Although there are several user questions on this topic, I don't see my particular situation, so here goes. I just got a 13” MacBook Air and want my Aperture library on it so that I can sit on the couch and tag and edit photos etc. Currently my referenced library is on my 20” iMac. All my masters are on an external hard drive which is backed up every night to another external hard drive. How do I import the library (I actually have several libraries but the largest has 15,000 pictures) so that I may use Aperture on the Air? I may eventually get rid of the iMac which is over 5 years old and is actually much slower than the Air. On the Air Aperture opens in 10 seconds without any assets.
Thank you in advance and a screen shot or two would be much appreciated.
Karen,
Congrat’s on the Air… that’s a great machine. I have the 11” 2010 model and it’s fabulous.
Libraries are totally portable, so you can just copy the Library from your iMac to the Air. You can either do it over your local home network, or you can copy it to a hard drive, then from the drive to your Air. Either way is fine.
Once it’s on the Air, any changes you make there won’t be reflected back in the iMac, and while it’s technically possible to migrate back and forth, it can be a bit tedious and more importantly, unless you’re super diligent about the process, it’s easy to get versions mixed up and eventually find yourself unsure of where your most current Library is.
If you’re possibly getting rid of the iMac, and it’s slower anyway, then I’d recommend just moving the Library to the Air, and deleting it from the iMac (once it’s all backed up, of course!)
The problem you will run into however is that the HD in the Air is quite small. You said you had several libraries, but not how big (GB) they are. You can keep file sizes down on the Libraries by disabling previews (read this article for more info on that: “A Comprehensive Look at Thumbnails, Previews, and More in Aperture 3”), and if you continue to work with multiple Libraries, you can always keep some on external drives.
Assuming you have the latest generation Air, those have Thunderbolt ports. While there aren’t any truly low-cost Thunderbolt drives out there yet, they’re coming this year, so you will be able to add an external drive soon with nary a performance hit (unlike with USB or even Firewire) and be able to store additional Libraries there.
Finally, you’ll of course be keeping your masters on the external drive for now, again just due to space on the drive in the Air. Presumably that means for now, you’re restricted to USB speeds, which is a shame. If you can afford it, I’d invest in a Thunderbolt drive just as soon as you find one you’re comfortable spending the money on. LaCie has their Little Big Disk which is available at 1TB or 2TB sizes (for the difference, definitely go for the 2TB), which is the most affordable option out there now. Like I said, more cheaper ones will be coming this year, but that’s about the best you can do today.
Let me know if you have any more questions,
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph,
Thanks so much for your comprehensive reply. I became a Mac person in 2005 with the introduction of the Mac Mini which I gave to a cousin in 2006 when I got the iMac. The problem with Apple computers is that they are too good – indestructible – so my decision to get the 13” Air is just because I wanted to. I’m planning to upgrade from iPad to iPad3 hopefully soon, so TB will have to wait until later in the year, but thanks for the suggestion.
My setup for backups is as follows:
iMac 250GB > iMacSuperDuper OWC 250GB (Firewire 400)
Media 500 GB OWC USB 2.0 > MediaSuperDuper OWC 500GB USB 2.0
The backups occur at 3 am and I set up the machines to wake up for the backups. They may be slow, but they’re fine in the middle of the night.
I plan to start backing up the 256GB 13” Air to the FW drive and leave the iMac unbacked up as I’m only using it to look back and transfer files etc during this transition period (which I love to do with a new machine - setting it up even better than before!).
I retired a year ago and have a lot more time now so I plan to return to shooting RAW but I stopped that with my NIKON D60 when I realized I had no time to edit. Now I’m going to start editing more and have most of your eBooks and training videos. My main Aperture Library is 20GB and the smaller ones less than 5GB. I’ve turned off previews before but then found it better to turn them back on, which I’ll obviously keep on with the Air since I won’t always be connected to my masters (Media). As you can see, I’ll have no problems with the size of the Air - I already keep iTunes media on the external which is backed up nightly. The computer is only for programs and processing and a whole lot faster.
One personal observation about photos. In Sept 2010 we had a 25th anniversary party. My partner painstakingly prepared the menu, invitations and music. I reviewed all the pictures on Aperture and created a slideshow with 750 photos and put the iMac on a table in the corner of the porch where the party contained the food, beverages and music. I also made a 30x20 Posterino poster that Apple printed and I had glued on posterboard. The 98 photos utilized the “LifePoster” template. All attendees were represented at least once in the poster. I made a sign and put it above the poster on the porch - “You are here”. I also put throw away cameras on each table in the tents. It rained like hell that day and people ended up hanging out in the large porch. They never heard the music. They ate and drank, but the poster was a huge hit enabling people to meet and get to know one another and discuss how they knew us. But, the slideshow was like a magnet. People just stood there - 20 deep most of the time - and stared at the pictures, waiting to see if they would be in the next one - fascinated. And I got a treat when I downloaded the grainy cheap camera photos - shots I never would have taken, but new memories I wasn’t even privy to!
That’s when I realized Visual always trumps Audio, even if it shouldn’t!
Thanks again for all the great information,
Karen
Karen,
Nice story, I love it :)
Sounds like you have your setup pretty well figured out. Just one more tidbit for you then… since you’re backing up nightly (good!) but only at home (bad!), you may want to add a cloud backup. We have a saying that “it doesn’t exist until it exists in three places” — and one of those HAS to be offsite. If your house burns down, or someone breaks in and steals your computer and drives, you lose the original AND the backup.
There are a few cloud solutions out there, all extremely affordable. The one I use is called Backblaze. The initial backup could take weeks or months, depending on how much data you have and of course your internet speed, but once it’s running, you never have to think about it.
cheers,
@PhotoJoseph
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Ahhhhh! Completely forgot about online backup – I’ve been using Backblaze since summer 2011 and absolutely love the ease of use. Of course I back up 2 disks - iMac and Media - but you just reminded me to add Air which means I will have have a backup for iMac while I’m in transition - nice!
Yep, been signed up for quite a while and follow you on FB and Twitter as well. Someday I will come out West for one of your shoot classes, although I have attended one in NYC with David Schloss which is how I found out about you!
Cheers, Joseph.
Joseph,
I’m encountering problems. I have not been able to “Move” any of my 4 libraries to the Air. However, finder is allowing me to “Copy” them. The 3 smaller libraries went over WIFI easily. The 4th and main library won’t copy however. I get error messages at under 5GB (of 20GB). Since my Externals aren’t yet connected to my Air I tried copying the file from iMac to an External drive and I had planned to hook up the External to the Air, but even then the copy stopped at under 5GB!
Any suggestions? I read somewhere that one should never Copy an Aperture Library, only Move it but I’m at a complete loss here.
Thanks for any 101 tips on moving my library! And, should I open up the copies for the smaller libraries on the Air or is Copying actually ok?
Thanks again,
Karen
Karen,
The advice to “move, not copy” is probably just to keep you from having duplicate Libraries. It’s technically not possible to “move” a file to a different drive… it’s always copied. You can hold down the option key while dragging to make it a move instead of a copy, but I think even then technically the OS is copying, then deleting, the file. It’d be very dangerous to just move it, because if you have a drive crash or power failure half-way through, you’d end up with two halves of a file, neither of which would work.
Anyway, you’re copying Libraries to your Air, which is fine. Once you have verified that they are OK there, you can delete the ones from your iMac.
This fourth Library though is a problem. There’s some kind of damage in the Library, and this doesn’t sound good. First off, open the Library in Aperture on the iMac and make sure it still opens. If it does, quit and relaunch and hold down command-option while opening, and you’ll get the first-aid dialog. Run permissions repair first, then quit and relaunch with option-command again, and then run the repair (middle option). After that, quit and try to copy again.
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph,
So far so good. I completed all the steps successfully and the file is copying. I’ll know in the a.m. if it fails or succeeds and we’ll go from there. Thanks so much for clarifying the Move vs Copy issue and I appreciate your rescue steps.
Best,
Karen
Hi Joseph,
The copying stopped at 4.47GB of 19.37GB and the message was “The operation can’t be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -50).”
Thanks in advance for any ideas.
Karen
Karen,
Hmmm… try duplicating the file on the same hard drive — just select it and go menu File > Duplicate. See if that dupes, then try copying that to your Air. Maybe a bad sector on the hard drive.
Next step (even if this works, still the next step) will be to run Disk Utility on your iMac from the OS installer DVD, so it can try to repair whatever is wrong.
Hopefully something along the way works here! But you CAN successfully open the project in Aperture, right?
Oh I know! Assuming it opens fine, after you try the duplicate/copy (which will be easiest), try exporting all Projects from the Aperture Library. Just open this Library that won’t copy, select all Projects (like this: [screenshot]), and then export them from menu File > Export > Items as New Library.
If that fails, then you’ll want to repeat that but not selecting all of your Projects at once. Select half of them, try the export, if that fails, select the other half, see if those go out, go back to the first half and cut that in half, effectively trying fewer and fewer projects at once until you’re successful and along the way you’ll identify the problem. I hope. Also anything that successfully exports, be sure to put into a folder called “exported” so you know you’ve saved it.
What a hassle… hope this works out. Ugh.
@PhotoJoseph
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Hi Joseph,
The same thing happened when duplicating the file within the same folder. I also just remembered that my SuperDuper backup failed a few nights ago of the iMac HD but I thought little of it since I was about to decommission the machine anyways. So I will put in my Snow Leopard disk and try all of your other ideas. Each night Cocktail runs it’s paces and have not had problems. I also have a regimen I follow when and if SuperDuper copy fails and I’ll do that as well. I’ll keep you posted.
Best,
Karen
Joseph,
I used XLab guide http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/repairprocess.html and completed all steps successfully. Although Repair Disk took awhile as did Repair Disk Permissions, all came back with Repair Complete. I am now moving to the Export Projects process. The interesting thing is I’m having no issues on the iMac but something is wrong. I had AppleCare and almost 3 years in the hard disk failed and Apple replaced it free of charge. Since my SuperDuper backup was a clone I had no issues at all. So it’s less than 3 years old now.
I’ll keep you posted.
Karen
Karen,
That’s great news. If XLab reported that it actually fixed things, you may want to give a normal copy a try again. That’ll take less time than the export project process, which could be very time consuming.
-Joseph
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph,
Yep, I tried that - same error, same place in copying process. I’m exporting now - it will take a long time but I love a mystery and will narrow it down to the offender. It’s nice to have the Air to play with while all these things are running :).
Karen
Joseph,
The saga continues. Exporting (thanks for the screenshot) all projects, albums, folders took 6 hours but did not hiccup. The resulting file which I placed in a folder is 12.15 GB vs. original file of 19.37 GB. Not sure how to upload a screenshot of the package contents but the components with file sizes are:
Database 563.8 MB
Masters 1.57 GB (my latest upload had not yet been relocated to external)
Thumbs 10.01 GB
Where do I go from here?
Some facts to consider:
- very few of my photos are properly tagged
- my structure is very detailed (lots of projects and albums)
- I was never happy with my original import of iPhoto which listed hundreds of albums which I never created in iPhoto but were created in Aperture using a date structure
All of my master files are organized by year/month in an external backed up to another external. I use Eye-Fi cards which automatically upload all photos/movies to the external in an Eye-Fi folder. I then import them into Aperture projects and then relocate the masters to my year/month file.
Is this an opportunity to start over and re-import all of the photos as referenced with projects structured into the year/month structure? Or should I import the 12.15 GB library and see what it looks like with all my projects and albums based on subjects like “Anniversary Party slideshow” and “Dad’s Birthday Book” and “Christmas 2010”?
Don’t feel you have to repeat all that you have so eloquently written in your books, posts and spoken in the videos and training sessions.
I’ve thought of doing this many times so I’m again at this crossroad. I think modifying an Aperture Library may be much more difficult than starting over, but what’s your gut feeling? When I read your chapter on organization of projects and albums all I could think of was that I wished I had discovered that before starting with Aperture. But maybe it’s not such a big deal. I’m very good at finding any photo because I remember dates and events.
Thanks again for any advice and for getting me this far - I didn’t think this would turn into such a project!
Best,
Karen
Karen,
That’s great that it succeeded. I don’t know how to account for the different file size, but since all images are referenced it probably has to do with previews.
Don’t muck around in the package. That’s just a good way to make a bad problem. There’s no need to go in there under normal usage.
You haven’t lost anything by doing the export of projects as a new Library. Go ahead and double-click on that newly exported Library, and you’ll see that it’s exactly what you exported! The hope now is of course that you will be able to copy this new Library to your Air.
Compare it to the old Library and make sure everything is there. If you exported everything and there were no hiccups, it’s definitely curious that the size difference is so much, so take a look at what came out the other side and see how it compares!
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph,
Worked like a charm. Thanks for everything - could not have done it without you!
Best,
Karen
Karen,
Super! And the Library is complete; nothing missing between the Air and the iMac?
@PhotoJoseph
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