Hello, newbie to the forum and so excuse the waffling question!
I am using Aperture 1 on a Mac and all my photos since first use have been ‘managed’.
Recently I found that due to the large amount of images I have taken, my Mac slowed right down and so I took the step of deleting off years worth of photos (after backing them up onto external drives as libraries). So now I only have the last two years worth of photos to look at/work with. This means I cannot go back to my previous photos without importing them back in - a very lengthy and time consuming process when searching for only one image!
I now realise that what I should have done is to have ‘referenced’ my photos instead, so my ‘master/originals’ were held on an external drive.
So, getting to the point! - can I now change my Managed photos to Referenced photos as I would like to consolidate all my photo libraries into one AND still be able to preview all my photos. Is this possible please?
Thanks,
Dave
Yes use File…Relocate Original and point the move to the new location.
davidbmoore@mac.com
Twitter= @davidbmoore
Scottsdale AZ
Thank you. So this will tell Aperture where my 25,000+ photos are but will it display them if I haven’t imported them into Aperture?
When you import images into AP you can make those images Referenced or Managed at that time. You have to import images into AP so it can make a small record of the asset or file. These small records form a library and this library can be either or both Referenced and or Managed. That means that the Lib can contain the record and the actual image or just the record. Once there is a record / Thumbnail of the image the Larger image can remain on an external HD. I hope that helps.
dbm
davidbmoore@mac.com
Twitter= @davidbmoore
Scottsdale AZ
Much clearer, as I have backed up my files in ‘vaults’ - can these be reimported to achieve the above?
Thanks for the help so far!
Dave
Much clearer, but as I don’t want to clog my Mac up with large files am I correct in saying that if I import my images into Aperture but ask them to be referenced then that would leave the masters in the external hard drive, thus ensuring my Mac contains minimal files sizes?
Yes!!!
Also, as I have backed up my files in ‘vaults’ - can these be reimported to achieve the above?
If you change all or part of your Lib from or to Referenced your Vault will reflect that on the next time you update the Vault. That is your Vault will get smaller if you go to a referenced method cause its not coping the images that were stored in the lib. All Referenced files need to be backed up separately!! Referenced images are not backup in the Vault. Sorry I can’t help but repeat myself when typing this … it is a little confusing.
davidbmoore@mac.com
Twitter= @davidbmoore
Scottsdale AZ
That’s great, thanks very much. I now have a much clearer idea of my plan of action!
Thank you.
- Dave K
Great!
Groucho Marxs, ” Its so easy a three year old can understand it….. quick go find a three yr old, I can’t make heads or tails of it”
davidbmoore@mac.com
Twitter= @davidbmoore
Scottsdale AZ
I must remember to back up my referenced photos separately as previously I just let Vault do everything!
Cheers.
Very Important. Some people don’t use the Vaults but copy the Lib and their external Hd with Copycloner or Superduper. I still use them but thats another topic Cheers
davidbmoore@mac.com
Twitter= @davidbmoore
Scottsdale AZ
I personally stopped using vaults and instead use CCC to back up my entire Aperture library.
My backup strategy consists of:
This gives me a total of four, up to date copies of my data all the time… and a “reasonably” up to date copy on my pair of HDDs.
As David mentioned… once you move to referenced originals… you will NO LONGER HAVE any backups of your originals in vaults. Backing up your originals becomes your own responsibility.
/Jim
/Jim Pappas
Thanks for that Jim.