Duplicate images in separate projects

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Duplicate images in separate projects

I have, what I believe, is a basic question about Aperture, but one that has totally frustrated me, so I am coming forward, ignorance in hand, to ask for guidance.

I have a small business, heavily dependent on photos. I have an existing project, with all the professional photos listed, and an existing projects with my photos (not as good, but they fill their role). That is not the problem. I have a new channel (woo hoo!), that wants me to list products and we need images from both projects. Within Aperture, I have created a new Folder, with several (18) projects, one for each of the items to be listed. I am trying to pull photos from existing projects, and group them in the 18 new projects, but without removing them from the original locations.

I have tried to copy from one project, but I can not seem to paste in the new project. I tried duplicating the image, but when I move one (either the original or duplicate) it automatically takes the other version, too. I can not seem to figure out a way to copy and move an image to a new project, while retaining its existing location.

I have not exported the photos, as I have several thousand to go through, and the side by side comparison and inspection (and modifications) would be easier in Aperture; I will export them when it is finished. I have avoided creating albums as I find them annoying, limiting in functionality and otherwise a waste of space. That is a mix of personal opinion and facts, I realize, but fundamentally, it should be possible to duplicate an image and move it to a new location, but I can not figure out how to do it.

Thank you for your advice or suggestions
Jim

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Aug 19, 2015 9:49 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 20, 2015 11:42 AM in response to hoopsmiller

Photos live in projects, each photo must be in a project and can only be in one project. After photos anywhere else are referenced back to the original photo in its project. You can then have a "copy/alias, reference", whatever you want to call it, of that photo in an album, slideshow, light table or wherever. If you edit the original or its copy you will edit of them. If you want different versions, you can crate a "new version" and they will all be stacked together. This means you won't have duplicates of the file anywhere which means your Aperture library takes less hard drive space.

I think what you want to do is create albums instead of projects. Albums are exactly the same as a project in every regard except that you are feeling with referenced photos and can thus have the same photo in as many albums as you wish without the inconveniences of duplicates.

If you truly do need to have a "duplicate file", right click and duplicate version, then drag the new version out of its stack. This will likely get very messy very quickly.

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