Aperture: help needed re projects, albums, etc

[Hello.there]

Evening all,

I started out with a simple structure in Aperture, just using projects for each group of my photos. But now I need a bunch of sub-sections within each project and I'm really not sure what I should be doing.

Example:

I have one project called 'Smith Family'.

Now I want sub-groups under 'Smith Family' for, say, 'John', 'Joe' and 'Jack' (fictitious names, I promise ).

And within each one of those sub-groups I want more sections, eg 'John's 21st', 'John's Wedding', etc.

I'm still struggling to grasp the difference between projects, albums and folders - could any Aperture experts out there tell me how they would choose to organize the above (in terms of choosing projects, albums and folders)?

Many thanks.

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

Sounds like you should go back to iPhoto. iPhoto has "events" which suits your needs pretty well. And it's a more intuitive UI in iPhoto. but for Aperture, it's mainly for batch photos. Simply meaning that say today you went to this park and you took 100 photos. Aperture helps you batch process the files and send them to some other photo organizing app like iPhoto. It's not particularly useful for using it the way you do, no offense to you. But that's my suggestion.

Anyways, back to the question. Try creating folders inside folders. I don't nkow if that will work since I haven't touched Aperture in awhile. So the "Smith Family" folder and inside that, make another folder called "Joe's 21st" or whatever. See if that works

 

[Hello.there]

Sounds like you should go back to iPhoto. iPhoto has "events" which suits your needs pretty well. And it's a more intuitive UI in iPhoto. but for Aperture, it's mainly for batch photos. Simply meaning that say today you went to this park and you took 100 photos. Aperture helps you batch process the files and send them to some other photo organizing app like iPhoto. It's not particularly useful for using it the way you do, no offense to you. But that's my suggestion.

Anyways, back to the question. Try creating folders inside folders. I don't nkow if that will work since I haven't touched Aperture in awhile. So the "Smith Family" folder and inside that, make another folder called "Joe's 21st" or whatever. See if that works

Thanks SnowLeopard, no offence taken at all - in fact, in the early days of using Aperture I often wondered why I didn't stick with iPhoto.

But I've outgrown iPhoto, I have around 5,000 photos I need to organise and catalogue and I'll be taking so many photos through the summer that number will grow rapidly. So Aperture is perfect for my needs now, I'm just struggling to get an understanding of how best to organise everything. Would love to hear how the experts do it!

Thanks.

 

[66217]

Aperture helps you batch process the files and send them to some other photo organizing app like iPhoto. It's not particularly useful for using it the way you do, no offense to you. But that's my suggestion.

You certainly seem to lack any understanding of Aperture. No offense to you.


For the OP. See this thread. It might be helpful.

Once you grasp the use of Aperture it becomes a thousand times better that iPhoto in almost every aspect.

Personally I use two main folders. One for family, and other for hobby. Within each folder I have folders to separate years. And then I just have my projects by topic, event, etc.

So, it looks something like this.

Family(folder) -> Year 2008 (folder) --> John Doe Birthday (project)

I base my searches in keywords, I never go to previous year folders to find photos. I just search, for example: dad, birthday, 2007. And all the photos of that birthday would appear.

 

[Hello.there]

Personally I use two main folders. One for family, and other for hobby. Within each folder I have folders to separate years. And then I just have my projects by topic, event, etc.

So, it looks something like this.

Family(folder) -> Year 2008 (folder) --> John Doe Birthday (project)

I base my searches in keywords, I never go to previous year folders to find photos. I just search, for example: dad, birthday, 2007. And all the photos of that birthday would appear.

Roco, you're a legend - thank you so much.

I figured that if I had folders and projects for every minor event in my or my family's life Aperture would grind to a halt - having larger folders and using keywords to track stuff down sounds eminently more sensible. Will play around with it - thanks again.

 

[66217]

I'm glad I could help.

Another quick recommendation: keep your projects small. It makes browsing photos quicker in Aperture. Tho, maybe this is only me because I have a MB.