Exporting an Aperture Album as a Library
If you've been to my blog before, or read my book, you know I use Aperture's library export and import features as a core part of my workflow. It's a great way to take portions of your work on the road, or fold in projects created away from the studio into a master Aperture repository. I've always exported and imported libraries at the individual project level ... until this week.
I haven't been shooting much lately. Instead, I've been revisiting past photos, trying out new post-processing techniques I've learned since taking them, or trying out different looks. I had several photos I wanted to work on while away from the studio system, which are spread across several projects. I didn't want to export several large projects for only a few photos - and it turns out I didn't need to.
The solution? An Album. Aperture can export an Album as a library just like how a project can be exported as a library. I created an "On-The-Go Album", dragged in the photos I wanted to take with me, and exported the album as a new library:
Once copied to the mobile system, the exported library looked like this:
Now that I've done it, it makes perfect sense. The project hierarchy is maintained, but only those photos I'd added to the album are present. But last night, this was somewhat of an epiphany for me.
Importing the library in the studio works the same way and a merge does the right thing. Of course, be mindful of what you have exported. Once something is "away" from the studio, save yourself headaches and don't touch those items until after you've imported whatever modifications you've made on a mobile system.
PS - I have finished my upgrade to Aperture 3.5 and will start work on updating my AppleScripts very soon.