Hey all-
New Aperture user here, and I have gone through over the past few days, and imported my files as what I assumed were ”referenced” files (I set the images to be stored in their original location). However, when I was done importing, the Aperture Library was over 100GB. Why is the file so large if it’s only referencing their location on my external hard drive?
Some additional details might help answer your question:
Are you sure the images are really referenced, i.e., is the “referenced” badge displayed on the thumbnails, or does the context menu for an image contain “Show in Finder”?
How many images did you import? Were they RAW or JPEG or both?
In Preferences, what are the Preview settings? And what is the setting for ”Post Import Processing” in the Import panel?
Jim-
Thanks for the response. To answer your questions…
1. Yes, the referenced badge shows up (though it is the badge with the red line through it - I’m referencing these images through a wireless connection to an external drive).
2. I imported just over 60,000 images - all were JPG, no RAW files. Incidentally, the folder on my external drive that stores the originals is almost identical to the size of the Aperture library.
3. Preview settings: store at half size, quality 8/Medium. Post-import processing set to Camera Previews.
You didn’t mention the camera model, or it’s image sizes. Sounds like you built previews for everything you imported, so half-size previews could account for the large library size.
Take a look at these articles on this site for details about what might be going on.
A Comprehensive Look at Thumbnails, Previews, and More in Aperture 3
A Good Reason For Larger Previews
Also this discussion might help:
http://www.apertureexpert.com/forum/size-aperture-library-vs-iphoto-libr…
As a point of comparison, I have a library containing 78000+ images; all except 160 or so are referenced and it’s about 30GB. But I don’t use previews extensively.