How to get all masters out of Aperture...

[btownguy]

I've downloaded the trials of Aperture and Lightroom and have them both installed. I'm playing around with them trying to figure out which one will be best for me. I'm not a pro photographer or anything, but I don't like iPhoto because of the way it deals with events. I like to have hierarchies for my picture folders but apparently iPhoto will only allow you to have one level of events.

So, I understand that Aperture has you choose between the masters being managed in the Aperture library file or have them be referenced on disk. My main concern is that I want to be able to pull all of my master files out of Aperture and preserve my old folder hierarchy structure. Every time I try to export files (even from multiple folders), Aperture exports them all into one huge folder rather than preserving the folder structure. Is there any way to do this?

 

[mjones185]

Go to where you have the Aperture file saved, usually photos under your home folder. Right click on the Aperture Library and select something similar to view contents, should be the second or third text down. Finder window will open and expose all your folders holding all your photos.

Sorry not being specific in details, I'm at work and we are forced to use windoze.

Mike

 

[maflynn]

I recently switched from aperture to lightroom and I needed to get all my masters out of aperture. It was a little time consuming because of a memory leak.

You need to export the masters.

Select the images you want to export, click on file -> Export-> Masters and then be sure to include the IPTCXMP side car

For me, I was only able to select around 200 - 400 images and export them, anything more aperture seemed to crash as it was exporting it. This is the fastest and easiest way to get images out of aperture, imo.

 

[btownguy]

I don't think either of those solutions will work:

1) If I drill into the library file, there is a separate folder for EVERY IMAGE, each containing all the revisions, etc. There is zero folder structure that resembles my original folder structure.

2) I want to be able to initiate something that will export all of my masters in the same folder structure that I imported them in.

For example, on disk I have a structure like this:
Entire Image Library
----->Folder 1
----->Folder 2
----->Folder 3
---------->Folder 4
---------->Folder 5
--------------->Folder 6
---------->Folder 7
----->Folder 8
----->Folder 9

And so on. When I initially setup Aperture, I'm going to import all of these. If I delve into the library file, there is no resemblance of this structure - there's just a separate folder for every single image. I want to be able to do something in Aperture that will let me export all of my masters back into this folder structure somewhere on disk.

 

[maflynn]

I don't think there's any easy or feasible solution to what you're asking.

If I understand what your stating.
You want to mimic/copy the internal organization of your images and create that same hierarchical layout on your hard drive, i.e., directories/sub-directories.

 

[btownguy]

I don't think there's any easy or feasible solution to what you're asking.

If I understand what your stating.
You want to mimic/copy the internal organization of your images and create that same hierarchical layout on your hard drive, i.e., directories/sub-directories.

Yes, you have it exactly right. Basically, I'm looking for insurance. I have probably 15,000 images in a hierarchy of folders on disk. If I import them into Aperture and start using Aperture, I want an "out" in case something happens. Market share for Aperture is pretty low (esp. compared to Lightroom). If I ever have to abandon Aperture for whatever reason, I need an easy way to get my pictures back out, and in a meaningful structure. If I have to go folder-by-folder to export my images, that would be a HUGE headache.

 

[maflynn]

Well I mentioned in my post, I exported my images because I switched off of aperture to Lightroom. With LR, I manage the hierarchy and LR can syncronize between the physical directories and internally.