From iPhoto to Aperture: Getting Started

To continue with the process of my switch from iPhoto to Aperture I thought I'd briefly discuss a few issues I faced that may be of interest to other potential switchers. First up, can your Mac even run Aperture. iPhoto will run pretty well on any G4 or better, not so with Aperture. You'll want to check Apple's page for Aperture's hardware requirements. It requires a good bit of juice. Even if your machine meets the requirements you may want to close certain, resource hungry apps when running Aperture. When I'm not using Aperture I often run Safari, Mail, Vienna for RSS, iCal, iTunes, iChat, a text editor and an ftp cilent. When I start up Aperture I usually close every other app but Safari. I'm running on a MacBook Pro with 2 gigs of ram I notice a major slow down with those other apps open.

Next, importing images into Aperture and setting up the library can be a bit tricky. It's possible to import your iPhoto Library right from Aperture but the keyword import can be a mess. It is also possible to manually import the folders of images in the iPhoto Library. There is no "right" way to do it. My suggestion would be to experiment. I decided to take my time with a manual import of the folders into projects that were based on the folder names. I then condensed everything into projects based on each month's imports. I also reevaluated all my keywords and changed certain aspects of my keyword process. Because I was a bit uncertain that I was switching over for good I experimented with a partial import first and spent a week learning about the workings of Aperture.

In my experience, taking my time during the import process as well as learning during the process proved very helpful. I knew that all my images were still safe in my iPhoto Library and any mistakes I made could be discarded by simply throwing away my new Aperture Library. After one week I felt comfortable enough using Aperture and completed the transition. I spent the second week of the process importing the rest of my iPhoto library and tagging with my newly refined set of keywords.

You can check out my growing archive of images at Dennyville or via my Flickr stream.

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