Workflow Using Aperture

[Lobster43]

I'm getting into a bit of a mess with my photo storage using Aperture on an iMac, so am after some opinions on the workflow after editing.

Currently shoot in RAW
Edit using Aperture (White balance, crop, levels etc)

My issue is what to do next.

I'm currently leaving them as RAW in Aperture to give maximum flexibility for cropping and printing any that are asked for.
But I'm running out of space and this doesn't seem very efficient.

I could export to jpeg and keep them in another folder structure, or re-import them back to Aperture (or iPhoto), then delete the RAW.
If I do this, what quality jpeg is sufficient (RAW is about 24MB, jpeg max quality is about 18MB)
I can't see a requirement to print above 12 x 8 for most of these, so am sure the jpeg size could be reduced.

I have 170GB of photos to do something with, so need to decide a storage process.
Maybe I could store them all on an external disk, then start again with a better process.

[davepoth]

18/24 = 3/4, so you'd save about 42.5GB (your mileage will of course vary). That would be 2400 photos. I don't know how long it will take for you to get through that.

I'd be looking at cloud storage I think.

[markmullen]

I'd get an external drive, I keep all my raw files, I've just bought Capture One Pro and it is doing a great job of reprocessing them, if I'd chucked them away and only had the jpegs I wouldn't have that option.

[Fordo]

Why delete the raw? Thats like throwing away your negatives

I leave everything in aperture until I need to do anything with them - then export as I need them - jpegs if im sending them to someone, tiffs if im going to do graphics work in photoshop, or PNGs if i'm using them in after effects.


Raws might take up a bit of room, but bigger hard drives aren't too expensive

Deleteing the raws feels like a bad idea - one day after the delete you might suddenly realise you didnt convert 1 or 2 important ones.... No matter how methodical youve been, these things can happen!

[Lobster43]

Thanks for the ideas so far.

I'm thinking to get an external HD, say 1TB to keep RAW photos on.

The iMac currently has a 320GB drive, backed up through Time Machine to a 1TB HD.

If I remember to back up all new stuff before exporting the edited RAW to the external HD then I will also have a backup (for now anyway).

I may then keep small jpegs on iPhoto for viewing.

[mojitomax]

redundancy and backup.

if you only have 160GB data at the moment, i would consider buying two 500GB drives instead of a single 1TB drive.

what you also have to bear in mind is that hard disk prices have increased significantly over the past six months due to the flooding in taiwan.

however, my thoughts would be to set aperture NOT to use a managed library and to reference the master images. save all your RAW files to one of the hard disks. import them into your aperture library. Aperture will not copy the RAW files to your main drive saving space. however you will need to make sure the hard drive is plugged in every time you need to edit images.

if you want to keep/show images on your computer, i would export them using one of the aperture presets (1024 longest side jpeg) and import those smaller jpegs into iPhoto for general viewing. i don't know about you, but i find iPhoto much better for general viewing and showing to people.

alternatively and this is by far the better option, get a larger hard disk for your main computer 750GB+. then import all your RAW images into a managed aperture library so everything is in one place and then use external disks for backups - time machine or CCC. this is what i have done and it makes everything MUCH easier. i don't have to remember to have disks plugged in and i can take my macbook around the house and do stuff if required.

hope that helps

[mojitomax]

oh, i forgot to mention - DO NOT DELETE YOUR RAW FILES!!

also, i'm not sure how efficient cloud storage would be with large a data set. if the worst was to happen and things went tits up, it would be great that your data was still there but how long would it take to download 160GB+ of data?

hope that helps

[craikeybaby]

My take on this is to be ruthless, if I haven't sold/displayed an image anywhere after 12 months (I use colours/ratings in Lightroom to identify this automatically), I check to see if it is worth keeping and if it isn't delete it.

Having said that I do have 2 backups (1 off site) of every picture imported to Lightroom so I can go back to them if I need to, which I haven't had to. I don't see the point in clogging up my library and hard drive with images I haven't used and probably won't use again.