Ten Tips to a Clean Aperture Library (4 of 10) — Dump Your Dupes
(If you’re just joining us, start with Tip 1)
Tip 4 — Dump Your Dupes
Every now and then I’ll end up with some duplicates. This can take up a lot of space. It can be tedious and time consuming to deal with, but now is the time before the problem is so big you don’t want to deal with it. Like all tedious tasks with computers, someone has figured out a way to automate it. There’s a little app called Duplicate Annihilator—Aperture Edition. I have used this a couple times to fix major screw ups usually associated with iPhone photos. It’s a little scary so I exported the offending Project as a Library and used it on that so I didn’t damage my main library. This might also be a good time to nuke either RAW or JPEG versions when you shot RAW plus JPEG for a specific reason but now don’t need one or the other.
Duplicate Annihilator - Aperture Edition in action.
I haven’t tried Tom’s duplicate-detector tool yet, so I can’t chime in on that… but I can give you a tip on avoiding duplicates in the first place.
You’re probably aware that on import, Aperture includes the option “Do not import duplicates”.
The “Do not import duplicates” features is great, unless…
However you may have noticed that it doesn’t always work! And here’s why… if you rename your files on import, then this breaks. It basically is just doing a filename and date compare between the library and the import selection, and unless both match exactly, Aperture won’t call it a duplicate.
For pro shooters pulling images off of a stack of CF cards, this is rarely an issue because you are probably importing everything, then wiping the card and starting over. However for many users, you may just be importing a selection of photos from your camera, and intend to NOT delete them after import. And why not, right… if you have a 16GB card on a mid-level resolution camera, you can probably store thousands of photos on a single card. Why delete them when you know there’s a copy on the card as a nice little backup, at least until you have to wipe the card? I do this myself with my X100 when traveling, so that I know I have multiple copies of the photo.
So here’s my tip… after importing a batch of photos that you’ve renamed on import so the “do not import duplicates” will no longer work, fire a frame or two with the lens cap on. This will give you a really easy-to-spot dividing line when looking at the import window.
Those black frames make it easy to know what I last imported
Next time you import, you’ll know exactly where you left off. Import everything after those black frames, and you’re set!
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Comments
on April 27, 2012 - 3:08am
Just a quick note. I used Duplicate Annihilator for iPhoto for my wife’s library of 28k photos and it saved her 11GB. I copied it to my iMac since her 2007 white MacBook was going mental with it. I think I didn’t save much time - it still took over 28hrs to finish but what a great job. Seeing how great it worked, I decided to get the Aperture version. While browsing their website I realized that I would have to buy the full version (still no dramatic cost $7.99) but I also noticed they sold iPhoto-Aperture combos. I sent them an email if there was a way to buy the combo for me and they were WONDERFUL enough to give me a license for FREE. Now that is an amazing customer service. I just wanted to share that the Annihilator does a great job.
It is beyond me why Aperture of iPhoto import photos e.g. via PhotoStream and then if you try adding the same photo via import (by having the iPhone physically connected) it doesn’t warn us as users that the photo already exists in the library. Bizarre, isn’t it?
on April 27, 2012 - 3:30am
That’s a great customer service report Jan, thanks!
@PhotoJoseph
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on June 21, 2012 - 1:02pm
I just installed Photo Sweeper from the App store. It can remove dups from Aperture, iPhoto, and folders all at the same time. I may get organized yet.
on June 22, 2012 - 2:15am
Russell,
Please keep us updated on how that works out! I haven’t tried that tool yet.
-Joseph
@PhotoJoseph
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