Aperture 3 - Deleting Original Files

gad-westy

gad-westy

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Graham
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Hopefully somebody can help here. I've been using Aperture 3 for a while now. I typically import all raw files from the camera into a project from there I will edit the ones I like. If I don't like an image, I'll highlight it and select 'delete master and all versions' from the file menu. The file will now show in aperture's trash. If I then empty Aperture's trash and then empty the main os/x trash, I find that the files original raw files still exist on my HD.

I had wrongly assumed that the files would be gone forever but now that I've noticed I realise that I still have every single photo that I've taken since purchasing aperture lingering on my hard disk.

Am I doing something wrong?
 
Aperture makes copies of your images and leaves the original untouched. If you import to your mac and then open in Aperture you will have two versions.
Personally I import direct from my memory card into Aperture, so I only have the Aperture version.
 
Hope you don’t mind me butting in but would you recommend Aperture 3 as a first dip into PP? I have read elsewhere that it can run very slowly and doesn’t
like other applications running at the same time. Any comments?

Phil
 
bornagain said:
Hope you don’t mind me butting in but would you recommend Aperture 3 as a first dip into PP? I have read elsewhere that it can run very slowly and doesn’t
like other applications running at the same time. Any comments?

Phil
Click to expand...

Aperture is a great tool to use, especially in conjunction with Photoshop. They both seem to handle RAW files slightly differently - the settings you use in PS will give you slightly different results than in Aperture, but once you get used to that, it's okay.

The brushes are an absolute cinch to use, and the edge recognition on them is superb. For things like selective editing, it's dead easy, and none of the changes are written to the file - they're all reversible, which is handy as well.

And for what it costs these days, you can't really go wrong with it (y)
 
Yeah, Aperture's pricetag is really attractive, considering its huge toolset. Despite being expert level in Photoshop, I do 99.9999% of my photography stuff in Aperture only, because it's that cool.
 
again another thumbs up for Aperture ..... I use it 99% of the time and only ever delve into the photoshop when I want to cut the heads off of people and stick them somewhere else
 
Danny_Two said:
Aperture makes copies of your images and leaves the original untouched. If you import to your mac and then open in Aperture you will have two versions.
Personally I import direct from my memory card into Aperture, so I only have the Aperture version.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure we do the same thing. I plug my camera in, and import directly to Aperture. I don't copy the images anywhere myself.

As an example, I'll plug in the camera and import to a new project, e.g. Sept 2011. Aperture will create a project called 'Sept 2011', and it'll also create a directory in my pictures folders on my HD called 'sept 2011'. All of the raw files be in that folder.

If I'm then working on aperture within that project folder, and decided I don't like one of the images, I can select the image and hit 'delete master and all versions'. The picture will no longer be in the project folder and will be in aperture's recycle bin. I can empty the aperture recycle bin and my actual OS/X recycle bin but the raw file will still be in the Sept 2011 folder on my HD.

Otherwise, I think it's a fantastic piece of software. I have barely touched PS recently.
 
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When you import you should get the import options window on the right hand side, there is a pull down menu called 'store files', is this set to 'In Aperture library', or does it say something else?
 
Danny_Two said:
When you import you should get the import options window on the right hand side, there is a pull down menu called 'store files', is this set to 'In Aperture library', or does it say something else?
Click to expand...

Hmmm, could be this. Will check tonight when I'm home.

In all honesty, I like the way the files are stored now, I just wish it would delete stuff that I don't want.
 
bornagain said:
Hope you don’t mind me butting in but would you recommend Aperture 3 as a first dip into PP? I have read elsewhere that it can run very slowly and doesn’t
like other applications running at the same time. Any comments?

Phil
Click to expand...

At the price point Aperture is in the App Store it really is a no brainer. I've been using it since v.2 and I paid around £200 for it, plus around £80 for the v.3 upgrade, and would still consider it value for money even at those prices.

The thing about Aperture is that it's very memory hungry. At the start of the year I took my iMac from 4GB to 8GB and the speed increased considerably, even so, it will still happily chomp through most of the 8GB in my machine.

The only time I use PS these days is if I want to sharpen a lower res export from Aperture. Sometimes an 800 or 1000 width image from Aperture will look a little soft despite being razor sharp on the original at 100%, or if I want to use the High Pass method of sharpening.

As for the OP's question, I really haven't got a clue. I never delete anything, so I've not noticed this behaviour.
 
Weird one to the OP, I tried to recreate but can't seem to do that are all. I do operate Aperture in the auto versioning mode though, such that master and version are alway grouped in a single project and just store copies in different albums.

But when I delete, tend to use Apple (CMD) + Backspace and empty the trash all are gone.

To born-again, Aperture is not slow for me and I run loads of other apps at the same time. But then again my machine does have SSD for OS, an i7 quad core and 16GB of RAM. Something that does speed it up considerably is having a good graphics card, it seems to use OpenGL for drawing the UI and library, that was the biggest noticeable change to me when I moved up to an ATI-5870 card...
 
Danny_Two said:
When you import you should get the import options window on the right hand side, there is a pull down menu called 'store files', is this set to 'In Aperture library', or does it say something else?
Click to expand...

This is your problem, your importing and storing the files in your Aperture libary, which are noe copies of the ogriginal files,so when you delete your only deleting these copies from the libary.

When importing you need to set it keep the files in the original place and have aperture referance to these file. Then when you delete version and master is will delete your orginal files.
 
acetone said:
This is your problem, your importing and storing the files in your Aperture libary, which are noe copies of the ogriginal files,so when you delete your only deleting these copies from the libary.

When importing you need to set it keep the files in the original place and have aperture referance to these file. Then when you delete version and master is will delete your orginal files.
Click to expand...

Cheers. So in terms of work flow, I assume I would copy the Raw files from the camera to a folder on the HD, then import into Aperture but making sure the 'store files in current location' option is selected. Makes sense now! I realise that I have effectively been creating a copy the whole time rather than referencing the 'master'.
 
Acetone has it correct and that's the way I do it too.

All files on an External HD, and imported into Aperture with 'store files in current location' option selected.

This works a treat for me, the reason I do it this way is because I find it easier to find the original RAWs if I want to use another program like DPP or Elements.
 
Interesting, I never realised that Aperture was storing all my old masters, I assumed when I deleted from Aperture it was gone for ever.

Just had a dig and found 20gb in my Aperture file library. Once I've imported into Aperture and do my adjustments I just export to my HD, and leave the project in Aperture for viewing and uploading purposes.

If I delete all the masters in the Aperture library will my PP'd images be safe?
 
I'm asuming you have exported them as jpeg/tiff files to somewhere else on your HD then yes your PP'd will be safe, you wont be able to go back and do any other PP on then of course.

Personally I would keep any masters that you have exported after PPing as these must be images you want to keep, I'd only delete the master of the images you'll NEVER want again.
 
acetone said:
I'm asuming you have exported them as jpeg/tiff files to somewhere else on your HD then yes your PP'd will be safe, you wont be able to go back and do any other PP on then of course.

Personally I would keep any masters that you have exported after PPing as these must be images you want to keep, I'd only delete the master of the images you'll NEVER want again.
Click to expand...

Ill have my work cut out going through that lot.
:)
Cheers.
 
I just leave everything in Aperture, I mean the Apple Finder is Media Browser aware so any application that has an open dialogue can find the image within and you can even browse by project/album or meta data.

It is one of the major advantages the full integration with the OS features.
 
Is there any easy way to tell what images are still in Aperture and what isn't in the Aperture library folder?
Eg, being able to delete masters without having to cross check if they are masters I want to keep.
 
I not aware of an easy comparison at the file structure level as although the library is just a flat file structure hidden by a bundle it uses many sun folders.

An Automator script is probably not in the category of easy but that is how I would step through it.

Alternatively search one by one with spotlight and or within aperture on filename. But again it depends on how you use aperture as per default iirc it never changes the name of the original file just the metadata so it looks to be known by the new name. If that makes sense.
 
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