One of those little-appreciated features of Aperture is that is is possible to display two thumbnail browsers at the same time. What is more, an unlimited number of browsers can be finger-tip ready in tabs for each of those browsers.

Here is a typical display with one browser. The project it shows is highlighted in the file pane on the left:

To get the second browser, I option-click on a different project or album:

With a viewer present, shift W and option W can be used to change the arrangement of the viewer and the grid views, but I don't have one in this example.

To add more browsers in tabs, I select the browser and command click on more projects or albums or smart galleries or anything else I like. I have added two more to the right-hand browser:

And I can rearrange these by dragging tabs from one browser to the other:


Fun! But where is the profit? Here are some of the things I can do with this. You can probably think of many more.

Compare Images in one album with those in another

With a viewer displayed, I select an image in one browser and press Return. That sets the Compare item. Now I select images from the other browser to compare then side-by-side:


As well as comparing them I can also adjust one of them. I might have a certain "look" of one image that I want to get in another. If they are in separate projects I can display them by using Compare and adjust one while using the other as a reference.

View a web gallery while browsing other projects

By putting the projects or albums that contain the images for the web gallery on tabs (top right), I can use the other browser to hold the web album images (bottom right). I just drag the images from the tabbed browsers into the web gallery browser:

As I click on the tabs I lose the web gallery viewer as it displays the selected image in the other projects. If I want to prevent that (and I usually do) I lock the viewer to the web gallery browser by clicking on the lock:

This same technique also works for light tables:

Move images from one project to another while looking at the contents of both

This is a pretty obvious thing to be able to do, but it can be very useful. I might have a certain number of images that is needed for a specific purpose, or some reason for a specific order of some images. By being able to view both projects at the same time I can move images back and forth until I get what I want.

Create an album from several projects by dragging between browsers

I set up the workspace with an album on one side and several projects on the other. For each project, I pick out the images I want and drag them to the album. This lets me view the album while I am building it:

Switch between projects without bringing up the project pane

This is handy if I am working on a small screen. I can open all the projects I will need in tabs and then close the project pane with W. And I can rearrange the tabs of a browser by dragging.

See a complete project alongside multiple albums from that project

If I want to take a project and distribute its contents across several albums, I can do that easily with multiple browsers. I click on the project and create several empty albums inside that project, then put all of those albums in tabs on one browser alongside the project in the other browser. Now I can go through my project one image at a time and add the image to the appropriate album as I see fit:

See only the two-star or less images alongside the three-star images of a project

All this works for smart albums too. I can set up two smart albums and view them together. Here is one smart album on the left that shows three star images only, and one on the right that shows two stars or less. As I change the ratings the images "move" from one browser to the other:


Smart albums can be used for many other purposes, so by appropriately setting up the albums I can mark images with a keyword using the keyword button shortcuts (option number) and watch them move from one browser to the other as they are processed in some way.

Display the same browser data sorted two ways using an album

Sometimes the order of the images is important. Since albums have an order that is independent of other albums and the projects that they draw their images from, displaying albums side-by-side can be used to see the same images in different orders at the same time. Here are the same images viewed by date on the left and by version name on the right:

The same works for filtering. I can have two different filtered views of the same images side-by-side. And don't forget the list view:

The list view provides a very quick way of finding some information that is not so obvious from the other metadata views.