iPhoto Library Manager
Pausha and I have a unique issue in our house regarding photos. I’m the photographer, and she’s the designer. She likes to have access to all of the shots I take, because they often find their way into site and print designs that she does for clients. In short, I have become part of her stock library, which I like a lot, because it’s very interesting for me to see my images show up in neat and unexpected ways.
Our issue is one of workflow. Pausha works in Adobe Bridge and Adobe Photoshop. I work in Apple’s Aperture. I like Aperture because of the feature-set, and because Aperture (like iPhoto) is an excellent image organizer software. Like iTunes for your photos, but with a very robust set of editing tools.
We’ve tried a few different ways of dealing with this issue, and some readers may find these methods familiar. My first solution was to put a LaCie hard drive on my Airport, thus creating a network drive that anyone in the office could access. I then exported all of my photos from Aperture (yeah, 10,000+ of them..) and sorted them into categories. Each category had its own folder, and then all of those folders went up into the network drive for Pausha to go sift through whenever she wanted.
This solution was a pain in neck, because each and every time I would go shoot something, I’d have to export all of my images, after importing them all, sort them into categories, and then upload them to the drive. In short, it became a lot of work for me, to provide her with the images she needed. Another issue with this solution is that we could not browse through the many files on the network drive visually. We’ve all become accustomed to using services like iStockPhoto and Flickr, and FaceBook, and being able to visually browse through photo libraries to find what we’re after. For this reason, my first solution was a non-starter.
My next solution was to use my MobileMe in combination with my Aperture program to create a series of galleries up on our .Mac/MobileMe account that she could go sort through visually. This worked pretty well at first. My favorite part of this solution was that it would take advantage of smart albums created in Aperture, which is was already using anyway. Providing I add tags to my images upon import using several keywords that I had setup ahead of time, the smart albums would auto-import any images tagged with those keywords. A few examples of my own keywords are Flowers, Portraits, Candid, Outdoor, Pets, Statues, Paris, Poland, Beach, etc.
Well, this solution failed as well; with almost 10,000 images being loaded up on MobileMe, the problem with creating those synced galleries in my Aperture was that every time I would launch Aperture, it would go through an intensely long syncing process, as it compared my 21 gallery albums with the MobileMe server, thus slowing Aperture down to a halt and making it relatively unusable until the syncing was complete. Of course, I would then import my newest images, tag them on the way in, which would push most of them to the smart albums corresponding to the images’ keywords, and then the MobileMe gallery syncing would immediately start up again, because the system would detect new images! Again, Aperture became unusable for the next 15 minutes.
The sad result of this solution is that I actually stopped shooting and using Aperture for a while, out of sheer frustration. It became a simple case of creativity being hindered by our technology. Now, this very concept is the reason I created FoleyPod in the first place, so back to the drawing board I went.
People have asked me why I don’t simply install Aperture on her computer, import my own library into it, and then overwrite that library with my own on a monthly basis. This is a good solution, but for the fact that Pausha doesn’t want to learn Aperture, and that she also has a large handful of new images of her own that she’s adding every month to her iPhoto Library. She already knows how to use iPhoto, and is comfortable in that environment.
For these reasons, we finally settled on using iPhoto as our parent libraries, and employing Fat Cat Software’s iPhoto Library Manager to regularly merge our iPhoto libraries together. iPhoto Library Manager is (fairly) simple to use, and maintains additional file attributes that you would lose when doing an image export. Attributes such as Titles, Rating, Keywords, etc. In fact, this software provides several other extremely useful features unrelated to library merges and syncing, such as first aid to rescue photos from corrupted libraries, Applescript support to help with automating various tasks, easily splitting large libraries into smaller libraries, and creating a shared library folder that other users on your machine can also access, just to name a few.
So, my workflow is this:
• I import my images into Aperture, just as a normally would. I tag my photos during import, and they all go into the projects and smart folders I’ve assigned them to.
• Next, I create a new album, and dump all images into it that have not yet been synced over to Pausha’s library.
• Next, I launch iPhoto, go up to File, and select Show Aperture Library. I locate the Unsynced folder and import those items into iPhoto. Because the images have already been tagged with keywords, and because Aperture and iPhoto talk to each other just as great Apple applications do and should, all of my images come over and get immediately filed into the smart albums I’ve created in iPhoto.
• I can then remove those images from the Unsynced album in Aperture and close Aperture.
• Next, I connect to Pausha’s computer over the network, and I launch iPhoto Library Manager, and run the Merge tool on our libraries. (Note that beforehand I had to merge both libraries off of a little external hard drive, because it would have taken a million years to do the initial merge over a network. Also, if your network is not very fast, you can do this with an iPod or an external HD. See Fat Cat Software’s site for more info on this.)
That’s it!
What I love about this solution is that while I do most of my work in Aperture, I now have a redundant set of images in iPhoto and they’re all very well organized, but separate from my Aperture library. See, I don’t necessarily want Pausha’s images in my Aperture, since that is where I deal with my own photography. Also, iPhoto has a few great features that as yet have not been ported into Aperture, such as one-click Flickr and Facebook sharing.
In short, I now think of Aperture as my project workspace, and iPhoto as my output gallery. When I want to show photos to a visiting friend, I launch iPhoto. The downside of this method is that I now have a 22GB Aperture library AND a 22GB iPhoto library. Pausha has a 22GB iPhoto library on her computer. If this were 3 years ago, we’d have a crisis on our hands, but it’s not 2006, and we both have 500GB hard drives in our MacBook Pros, so we can handle the extra space.
Our Time Machine software backs us all up nice and tidy, and I don’t ever have to worry about losing an image, or the meta data assigned to those images (which can be, as any professional will tell you, every bit as valuable as the images themselves.)
My dream is that Apple will soon release some sort of Aperture or iPhoto Server version, so that we don’t have to have redundant libraries on each of our computers. This will enable us to work together into a single shared library that we could access from within the network, or even from outside the network, using a remote access system.
Until that time arrives, I’ll stick with this solution.
Thanks for reading!
~ Chris
iPhoto Library Manager
Pausha and I have a unique issue in our house regarding photos. I’m the photographer, and she’s the designer. She likes to have access to all of the shots I take, because they often find their way into site and print designs that she does for clients. In short, I have become part of her stock library, which I like a lot, because it’s very interesting for me to see my images show up in neat and unexpected ways.
Our issue is one of workflow. Pausha works in Adobe Bridge and Adobe Photoshop. I work in Apple’s Aperture. I like Aperture because of the feature-set, and because Aperture (like iPhoto) is an excellent image organizer software. Like iTunes for your photos, but with a very robust set of editing tools.
We’ve tried a few different ways of dealing with this issue, and some readers may find these methods familiar. My first solution was to put a LaCie hard drive on my Airport, thus creating a network drive that anyone in the office could access. I then exported all of my photos from Aperture (yeah, 10,000+ of them..) and sorted them into categories. Each category had its own folder, and then all of those folders went up into the network drive for Pausha to go sift through whenever she wanted.
This solution was a pain in neck, because each and every time I would go shoot something, I’d have to export all of my images, after importing them all, sort them into categories, and then upload them to the drive. In short, it became a lot of work for me, to provide her with the images she needed. Another issue with this solution is that we could not browse through the many files on the network drive visually. We’ve all become accustomed to using services like iStockPhoto and Flickr, and FaceBook, and being able to visually browse through photo libraries to find what we’re after. For this reason, my first solution was a non-starter.
My next solution was to use my MobileMe in combination with my Aperture program to create a series of galleries up on our .Mac/MobileMe account that she could go sort through visually.
This worked pretty well at first. My favorite part of this solution was that it would take advantage of smart albums created in Aperture, which is was already using anyway. Providing I add tags to my images upon import using several keywords that I had setup ahead of time, the smart albums would auto-import any images tagged with those keywords. A few examples of my own keywords are Flowers, Portraits, Candid, Outdoor, Pets, Statues, Paris, Poland, Beach, etc.
Well, this solution failed as well; with almost 10,000 images being loaded up on MobileMe, the problem with creating those synced galleries in my Aperture was that every time I would launch Aperture, it would go through an intensely long syncing process, as it compared my 21 gallery albums with the MobileMe server, thus slowing Aperture down to a halt and making it relatively unusable until the syncing was complete.
Of course, I would then import my newest images, tag them on the way in, which would push most of them to the smart albums corresponding to the images’ keywords, and then the MobileMe gallery syncing would immediately start up again, because the system would detect new images! Again, Aperture became unusable for the next 15 minutes.
The sad result of this solution is that I actually stopped shooting and using Aperture for a while, out of sheer frustration. It became a simple case of creativity being hindered by our technology. Now, this very concept is the reason I created FoleyPod in the first place, so back to the drawing board I went.
People have asked me why I don’t simply install Aperture on her computer, import my own library into it, and then overwrite that library with my own on a monthly basis. This is a good solution, but for the fact that Pausha doesn’t want to learn Aperture, and that she also has a large handful of new images of her own that she’s adding every month to her iPhoto Library. She already knows how to use iPhoto, and is comfortable in that environment.
For these reasons, we finally settled on using iPhoto as our parent libraries, and employing Fat Cat Software’s iPhoto Library Manager to regularly merge our iPhoto libraries together. iPhoto Library Manager is (fairly) simple to use, and maintains additional file attributes that you would lose when doing an image export. Attributes such as Titles, Rating, Keywords, etc. In fact, this software provides several other extremely useful features unrelated to library merges and syncing, such as first aid to rescue photos from corrupted libraries, Applescript support to help with automating various tasks, easily splitting large libraries into smaller libraries, and creating a shared library folder that other users on your machine can also access, just to name a few.
So, my workflow is this:
• I import my images into Aperture, just as a normally would. I tag my photos during import, and they all go into the projects and smart folders I’ve assigned them to.
• Next, I create a new album, and dump all images into it that have not yet been synced over to Pausha’s library.
• Next, I launch iPhoto, go up to File, and select Show Aperture Library.
I locate the Unsynced folder and import those items into iPhoto.
Because the images have already been tagged with keywords, and because Aperture and iPhoto talk to each other just as great Apple applications do and should, all of my images come over and get immediately filed into the smart albums I’ve created in iPhoto.
• I can then remove those images from the Unsynced album in Aperture and close Aperture.
• Next, I connect to Pausha’s computer over the network,
and I launch iPhoto Library Manager, and run the Merge tool on our libraries. (Note that beforehand I had to merge both libraries off of a little external hard drive, because it would have taken a million years to do the initial merge over a network. Also, if your network is not very fast, you can do this with an iPod or an external HD. See Fat Cat Software’s site for more info on this.)
That’s it!
What I love about this solution is that while I do most of my work in Aperture, I now have a redundant set of images in iPhoto and they’re all very well organized, but separate from my Aperture library. See, I don’t necessarily want Pausha’s images in my Aperture, since that is where I deal with my own photography. Also, iPhoto has a few great features that as yet have not been ported into Aperture, such as one-click Flickr and Facebook sharing.
In short, I now think of Aperture as my project workspace, and iPhoto as my output gallery. When I want to show photos to a visiting friend, I launch iPhoto. The downside of this method is that I now have a 22GB Aperture library AND a 22GB iPhoto library. Pausha has a 22GB iPhoto library on her computer. If this were 3 years ago, we’d have a crisis on our hands, but it’s not 2006, and we both have 500GB hard drives in our MacBook Pros, so we can handle the extra space.
Our Time Machine software backs us all up nice and tidy, and I don’t ever have to worry about losing an image, or the meta data assigned to those images (which can be, as any professional will tell you, every bit as valuable as the images themselves.)
My dream is that Apple will soon release some sort of Aperture or iPhoto Server version, so that we don’t have to have redundant libraries on each of our computers. This will enable us to work together into a single shared library that we could access from within the network, or even from outside the network, using a remote access system.
Until that time arrives, I’ll stick with this solution.
Thanks for reading!
~ Chris
Tagged as:
Digital Photography,
iLife,
iPhoto,
Photoshop,
Workflow,
Your Digital-Life
