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.