Apple Aperture 2.1 Organization

This entry is part 1 of 27 in the series Aperture Work-flow

Aperture Work-flow

Update – This post was the original post from a discussion I had in the Apple support forum a long long time ago. I did put a free PDF together that was downloaded about 10,000 times. I had so many suggestions and questions that I decided to make a much larger more comprehensive version. It covers far far more and provides a ton of useful work-flow tips and examples on how to be extremely efficient. Even if you have been using Aperture for years you will probably find a lot of things in the new Organization eBook that you might not have even thought about. Sadly the new version is not free but I can tell you that I surveyed everything else out there and you will not find a better or more advanced discussion of Aperture’s organizational capabilities. Here is the link to the new illustrated more comprehensive Guide to Aperture 2 Organization eBook PDF:

Aperture eBooks

Oh one more thing – just because it is only five bucks doesn’t mean it’s not better than other way more expensive resources. It is – in most cases you will learn more from this guide than reading everything else out there in print and on the web. This is not a regurgitation of the Aperture documentation and this is not a book for dummies. Consider me an extremely value conscious Robin Hood.

Please leave comments with any feedback or email me here rwboyer@mac.com

The following is a snip of the original post describing the screen shot above.

Here is a description of a few things going on with this structure that may help clarify how one can use some of the grouping features of Aperture.

Note the blue folders – these can contain projects, other blue folders, and a few items that are usually found inside projects (smart albums etc.) I use these to group related projects and some items that are useful that are associated with the grouped projects.

Looking at the blue folder named “Glamour” you can see that there are a bunch of yellow project boxes in there, they are all individual studio sessions that I shot as promo material for lighting workshops that I do. There is also another blue folder inside of “Glamour” named “Albums”. Note that they do not “live” in a project at all. I am using those to group images of the same model that are in more that one project. There is also a purple smart album named “Rated” that lives at the top level of the “Glamour” folder. I am using this smart album to collect all of the images that have a rating of one star or above in all of the different projects under the “Glamour” folder. Since I created the smart album inside of the “Glamour” folder it is only going to collect images in projects under that folder, not everything in the library. This is a great way to limit the context of smart albums etc. with out making ridiculously complex search criteria or going back and redoing a bunch of keywording etc. One other note, There is a project in the “Glamour” folder named “Workshop” this project contains a couple of objects, namely Layout, Prints, and Workshop Book. This Workshop project contains NO image masters or versions but does contain pointers to masters/versions in other projects under “Glamour”. I use this project to contain a book and printed promo material that is derived from images that are in the rated smart album. Why is it in a project? So that I can export it as an Aperture project and import it to other Aperture libraries. Why do I have the static albums for each model? So I can keep a static order to the images and run a slideshow preset on them.

Onto another blue folder “Experimental Projects”, I am using this to group two projects that I was actually shooting today. If you look at the project “Ghost Ships” you can see yellow folders named “Albums” and “Light Tables”. Yellow folders are really simple, they exist only inside projects and are used to group and organize stuff inside projects. Here I am using them in an extremely simple way. One for my albums, one for some layout ideas on how different images play together. After I export the project and import it to my main library on my desktop workstation the population of yellow folders under that project will probably change quite a bit to group a bunch of different but related things together.

This is a very basic example of folders and projects. If anyone is interested at all I would be glad to put an illustrated PDF guide together that explains exactly how all of this stuff works in different contexts and workflows along with some ideas on how each feature from basic to advanced context tricks can be used effectively. Just leave a message here or hit me up on my email.

Finally had a chance to do some editing and corrected some typos and minor phasing.

21 Comments

Cletus says

26 September 08 at 8:46pm

Noticed your reply on the aperture forum and a request to add comments as a test. SO here I am adding a comment to help out. I also may point out I am trying out the new Firefox release, so this is coming while in FF.

Good Luck.
Cletus/
MBP 2.16 GHz C2D, 2GB RAM, 160HD
rwboyer says

26 September 08 at 9:37pm

Thanks for the help Cletus/. Really appreciate the consideration. Stop by again if you can. If you find anything wanting let me know. Obviously let me know what you like too.

RB
Sherry says

05 December 08 at 4:04am

LOVED LOVED LOVED this article. I have looked and looked for real-world help with what all the folders and albums do, and yours was by far the best.
RB says

05 December 08 at 9:24pm

Sherry,

I am glad you enjoyed it – if you have any questions or find errors or anything do not hesitate to speak up. Stay in touch and share your discoveries as well.

RB
Doug Haun says

25 December 08 at 6:12am

Rw,

Your article was very insightful about the use of yellow and blue folders and projects to keep things organized. I especially liked the the bit about using smart albums at different levels to get results.

Thanks,

Doug Haun
RB says

03 January 09 at 1:53pm

Thanks Doug,

Appreciate the positive feedback and glad that some of the info is being used help peoples photographic endeavors.”

RB
Chris says

06 February 09 at 7:05pm

Thank you so much for this great information. I was about to return to Lightroom, which isn’t a bad thing but I really want the OS X integration that you get with Aperture.

I have a question though regarding the deletion of versions from albums. I followed your simple tutorial by making four versions and moving them to albums where I changed the album pick etc.

The problem is that when I try to delete a version (or virtual copy of a version as I understand it) from an album using the delete key, I get an error sound and nothing happens.

The only option that works is command-delete which then deletes the version from all albums and the project itself.

What am I missing? Why won’t my delete key work like you suggested? Am I getting confused?

Thanks again for a great article,

Chris.
RB says

08 February 09 at 12:28pm

Chris,

The problem I think that you are running into is that you need to remove the whole stack from an album. If you are clicked on just one image in the stack and hit the delete key it will sit there and boink at you. Either select the whole stack or just close the stack before selecting and then click on the closed stack, I think you will find that will work.

RB
Chris says

09 February 09 at 8:35am

That was it, thanks. So simple but it was driving me nuts!

BTW, do you listen to the TWIP podcast? I recommended your site as their site of the week since it was such a great help.

Thanks again,

Chris
Kamil says

10 April 09 at 5:21am

I printed this pdf guide and read in bed yesterday. ItÂ´s very clear and for me also very helpful. Especially the utilization of albums helped me to get my pictures better organized and I realized, that itÂ´s better for me to create at least one new project each time I went out and shot something.

By the way, the guide is also typographically great and eye candy. Please keep this quality.

Greetings, Kamil
RB says

10 April 09 at 8:06am

Kamil,

Thanks for the kudos. When ever I have the time I do plan on publishing a couple more PDF guides. Until then you may enjoy some of the articles in the Aperture work-flow series.

RB
RB says

10 April 09 at 4:00pm

Kamil,

One other thing – what did you find so great about the typography? I didn’t spend a whole lot of time with the PDF in that respect. Just curious because I do care about that sort of thing but this is not some of my work that I consider so wonderful.

RB
Kamil says

11 April 09 at 5:13am

Hi Robert,

maybe I was too specific since itÂ´s not only the typography but the whole layout, I like. The title page is very clear, containing all important facts, the pictures have higher resolution than for web and the article is well structured in sections (intro, main part, end notes) and subsections. I think the most important fact for me is, that itÂ´s a real pdf guide, not just a pdf file containing a converted webpage.

Since I finished my masters thesis some weeks ago, using LaTeX exclusively, IÂ´m entirely taken by the quality it produces. So probably I would go LaTeX when writing any article because I get frustrated everytime I have to write something in MS Office or OpenOffice with figures, references etc.

May I ask you, what kind of software did you use for writing the guide? If itÂ´s iWork, maybe I should also give it a try

My only suggestion is to try justified text for such kind of document.

Greetings, Kamil
Chris says

08 September 09 at 9:45am

Thank you for the posting….it was a great help to read something that discussed the theory behind setting up the hierarchy correctly from the beginning, rather than learning by trial and error and having to go redo what was already done.

Many thanks.
Ben Bartlett says

08 September 09 at 10:22am

Thanks for your great article about the file structure of Aperture. One question if you have time:

There IS an occasion when dragging an image to another project actually MOVES the master and associated files. I was indeed using this deliberately.

I’m wondering – is the behaviour of this a result of the relative “depths” the two projects reside in? Or is it all about Albums, and dragging the contents of these.

My work flow was this:

Create A Blue Folder. Ok fine.

Within this, I then created a number of blank projects. The first called Complete Capture (it was for a wedding). Next to this I created bridal Preparations, Formals etc etc. All within the Blue Folder (enclosing the whole single wedding).

The idea was, once EVERYTHING was in the Complete Capture project, I then selectively moved what was needed to each relevant project. I could then port out individual projects to be worked on by my colleague on another machine. And then port them back for final output blah blah.

So, my question – dropping images from one project to another in this way MOVED them. Why? What is the subtle difference in situation that would make an image not MOVE, but just “appear” without moving the master, as you so eloquently emphasise?

Thanks

Ben
Ben Bartlett says

08 September 09 at 10:23am

Regarding the above comment:

My library is entirely managed at present.

Ben
RB says

08 September 09 at 10:57am

Ben,

I detail the circumstances where images are moved, copied, or referenced in the PDF.

Moved being the actual image master and all versions are physically relocated to another project – typically when dragging from a project to a project.

Copied being that you are actually duplicating the master into another project and the two have nothing to do with each other any more. Also dragging from project to project but holding a modifier key.

Referenced being the image showing up in more than one place but no copies are made. This is the most typical case and depends on the drop target. Typically the drop target being some sort of album container.

RB
Ben Bartlett says

08 September 09 at 4:55pm

RB,

Hey thanks. The aperture manual should really be doing your dirty work here!

It makes complete sense what you’re saying, yes.

Thanks again.

Ben
David LaSpina says

08 February 10 at 2:04am

Helo. Just bought the pdf and am really enjoying it. Thanks!

A layout suggestion, however: Have you considered using 2 or more columns on each page in future pdf books you publish? I’m not a layout nazi, I swear ^^, but it would make things a lot easier to read.

Anyways, I’m enjoying all else so again, thanks for writing it.
RB says

08 February 10 at 7:41am

Thanks for the suggestion David, I will see what it looks like.

RB
RB says

08 February 10 at 11:43am

David,

Thanks – glad you enjoyed them.

RB