging images from a project to another project will move them, since an image and all its edited versions can only be in one project.

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Answer 5

psurgery Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 9, 2014 9:03 AM in response to léonie

This seems to be working well for me- thanks again. I have a few follow-up questions.

-I have no problem attaching keywords to images- but one thing that would be helpful is to keep track of something like the Date of Birth of the subject in the image. This is for the purpose of being able to find images of patients, for example, that contain a certain keyword and also are 45 years old- or have a birthdate range from X to Y...is there some way to do this?

-Is there a way to automatically subdivide images into folders/smart folders under each patient project separating images in the project by the date the photo is taken? I see I can separate photos into stacks this way if I just increase the time for the stacks...but can I split them into folders this way? This would be helpful so if a given patient had photos taken on 10 separate occasions I'll have 10 folders- one for each date?

-I am currently working on my laptop but I intend on keeping the Aperture Library stored on my desktop. If I'm adding keywords to the keyword list on my laptop and I then merge the library with the library kept on my desktop, will the new keywords be added to the keyword list on the desktop? I'm worried about exactly what merges when a merge is done.

Thanks again...Scott

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Answer 6

léonie

Level 10

200,705 points

Feb 9, 2014 12:03 PM in response to psurgery

Scott,

also are 45 years old- or have a birthdate range from X to Y...is there some way to do this?

You could either define keywords "Born:1945", etc. or create your own metadata field year_of_birth.

I see I can separate photos into stacks this way if I just increase the time for the stacks...but can I split them into folders this way? This would be helpful so if a given patient had photos taken on 10 separate occasions I'll have 10 folders- one for each date?

You can create smart folders based on the date - use a calendar rule. But setting up these smart albums will not be automatic. You will have to edit the date for each shoot.

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