Aperture and Lightroom Libraries?

[Colin500]

<span style="font-size: 11.6667px;"]I've never liked the way the iTunes Library stored my Music by scattering it into different folders, so I was hesitant to let the Photo Libraries do all of the archiving on it's own. I also fear that a Library or Catalog could become corrupted. What's your current backup method for Libraries or Catalogs?


<span style="font-size: 11.6667px;"]

Hi, one general remark &mdash; I was the same, always wanting to organise everything "my way", rather than let iTunes and iPhoto handle the directory structure, however I found that it was a constant hassle, with me and the software having different ideas of how things should be done.<span style="font-size: 11.6667px;"]One day, I just started to let iTunes and iPhoto (now Aperture) do things their way, and in general life is easier now.


<span style="font-size: 11.6667px;"]If, however, you want to keep all photos in Aperture and Lightroom, it will be a bit awkward. You could import everything into Aperture and let it be the primary manager, and then access the raw files in the Aperture library from Lightroom, but I don't really know enough about LR and how it cooperates with externally managed files to judge whether this would work well in practice.


<span style="font-size: 11.6667px;"]You've probably got some strong reason to work with both applications, although I can't quite imagine doing that myself. Sounds a bit awkward if, for example, you want to make a photo-book and then have the versions of the photos that you want to include scattered over the two applications, and need to cross-import the versions, beyond sharing the masters...


The Aperture library is actually a directory which contains several sub-directories, of which one is a large hierarchy for the originally imported files. Modified files are not saved to disk, only the "instructions" on how to convert the original (master, in Aperture terminology) into the modified image (version, in Aperture terminology) are saved, and applied in real-time on demand (when viewing or exporting). Saves a bunch of disk space. Only the preview/icon JPEGs in low resolution are saved in modified form.


<span style="font-size: 11.6667px;"]For my part, I've got an iMac with a 1 TB hard-disk, and that's quite enough, because I try to keep my library clean by deleting as many photos as possible, but I'm not a pro, and my photos are not paid work, so perhaps my requirements are different...


As usual, the key is to keep everything as simple as possible, but not simpler ;-)


Ciao, Colin

[Richard Lane]

Hi, one general remark &mdash; I was the same, always wanting to organise everything "my way", rather than let iTunes and iPhoto handle the directory structure, however I found that it was a constant hassle, with me and the software having different ideas of how things should be done.<span style="font-size:11.6667px;"]One day, I just started to let iTunes and iPhoto (now Aperture) do things their way, and in general life is easier now.


You've probably got some strong reason to work with both applications, although I can't quite imagine doing that myself. Sounds a bit awkward if, for example, you want to make a photo-book and then have the versions of the photos that you want to include scattered over the two applications, and need to cross-import the versions, beyond sharing the masters...


The Aperture library is actually a directory which contains several sub-directories, of which one is a large hierarchy for the originally imported files. Modified files are not saved to disk, only the "instructions" on how to convert the original (master, in Aperture terminology) into the modified image (version, in Aperture terminology) are saved, and applied in real-time on demand (when viewing or exporting). Saves a bunch of disk space. Only the preview/icon JPEGs in low resolution are saved in modified form.


<span style="font-size:11.6667px;"]For my part, I've got an iMac with a 1 TB hard-disk, and that's quite enough, because I try to keep my library clean by deleting as many photos as possible, but I'm not a pro, and my photos are not paid work, so perhaps my requirements are different...


As usual, the key is to keep everything as simple as possible, but not simpler ;-)


Ciao, Colin

I may just let LR handle the organizing if it is unable to delete my stored images from the hard disk and the library at the same time.


I plan on just using LR3, I was planning on using both for just a couple of months until I get everything sorted out.


Thanks for the Aperture Library explanation. That helps!


I'm not a pro either, in other words I do not make my Living from Photography, however I do sell sports photos which takes up a lot of space at 8-10 frames/sec. My sports niche has lead to the sale of some of my other photos as well, so lately I feel that I need to get better organized.


Thanks Colin!





Rich