I have created a shared photo stream for my baby pictures, and I am finding it to be a real lifesaver. For a while, I had emailed pictures to my Mom, my Dad, my wife’s dad, my sister, and so on. Now I just publish them to the photo stream and I’ve got that one stream shared with something like 10 relatives. It’s really been a wonderful timesaver, and it’s easy to see what’s already been sent out. I’ve even got a QuicKeys shortcut for publishing to PhotoStream - as far as I can see that particular command cannot be assigned a shortcut key within Aperture.
Another (hopefully useful) innovation is that I’ve told my mom that she has to “like” a picture in the photostream if she wants a print. No more emails “can you send me a print of the baby standing by the crib” and a subsequent hour of me trying to find what she wanted.
My question is this - can I create a smart album that contains all entries from my shared photo stream that have likes? Bonus points - can I have a smart album with entries from my shared photo stream with likes from a specific user (i.e. my mom)?
John F
New York, NY
I’m guessing no. Streams are not real members of your Library so I think the filter tool cannot be used to find things in them. I say this because you can’t apply adjustments to images in a stream. You can only apply adjustments to images in projects. I imagine the same restriction applies to all the other features within Aperture.
This thread in the Apple Discussions > Aperture forum appears to support my theory.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5271522
Photographer | https://www.walterrowe.com | https://instagram.com/walter.rowe.photo
I’ve figured out a half-way solution to the problem of making an album from “Likes” in a photo stream. I submitted my workflow to the Tips section of ApertureExpert. Below is a copy of my iPhoto-based workflow…
I got an iPad for my Mom just before the baby was born, so that we could send her pictures. I had tried getting computers for her before, but she was never interested. Now that there’s a grandkiddie, she’s all over that iPad. At first, I was getting emails saying “can I have a print of the baby in that blue onesie?” Needless to say, if you’re using Aperture and you’ve got a baby then finding a picture of “The baby in the blue onesie” is not going to be easy. 20 of these requests and you’ve lost an afternoon.
At some point, I started using Photo Stream, and got that going on my Mom’s iPad so that I didn’t have to email pictures to her anymore. I also got my Dad, my wife’s dad, and my sister on it. It’s a big improvement over emailing photos, as I don’t have to send separate emails and (even better) it’s easy to see what I’ve already published.
I came up with the idea of telling my Mom that if she wanted a print, she had to “like” that picture. No more emails asking for the picture of the baby sitting on the floor in the living room. She’s started “liking” photos. Good, so far. I then realized that finding and marking “Liked” photos in a photo stream in Aperture, to be blunt, sucks. You must set the inspector to Info, and set the pop-up menu to comments and then browse a photo at a time. When I see a “Liked” photo, I can then set the inspector back to Library, and drag the photo to an album of pictures to order. However, when I do this, each photo dragged creates a new untitled project. In addition, after each photo I have to click back in the Info tab in the Inspector, and then set the pop-up back to comment. This makes for a very clumsly, disjointed, and slow workflow.
I decided to see if this is better in iPhoto. It is - vastly better! Open your Aperture library in iPhoto, assuming your iPhoto & Aperture versions line up such that you can share a library. Create a new album in which to place the photos you’d like to order. Go into your shared photo stream, and click on “info” so you can see Likes and comments. Use the arrow keys to move through the Photo stream, one photo at a time. When you see a photo that’s been “Liked” then drag it into the album. Voila! You’re just clicking arrow keys and dragging to the album, and it makes for a smooth workflow.