While traveling for an extended period of time I used Aperture with external hard drives. My RAW files are neatly arranged in folders by country by city by event or site. I have 600GB of RAW images in 17 folders with four or five sub-folders each. I wish to move these files and the file structure to my Mac Pro. Is there a way to do this without having to recreate the entire file structure (via Finder) and “Relocate Masters” one sub-folder at time from the external drives to the internal drive? In essence, I would like to “Relocate Masters and File Structure”.
Joseph, it worked very well. Thank you very much. Exporting the projects took more time than I expected.
This process is also useful for dividing a large library into smaller libraries. Is there a limit to the size (GB or pics) of an Aperture library? In the long run, I am better to have multiple libraries of 10,000 pics or a few of 50,000 pics (referenced RAW)? My inclination is to have multiple libraries but the convenience of a few larger libraries is compelling. What is your approach to this?
Rob
Glad it worked Rob. Exporting can take a while because of all the JPEG preview files. I should have mentioned that you can delete previews and rebuild them later to speed up export/import (although overall it probably takes just as long, or longer, while you wait for the previews to rebuild).
There’s no hard limit on library size. I have multiple libraries because a) certain client images I want to keep separate from everything else, and b) my main library got unwieldy after being subjected to literally hundreds of beta and alpha versions of the software over the years. I wouldn’t limit your size just because of an arbitrary limit. If you notice it’s slowing down then sure, start a new library. But it’s so nice to have them all in one.
-Joseph
@PhotoJoseph
— Have you signed up for the mailing list?
Sure… just copy the entire structure from the FW drive to your MacPro (or Drobo or wherever you want them stored). Export the project from Aperture on the portable and import that project into Aperture on the desktop. Select the project and use the Manage Referenced Files command in Aperture. Match any file, and click ‘reconnect all’. Since the structure hasn’t changed, Aperture SHOULD automatically reconnect everything. If not, hopefully you’ll just need to point to a few different files and only do a few batches of reconnect.
Let us know how it goes!
-Joseph
@PhotoJoseph
— Have you signed up for the mailing list?