[Ralpho]

I have several Aperture albums of the fall sports season (football, volleyball, soccer). Now, all of a sudden, I go to edit some images and get the message that Aperture can't find the images. Some of them are still there, but Aperture seems to have lost whole games. I can still see the images but can't edit them.

Does anyone have any idea how or why this happened? Or how I can reconnect Aperture to these images?

[OreoCookie]

Do you manage your pictures manually? If so, have you moved or deleted them? If that is the case, you need to reconnect them. It's easiest if you have moved folders, then you can reconnect the whole project at once.

(If you want to make your life easier, use a managed library.)

[Ralpho]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

Do you manage your pictures manually? If so, have you moved or deleted them? If that is the case, you need to reconnect them. It's easiest if you have moved folders, then you can reconnect the whole project at once.

(If you want to make your life easier, use a managed library.)

I don't know if I am managing pictures manually or not. I don't recall having made that choice at any point. I don't know how to access the pictures in Aperture other than through Aperture. Ergo, I don't believe I have moved any folders. Certainly not within Aperture. Is it possible that my camera has cycled through it's filenames, started over, and the computer overwrote one picture with another?

[pilotdude]

Click on the project and if the thumbnails have a little box with an arrow in it in the right hand corner they are referenced files. In other words Aperture has stored them in a location other than its own database. Aperture makes lower res previews of the images you import and these are what you are seeing but you cannot edit these. If you are seeing the little box with an arrow and it has a red mark in it that means the image is "off-line". Aperture is looking at the file path where it stored the Master Image and can't find it either because the volume is not connected in the case of and external drive or the image has been moved or deleted from its original location. If you click on File->Manage Referenced Files while in the project you will be able to see the path where Aperture originally stored the Masters and maybe that will be a clue as to what happened, assuming your photos were referenced.

If you open the Import Pane on the right side you will see "Store Files:" with options for the Aperture Library or somewhere else. If its another location you will know what has been happening with your pictures on Import. If your pictures are in fact stored in the Aperture Library then the only thing I can think is that your database corrupted somehow or the Aperture Library package got opened and monkeyed around with it. Sounds like you are dealing with Referenced Files though. One option on the referenced files is to store photos in their current location. I guess its conceivable if this option was selected and you were importing from your memory card Aperture would be looking there for the referenced files and of course they would have been overwritten by other photos you had taken. Aperture won't overwrite a duplicate filename that I know of. I've ended up with two of the same pictures when I've imported duplicates before but nothing erased.

If you cannot find the Master Images or they got deleted somehow you can drag the previews that you can't edit in Aperture off into a folder on your desktop or into an album in iPhoto and then reimport them back into Aperture as a new Project and they will be the new Master Images. They just may not be as high quality as your originals as they are generally lower quality JPEG's to save space.

I would echo OreoCookie on Storing Files using the Aperture Library and not referenced files unless you have a need to do that and then back up with Vault or Time Machine, etc. Life will indeed be easier. Sorry this is so long but hopefully you can find your pictures.