Aperature question

So I decided to give up on Lightroom and downloaded Aperture (see thread below) and now I have another question.

It seems that when you import photos into Aperture, it duplicates the photos and stores them in a proprietary Library folder. When I double click on this folder, it opens Aperture, rather than opening like a folder so I can view my photos. In other words, it seems that once I move my images into Aperture I can only access them through Aperture.

Which means I have to have the original photos stored elsewhere on the same computer if I want access to the files to use with different applications. Which means double the disk space needed.

I must be missing something, right?

Signed,

Confused and Learning to Dislike RAW workflow.

I must be missing something, right?

Right.

If you really want to see the contents of the Aperture Library, right (control) click on it and select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu. You will then see your albums, projects, etc. The RAW files are stored within the projects (.approject) files. To view the contents of the .approject files, you will once again need to use Show Package Contents. Dig deeply, and you will find the RAW files, thumbnails and previews.

However, you should NEVER need to access your files this way. And you should NEVER mess with the file/folder structure within the Library, or Aperture will lose track of your photos.

Aperture is a powerful application. It is definitely one where you need to learn and understand it, either by reading the manual, or going through tutorials, or somehow. I strongly urge you to take the time to get educated on Aperture. It will save you time in the long run. Try the tutorials on Apple's website. There are a lot of them, and they will help your understanding immensely.

You can either allow Aperture to manage your RAW files by storing them within its own library, or you can store them wherever you want and tell Aperture to reference them in their original location. You don't need to store them in 2 locations, as you suggest.

If you want to Export files for use in other applications, them you can do that from within Aperture.

If you want to EDIT your files in another program (e.g. PhotoShop), you also do that from within Aperture. When you are done editing the photo in an external editor, Aperture keeps track of that edited version for you within its library. All automatically. All seamlessly (more or less).

you can store them wherever you want and tell Aperture to reference them in their original location. You don't need to store them in 2 locations, as you suggest.

Thanks very much for the reply Canuck.

How do you do that?

As John said, look at the tutorials on Apple's website - specific to your question, there is a tutorial here

http://www.apple.com/aperture/tutorials/#managing-importing

But as John said, keeping all your folders in an Aperture Library (you can have more than one even) makes the most sense. Also makes backup very easy, as all you have to do is update the Vault (backup of the library), a one click process.

When you import files, the far right of the import pane is loaded with options. There is an option "Sore Files:", which lets you choose to either store your photos in the Aperture Library or in another location of your choice. If you choose to store them in the Aperture Library, they are known as Managed files and have certain advantages, including easy backup as mentioned by loftus. If you choose NOT to store them in the library, then they are Referenced files.

Check out the Video Tutorial on Apple's site. The User Manual has excellent info on making the choice between Managed files and Referenced files. For a small library (i.e. one that can readily fit on the hard drive in your computer) I favour Managed files.

All of my digital photos are stored as managed files within my Aperture library. My library currently contains just under 10,000 images. The library is just over 60 GB. This is all my digital photos dating back 9 years. I cull aggressively, only keeping my best shots. If they were all 40D files, then my library would exceed 140 GB. This is still easily stored on a modern laptop, where hard drives can be 320GB or more.