I take photos, PhotoStream makes sure they end up in my Aperture Library & all is good.
Except that I want to share photos with my wife who's using iPhoto on a separate Mac.
Because the (referenced) photos are not on the file system in any simple structure … how do I easily share photos with my wife?
I can …
-Import some photos from Aperture into iPhoto on my Mac, then enable iPhoto Sharing, which works well, except that my Mac & iPhoto have to be running for the photos to be accessible to my wife … which isn't really satisfactory.
-Go onto my wife's Mac & import from the Aperture referenced photo location, but this is a bit cryptic, as everything is stored in Year / Month folder structures, so if I want to share all photos of our baby, I have to fish around for them all, instead of being able to just grab them all in one swoop.
-Create a smart album in Aperture & export the images to the file system, from where my wife can import them, but this is a bit manual & requires me to re-export them periodically etc…
Has Apple really not figured out simple sharing between family members of photos?
Any ideas, anyone?
Bruce,
I’ll start with the last question… ”has Apple really not figured out a simple sharing…”. No, they haven’t. It’s not as simple a problem as you might think. Photos take up a lot of space, especially original RAW files, so moving them around constantly even over a local network isn’t ideal. Ultimately we hope to see some kind of central server for Aperture where images can be hosted in one location and accessed from multiple, but it is a massive permissions issue. This is the kind of system that costs thousands and thousands of dollars to set up and maintain in the world of video; it’s not that different for photos.
Anyway as far as sharing between Aperture and iPhoto, I’d say forget it. It’s not likely to be worth the hassle and you’re bound to end up with a file management nightmare. If you really really want to, then go with your last suggestion — export images from time to time that she can import.
Your best option, IMHO, is to get her using Aperture. That’s step one. It’s really not any more complicated than iPhoto, it just has more options.
Second, if you do need her to be able to work on her computer and you on yours, then the easiest and safest way to move the photos around is to store your library on a large external hard drive, and just physically move that drive between computers. Only one of you can work on the photos at a time, but then any changes she makes you’ll see, and vice-versa.
Honestly I believe that’s the best option. Sometimes easiest is best :)
@PhotoJoseph
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I’m wondering why you don’t use the obvious solution of enabling PhotoStream on your wife’s Mac so she can get the same photos?
Thomas
“I’m wondering why you don’t use the obvious solution of enabling PhotoStream on your wife’s Mac so she can get the same photos?”
Well, she has her PhotoStream & I have mine, so if she changed her iCloud details on her laptop to mine, she’d lose syncing of all her photos, as well as contacts, calendars, etc.
So, unless I’m missing something, I don’t think PhotoStream provides an easy answer ..
Hi Joseph,
Thanks for your input - really useful; I think that confirms for me, as you say, that there’s no easy solution.
I don’t really want to share the same Library as my wife; she doesn’t want to see all photos, just a select few & the whole ‘only one of you can work on it at once’ raises the spectre of corruptions if we inadvertently simultaneously open the library (we’d probably store it on the Mac mini that’s at the heart of our little home network). That would also mean the Library isn’t very portable; at the moment it’s on my MBP so I always have it with me.
So I think me exporting photos for her to import is probably the simplest answer. Seems a little crazy to have yet more copies of the same photos kicking about - perhaps one day that’s a ‘value add’ that Apple could add to OS X server & sell it to all of us
Until then, I’ll keep doing it the manual way
Thanks
Bruce,
Doing it over the network isn’t a great idea, which is why I didn’t suggest it. You will introduce speed issues and you could introduce permissions issues. It’s not ideal.
Exporting the copies you need access to may be your best option then, if you’re not wanting to move the library to an external hard drive.
Take a look at using Drop Box as a way to easily share the exported files from your computer to hers. Basically you would export as needed and they’d show up automatically on her computer. She would still need to import them, but at least you’ll save the step of manually copying files around the network.
@PhotoJoseph
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“Ultimately we hope to see some kind of central server for Aperture where images can be hosted in one location and accessed from multiple, but it is a massive permissions issue. This is the kind of system that costs thousands and thousands of dollars to set up and maintain in the world of video; it’s not that different for photos. “
It is not that different for any type of file. Permissions are a huge issue in networks, who can see what, who has delegated rights, especially at the root, or administrative levels. The amount of effort ($$$, human resources) that goes into this is huge, the ongoing maintenance as well as complexity. I’m not sure that the average home network user, come administrator is ready for this kind of thing where there are levels of permissions, group permissions, and software that recognises these things.
My 2c, export them and reimport.
Hi, I had a great solution for this exact problem before Apple’s upgrade to iPhoto 9.3…
So what I did was is inside iPhoto, I would browse my Aperture library under the File menu. This was great, because, you could import photos from Aperture using Aperture’s Previews. This means that if you shoot RAW (which I do all the time… even with our six year old) and touch up / enhance your photos, you could get a rendered version of your photos. This was great, because it will not clog up my iPhoto library with original RAW files, just a nice small JPEG. I strictly used iPhoto just for sharing photos. I would enable photo sharing in iPhoto and then my wife could browse my iPhoto library and import the photos. I would also create smart albums for each month, which made browsing / sharing a little easier for her to import. It even dealt with duplicates very well. I will add that it maintained the original shooting date, so the photos would sort nicely in her iPhoto library.
This worked great, but Apple took that lovely feature (Browse the Aperture library) away with iPhoto 9.3x !!! arrgh! Thanks Apple.. So now I’m working on a new workflow… I’ll let you know how that works…
… John
John,
You can still browse the Aperture library in the latest version of iPhoto. In iPhoto choose File->Import to library… In the resulting dialog box click “Photos” in the MEDIA section of the left-hand pane. It’s at the bottom and you may need to scroll down if you have a lot of Favorites in that pane.
Once you select Photos, you’ll see Aperture and iPhoto in the upper right-hand side of the dialog. Select Aperture as it would be like cannibalism to import from iPhoto. I think at this point it works just like the old Browse Aperture Library command. If you expand the Aperture selection by clicking the arrow next to it you’ll see projects and albums.
Unfortunately it doesn’t work the other way. Aperture doesn’t open this standard dialog during an import so you can’t browse iPhoto from Aperture.
You can grab Aperture/iPhoto photos from any OPEN dialog box this way. For example, if you’re on a web site in Safari that you want to upload an image to, you’d click the Open or Browse button on the site and you’ll get this same dialog with the MEDIA section.
Tom
Thomas
Why does this work in iPhoto? I like upgrading to Aperture, but missing such an basic (iPhoto, consumer) feature is difficult to fathom.
I guess I will investigate opening the Aperture library with iPhoto - it seems there is a universal library format - then launch iPhoto to share the photos. I’ll come back and let you know if it works, Bruce.
bradbell.tv
In short, you need to use iPhoto to share your Aperture photos. But it’s simple: just open your Aperture library in iPhoto: File > Switch to Library…
More here:
http://bit.ly/MUUgAv
Brad,
I’m sorry but I’m missing what it is you’re saying “why does this work in iPhoto”? You certainly don’t need to use iPhoto to share your Aperture photos, so can you please elaborate on what you mean?
@PhotoJoseph
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