frack!

Wonder about square signs you see everywhere?

techwonder:

What are these signs?!  

- They are called QR [Quick Response] codes. Very similar to [UPC] bar codes that we are all familiar with already. Their purpose is to transmit information to a machine when a scanner scans them. [like telling the register at the grocery store which item you are purchasing] 

So, what’s the difference?  

 

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Aperture iPhoto Sync

Aperture iPhoto Sync is an applescript which will sync your Aperture projects/albums to iPhoto, thereby making them available to the rest of iLife apps for you to use. (Yes I know that you can drag and drop Aperture images & create iPhoto albums, but a script sure beats doing this manually!) It syncs masters by creating links in iPhoto library to save space.. and (optionally) syncs up modified versions by exporting them using Aperture’s export presets.

Note : This post is a part of migrating my old blog over to Tumblr. I worked on this a while back, but hopefully, someone still finds it useful.

Also : The script hasnt been updated for Aperture 3 yet, so if you’d like to use it with A3, please feel free to update and let me know :-).

UPDATE: See below for a version that works for Aperture 3.

Features

• Syncs Masters without copying them – save space !
• Syncs modified versions by exporting them from Aperture using selected presets.
• Will optionally delete photos from iPhoto albums before syncing – ensuring an exact replica.
• Syncs intelligently – ignores ‘Rejects’ and syncs only ‘Select’ of a stack to avoid clutter.
• Uses the library that you have configured in Aperture as the the library it imports from.

First run….

The first time it is run, it will prompt you for certain defaults for it to use henceforth. These values include :

• Whether to Export or Ignore modified photos or ‘versions’ from Aperture while syncing. Exporting modified photos to iPhoto will take up more space since duplicates of the existing versions in Aperture will be made. This also takes up more time to sync.
• If exporting, the Aperture Export preset that will be used by aperture to export the photos.
• Whether to delete photos from existing iPhoto albums (with the same name as the Aperture project/album you are syncing up) before adding photos to it. Selecting this option increases sync time by a bit, but will ensure that the iPhoto album is a replica of your Aperture album/project.

These preferences are stored in the file ~/Library/Preferences/com.devarshi.ApertureiPhotoSync.plist. To change these preferences, either edit the file using plist editor, or delete it. If the script does not find the file, it will prompt you again for the preferences.

The sync….

Using the script is pretty straightforward.

• When run, the script will present you with a list of folders and projects from Aperture that you may choose from. Currently, this script allows you to select only one folder/project at this level.
• Upon selecting a project/folder, the script will present you with a list of projects/albums contained within it, from which you may select one or more.
• If the first selection does not contain any projects/albums, the script will check to see if it contains any images itself. If so, the script shall create an album in iPhoto with the name of the selected project in Aperture and import those images into that album according to the defaults selected earlier .
• If, in step 2, you were presented with and selected one/more sub-projects/sub-albums, the script will then proceed to create albums in iPhoto with the same names as the selected sub-projects/sub-albums and import the images into those albums according to the defaults selected earlier.

A few tips…

• If you choose to “Export” modified images from Aperture, do note that this takes up some amount of time during which, apparently, nothing seems to be happening… This is because Aperture performs a background export of the images… If you don’t believe me, check your CPU usage !
• The “Export” of modified images creates temporary photos. After each project/album is imported into iPhoto (copies of these temporary photos are made in the iPhoto library), these temporary photos will be moved to trash. So, if you plan to ‘export’ a lot of photos, make sure you clean up your trash periodically !

A few things to note…

• As of version 2.3, the script needs your Aperture library to have atleast one stack for it to run correctly. It will fail in between if you dont. While I work on this problem, for the time being, please create atleast one stack in your library.
• I’ve done some basic tests with Aperture 2.1.2 and iPhoto ’09. (Do not use this version script for Aperture versions prior to 2.0 or after 3.0).
• Please note that this script is still in alpha stage… so please backup your libraries before attempting to use this script.
• I currently do not have a lot of time to test this script extensively, and so am posting it here hoping that it’ll be useful to others, and that I can use your feedback to fix any issues…
  
• However, if you run into any problems, or if you have any comments, please feel free to get in touch with me or leave me a comment here.

Updates for Aperture 3.0…

Note : Michael Rest was kind enough to share his changes to the script to make it compatible with Aperture 3.0. I’m including his version of the script here for folks to use. I will be integrating changes from his version into my release after I’ve had a chance to test them.

Please contact him if there are any issues with the script since I havent had a chance to test it.

Change List:

• - Updated to Aperture 3 : Fixed Paths, Tablenames, SQL Statements
• - Fixed deletion of exported temporary Files
• - Fixed temporary items folder
• - feature changes marked as [MiR]
• -Modified seection Process:
•   * Select Projects from Root Folder (Library Folder)
• * Select Folders from Root Folder (Library Folder)
•   * Select Subprojects / Albums in Folder
• -Modified behaviour just to export Pics:
• * rated from 1 to 5
• * flagged
• -Disabled GetListOfPathsToImageMasters because i always want to export my Versions (Masters all RAW in IPhoto i only keep resized JPEGs)
• -Default PrefDeletePhotosInAlbumBeforeAppend changed to true

Download v3.0 of the script here (Updated to work with Aperture 3 by Michael Rest)

Download v2.3 of the script here (does not work with Aperture 3 yet)