What is missing is a search field at the top of the library pane that filters on the name of projects and folders. Aperture works best with relatively small projects and provides blue folders for grouping them. But as time goes on, the number of projects and folders increases to the hundreds, and the point is reached where it is impossible to remember where anything is; hence the need to be able to filter.

Another missing feature is the ability to tag projects. Aperture is hot on keywords and has all these features based on metadata, but still offers only a hierarchical organization for projects. If I could tag projects then I could classify them in several different ways simultaneously. For instance, I could have some projects tagged Personal and Biking and others tagged Business and Biking and be able to filter to any Biking projects, not caring about the situation in which I shot them.

In the Finder list view I can open and close all folders at once with command right arrow and command left arrow respectively. I can include nested folders if I add the option key. But there is no similar facility in Aperture's library pane. In looking for a project I have to manually open, open, open, all the folders, and then when I'm done, close, close, close, all the folders. This adds to the frustration in dealing with many folders and projects.

Tags: Aperture, Library, Folders, Projects

Jürgen Banda-Hansmann has written a short series of articles about Aperture that cover:

• Optimize Libraries
• Optimize your folder structure
• Personalize and structure your Keyword List
• Create your own Metadata Presets
• Autostacking

Tags: Aperture, Blogging, Metadata, Keywords, Folders, Stacks, Library, Speed, Presets

Hello, I'd like to combine the contents of a few folders; however, some file names are the same, therefore, I can't add them all together. Is there a way to "automatically" rename the files so that they can all share the same folder space? I don't want to go inside each folder and change the name of files one by one!

There is a way to do this automatically, and surprisingly the tool that can do it is Aperture. The files do have to be image files that Aperture can read.

Here is a folder structure with two folders that contain different images with the same name, Mud.jpg:

I'll move these two images into a single folder in such a way that the names don't clash.

The first step is to import my two folders, Monday and Tuesday, one at a time, into the same Aperture project.

First I create a new project called Temp, then select it and press command I to bring up the Import pane. At the top of the import window I select the first image folder:

And make sure that the import is going to the right place:

Then I select a referenced import that leaves the files in their current location. This is an important step -- I don't want to move the files yet:

After performing the import, my Temp project has the images from the Monday folder, just one in this case, but it could be thousands. Here is the image in the project with the badge that tells me it is referenced:

Next I do another import into Temp using the Tuesday folder, making sure that I import referenced again. I could repeat this with many more folders of images if I wanted, all with clashing image names.

To combine the folders, I relocate the images in the Temp project to another part of the disk, in this case a folder called All Mud. I control-click on the Temp project and select Relocate masters for Project...:

And provide the destination folder in the dialog. I don't need any subfolders and I don't want to rename the files in any special way, so I select None and Master Filename from the pop-ups:

The relocation of the files is fast because they don't have to be copied if they are being moved into a folder on the same disk, as is the case here.

Once the relocation is complete, I see that the original Mud folder is now empty:

And the All Mud folder has the images:

Aperture renames with numbers in brackets; there is no choice about that. Not only are the masters in the same folder, but they are already imported into Aperture. I am done. If at any time I want to store then as managed masters in the Aperture library I can use the consolidate function of Aperture to do this.

Tags: Aperture, Q&A, Relocate, Consolidate, Folders, Name Collisions

I´ve got a question when saving Images. I can relocated masters, and when I´m doing it I can create naming presets. Like folder/Project and so on. So here´s my question: Aperture only takes the foldername of the first folder in the hierarchy. Subfolder doens´t appears. When my pics are in (Bluefolder)Party/(Bluefolder)X-mas/(Project)2005 Aperture could only saves it this way (Folder)Party/(Folder)2005. Did I something wrong?

You didn't do anything wrong -- that's all there is. While the folder naming preset features of Aperture are flexible, they are also limited.

Folder naming presets are used by Aperture to create folder hierarchies for exported or relocated files. To access the folder naming presets go to File > Export > Export Versions and pick Edit... from the Subfolder Format popup:

Here is what you have to work with:

The buttons can be dragged up to the format line, and the format line can be edited and have words added. Each time a forward slash / is added another folder level will be created. The limitation with the scheme as currently implemented (Aperture 1.5.1) is that Folder Name refers to only the highest level blue folder that the image is located in.

So in this example hierarchy exporting an image from the Crops smart album will result in a Folder Name that is called Blog. Not Coyote, not Tree Cutting:

Using the Folder folder file setting defined above, a version called freddy.jpg will get saved as Blog/Blog/freddy.jpg. Not so helpful. If you want to use multiple levels then you have to use different criteria, such as Year/Folder/Project Name.

But don't forget that you can enter you own names too, so it is possible to create hierarchies like Clients/Atlanta/Year/Folder Name/Project Name where Clients and Atlanta are your own names. This could be saved under the a preset called Atlanta Clients by Year and Project.

Tags: Q&A, Aperture, Relocate, Masters, Folders

[This is an updated version of an article written originally for Aperture 1.1]

I use the smart album feature of Aperture to create the galleries on this site. Here is the top of my projects list:

The Library item includes predefined (and fixed) smart albums. It has star ratings that only includes one and five stars, so I added three more covering two, three, and four stars or better. Clicking on the little magnifying glass next to 3 stars or better brings up this settings window:

Note the heading. It says (Library). That means that its scope is the entire library. It will find all images with a rating greater or equal than three stars whether or not they are in a stack across all projects in the library. Although I have it at the top level of the library, I could drag that smart album anywhere and it would work the same way. A duplicate would do the same.

I have my gallery smart albums organized into a blue folder. They can live anywhere, but this was a nice central place to put them. I have put spaces before some of the names I have used, because Aperture arranges things strictly alphabetically. One space will sit at the top of a list. Two spaces will sit above that, etc.

Everything I want to show in the gallery I keyword with Bagelturf Gallery. I have a keyword set called Actions that I use to select which images I want to appear in which gallery and which I want as (metaphorically mixed) wallpaper on my desktop. The Macros smart album picks out images I have tagged as Macro for their type. Rejects just looks for ratings of X.

To export to a gallery I select the gallery smart album, sort by image date, select the images I have recently added, and export either the masters or the versions to a local folder. Then I fire up Photosite Timesaviour and regenerate the gallery folder locally. That done and checked, I start Transmit and use its synchronizing feature to make the .Mac version of the gallery look like the local one. By exporting only the new images and syncing I save a great deal of uploading.

Why not use the Aperture gallery feature? It is just not flexible enough. In particular I cannot have a three-level gallery where the third level is the original. Also there is no Home button to let me go back to the main gallery index page I have set up.

When I export images destined for the Canon S3 gallery, I export masters and use a preset export called Gallery:

This helps me remember how I did the export last time. Clicking on the Export Preset pop up list and selecting Edit... allows me to choose the export file format:

In this case I have a custom export that just uses the version name. In that way, any image that goes to the gallery can have a meaningful name and I can use that name in the thumbnail page. The Subfolder Format pop-up works the same way, allowing me to structure the exported files if I wish.

The other use for smart albums is in collecting images automatically with a scope that is smaller than the entire library. The smart albums I have shown so far were created with the Library selected, and they reference the whole library. Nice, but slow, and often not what is wanted.

I have a blue folder that contains all my projects for 2006 called, unsurprisingly, 2006. If I select that it shows me the contents of all the projects inside it. If I create a new Smart Album with that Blue Folder selected then I get this:

Its scope is all the projects inside the 2006 blue folder. I can now set up all the options I need and close it and it will always reference just those projects that are in the 2006 blue folder. If I add more projects it will find those too. And it will be faster than a library-wide smart album. And this works at any level in the blue folders and at the project level.

Here is one for my June 2006 project that lives inside the 2006 blue folder:

The joy does not extend to brown folders, however. If you select anything inside a project and create a new smart album, then the smart album is created where you selected, but its scope is always the enclosing project. Still, this is not too shabby.

The moral therefore is to use small projects for speed, and large blue folder hierarchies to support browsing and smart albums.

Tags: Aperture, Smart Albums, Keywords, Folders

Importing images in Aperture 1.5 is much more interesting than in 1.1. As well as dragging images and folders into the library to create managed masters, you can now rename masters on import and decide whether you want your master images to be managed or referenced. The addition of metadata presets provides the option of adding personal standard metadata to all imported images.

Importing Images From A Single Folder

To import images from a single folder (such as a camera card) I press command I to bring up the import images dialog. I navigate to my images using the browser at the top and then check all the options. Here is the interesting part of the dialog:

In this case I have elected to copy the master files into a folder called Dogs. The default is the Pictures folder in my Home folder, but I added this new folder on my disk and selected it with the Store Files pop-up. This will import the files as referenced masters and copy them to this folder, effectively doing a Relocate with copy for me after the import. The other options for the Store Files pop-up are In The Aperture Library which makes them managed and In Their Current Location which makes them referenced but does not move them.

By selecting a naming scheme for the Version name, I can change how the versions are named as they are imported. Checking the Apply to Master Filename makes this scheme do just that. My standard renaming system is shown above. I call it Version dash date because it adds the current date to the version name. This guarantees that I will get unique names when my camera counter rolls over (as it has already done).

Adding metadata can be done here as well, but I rarely do this. I prefer to import into a new project and then manipulate the metadata. On a small screen it can be hard to get to the fields, but tabbing between them works even if the scroll bar is hidden. The example above has a custom metadata field Retouch that I added in the metadata inspector panel.

On the top right of the dialog a panel shows how things will change for the selected image:

I normally elect to show an alert because I want to unmount the card. If I don't select this, then the card remains mounted and it is too easy to forget, yank it out of the reader, and then have to deal with a confused USB tree.

A nice touch is that I can also show the images in the list view:


This can be useful for sorting on camera model or other metadata that is not available from the grid view.

Adding Standard Metadata On Import

Now that Aperture supports metadata presets it is possible to use one to add standard metadata as part of the import process. But to do that you must have set one up beforehand. You cannot set up a metadata preset by going to Aperture > Presets as you would for all the other presets, but instead have to go through several steps, starting with the metadata pane (control D) in the main Aperture window.

I will set up a special metadata view that includes just the fields I want to have applied during import. I do this by clicking on the cog top right of the metadata pane and selecting New View:

and name it something memorable:

All this does is set up a name for a collection of fields. Next I have to select the fields I want, and then I can fill those fields with the information I want to stamp on each image as it is imported.

Now the metadata pane shows my new view, empty of fields:

I select the fields I want by clicking on the buttons at the bottom and then clicking the checkboxes:

To get the Keywords field added I had to select Keywords at the bottom and the check the Include In Summary box. Not obvious at all. The fields can be dragged to rearrange them. Now I have defined the fields I want to add during import, the next step is to define the values I want to put in those and save them as presets.

I click on an image (any image) and duplicate the version. This gives me a scratch image I can mess with and then throw away. I fill in the preset values I want for my imports:

And save this as a named metadata preset:

Giving it a descriptive name:

I can repeat this to set up several other presets with different preset values. When done I delete the temporary version. Presets can also be managed from the metadata pane via the metadata pane. Click on the cog top right to manage presets:

The import and export buttons use XML plists which look like this in an XML editor:

Now my presets are ready to be used. To add this preset metadata to my imported images I select the preset in the import dialog:

Now what is odd here is that I can only choose to add or not add from the preset values. There is no way to have a field that is manually filled in and no way to override what is preset. The City field I included in the Import metadata view will have to be filled in by hand later. There really should be two pop-ups here: one for metadata views that can be filled in by hand and one for preset values that are automatically populated. As it is I have to chose one or the other and cannot have both.

Handling Keywords Added During Import

Adding metadata on import can be a time-saver, both in terms of saving time not having to do it later and in not having to deal with the consequences of forgetting to doing it later. But for keywords, it can be less advantageous because there is no way to add keyword hierarchies during import, only individual keywords. So it is necessary to go through some extra steps later.

Here I am adding some keywords to my imported photos:

After the import is complete, since my Keyword HUD is locked (it is good to keep it that way) the keywords don't get thrown in with my existing ones. Instead I get this section at the bottom:

This is not what I really want. I have an existing keyword hierarchy that includes Events > Halloween that these images should belong to.

First I correct the capitalization (halloween to Halloween) and accept the dialog that tells me I am changing this name on a bunch of images. This makes the keyword in the Imported Keyword list identical to the one in the Events list and updates all the images that have the keyword. Then I drag the Halloween keyword in Imported Keywords to my Events keyword, the parent of my real Halloween keyword. This dialog asks if I want to merge:

Yes I do. Now all of my imported images are keyworded as Events > Halloween. Repeat for all the other keywords. Really it would have been easier to just filter by import session, hit command A, command click on the keywords I want to select them, and then drag them to the images.

Importing A Folder Hierarchy

Another way of importing is to grab a whole hierarchy of folders and image files at once. Here are the images I want to import, all arranged in a hierarchy that I want to maintain in the library:

To do this, I select the library or an existing project and use File > Import > Folders Into A Project. A file selection dialog opens with some familiar options:

Here I have selected a folder called New Files as a destination for the masters and elected to copy the files in. The masters will be referenced by Aperture. I also chose a particular naming system called Custom Name with Count and decided not to rename my masters. After the import is complete, this is what is in the library:

The original folder hierarchy has been maintained by the project, the brown folder, and the albums. All the images are in the project and they reference the master files. Because I selected Halloween as the custom name and numbered subfolders for each image and told Aperture to copy my masters to a folder called New Files, Aperture has done all of that for me as part of the import:

Notice that the master file organization on disk is nothing like the organization inside Aperture. The two are disconnected. If I decide I don't like this particular way of storing my masters I can change it at any time by simply relocating them with Aperture's Relocate Master function.

Tags: Aperture, Importing, Keywords, Folders, Hierarchy, Presets

The first time you meet Brown Folders in the Aperture library is when you import existing images. Brown Folders organize content inside Projects, so they are always under them in the hierarchy. Contrast this to Blue Folders that organize Projects and other content above Projects.

For this example, I'll work with a single folder that contains images and folders. The folder itself looks like this:

Inside it are three folders and three images. If I open it I get this:

And if I open all of the subfolders I get this:

There are several ways to import this content into the library and the results differ, sometimes quite radically. In all cases, however, you can either import to a new Project by selecting Library, or into an existing Project by selecting that Project.

First lets do an import using the import button (down arrow in the top left of the Aperture window). That opens the Import pane. By selecting the drive you can navigate to the Photos folder. You see just the top level three images. Click Import All. Here is the result:

Only the top level images were imported. You can now rename Untitled Project and repeat to import more images from lower-level folders, one at a time. This will create individual Projects each with just images inside. Or you can leave the project selected and keep adding the folder content to it. This makes sense if you want to flatten your image structure because you have everything well keyworded. Doing this a few times results in this:

Still one Project, but more photos now. You would think that to divide those up into some sort of hierarchy Brown Folders could be used, but you would be wrong. Right click on the Project and add a new folder:

Drag some images from the Photos Project in and --- it does not work. That is because you cannot have photos in the library not inside some sort of container: an Album, Light Table, or Gallery. Lets try again, and this time put an Album in there and drag some images in:

This time it works. All the images are still in the Project, the Album just has a subset of them. You can add each image to as many Albums as you like. And once you have a few Albums, you will want to organize those using Brown Folders:

That's what Brown Folders are used for. Notice that Brown Folders don't display their content like Blue Folders do: clicking on one will show nothing except an icon that says Folder.

Tags: Aperture, Folders, Library

Now what do I do?

Folders of folders of projects of folders of albums and folders and books and images and galleries. That's what Aperture gives you to organize your photos; and it is very, very confusing at first. Worse, since anyone new to Aperture already has a lot of photos they want to import, they face having to make decisions about library organization before they do practically anything else. But this is Apple and things are not what they seem. Actually to get going, all you need is to understand a few simple rules.

Simple Rule Number 1: Don't Panic!

The reason you must not panic is that, as far as I can tell, it is impossible to get your library organized in a way that prevents you from later efficiently getting it organized into a different, more helpful way. In other words, you really don't have to make big, important decisions right up front, because they can always be changed. The only caveat to this is that reorganizing the library can take a little while, both for you to make all the right selections, and for the computer to do the work.

Simple Rule Number 2: There Are Two Types Of Folders And Yet Nobody Tells You

In an error or gargantuan proportions, the Aperture documentation fails to distinguish between Blue Folders and Brown Folders. Blue Folders live above Projects and Brown Folders live below Projects. So Blue Folders exist to help you group Projects together and brown Folders exist to help you divide individual Projects into smaller, named pieces.

Simple Rule Number 3: Each Master Image Exists In One Project Only

You have to store your negatives or originals somewhere, and since there is only one of each, each can only live in one place. Think of a shoe box full of slides. A Project is the shoe box. Master images are the slides inside it. Can you reorganize your master images into new Projects? Yes, just as you can reorganize your slides into new shoe boxes. But still, as you reorganize, nothing is duplicated. Each slide only ever lives in one shoe box and each master image only ever lives in one Project.

Simple Rule Number 4: Albums Are Just Collections Of Prints

When you make a real physical album, you never paste in the slides or negatives. If you did, they would be hard to see and would have to be removed from their shoe box to stick on the album. A dangerous state of affairs. You make prints of the slides and paste those into the albums instead. Prints made from a single slide can be used in many albums at once, even modified or destroyed, and the original stays in its shoe box untouched. Aperture's Albums are the same way. An Aperture Album is a collection of copies of master images.

Simple Rule Number 5: Smart Things Are Your Assistants

"Make me prints of all the pictures of Paris that I shot with a wide-angle lens at night". In Aperture, Smart Albums and their cousins operate like assistants. When you open a Smart Album, your assistant notices you doing so and quickly scurries about picking out all the relevant masters and making prints for you to look at in one place. If you add another photo to one of the projects he is aware of, he'll quickly make a print of that too and bring it to you.

Here is an example of the flexibility that the Blue Folders give you. You photograph buildings and structures all over the world (lucky you) and you have three very different types of client: government bodies that are almost always divided geographically, big companies who hire you for specific projects related to their facilities, and retail chains who are driven by fashion seasons. So at the top level, you set up three folders:

For commercial work, you divide by client and then put individual projects in there:

For government, you divide geographically where it makes sense, and then create projects:

For retail, seasons come first because the outsides of the stores are very different at different times of the year. Then to help distinguish regular projects, there are folders of years:

I'll delve into Brown Folders and the more complicated aspects of organization in a little while.

Tags: Aperture, Library, Folders