[Update: Aperture 2.0 kills this workflow dead. Apple has changed the behavior of album picks so that creating a new album from non-pick images no longer automatically makes those images the album picks in the new album. Send feedback to Apple if you want the old behavior back]

This article shows a powerful technique for managing adjustments to large numbers of images. It brings together stacks and albums and shows how they can be used as part of an efficient workflow. It was prompted by a posting on the Apple message boards for Aperture:

Here's the conundrum: I have 800 event photos in an Aperture project. I stamp adjustments to all of them. So, now I have 800 stacks, each with a master RAW image and an adjusted version. In each stack, the unadjusted master is the default pick. If the stacks are closed and I Export Versions, I get 800 JPEGs rendered from the unadjusted masters. If I open all stacks, select all, and Export Versions, I get 1,600 JPEGs rendered from both the masters and the versions. How in **** do I select the 800 adjusted versions for export without having to command-click on each one? Is there no way to automatically export just the versions?

The only approach I've found is to select the versions and make them the picks in their stacks, one by one. Then I can close the stacks, select all, and Export Versions. This is painfully time-consuming. I can't even just select the versions one by one and then batch promote them to pick status. I not only have to select the versions one by one, but I also have to promote them one by one. Argh! Am I missing something here? Please help.

Here is a project with some images that I am going to adjust. There could be thousands: the workflow is the same.

Before I start adjusting I select the three images I want to work with and create new versions by pressing option V:

This creates duplicates of the three and puts each duplicate into a stack with the original as the pick. This is where the difficulty lies as the person with the problem found. Since those new versions are in stacks but are not the pick then Aperture will not use the adjusted version for exports.

To turn this to my advantage (without clicking anywhere else so that the duplicates are still selected) I control click one of the new versions and select New From Selection > Album:

Pressing command L has the same effect. The new album is created and displayed and I can rename it to something meaningful, such as Adjusted:

The new album shows the stacks just as the project did, but this time there are check marks on the duplicates showing that these are the album picks:

An album pick is the image that will be on the top of the stack for this album only. Look what happens when I close all the stacks with option semicolon:

Just the album picks are left showing. That's the preparation complete. I have an album which will show me all the new versions, so no changes to the original project are needed. Now I adjust the images. For this example the changes are rather radical, so the difference is obvious:

I could have adjusted just one image and used lift and stamp to process thousands.

Selecting the original project shows that the adjusted versions are still in the stacks, and are not the picks as they are in the album:

Closing the project stacks will show me the originals. Closing the album stacks will show me the adjusted images. So by selecting either the project images or the album images I can choose which I export, print, or continue to process.

This technique can be used any number of times with any number of selections and albums and should be part of your standard workflow.