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3.3 Library size (and thoughts) #1
Mike Hessey's picture
by Mike Hessey
June 22, 2012 - 2:08am

I have nearly 50,000 images in my library, all referenced. Before 3.3 the library size was 50G, now it is 75G. I had not previously disabled the previews, but have now done so, but the effect on library size is minimal. Is this to be expected, or is there anything I can do to reduce it to a more acceptable size? I hesitate to mention 'that other product', but its main library is 1G, plus about 40G of previews, which I find more tolerable.

One of the biggest advantages of Aperture over 'that other product' for me in the past was the highlight and shadow facility - with Aperture I could control how widely the adjustments were applied. Mercifully the old tool is still available (thanks for explaining how to get it), but this 'development' is really bad news for me. I tried the new tool on one image, trying to open up the shadows, and the highlights immediately blew out completely, and of course intermediate tones were unacceptably light too. There is a lot I prefer in Aperture (or USED to prefer), but unless I can solve the current issues I think I will finally give up on it. Oh, and this was after the latest Mac updates made my machine unbootable, requiring a restore from Timeachine (only 2 days work lost… and a day to find out what the problem was, and do the restore) and lots of aggro when I stupidly tried to combine my iPhoto (historic, before I had Aperture) and Aperture libraries - yes, the libraries may be combined, but some of the books, slideshows etc got lost, requiring a LOT of time trying to restore everything.

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
June 30, 2012 - 7:26pm

You know what, this has come up before (the size increase) and now that you say it’s in the thumbnails, it occurs to me why.

I’m going to assume that this has to do with Retina support. Retina displays will need larger thumbnails and that is probably happening on all systems.

Curious then, as there’s no way to get rid of thumbnails. You need them.

@PhotoJoseph
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Paul Dunahoo's picture
by Paul Dunahoo
July 3, 2012 - 2:01am

I agree on it being because of the Retina display. If you dig into the Aperture Library package/bundle in the Finder, you will notice that it is the thumbnails that have increased in quality and size, thus making the library larger.

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
June 22, 2012 - 4:24am

Mike,

You’ve disabled previews, but have you deleted existing ones? What size are you generating previews; you can completely customize that which will greatly affect the final size of your library, and AFIAK the same thing is possible in Lr. I’d assume in Lr you have a lower quality setting for the preview JPEGs.

Read this article if you haven’t already: A Comprehensive Look at Thumbnails, Previews, and More in Aperture 3

@PhotoJoseph
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Mike Hessey's picture
by Mike Hessey
June 22, 2012 - 12:18pm

Thanks for the suggestions, but I had already deleted all the previews except for those relating to projects of the last 2 years. Just to check, I’ve now deleted all the previews. I have previews set at the smallest size, 1280, but checking in Lr I have previews set to 2048. I’ve managed to get the library down to about 67G, but that is still a lot bigger than it was before 3.3, and of course previously I had the previews enabled and generated.
Mike

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
June 22, 2012 - 1:25pm

Unfortunately I didn’t check the size of my library before and after. I wonder if anyone else is seeing this.

@PhotoJoseph
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David  Moore's picture
by David Moore
June 22, 2012 - 11:15pm

I too have noticed an increase in size of the Lib. But Ive been in Library hell for a week with rebuilds. Plus my HD where the lib is is starting to chatter more noticeably, saying in Digital speak, “Replace me”. Aperture has crashed a number of times and Mail crashed once. So Until I get all this sorted Im not a good source of info.

Another observation is that the 3.3 upgrade has done something to recognize and reject images with additional alpha channels. I use to have this problem and thought I fixed all of them before, but now another couple hundred have reared there ugly heads. I have to open each in PS to fix.

davidbmoore@mac.com
Twitter= @davidbmoore
Scottsdale AZ

Stephen Wandzura's picture
by Stephen Wandzura
June 24, 2012 - 6:15am

After updating to 3.3 my (referenced) library grew from ~120 GB to ~174 GB. Looking inside the Package Contents revealed that essentially all the increase (indeed, most of the Library) is Thumbnails. The increase is size is uncomfortable - I have my Library on a 240 GB SSD, which I like to use for a few other things, too. But even more significant is that backups (of which I keep several, both Library copies and Vaults) take more time and space.

Is there any recourse? Should I try manually trashing all the Thumbnails and rebuilding??

Steve

Mike Hessey's picture
by Mike Hessey
June 24, 2012 - 8:48am

Well, at least it is ‘reassuring’ that I’m not alone in experiencing this!

Stephen Wandzura's picture
by Stephen Wandzura
June 24, 2012 - 11:33am

Did you look inside to see if the increase is mostly Thumbnails?

Steve

mrkgoo's picture
by mrkgoo
June 25, 2012 - 7:40pm

As far as I’m aware, my 480GB Library did not appreciably increase in size.

I also backed it up by copying it to an external drive before making the upgrade.

Steve Jackson's picture
by Steve Jackson
June 25, 2012 - 8:30pm

See my June 25, 2012 post in “http://www.apertureexpert.com/forum-user/post/1868194” for summary of library size changes for me pre/post upgrade. 58Gb -> 114Gb -> 71Gb.

Steve

Ben Jamieson's picture
by Ben Jamieson
December 12, 2012 - 12:18am

Did anyone find a solution to the thumbnail issue?

My previews within the library package weigh in at around 12GB.

My thumbnails, which should logically be much smaller, weigh in at 72GB!!! There’s something badly wrong with that difference - it would appear that my thumbnails are 6x larger than the actual previews - it should be the other way round, surely?

Definite weirdness here!

Ben

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