If you had a Mac desktop computer in your Santa Rosa studio with your master Aperture Library, you could just have easily used Leopard's built-in Screen Sharing (or Apple Remote Desktop) to remotely access your Aperture library and accomplish the same task.

I use this technique to access anything on my Desktop computer that I don't take with my on my laptop (and it's saved me many times before too!).

I keep my Aperture library on a LaCie Quadra drive that I connect with eSATA to the ExpressCard slot on my MBP. It's just as fast as if my library was on the local disk.

If I'm in a situation where I don't need the whole library, and don't want to connect to the drive, no problem. I can simply manage the current project in a library on my local drive. Then when I'm hooked up to the LaCie drive again, I drag the project from my local library to the Desktop, quit Aperture, Option-open Aperture and select the LaCie library, and drag the project to Aperture from the desktop.

I'm a big fan of the flexibility.

Hey Ryan, yes, over the network is sometimes a possibility. But moving large files over different bandwidth capacities when traveling isn't always a joy. I still prefer the hard drive as my first choice for speed. But, I'm glad your brought up screen sharing.

This is similar to how I work. While I also store the main Aperture library on a portable drive, I also need to have a copy of the library on my Macbook Pro and on my Mac Pro all the time. Unfortunately Aperture doesn't, as far as I know, support the syncing of libraries, so I have to copy it with a script.

Daniel,

Could you just take the expecific project with you? That way it would be synchronized?

Hi Derrick,
what is your strategy for syncing the portable library with the desktop library? Thanks.

Apple and Aperture gives you a lot of options here. I think the Project container is one of Aperture's coolest features. In the case of the images for my book, they would be organized in a project container in my master library. I can then export that project and keep it on as many laptops as I need, and I have everything with me. If I make a substantial change to it, such as add a batch of photos, then I would copy that project back to the master library. I love this system.

Another approach is to have libraries for each year. This isn't a bad way to go for shooters who record 200 gigs or less, because the library will fit easily on a portable hard drive. Then that becomes you master drive and you plug it in to any computer you want to use. One cool thing about this approach is that you can have backup drives in different locations and just use the Vault to save your work.

(And don't forget the screen sharing method that Ryan pointed to.)

Keep in mind that these are "Managed Library" scenarios. If your masters live outside of the Aperture Library, you're only carrying previews around with you. I like having the Raw files so I can always work from the original images. So I do use the Managed Library approach.

I'd love to see a speed comparison between the MacBook Pro and MacPro on this blog. It's pretty impossible to judge how well Aperture performs at an Apple store. The systems all have default memory, and nothing is loaded from external drives. Keeping your masters on a USB drive must sacrifice speed working out of Quick Preview on the MBP, such that it becomes a deal breaker. Perhaps even overriding the convenience of being mobile. Opposite we have the MacPro which is a powerhouse, and offers limitless storage for Managed Libraries, but you lose that portability. Is it worth it?

I would like to travel to Europe and offload the photos into a hard drive so I can reuse the card in the camera. Any suggestions?