Thanks for doing this blog. I just found it this weekend and have already learned a TON!
I tried solving my problem with various searches all over the internet but had no success so I figured I’d try this route. My computer is a mess right now, here’s the situation.
When I got my first Mac last year, I imported all my pics into iPhoto. Little did I know that two months down the road I would get the Canon 7D as I liked the idea of a hybrid camera. I bought it more for video than stills but I have found myself using stills more than I thought I would.
Three months ago I decided that I wanted to step it up to Aperture 3, but before making the purchase, I downloaded the trial. What I didn’t realize is that my photos were in two locations now, rather than A3 just pointing to the pics in iPhoto. When the trial expired I decided to go ahead and purchased A3. I once again didn’t take my time and now I’ve got pics all over the place. When I look at the file size for these applications, iPhoto is around 18GB, A3 trial is around 9GB, and A3 is round 20+GB. I want to get my workflow organized, all my pics in one location, and have iPhoto, A3, and Lightroom point to these pics rather than importing the file into the application.
So, my question is how do I move these pics out of the application file, move them into the “photo” file, and then have all these applications point to the file?
I hope this question makes sense. Thanks again for the help!
Dustin
Dustin,
Yeah, you’ve managed to duplicate your library into three places. Except maybe the Aperture 3 trial, as it’s only half the size. I’m guessing from the sizes that you didn’t import quite everything into your trial, but did into the full version, since that’s the biggest library. Can you tell at a glance if any one library has all of your photos and video?
There’s really no good way to just merge the three AND remove duplicates. There is duplicate detection on import, and there are some third-party utilities for cleaning up a library full of dupes, but IMHO you should figure out which library is the most recent, and if there are any missing files (one day you decided to import into iPhoto instead of Aperture, for example), and move those over manually.
To answer your biggest question though, of how to manage a library to use iPhoto, Aperture and Lightroom all at the same time, I’m gonna say DON’T DO IT. You’re just setting yourself up for a nightmare in the future. All three apps handle their file management in different ways, and if you try to move between them, you’ll drive yourself crazy. I’ve worked with people who tried to be clever and do things like this, and ended up spending HOURS trying to clean up the mess. Ultimately the same thing makes every one of them happy in the end—picking one app and STICKING WITH IT. Your investment in Tylenol will drop accordingly.
Now that said, that doesn’t mean you can’t use other applications. But you do need to pick one that’s your primary, and stick with it. For obvious reasons, I’m gonna recommend that be Aperture 3.
Set up Aperture 3 with a referenced library, meaning the photos live outside of the library (on an external drive, or wherever). Come up with an organization scheme that works. My first eBook, “10 Tips on File Management” (click the links on the sidebar), discuss this strategy in depth. Even though it was written for Aperture 2 (I will update it eventually, promise), all the rules still apply.
Now, when you want to do something in iPhoto (make a calendar, for example), you can actually browse the Aperture 3 library inside of iPhoto. Go to the menu File > Show Aperture Library, and you’ll see all your photos there. Don’t edit the photos in iPhoto (no adjustments, please)—do that in Aperture 3. But this way you can grab those files for making things in iPhoto that Aperture doesn’t do.
And for Lightroom, since it will just view any file structure on your computer, simply point it at your beautifully organized file structure in the Finder. Beyond that you’re on your own—I don’t use Lightroom. Just don’t move or overwrite any master file, m’kay?
Hope that helps… good luck, and welcome to Aperture 3!
@PhotoJoseph
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