Thursday
Aug112011
Thursday, August 11, 2011 at 3:05 PM by Joseph Linaschke The Aperture FAQ—It's Time
Hi folks,
I’ve been collecting notes for an Aperture FAQ for over a year now, and it’s high time I get this thing published. It’ll be a lovely source of frequently asked questions for Aperture users of all levels, including topics such as:
- Rebuilding libraries
- Rebuilding thumbnails
- Applejack use
- Clearing caches
- Using iPhoto and Aperture together
- Where are all the pieces of Aperture located?
- Fixing stubborn library problems
- NAS issues
…and more.
What do YOU think should be included? If you have topics you’re constantly addressing, questions you’re always answering, or even problems you encounter often but just haven’t quite figured out the right solution… tell me in the comments below. Let’s make this the definitive FAQ for Aperture!
Reader Comments (14)
Sounds great!
Looking forward to this. I have asked this before an I am still struggling (probably a little too much OCD on my part-got to have this just perfect!) with trying to figure out a good set up for an external HD to house referenced library(s) and how to input/upload photos with a CF card reader. What gets connected to what. Throw in a Mac Time Machine and it get confusing. FW? USB? aSATA? How does one make this workflow flow? iMac? MBP only, iMac with iPad, etc. Some simple "the ankle bone is connected to the shin bone" type of advice would be appreciate by this one voting member. :)
Florian
Florian,
That's an eBook, not an FAQ ;-)
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
Just went through a maddening experience where I changed to a higher capacity external FireWire drive that contained among other things my referenced Master Library. I used the Finder to copy everything from the old drive to the new drive, disconnected the old drive and then renamed the new drive the same as the old drive. On launching Aperture, its very zealous drive checking determined that the referenced library was not attached. Long story short, it took a lot of web searching and fussing about with Aperture to find a method to set things right again. I believe the correct way to do this next time would be to copy everything but the Aperture library using the Finder, then launch Aperture and use it to relocate the Masters to the new drive. Since upgrading to larger capacity drives is something every one of us will do at some point, and since the "right" way to do this is not documented by Apple (that I could find) an FAQ on the best way to move things across would be good. (As I am not assuming my proposed solution is the best way.)
Robert,
That's pretty good. It's a big topic, but certainly a "right way" would be a good FAQ. I cover reconnecting to masters, and tricks to get around stubborn reconnects in the "ApertureExpert's 15 Tips on File Management in Aperture 3" book (tip #13), but yes, by far the best way is to let Aperture do the move for you, as you mentioned.
Thanks!
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
Since it's a FAQ, perhaps just a quick summary of the backup options available when using referenced masters? And, for that matter, also with a managed library.
Ie. "How do I backup my Library / Referenced Masters?" and then give some highlights that will allow people to continue the hunt on google or in articles/ebooks/videos you might post.
That's an eBook, not an FAQ ;-)
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
If you build it, I will buy it! ;)
Florian
I just switched to Aperture and a Mac from Lightroom and a PC, and my only real question is; were does Aperture store the images if I wanted to pull them out of the "vault"? I can see the vault, but I simply can't see what's in it.
Hunter,
Welcome to ApertureExpert, and to Aperture. Just so you know, we also have a support space, at www.ApertureExpert.com/forum.
The Vault is a proprietary backup system for Aperture, it's not just a repository of images. To get anything out of it, you need to Restore Library from an existing Vault. To understand what's in a Vault, check out this post: Aperture 3 Vaults; What’s Backed Up, and What Isn’t?.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
You've already listed a few I'm interested in, especially rebuilding a library which has been a burning question for me so I can't wait.
-Ed Shields
Excellent idea! ApertureExpert is the best thing out there for learning more about Aperture.....better than Lynda.com and other resources. Add to your list information about embedding metadata, particularly captions, into the digital file....so that it follows the file on export, etc. I am working on a large number of scanned family photos, including writing captions for each of them. My objective is to do this in such a way that it becomes a part of the file as I pass it along to others (assuming they have a image editor that reads metadata). I believe Aperture does this this.......at least in my testing, it seems to work. Am I on the right track? Thanks.
Yeah, I'm loving this idea too! :)
I think something cool to try (depending on how big this will be) is to have the FAQ labeled with amounts of difficultly or level for Aperture that way new and old users will quickly find what they might need.
There's a few things that I think always get tricky when explaining to people:
1. Moving referenced files around and backing them up (as mentioned) is definitely one.
2. What the vault does and doesn't backup (especially since this has changed over the years)
3. How backing up on import differs from the vault or other methods.
4. What geotagging file formats work best with Aperture?
5. When editing the time to sync cameras, or when traveling, what are the best options to use? (Import via editing time zone, or post-import, and noting how cameras let you specify the time zone. This gets tricky when you edit your camera's time but the time zone data still shows up wrong. (That may be a bit OCD but it happens.))
6. "Scale Watermark" options. Those can get messy, but apple has provided an excellent article now: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4843
7. How the options to fix library problems affect your library, and what you need to do as precautions.
8. What can't be customized in the Aperture interface? (The answer being virtually nothing to my knowledge, but I'm not sure if I'm not thinking of anything right now. Maybe the toolbar in fullscreen?)
9. How to hide the normal toolbar in Lion now that the "pill" / "lozenge" is gone. (Shift-T or Show/Hide in the view menu)
10. An updated list of EVERYTHING Previews get used for. (Ok, maybe not every external app that can see previews, but that anything which uses the OS X image picker, like iWork and even FCP X)
11. The difference between the two slideshow methods.
12. How round-tripping and plugins work, especially when going BACK a second time to make subsequent edits. Do files get duplicated again? Can you still make use of non-destructive edits afterwards, etc?
Ok, that's all I can think of for now. :) Some of those are questions I've had people ask me or things that sometimes seem confusing or have confused / bugged me in the past. I'll be happy to help write answers too!
If anyone remembers the Inside Aperture blog, well, I you've got a really nice replacement going now. :)
Oh I just thought of one that is good for privacy.
Is there a way to remove certain metadata from an image for sharing?
For instance, if you like me encode every image you import with IPTC creator data, you don't necessarily want to put your address out on Flickr.
Sadly, I don't think there's a way to do this. (Feature request time!)
Hopefully that's not too much. :)
How do you batch *delete* keywords?
Thanks for doing this.
-John