mangochutney

Solution for my iTunes-Aperture problem

Yesterday I posted about the dilemma of having multiple Aperture libraries and synchronisation with the iPhone through iTunes.
The solution was obvious, but unfortunately the process requires many manual steps (perhaps I can use Automator to alleviate this problem):

1. Install iPhoto and create an iPhoto library.
2. Advise iTunes to synchronise with iPhoto.
3. Optional: Choose between synchronising all events from iPhoto or just selected ones.
4. Select pictures from an event in Aperture that you want on the iPhone and create an Album (name aptly).
5. Select all pictures from the album and export* to a folder, name folder according to the album name.
6. Drag the newly created folder into iPhoto, an event will be created, named like the folder.
7. Sync you iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad using iTunes.

I opted for using events, not albums in iPhoto and there are good reasons for this: iPhoto will do the sorting work (by date) and events on the iPhone are sorted by date, while albums are not.

In order not to have wallpapers get lost amidst all the other events, I changed the date of the images inside it to a point far in the future.

* I chose to export the work copies to JPEG with a high quality setting but a maximum height/width setting of 1440px. For this I duplicated and modified one of Apertures built-in export settings. That way I get image files on the iPhone 4 that I can zoom into.

On a side note; I switched to using Aperture 3’s built-in backup system, in favour of using TimeMachine to backup my library files. Again, it demands for a few clicks more on my side, but I find it to be more flexible.

reminiscent of a PADD

The iPhone 4 feels even less like a phone to me than the iPhone 3GS. The latter was already an impressive design, but the iPhone 4’s ‘density’ and finish are of a different class. The first thing that came to my mind when I held it, was that this is what I imagined the smaller PADDs from Star Trek to feel and behave like.

Aperture 3, iTunes and multiple libraries

I’ve been happily using Aperture 3 for a couple of months now and everything worked fine for some time. A few weeks ago I decided to split up my one giant (~80GB) database file into smaller ones, to reduce the load on the CPU and RAM and the load times.

While this house cleaning had the positive effects I had hoped for, it also has a snag; you cannot synchronise the iPhone with multiple Aperture libraries through iTunes — or iPhoto libraries for that matter.

Since I do like to have wallpapers for the iPhone, a selection of my favourite LOLcat pics — don’t judge me — and quite a few photos with me at all times, I’ll have to find a workaround.

Rejoining the Aperture libraries is out of the question, which means that I’m going to install iPhoto again and use it to synchronise pictures to my iPhone. It means I’m going to have to export all photos that I want on the device to iPhoto first, but maybe this separation isn’t such a bad idea.