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scripting stacks #1
Brad Glass's picture
by Brad Glass
June 13, 2014 - 12:23am

Any ideas on how to automate stacking through Applescript? Ideally, I’d like to have a script that selects photos with similar version names (e.g., P1000144, P1000144_DxO, P1000144_Nik) and then creates a stack with those photos. 

It doesn’t look like there is native scripting support for stacks, so I’m open to any creative ideas. For example, if I could figure out how to have the script select those photos within Aperture (so they have the selection boxes around them), then the script could issue the Command-K keystroke through system events to stack them … but I can’t figure out how to select the photos easily.

Scott Davenport's picture
by Scott Davenport
June 14, 2014 - 3:48am
Hi Brad, Not a direct answer to your question, however the naming scheme you have above suggests you want to stack versions that have been edited with a plugin/external editor with the original. There is a setting in the preferences to stack new versions. Would that meet your need?
Brad Glass's picture
by Brad Glass
June 14, 2014 - 4:17pm

Thank for the response, Scott. The preference does indeed work when using a plugin/external editor such as Nik or DxO Viewpoint 2, so it solves part of my problem.

But …

I’m trying to automate an Aperture/Optics Pro/Aperture workflow for cases where I want to use OP as my raw converter. I’ve played around with Catapult, but don’t like that it imports photos into a managed library when all of my original photos are set up as referenced images (stored in Year/Month/Day folders). I want the OP-created tif files to be referenced images stored alongside the original raw files.

So, I wrote a script that I access through Services after selecting in Aperture whatever raw files I want to run through OP. The script passes the batch of original raw files to OP, waits until I process them in OP, and then imports the resulting OP-created tif files as referenced images back into Aperture. Unfortunately, Aperture is not seeing these tif files as versions of the original raw file and therefore the preference setting has no stacking effect on these files. 

Perhaps there is some way to identify the tif file as a version of the original. Thanks for providing me with another avenue to explore.

BTW, Catapult does have an option for stacking the imported files with the originals … although it removes any existing stacks the originals happen to be in, which I don’t like. For example, I may have stacked the raw files because of exposure bracketing. When I process the stack of raws with OP, I’d like all the resulting tifs to be included into the existing stack of raws. 

Scott Davenport's picture
by Scott Davenport
June 18, 2014 - 4:11am
Sorry for not returning to this earlier… Overcome by events :) If the only problem with your current workflow is files round trip as managed, maybe write a script to find those files and then relocate them is the shortest path. AppleScript has hooks to invoke anything in the menus, such as File > Relocate Originals. Ultimately, just about anything can be scripted. I think the approach of grouping similar file names is doable, but more a pattern recognition question and less an Aperture-specific question. You might want to ask in the AppleScript forum. Morten may have some ideas.
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