Joseph —
I’ve got two quick questions on Aperture library design. First: given the ease with which it is possible to switch between libraries, is there any computational or database design downside to packing many thousands of photographs (20-30-40 thousand over time) into a single library (across many, many projects)? Or, alternatively, is it better to spread said photographs over several libraries, each with multiple projects?
Second: you have mentioned that it is not too cleaver to pack a gazillion photos into a single project (makes sense), but what would you view as an optimum number of photographs (from a computational/database design point) per project? (100-1000-5000? — how many is too many?) Enquiring minds need to know! Many thanks for all you do.
Tom Carroll
Davidson, NC
http://carroll77.zenfolio.com
Tom,
There are no hard numbers available from Apple, but I know that they have pushed the libraries so several hundred thousand images and that’s been just fine.
Large libraries got a huge speed boost in Aperture 3. In fact, that’s when I merged previously unique Libraries (which I’d split up for performance issues). I currently have a library with over 150k images, and it performs beautifully.
The only downfall that I see to a really large library is that when merging libraries it can be excruciatingly slow. I’m not sure why and am hoping to see this resolved, but for now I do this overnight. Even if I’m just importing a small few-hundred image library from my laptop into my main desktop Library, I let it go overnight.
As far as per-project, again there are no hard numbers, and performance may not even be affected, but from a project-management standpoint, it’s much easier to have multiple projects. I typically break them into days even if I’m shooting a multi-day even (personal or professional) and then lump those together into folder so I have a single “container” with all related photos.
I hope that helps,
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph —
Many thanks — that’s exactly what I need to know. Your comments help tremendously. It looks like I’m good to go as long as I can hold my pitchers to fewer than 150k per library — should be no problem. Again, many thanks.
TC
Tom Carroll
www.tomcarrollphotography.com