I am considering purchasing Aperture.

Sorry leonie I had overlooked the last of your earlier links re Aperture reading it now X

I can see the sense of Folders in Aperture for bringing together sets of events if one has been lazy and not used keywords etc in order to use smart albums, but would appreciate looking over a few shoulders too see how Aperture file structures differ.

One advantage of having both iPhoto and Aperture is, that you will see the folders with projects/events in iPhoto as well, if you ever opened the iPhoto library in Aperture. For example - after I opened this iPhoto Library in Aperture and added some folders, it looks now in iPhoto like this: All events neatly organised in folders for easy access:

Hi Léonie

I wonder if the articles you have kindly referred me to (and Kirby's) have been updated to reflect the arrival of the unified library?

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I always have the same problem with any filing task: lets just take these characteristics/properties of any photo:

1. Date
2. Subject e.g. holiday
3. Holiday category e.g. sailing
4. Trip X, Y
5. Location

I immediately struggle in choosing between a hierarchy such as:

1. Date
   1. Subject
      1. Category
         1. Location
            1. Trip

Or

1. Subject
   1. Category
      1. Location
         1. Date
            1. Trip

In your user note you describe your folder/subfolder structure - I wonder if you got it right 1st time, or regretted a particular structure?

In iPhoto for example my troubled mind is revealed by smart albums that group together Family pictures across multiple events, all years and in another set of Smart Albums, family pictures by year.

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With the benefit of (your) hindsight given that i have 25000+ plus photos in 1 iPhoto Library and am only now embarking on Aperture, would you have tackled your Aperture Library structure differently?

Or you might prefer to recommend a counsellor!

Yes, I just discovered this! AND also discovered that I can add Aperture "events/projects" to a folder when back in iPhoto and it is reflected in Aperture

I am certainly going to strongly consider LR as I consider a path away from Aperture. Using it makes me feel like I'm crab-walking on scree, but perhaps one develops feelers and eye-stalks after a few months usage.

I appreciate your kind words. Perhaps our paths will cross again ... 🙂 .

In your user note you describe your folder/subfolder structure - I wonder if you got it right 1st time, or regretted a particular structure?

It is really hard to recommend something, because it will depend on how you want to access your images.

One big difference between Aperture and iPhoto is, that in iPhoto the albums and smart albums are all you have to structure your library. In Aperture you can also group the projects by folders. I found, that it is to so important how I structure the projects. It is more important to have a structure and maintain it. Indeed, I redesigned my library after two years, but that was not too complicated, because the library already had a design.

I now have a structure that separates family events (birthdays, weddings, etc) from holiday photos (wildlife photos and sailing trips). If your Aperture library has a clear design, you will be able to change the design easily.

It helps to keep the projects small, so I can browse them and have a hierarchy of folders. The folders make it possible to collapse large parts of the library.

I've used Photos, it has many management and touch-up features. Apple will continue to evolve it, and third party plugins will only add to that handsomely. I see no reason to abandon Aperture right away for Lightroom, as Aperture will run on OS X updates for some time to come. And by the time it doesn't, Photos will have evolved into much more than it is in beta version. I think there are too many folks screaming about the end of the world, when there is nothing wrong. Give it 6-8 months, watch what happens, stick with Aperture. At least you won't get ripped off in the Adobe subscription scam.

Hi Kirby... Like you I have enjoyed Aperture and It's been a superb image management tool and as for editing it's been more than satisfactory. I put in the hours learning the application much like yourself... I learned from you too 🙂

But Apple dropping us in the lurch like this is the last straw for me. The market in photo management has swung to "Cloud" management of our images, Apple have jumped onto this bandwagon now by dropping Aperture, giving us 'photos for mac & 2-5 gb of "free" storage space (how long will that last with pro users shooting 1000 images per session ? which is easy for a dslr camera to do..) then we must pay for more storage... Talk about grabbing..! It took me a week to learn LR... it supports (I use canon) lens correction data for all canon lenses, and all the other popular makes too. This feature is currently only available with Canons own software.. Learning LR is simple... There is still the 'cloud' option if you need that... but personally I want my images on my own hard drive and not trust them to anyone else..so I use external hard drives and back them up its easy to point LR to your masters to access them just as it is with Aperture. LR also has non destructive editing..and genuinely... my 22mb images load in half the time on the same machines I used with Aperture...Kirby it was a pleasure to have your help when I was learning Aperture, thank you again.. maybe our paths will cross one day... but Kind regards anyway.... Gerry

I see no reason to abandon Aperture right away for Lightroom, as Aperture will run on OS X updates for some time to come. And by the time it doesn't, Photos will have evolved into much more than it is in beta version. I think there are too many folks screaming about the end of the world, when there is nothing wrong. Give it 6-8 months, watch what happens, stick with Aperture.

That is exactly, what I am planning to do. I wish we would be allowed to share our experiences with the Beta version in these forums.

Um ... the complete-and-total-and-instant indexing of all index-able data has made hierarchical filing an un-necessary art.

We used hierarchical filing systems as storage structures with a built-in retrieval structure. This made good sense and worked well for physical records. We are, in ways we are not aware of, completely trained in this kind of taxonomy.

Physical records exist in one and only one place at a time. If you wanted the Beaverman contract from 1954, you knew it was with the 1954 files, under whatever scheme the office was using that year ("File by date!", "No! File by customer!", "No No No! File by customer; archive by date!"), and any lackey could find it (assuming it had been filed correctly).

Our data is no longer physical. Our records now can be presented and modified from multiple places at multiple times.

Filing itself is actually a waste of effort with electronic records.

Our records now are _tagged_ with metadata, and the data that makes up the records (e.g.: text — but could be, for example, average hue, or presence of a specific level of pixel saturation) is itself used to _classify_ our records.

In place of filing, we use what I think should be called "retrieval schemes".

Retrieval schemes are made up of retrieval containers. Retrieval containers show you their contents.

There are two types: manual, and automatic.

Manual retrieval containers hold representations of whatever you put in them.

Automatic retrieval containers hold representations of the results of _searches_ that are executed when you select them.

In Aperture, manual retrieval containers are Albums. Automatic retrieval containers are Smart Albums.

The structure of your Library is yours to make and change. I recommend a few general practices.

• Every shoot is a Project. Projects are your long-term, permanent, _storage containers_.

• Develop your own keyword list that is meaningful to you. Keywords are for you to find your Images. (Advanced: do use a hierarchical keyword list. But that is, as stated, advanced.)

• Set up three separate "branches" in your Library: a storage branch (containing Projects), a retrieval branch (containing often used global Smart Albums), and an output branch (containing publishing projects — e.g.: a wedding album, specific vacation slideshows, etc.). ("All pictures of your grand-daughter" is a retrieval container, and will be a Smart Album. "Twelve pictures of your grand-daughter that you used for the 2004 family calendar" is an output container, and should be an Album containing, at first, the 22 pictures you selected initially from your retrieval container.)

• Do not organize _any_ branch by date. Date is hard-wired in your Images; date-retrieval and date-sorting are hard-wired in Aperture. You can _always_ sort Images and Projects and your Library Folders by the dates of the Images in the containers.

• Use Places. If the files you import do not have location data, add it to the Projects/Shoots after every import (specifying location data for a Project specifies it for every Image in the Project).

• Set up and rigorously use a Project-naming convention. Since Projects are your long-term storage containers, label them with helpful, descriptive. information. Keep in mind that you may want to search for Projects/Shoots, and not for Images. The only way to search for Projects in Aperture is a text search of the Project Name and the Project Description. (The Project Description shows in the Project Info dialog.) For example, you may want to search for all your vacation shoots. You would want to include some text in the Project Name (or the Project Description) that is unique to those Projects. (I use "Travel:".)

• Make as many containers as are useful. Save as few as possible. It is often less work to recreate a container than it is to find it in a long list.

In short:

Stop filing. Wisely name and tag. Create retrieval containers as needed. Make things. Save in an output container each collection of Images for each thing you made.

HTH,

—Kirby.

Many thanks Kirby

1. No more filing - music to my ears!
   1. "Set up and rigorously use a Project-naming convention" - aaagh! setting up is my speciality, rigorous use is another matter... in all matters...
   2. I am trying to be more rigorous with key words - what is your workflow on import? [Sorry just re-read Well Worn Path...] AND please tell me about hierarchical keywords
2. In my iPhoto library I think I have the tri-partite structure you recommend - Events, Lots of Smart Libraries and Libraries for projects (outputs). (HOW was it possible that the same company who gave us both iPhoto and Aperture manage to use the term Project to mean 2 different things?!)
3. Aperture's Folders seem to be the only element in Aperture that's new and I can see how they may be easier (for me) than certain Smart Albums) e.g. "Family Holidays, by event" or "Around the house" as I found it quite hard work working out the Event naming convention for the 45 or so Events I have for my recent 7 months road trip - I eventually added an ID at the beginning of each Event title which helped with the Smart Albums.

   My friend has just 3 top level Folders which I also like: Home, Away and Downloaded

4. The location setting in A's Projects is not available in iPhoto yes? Is it easier than iPhoto's location setting at picture level - 'orrible.
5. 'Make as many containers as are useful. Save as few as possible." - I didn't quite get this point.

Many thanks to all of you BIG POINTS people - your selfless devotion to our education is a wonderful public service.

Paul

Talking of BIG POINTS people is Mr TD ok? Haven't heard from him in a while

Talking of BIG POINTS people is Mr TD ok? Haven't heard from him in a while

Terence Devlin is still o.k, and posting - just look at the Activity STREAM: Terence Devlin

Hi Kirby, grateful for some pointers re hierarchical key words...thanks

Hi Léonie, I am beta testing Yosemite seeds but am worried about downloading the latest cos it bring Photos with it. I do not have (yet) a separate HDD I can isolate betas on. I have photo stream on auto upload between iPhone > iPad and between both and Mac, but I do not auto-upload from Mac. Will I therefore be ok if I download Photos - I don't want to start using iCloud photos library as I will be spending 6/7 months travelling in the next year or so and don't want to be wifi hungry.....

Thanks

EDIT:
Sorry this is a bit off thread...