My query started off simple, I wanted to know how to delete photos off the hard drive as well as the library. I wasn’t sure that when I deleted all my duds and out of focus photos that they were being deleted off the hard drive too. I am guessing that deleting all masters and versions does this but to be sure I went to finder to search for some of the photos to see if they were still on the computer.
That is when I noticed that in my pictures folder in finder I have an Aperture library file, an iphoto file and about 3200 photos in no folders. I recently switched to Apple Mac and originally was using iphoto. Very soon I realised Aperture would better suit my needs and so my husband set it up for me and transfered the library over.
I have a very large collection of photos on various hard drives and when I have sussed out how it works and organised the 6 months worth of photos I have on my lap top I will then introduce these other photos. Eventually I want to store all my photos on a separate hard drive which will back itself up. I have already bought one for this purpose. From what I read this will mean that these files will be referenced. For now though I thought it would be easier to start off with managed files and build up slowly as you suggest in your publication. So I consolidated all my files. When I did this I asked for them to be moved rather than copied. However when I tried to delete the iphoto library folder, thinking it was no longer needed, I could no longer access the files on aperture.I took it back out of the trash but don’t understand why I still need this folder if all the photos that were once in it are now in the aperture library.
As to the 3200 photos that are just sat there I don’t understand where they came from and why they are not in the aperture library folder, even though I can see them in aperture? I tried to do a search for referenced files thinking that I could then consolidate these into the aperture library too but the search told me I had no more referenced files. Does this mean they are duplicates and I can delete them? I want to keep the photos organised and tidy on the hard drive to minimise any problems when I transfer files to an external hard drive.
A couple of years ago I had an awful time trying to set up a catalogue with Elements, part of the problem was to do with moving files and the fact that my husband had forgotten about a test catalogue he had set up so it turned out I had photos over two catalogues. When I tried to shift files around to tidy it up, following the instructions to the letter, the thing kept corrupting on me. I lost months of work, twice! It nearly caused me to give up photography for good it just seemed too complicated.
I am very nervous about moving files in large numbers and was hoping Apple mac and aperture were going to be the answer to my prayers but I already seem to be in a mess. I need to get this right before I can start putting on my other thousands of photographs.
I guess my query then is why, if all my photos are managed, are the files all over my hard drive instead of in one folder called Aperture library? Also when I delete master and all versions does that delete it off the hard drive too?
Cheers Vivien
Joseph
Thank you so much for your advice. I organised the rest of my files into one folder and
finally plucked up the courage to export this folder into a new library. I deleted the old library complete with the mess I’d left behind and everything seems to be running fine. I am now in the process of importing thousands of photos off various hard drives.
As promised I have downloaded 15 tips and am on the second reading. I love your publications, not only do they tell you what you can do (which most manuals do) and how to do it (which I find quite often some manuals leave out these details) but also why I might want to do it (which is very rare). so although I have always known that I can rename batches upon import I never knew that I wanted to do this, until now that is. So that’s what I am doing now and have even made a few custom presets, some for renaming and some for adding metadata. As I strive to be super organised I am wandering now how I go about renaming the photos that are already imported so that all my photos are named the same way. I want to do this as we quite often have a number of cameras on the go and also at some point I will have to stop having a managed library and move to a referenced one. Any advice?
I am also getting a bit confused between RAW and JPEG pairs. At some point I must have changed the import settings and now in some places the library only displays my RAW on top in some places I still see both which is kind of annoying now as I mainly make adjustments on the RAW file. How do I make sure only one file is displayed? I tried to select them all then go into picture to set RAW as master however these two options are grayed out. I then tried to auto stack but decided this is a bit too fiddly.
I also want to check if I am doing all my adjustments to the RAW file do I then need to save this as a JPEG to export to print or online or does this get done automatically when you export.
Ooo I also have a wee question about adding metadata. You mentioned that you always like to add peoples names to the metadata in the keyword field. Do you mean you do this as well as using the faces tags or is it the same thing, just one happens on import and one after import?
Thanks again, Viv
Vivien,
Easy answer first—when you delete a master in Aperture, if it’s referenced, it will ask you if you want it to move the referenced file to the Finder trash. If you say yes, it doesn’t actually delete it, but just moves it to the Finder trash. By the way, the image in Aperture has only been moved to the Aperture trash at that point.
If that file is managed, it will just move it to the Aperture trash, but then when you empty the Aperture trash, the master file will be moved to the Finder trash. Still another opportunity to recover!
No the second question.
The behavior you’re setting when moving the iPhoto library and then seeing missing files errors in Aperture tells me that you’re actually not working managed; that at least some files are referenced. However you said you searched and din’t find any referenced files, but I wonder if perhaps that search wasn’t across your entire library, or was somehow incomplete.
Go to the Photos view, which will show ALL images in your Library [screenshot] (it may take a few minutes to load).
Select ALL the photos in the browser, and then go to menu File > Referenced Files. It will again take a few moments while it verifies the location of every single file that’s been selected. This should show nothing if in fact all your photos are Managed. Anything referenced will show up here. Look at the Not Found column; if all referenced images are connected, this will read zero [screenshot].
Other than verifying that no images are missing, you’ve just forced the catalog to check the location of all photos. Now we can exit out of here and select those errant referenced files and move them into the Library (and if in fact there were NO files in here, skip the next paragraph).
Exit that dialog and back in Aperture, still in the Photos view, open the Search window and add the criteria File Status, then set that to Referenced. This will show you any and all referenced files. Yes you could have done this first, but as I mentioned opening the Referenced File manager forces an index of the selected files, and I think give you more accurate results. [screenshot]. Assuming some are found, you can now use the command File > Consolidate Masters… to bring them into the Aperture library.
Then the safest thing to do is to move all the photos that are still loose in your system to another hard drive and disconnect that drive—then even if there’s still some hidden error or missing file, you won’t have deleted them.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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Thanks so much Joseph for your quick reply. I followed your instructions and found 143 files that were referenced. I followed the rest of the instructions and I now have only an Aperture library folder in my pictures folder. I feel like a great weight has been lifted. Thanks so much. Can uninstall iphoto now or would you recommend leaving it on?
As for the trash I think I understood what you are saying so just to clarify then, if I mark my photos as rejected then put them into the trash, then empty the aperture trash and then empty the trash on my laptop am I then deleting the photos off the hard drive not just any links to them in aperture?
Thanks again, Viv
Vivien,
Wonderful, glad I was able to help.
I’d keep the iPhoto application, but you can remove the iPhoto Library (in ~/Pictures). But again, do copy it to an external drive before deleting it. Just in case.
When you reject a photo in Aperture, it is NOT moved to the trash. It’s just hidden. You can view rejects at any time in a project by going to the search dialog and selecting “Rejected”.
If you select those rejected photos and hit delete, then they will go to the Aperture trash.
If you empty the Aperture trash, the photo in Aperture and all it’s metadata is erased, and the master file will be moved to the Finder trash. If it’s a referenced file, Aperture will actually ask you “do you want to move referenced files to the trash”, knowing that since they are outside of the Aperture library, they could well be being used by some other application. If they are managed photos, Aperture will just quietly move the master to the Finder trash.
If you empty the Finder trash, they are lost forever. Unless of course you’re running a backup (you are backing up, right? Time Machine, Backblaze, something?).
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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Thanks Joseph, I haven’t got round to working out how to do a back up yet as I was trying to get it all organised first, but I’m starting to think that that may be the wrong way round!
Before I get to that I have another problem and Ireally hope you can help with this one as it is driving me nuts. Only minutes after I managed to get things in order with your last instructions I managed to cause more chaos. As I was cleaning my desk top I tried to put the hard drive icon on the dock at the bottom of my screen. It wouldn’t go but whilst trying I must have dragged it over the aperture icon. I didn’t spot it till later when I went back to aperture and got stuck on the circle of wait. It took me a while to realise what had happened and by then I had managed to import most of my hard drive folder structure into Aperture. How the hell do I get rid of that now?
My import presets are set to move the files into aperture library however when I move things it seems to copy them so I think they are just copies. There doesn’t seem to be anything in the folders but it is taking forever to delete them and there are so many. You know that analogy of time where if the history of the earth is an hour then humans have only been around for a second? Well my photos are that second and the rest of the library is the hard drive files. Is there any way I can export it back out? I’m starting to think I’m not cut out for photography!
Help me Joseph Linaschke you’re my only hope…
Vivien,
Oh goodness…
I’m not sure why it’s taking so long to delete things. You should be able to go through your library and select the new doesn’t-belong-here stuff and delete it in one whack. What’s making it take so long?
See in this screenshot, I’ve selected multiple non-contiguous items (by holding command-key while clicking on what I want to select)… you could also select contiguous items by clicking the first one, then shift-clicking the last one, and it’d select everything in-between… and then right-clicking to bring up the Delete command. [screenshot]
That’s all it should take. Then empty the trash.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
PS—It’s not the photography you’re having a hard time with—it’s the computer side of things ;-) Don’t worry, we all started somewhere!
@PhotoJoseph
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Hi again Joseph,
I know, I know, am I the only idiot in the world that has managed to do this?
I don’t if the sheer amount of files is causing aperture to take so long. There is nothing in the files, well not that shows up in aperture anyway. In my first attempt to delete them I collapsed the top file (/) and tried to delete that. I left it doing that all night and the circle of wait was still whirring away in the morning so I abandoned that. I have been deleting the files in chunks but it is going to take weeks at this rate. Also my macbook pro gets extremely hot and slows down while it is trying to delete these files so I have to keep switching it off to rest. It is under one year old so I am a bit concerned about this. I would just leave the file there collapsed but aperture seems to take ages to do anything since it arrived. I know I keep reading that I shouldn’t mess around with the Aperture library file in finder but do you think I might be able to delete them faster from there?
ps You might be on to something there. Perhaps if I concentrated on improving my photography skills then I would take one photo instead of 10 and then I wouldn’t have such a need for cataloging all these photos!!!
Me again Joseph,
After deleting a few of these files I tried to empty the trash and this caused Aperture to crash again. So I have been thinking… dangerous I know! I’m thinking I might try to export my good files into a new library and then delete the old one. Do you think this would work (and faster) and can you give me any tips on doing this or perhaps point me in the right direction?
Once I have sorted this mess I promise I am going to download your tips on file management and I will not touch Aperture till I have read it at least 5 times!
Cheers Viv
Vivien,
That’s exactly what I was going to suggest, but you beat me to it :)
It’s probably easier to get the good stuff out than the bad stuff, from the sounds of things. So yes, select all your known good content, and Export > Items as New Library.
Good luck
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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Viv,
Glad to hear you’re making great progress with your library, and it sounds like you’re really getting your Aperture learnin’ on! ;-)
To answer your questions:
1) For batch renaming, you can rename the master at the same time by selecting the “Apply to Master Files” checkbox in the Rename Masters dialog. [screenshot] Some advice here though… if you’ve already renamed them Masters, and now want to rename them something else, you won’t be able to use the “master name” module in the renaming to get to the original “_IMG1234” filename. The “master name” is already something longer, and that will just get incorporated. The only way to really start over is to move the files outside of the library (Referenced), and rename them manually (search for “NameChanger” for a great app to do this). However you’ll want to be very careful that Aperture maintains its connection to the files throughout this process, and chances are you’ll need to reconnect them at some point.
It’s not for the faint of heart, for sure.
2) RAW+JPEG pairs. The only time you can connect them as permanent pairs is on import. You can’t break them once they’re imported, and you can’t join them after the fact. It’s a limitation I hope to see addressed in future releases.
What you CAN do is stack them, but you’ll probably have to do it manually. Not ideal if you have thousands of them.
Alternatively, just search for all the RAW in a Project, and put them in an Album labeled RAW, and then do the same for the JPEGs. Or, just throw away the JPEG files if you really don’t need them anymore.
3) There’s never a need to create a JPEG of a file just to retain its adjustments. All of those adjustments are stored as instructions and retained in the Aperture library. That said, it can’t hurt to have an archive of files as delivered to a client, if you want to be sure that you can access the exact files as-sent at some point in the future. For me that’s not a workflow step I concern myself with. If a client wants a version of a photo a year from now, I’m going to probably look at it and see if I can make it any better, using newer version of the RAW decode, or newer adjustments in Aperture, instead of just ending the exact same thing.
4) Names added as Faces get exported as Keywords on export, but I don’t really use Faces. I find it too slow for the type of shooting I do. I think it’s a great consumer feature, but not ready for Pro use yet. So I’m more likely to just add a name as a keyword to an image than I am to tag it in Faces.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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Hi Joseph,
Ok so maybe renaming my entire back catalogue was a little too ambitious! The main problem seems to be that on occasion a number of cameras have been used for the same event and it doesn’t look like they were synced. Also over the years we have updated computers and laptops and hard drives and so photos have been moved around quite a bit and so have a number of random “date created” attached to them. Also I had a portable hard drive go corrupt on a holiday in India and so the photos had to be recovered. This seems to have affected the dates on some photos so as I import them using your naming sequence they are getting a bit muddled.
The main reason I wanted to rename them all was so that things would run smoothly when I went from a managed to a referenced library within aperture. I was going to bring them all into the library, year by year, as managed (as this seemed easier) do everything I wanted to them, cull and add keywords, then when my laptop hard drive was full I was going to move them to a dedicated hard drive to store, therefore making them referenced. From what I have seen in the library file aperture seems to be storing the photos according to when they were imported not how I had them filed before that.
So my questions are… is it all going to get very messy when I make them referenced and will it take ages? Will I have to export them one project at a time and give them all new file names rather than be able to do a whole year at a time? Would it be easier if I don’t bring the back catalogue in as managed but keep them as referenced? Or should I stick to my original plan and rename them but using a different naming sequence, perhaps one that doesn’t use the time but would still allow me to see at a glance what the files are without having to open them?
I am so grateful for your advice once again,
Viv
Vivien,
I don’t see any advantage to moving perfectly connected and content referenced images as managed while working on them, unless you specifically wanted to do this while on the road and not have to have your hard drive attached. In which case, great, that’s what it’s there for.
Renaming in batches as you know does require a common naming scheme, so if you’re attempting to customize the names of the files, then yes you’ll have to do them in individual batches. Not ideal if you’re doing thousands of photos.
The speed of moving between referenced and managed is dependent only on hard drive and I/O speed—it’s basically a finder copy, with a little extra time for Aperture to rewrite the database.
If your files are not dated or timed correctly, then adding the date and time to the filename may do you a disservice. For those, perhaps you should limit it to just a year that they were shot in? The whole point is to force the shoot order, and if that data is incorrect, then the forced order will be incorrect.
The problems you mentioned with losing original dates is precisely why I do what I do, naming every file with a yyyy-mm-dd_hh-mm-ss scheme. Years ago, in the early iPhoto days, I lost thousands of images to a drive failure or some such nonsense. Just as you found, on recovery, the dates were hosed. I have decade-old digital photos I’m still trying to figure out when they were from. No fun. Hence a step in the evolution of my current naming scheme.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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