Thanks for posting - this should be useful till Aperture 2.0 (hopefully) fixes this issue.

[ Reply to This | # ]

This trick will work, but it loses all the adjustments, keywords, etc. There are a couple of other ways:

1. Since you created the duplicates by importing, remove them the same way. Each import creates an Import Session and you can filter on those. Click the filter button in the browser and select Import Session, then select each one you want to delete and delete those masters.

2. If you have projects with double or triples, you can display the images in the browser, sort them by date and then pull a selection rectangle around just one or two columns of images to select the dupes. Then delete.

See here for details and illustration: http://www.bagelturf.com/aparticles/workflow/workdup/index.html

Aperture's behavior is understandable. How would it be able to judge duplicates well enough to be able to reject them with 100% accuracy? How would you override this to import the same image more than once if you really wanted it? It boils down to Aperture being a librarian, not a cataloging application, and the fact that referenced masters are part of the library, not something external to Aperture to keep track of.




[ Reply to This | # ]

Thanks for the reply bagelturf. You have a great site with some great tips there I have to say. I am glad I posted this just so I ended up finding it!
I especially like the iView to Aperture move stories. If I had followed that I would probably not have ended up in this predicament.

---
----------------------------
Microsoft is not the answer.
It is the question.
The answer is NO!

[ Reply to This | # ]

This will be a great help, though I think my husband will be trying the other route first (filtering on Import Sessions) since he does have a lot of keywords put in. Still, it was very timely, since he just asked me this morning about how to do just this! (and I have never used Aperture, so I couldn't help) Personally, I think I'd use your method myself and just re-add the keywords, he's only had Aperture a couple of days, I can't imagine he's got so much that he couldn't re-input them.

Thank you!

[ Reply to This | # ]

This is great, but I'd still love an Apple-created method for removing dupes in iPhoto ... :(

[ Reply to This | # ]

Just a warning that this hint will not work if you have your camera set to reset file numbering at each card insertion. I'd never do that, but cameras have that option and I have some friends that have it set...

A better option would be to use an AppleScript to compare values that you know will be unique like shot time with file size (if you have a camera with a multiple shot per second burst mode then you need more that shot time).

[ Reply to This | # ]

Agreed ... I would not recommend it since many file names are the same.

I have had this problem for some time now ... lots of duplicate images. iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom ... none of them solve the problem. The only real way to do it is export master, scan with a program that looks for byte-by-byte comparisons (noclone.net ... windows only unfortunately) and then re-import into a new library.

I have tried a few of the mac programs but none of them are really strong IMO.

JM2C,
-chris

[ Reply to This | # ]

Find and delete similar and duplicate images and pictures
Visual Similarity Duplicate Image Finder will find all similar and duplicate images in a folder and its sub folders. It uses advanced algorithms in order to find similar images in a way that a human does. Due to that fact it can find similar images even if they are in different image formats and sizes.



[ Reply to This | # ]

Tidy Up! http://www.hyperbolicsoftware.com/TidyUp.html can find the duplicate images in Aperture and in iPhoto.

-- excerpt of the web page
With Tidy Up! you can search for duplicate files and packages; by the owner application, content, type, creator, extension, time modified, time created, name, label, visibility and delays. You can also search by the tag, duration and bit installments of MP3 and AAC sound files, search the contents of the iPhoto, Aperture, iTunes, iPod databases and Mail mailboxes, and synchronize deletions with iPhoto, Mail and iTunes.


[ Reply to This | # ]

Hi Guys, I own Baseline which is okay for this sort of thing, but just started using an amazingly fast, accurate and easy to use application for finding duplicate files, especially music or photos. It's called Decloner. In five minutes, I saw all the problems automatically. In less than an hour I had my Aperture library cleaned out of unnecessary duplicates. I had already handcleaned so we are talking about just a few hundred images but it's nice to know the duplicates are gone and nice to know where I make my mistakes in image organisation to avoid creating more duplicates in the future.

---
WordPress SEO Secrets - http://foliovision.com/weblog

[ Reply to This | # ]