Life after Aperture

[billtils]

Thanks for the response Mike; it seems we are more in agreement that disagreement.

Like Janis I have worked with both Windows and Macs and their associated S/W. It didn't take long to work out that the differences don't really matter; both platforms can deliver the goods and both can access S/W that will deal with the job in hand. In some ways the most important factor is familiarity with what you are using so that you can get the best out of it. The only exception to that may be for the user to be sure what it is that defines what they'd describe as "a quality end result" as that can often come down to personal taste - right down to preferences to the way something gets you there in contrast to where "there" is.

Regards

Bill

[davidbryson]

Janis

I found that since LightRoom now into Creative Cloud version it is massively better at importing everything from Aperture. Earlier discussions mentioned having to export out then back-in. This is why I didn't move until recently. I still prefer aperture but getting used to using LightRoom now about 2 months in. My main gripe is in fact that I can't easily set and auto-counter for LightRoom for re-numbering as I Import. Other warning I would give is that you need to let LightRoom take its own sweet time importing and not try to do anything else. My Aperture Library of some 22,000 plus numerous project folders took best part of 5 days, but folders and sub-folders etc all reproduced exactly as had been in aperture. LightRoom works better if religiously using keywords to create smart collections rather than in aperture where always worked with projects and folders, but then should all be adding metadata as import anyway.

Best of luck whichever way you go.

David

[rob211]

The first link in the OP is bad; should be https://photoapps.expert/tips/2015/3...2#.VenLrbRRsRo

And frankly that article is a mess; sorry. That's the formerly known as Aperture Expert website, and it kinda shows.

Many Aperture users, especially those who used managed libraries and never even considered referenced libraries, have a more difficult time transitioning. It doesn't help that the terms used in Aperture (and not unique to them) are ambiguous and confusing. Having Aperture folders and Finder folders is not helpful. And it doesn't help that Aperture made it tough to write out metadata to files, which is a helpful way of standardizing info about images. Standards for adjustments are of course probably never gonna happen, but making it hard to pass on exif, IPTC and XMP is just not nice.

Aperture users with referenced libraries can use other products in tandem with Aperture. That makes a transition easier, and avoids brinksmanship like waiting till your computer is stolen and suddenly finding yourself with a machine that can't run Aperture at all, which will occur sometime in the future. You can at present go back and make further image adjustments in Aperture, and export that out as TIFF. But I agree that since other software is progressing, while Aperture stalled a long time ago, it's often worth running a RAW through another product; you might see superior results.

For those with managed libraries, look at Aperture Exporter instead of Lr's importer. With some work in Aperture first (recognizing the differences between virtual containers, stacking, and picks particularly) the transition can be pretty easy. And many just export out all the full res previews of adjusted images to at least have a template to work from for further adjustments, if necessary in Lr or Ps later. C1's importing has also gotten better.

And it can also be an opportunity to do some housecleaning. Switching was an opportunity for me to make much more use of hierarchical keywords (which work better in Adobe applications than Aperture) instead of using projects/albums/folders or collection sets/collections. They are more portable, and more future-proof, and help one from being backed into a DAM corner again in the future.

[purplehaze]

Rob, thanks for pointing out the bad link; I have fixed it in the original post. I think I know what you mean about the source, but in the state I am in, I will take whatever gleanings I can get.

Aperture Exporter looks very interesting; thank you very much for pointing it out. In reading the documentation, a strategy for readying my library for export and preserving all those edits that have never got "baked" has started evolving in my head. I will finish the tutorial on moving from Aperture to Lightroom that I started as it apparently contains some valuable dos and don'ts and set about whatever housekeeping might leverage the work I have done to date.

[billtils]

Rob and Janis

First of all, thanks Rob for identifying this resource. I ran it a couple of times in trial mode and was pleased enough to go ahead and buy it!

It is marketed as a way to move files from the Aperture library(ies) ready to export to another app such as LR or C1, but it is more flexible than that. It will park them wherever you want, and, critically, replicates your Aperture file structure as folders with the same names as your Projects and Albums, which now gives you a basis for a zero cost future-proof library, by creating your own new folders as required and importing to them using your camera manufacturer's S/W, and editing with it or another editor such as Pixelmator or Affinity Photo.

The process was not perfect - Aperture crashed 3 times when I tried it on a biggish (5,000 image) library but AE picked up where it had left off. The crashing is a known issue and there is info about it on the AE website.

I'm going to play some more, but will most likely treat this as a successful beta test and delete the AE folders until ready to move everything over permanently, after some re-jigging of the current Aperture libraries and their contents.

(Oh, and welcome to CIC Rob - I'm sure you'll enjoy it).

Regards

Bill

[Mike Buckley]

Importing from Aperture to Photo Supreme

The following information is provided by the developer of Photo Supreme (PSU) to import an Aperture catalog into Photo Supreme:

"The Import-Aperture will import the Aperture database to the PSU database. Info from the database will be copied to the PSU database, that includes the albums.

What you need to do to get the most info returned:
1. if you're using a referenced aperture database then change that to a non-referenced (managed) database. A referenced database holds all the images in the Apple Library package and so your images are locked in. You'll need to get them out first.
2. Start with a new PSU catalog
3. import Aperture
4. When finished, select all files and read the metadata from the file to the catalog (right click on thumb-Metadata-Read metadata from file). Depending on your volumes, this will take a while...good to start it before going to sleep
5. When finished importing the metadata, select Tools-Built missing thumbnails and previews (again a time consuming task)
6. Stop using Aperture as a management tool because you shouldn't run the import twice.
7. from now on use the. Import button to import (and optionally copy) new images"

That information is excerpted from this thread at the Photo Supreme peer-to-peer support forum, in which the developer daily participates.

If you or anyone decides to try it, I can help you locate the "Import Aperture" capability mentioned in Step 3 to ensure that you don't confuse it with the regular "Import" function that you would use to import new images to your catalog after your Aperture catalog has been imported into your Photo Supreme catalog.

[purplehaze]

Delighted to hear you may have found a solution, Bill!

And thanks, Mike, for the info about Photo Supreme. I just want to caution anyone else who may be reading to verify whether you are to start with a referenced or managed database, as it looks to me like the writer may have got a little confused about his terminology in Step 1.

[Mike Buckley]

about Photo Supreme. I just want to caution anyone else who may be reading to verify whether you are to start with a referenced or managed database, as it looks to me like the writer may have got a little confused about his terminology in Step 1.

Good catch, Janis! If I understand correctly, someone posted a message later in that thread that addresses that:

"So I think what you wanted to say is that the starting point must be a referenced database where each individual file is saved separately in normal Finder folders. (You incorrectly stated "non-referenced")."

Anyone considering importing an Aperture catalog into PhotoSupreme would do well to read the entire thread I provided. As an example, the developer of PhotoSupreme writes that the process only works if the latest version of Aperture is used due to changes Apple made to that version.

[billtils]

Thanks Janis.

I've played around with Aperture quite a bit today and am (almost) ready to change my "Life After Aperture" strategy. I have already used AE to move my main Aperture library to an external drive** and am going to purchase Capture One when in the US next week. "Almost" is because I may hold off on the C1 purchase until it is absolutely essential, and because I know that Affinity are looking at a DAM module for Affinity Photo. Offsetting that is that the capabilities list in C1 Pro* is very impressive and potentially worth moving to regardless.

** It was not an entirely seamless job; I ended up creating a number of new smaller libraries based on similar albums and consolidating their Projects into one on a library-by-library basis. I only hit the crash bug once and AE dealt with it no bother at all.

[purplehaze]

Here's something I am unclear on; perhaps someone can help me. I have a fair number of images in Aperture that were round-tripped to one or more Nik tools, resulting in the creation of what I take to be new originals in the form of TIFFs. I take it that Aperture considers such images originals because it assigns the exact same file name as to them as the original RAW file, without a version number. Many of those images I have subsequently processed in Aperture, with the result that, for a given RAW file, I may have one or more duplicate version names (two Version 2s and/or 3s, for example), one set for the RAW file, and one for the TIFF. I have never liked this naming convention, but never bothered to figure out how I might change Aperture's default behaviour in this respect or if it was even desirable. In any case, I am wondering how AE would treat the TIFFs that had subsequent adjustments by Aperture. Would it see the TIFF as an original or a version? I can see that I might want to suppress the export of such TIFFs and just export the version. What makes things complicated is that there are cases where I have a RAW-based version (adjusted solely in Aperture) and a TIFF output by the Nik tools and not further retouched in Aperture (ergo no version name) that I like equally well and both of which I will want to export as TIFFs.

[Mike Buckley]

I can't help with anything having to do with AE but your situation tells me that while you are going through this migration, now would be an ideal time to revisit your file-naming convention to ensure that all of its details meet your needs going forward.

[purplehaze]

now would be an ideal time to revisit your file-naming convention to ensure that all of its details meet your needs going forward.

Yes, I think you are right. I want to be able to tell at a glance which editor a given TIFF came out of. This morning I found a Software field buried in the EXIF data that picks up SilverEfex and ColorEfex identifiers that could help me filter files for the purposes of renaming and exporting them. It also caught BorderFX, but not Viveza. I don't know about PTLens. Unfortunately, the data in the field gets overwritten by the most recent editor.

[Mike Buckley]

Some software, such as PhotoSupreme, will automatically copy the information in a particular metadata field to the exact part of the filename that you dictate. As part of that filenaming process you could replace that data with an abbreviation. As an example, if SilverEfex is the data that is copied to the filename, a second step in the automated procedure could replace SilverEfex with SE. That would be done all in one batch process.

[billtils]

Janis

I'll check this for you in the morning (22:30 here right now) but from memory AE copies over the original and all its versions. What I'm not sure about is whether each version is treated in its entirety as an image file or as a sidecar type of adjustment to the original, but when I call them up in Affinity Photo media browser they do show as individual TIFFs or JPEGS, matching the file format in the Aperture library.

Will also give you an update on how things go with C1 as my last bit of fun for the day was to download the 30-day trial of C1 Pro8

[Mike Buckley]

from memory AE copies over the original and all its versions.

It might be helpful for Janis to learn the information AE uses to recognize that a particular image is a version of another image if indeed that is happening. Is it the filename? If so, how similar does the filename have to be? Is it some metadata in the image file? Is it an analysis of the image data?

I would expect AE to copy over all of the images that are in the Aperture catalog. So, if all of the versions are in the catalog, I would expect them to be copied even though AE isn't recognizing that some images are versions of other images.

[billtils]

Hi Mike

Yes, that's correct, the originals, versions, and XMP file of edits are all copied to the specified folder.

[Mike Buckley]

I notice that the NEF and XMP files are in different albums. My guess is that AE either automatically copies them to the same physical folder or the user has to specify that they are copied to the same physical folder. Correct?

[purplehaze]

Thanks for the visual, Bill. I notice that you have just one XMP file for the NEF and the two TIFFs. I think I remember reading that unless you elect to write a separate sidecar for each file, AE selects one at random for each set. All the more reason to get the editor name on the file name I think.

[purplehaze]

And I notice that there are two NEFs for 0334. Is this because there were two copies of the NEF in your Aperture library, or did AE make a copy for some reason?

[Mike Buckley]

All the more reason to get the editor name on the file name I think.

My thinking is that no two image files on your entire system should have the same information in the part of the file name that occurs before the extension. For that and other ideas pertaining to best practices with regard to file-naming conventions, see this.