transfer-by-restoring - but psd files??

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transfer-by-restoring - but psd files??

As a way to sync laptop (MBP) & desktop (iMac), I'm trying this method: make a vault on the MBP, move it to the iMac, and restore. The images are referenced, sync'd separately, so the library I'm restoring is just edits. Though it's a little obnoxious because of having to Manage Referenced Files so that the second machine's copy of Aperture can find them, it seems to work.

Except for .psd files! The .psd image files are there, on the iMac, in the folder where they should be, but Aperture won't connect to them. In the browser they show up as gray blanks with a red square with a question mark. Clicking on one of these does bring up the image in the viewer, at least in some cases. The tooltip shows the image as offline (which it is not). In Manage Referenced Files, in the lower pane, I can navigate to it, but the Reconnect buttons stay grayed out. And of course it can't be Relocated because it can't be found.

(Oh by the way: if I accident click on iPhoto Library in the folder list in the lower pane of Manage Referenced Files, Aperture freezes solid -- Force Quit time.)

Intel iMac, Mac Book Pro 2.66GHz, Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Dec 22, 2006 8:20 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 23, 2006 6:06 AM in response to Charles Hartman

Hi Charles,

There is a podcast on oreilly where Joe Schorr is talking about 1.5. (There are two and i can't recall if it is in the first or second podcast.)

However, in this podcast, Joe talks about reference images, and that Aperture can refind them automatically if they are moved within the same volume ID, but not if they're moved to a different volume ID. Unknown why the difference or why we cannot nominate a different vol_ID and have AP go relink all the images (which seems the logical approach IMO).

But, could this be the issue you are stumbling upon?

G.

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Answer 2

Dec 23, 2006 7:21 AM in response to David G Chapman

Well, it is the basic-annoyance issue, having to Manage Referenced after restoring a library from a vault made on a different machine. (I guess it would be the same if I just copied the library from one machine to the other??)

But it's not the more crucial issue: after I've managed the referenced images (confusing bit of terminology there), so that the copied-to version of Aperture knows where most of the images are, and the libraries on the two machines are basically identical, I still have the .psd files left over.

Again, the images are available, but Aperture insists they're not ("offline"). It's not just that they don't get handled at the same time as all the other (referenced, re-pointed with Manage Reference) images -- I can't find any way to get Aperture to recognize them.

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Answer 3

Dec 23, 2006 11:46 AM in response to Charles Hartman

Here's another (unhappy) data point. If I copy the library from my laptop to the iMac, overwriting the previous Ap library on the iMac, then open Aperture on the iMac, and then do Manage Referenced Files … (navigating to one image in the iMac's file structure and then clicking Reconnect All) I still have the same problem. All the images are found except the .psd files.

The .psd files were made through Open with External Editor. The files are there, in the folder structure on the iMac. I can navigate to them in the lower, "relocate" panel of Manage Referenced Files. But when I do this, the Reconnect buttons stay dimmed, and Aperture keeps insisting the images are offline. Aperture insists that the file is still located on the laptop.

This puts a big hole in the very last way I've thought of to keep two machines' Aperture setups and libraries in sync. If I can't keep the small but important percentage of my workflow that involves Photoshop together with the rest of the workflow in Aperture, that is a major burden for memory and organization. A unified workflow is the reason I thought I wanted to use Aperture.

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Answer 4

Dec 23, 2006 12:25 PM in response to Charles Hartman

I tend to use (primarily) the managed approach. I export a project over to my laptop, import it, work on it, then export/import back. Or, if I'm out in the field, I import my images into the laptop, export and then import to my office machine. This works well, although I wish a pipe existed vs. export/import.

Moving reference files between drives sounds very fragile. If your office machine is connected to broadband, have you considered leaving the images attached to that and using remote access or OSX VNCserver and Chicken of the VNC client? Log into your office machine and control it and Aperture remotely. I use VNC around the home/office and it works pretty well for speed (10/100base-T) but unsure how fast it'll be over WAN/broadband.

G.

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Answer 5

Dec 23, 2006 3:55 PM in response to David G Chapman

There's no problem with the images, of course. The Library, on the other hand, does seem pretty fragile. Networking by Airport (what I have available) is much too slow.

If I have to go back to managed images, I will, but it is a lot faster to sync image files, and for that matter copy a referenced library, than to export/import projects that have hundreds of raw images in them.

I'd be all set, sort of, if I had some idea what is going on with these .psd files.

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Answer 6

Dec 24, 2006 8:08 PM in response to Charles Hartman

And furthermore:

When I export a project containing .psd files, and import it on the other machine, Aperture still can't find the images. They are there on disk. In the lower pane of Manage Referenced Files I can navigate to them. The Relocate buttons still don't become active.

Is anybody able to get Aperture to recognize .psd files transferred from one library to another, by any method at all?

(I can imagine one more: export each .psd file, and import each one individually. This is a "workflow"?)

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