Tidy Up the Aperture Trash Before Exporting Projects

I describe a lot of my workflow here. One of the things I do a lot is export projects as libraries. Either to take them on the road for mobile processing, or to fold a project back into my main Aperture library. I recently got a Nikon D7000, so the size of my RAW images tripled compared to my D70s. And so did the size of the resulting libraries when exporting a project as a library. Transfer times between my systems is on the rise.

Aside:  This past week on ApertureExpert, it came to light that photos in the Trash are included when exporting a project to a library. Ultimately makes sense. The photos are essentially flagged for deletion, but still assigned to and part of a project.

Last night it dawned on me I should be pruning out rejected and deleted photos from my project before exporting the project as a library. I am becoming more and more critical of which photos I keep and which I reject. I think that's a good thing - and that's not just the 19MB/shot talking. I will take a lot of exposures, but subsequently weed out a lot of the cruft after importing into Aperture.

So, to cut down on the size of the export library:
 

• Delete rejected versions
• Empty the Aperture Trash (at least those versions associated with the project being exported)
• Then, export the project as a library