Recover images from Aperture 3?

Hi,

I thought I had moved all my images to another drive after my old mac died on me (I removed the HDD). I deleted all files from the removed drive after extracting what I thought I needed (I have not formatted it using disk utilities). It turns out many images where on an external drive and linked to Aperture whilst some may have been saved inside aperture. The problem is i deleted the aperture library in error. The good news is I recovered it using Time Machine but the only place I have been able to find the images is inside aperture (I loaded it onto my new machine and transferred the aperture library over from time capsule, the problem is though the files no longer have masters so cannot be exported, I had a look around the web for help and discovered you can simply drag and drop the previews to the desktop. I have been able to do this but the previews are only averaging 500kb when the original files are between 3mb & 10mb.
I am sure I have made the correct preference changes in aperture (preview) to keep the files original size but they are not.

I really could do with some help on this as some important photos are missing.

The aperture library is 50gb so I'm sure they are all recoverable but I need help please.

Also the drive the images where originally on is still in use. Is there a way of scanning the drive to recover deleted images without affecting the files still on the drive using software. I don't mind paying for software that is better suited to the job than a freebie.

I may be wrong (haven't used Aperture in a while) but I think the library is a bundle?
Try right-clicking on it and see if it has "Show Contents" in the menu.
If so, you might be able to find the pics.

Hi,

They all seem to be small files in the bundle (as they are when I drag and drop) so they will not be suitable.
I am now trying data recovery 3 (deep scan) on the drive to see what it pulls up.

Worst case scenario is I have the pics but much lower res so ok for viewing but not for printing.

migrating off Aperture....don't be in a hurry

Perhaps for the above thread....

Aperture's library should be backed up in two good ways. First in Time Machine like the rest of your Mac. Second, Aperture has a Vault function that does a backup of just the library package. Point Vault to use the same drive as your Time Machine backups. So that gives you two places from which to restore an Aperture library package.

Note that if you told Aperture to use a referenced library of master files, and not put the masters inside the Aperture library database package, then Vault will not backup those original/master image files. That would then be the responsibility of Time Machine only.

Personally I would never use a managed library of master images inside a library. To me that makes the library package too large for a Macbook (I have over 100,000 images). and it means other editing apps can not see/access the master images. I have a referenced library of master files that both Aperture and Lightroom can access.

Don't jump off Aperture just yet. Lets see what Photos brings to the light table early next year. Apple just bring in an app that is a Lightroom killer.

Personally I would not waste space on creating Vaults at this time. They will likely be useless in Photos. Just keep several backed up copies of your Library(s).

As to the OP, are your masters RAW or JPEGS? Are you sure you are not looking at the Thumbnails?

Very UNlikely that Aperture and iPhoto libraries (they use the same format) would be "useless" in Photos. ISTR reading somewhere that Photos will use the iPhoto library format, but even if I'm wrong Apple *will* be making those libraries importable, I guarantee it.

You probably know better than I, but I was referring to Vaults which I think are a different animal.
Sometime back I tried restoring a Vault for the practice and it dropped a lot of data.
I know many people have a single Library, but because of the above experiment, I now keep a new Library per year and I have multiple backups for them.
I don't see the purpose of Vaults unless it was just a way in Aperture to encourage back ups and from what I have read and experienced they are not as reliable as Libraries when it comes to restoring data.