Here is my question. I am trying to control how iTunes syncs my photos to my iPad. However, I am running into a real problem. Here’s the set up:

I am using Aperture 3.2.3, iTunes 10.6.1(7) on a Mac Pro running Lion. All software is up to date, and I have an iPad 3 64GB.

In Aperture, I have projects dating back to 2002, when they were iPhoto projects. I’ve been using Aperture since version 1, and earlier projects are iTunes imported ones. All projects created by Aperture are contemporary to when the photos were taken, and are generally names with the date. Older projects are arranged in an Archives folder to keep the list down. So a rough outline of how things look in Aperture:

Projects Folder
Archives Folder
2005 Folder
2005-5-10 - Project
etc..
…
2010 Folder
2010-03-27 - Project
etc..
2011 Folder
2011-05-10 - Project
2012 Folder
2012-02-04 - Project

You get the picture. Obviously there are a lot more folders and projects than this - I have thousands of photos in Aperture. Projects named 2005 were created in 2005.

When I come to sync the iPad using iTunes, I have a number of options. The most sensible one would be to use the Selected Projects & Folders and select “Projects from the last 12 Months” option in the drop down:
Click for large view - Uploaded with Skitch

However, when I do this, iTunes selects almost every project going right back to 2002. As you can see from the screen shot, this is a about 8900 photos. The majority of these photos are clearly not from “within the last 12 months”.

So, my problem is obvious - why is iTunes doing this, and how do I get it to just select projects from the last 12 months to sync?

Could it be going on the date of creation/modification of the project rather than the photos within it?

My method would be to switch off the auto sync and just manually select which projects you wanted copied over.

Jon

Do you import the older images, or are they managed by Aperture?

I found all kinds of issues with managed libraries, so I switched to importing everything and letting Aperture manage things.

The dates of the projects to be synced are pretty much contemporaneous with the dates on them. All the images are managed by Aperture in its default location - the Library bundle in ~/Pictures/

So a 2005 project was created in 2005. Looking in Finder, I have no idea how the data is organised in the Aperture library bundle so I can’t tell what the modified dates (if any) are.

For example, here is the Get Info window for a project created in 2005 which would be synced:
Click for large view - Uploaded with Skitch

Photos contained in the project are date stamped 2005.

I am manually selecting projects to copy over - and I have a couple of smart searches bringing in images that meet certain criteria (the original problem still happens when I switch these off in iTunes, BTW - so it’s not those). This is just bugging me - why everything gets copied when they should not be. Ideally, I’d want a rolling auto-updating inclusion of projects from the last 12 months when the iPad syncs. I am not always at the computer to control this when it does.

Hmm. A knotty problem to be sure.

I held off from importing many of my iPhoto projects. Most aren't worth bringing into Aperture, frankly.

There's a newish Aperture community thing going on. It might be worth registering and asking the question there.

http://community.theapertureblog.com/

have you rebuilt the machine? or rebuilt indexes? It could be that the dates have been messed up, or it is using an import date.

I rebuilt my machine, new install of Apeture and restored the images from backups. I haven't looked to see if the dates are messed up. But I only copy them to my Apple TV and all 10,000 or so images.

Not rebuilt anything. Images were imported around the times they were taken, apart from some film scans, the EXIF data will have a time stamp on them.

I don't know if iTunes / Apeture use the EXIF data for creation date, more likely when it was added to the collection.

As the photos were added around the time they were taken, I don’t see how this would be the cause of the problem. Besides, the scanned negative images were only taken last year, so they would be expected to be included. The problem is that whole projects from 2010 and before are included in the “within the last 12 months’ criteria.