a workflow for date-based import in Aperture

Aperture is terrible with dates.

A Workflow

Use Camera Bits Photo Mechanic

File->Ingest...

Copy Photos: into folder with name

Folder Name: {iptcyear4}/{iptcmonth0}/{iptcday0}

This will get you folders of format YYYY/MM/DD e.g. 2013/12/01

UPDATE 2014-01-04:  You could also use

Folder Name: {year4}/{month0}/{day0}

This is a better set of variables for files that don't have IPTC metadata, such as video files and screenshot PNG files.

If Photo Mechanic can't determine a date for an ingested file, it will give it the current date (the date you are doing the ingest).

ENDUPDATE

Destination Folder Roots

Primary: Primary Destination: /Users/username/Pictures/

You can optionally rename photos on ingest.  I like to have unique filenames, or at least mostly-unique ones, rather than the sequential ones that roll over back to 0001 after 9999.

A basic naming would be

Rename Ingested Photos As:

{filenamebase}-{foldernum}{frame}

This will give you files of format e.g. IMG_1183-1101183

NOTE: This assumes you are importing from the file structure on the CAMERA disk.  On the camera disk the folders typically have numbers like 109, 110 etc.  If you import from an existing hard disk file structure e.g. a date-based one, you will get the folder on the hard disk e.g. IMG_1183-051183 for a file in a folder named 05.

A more lengthy rename is

{filenamebase}-{foldernum}{frame}-{sequence}-{datesort}

This will give you e.g. IMG_1183-1101183-000010-20140101 (if you have set sequence to be 000001 as the starting, and this is the 10th image ingested) and the image was taken January 1, 2014.

Now in Aperture, do NOT use the upper-left Import arrow.

Use File->Import->Folders as Projects...

Import Folders As: Folders and Projects

Store Files: In their current location

(assuming you are doing Referenced files, not Managed inside an Aperture Library)

Version Name: Original File Name

That's it.  Now instead of Dec 01, 2013 becoming a Project called Dec 01, 2013 you will get two folders and a project, in a hierarchy.

2013 (folder)
       12 (folder)
          01 (project)

Because the files are already sorted this way on disk (during the Photo Mechanic ingest), you get

1) An Aperture folder structure that reflects your file folder structure

2) A date-based folder structure that Aperture will sort correctly

3) Files actually in the right project for their date (see below for why this is a problem in Aperture)

UPDATE 2014-05-24: This approach still has lots of issues, because none of the tools involved are designed to work like this.

Issues include:

1. Photo Mechanic changes the Date Modified for all PNG (iPhone/iPad screenshot) files to the import date.
2. Aperture creates a new top-level folder for each import.  So if you import from Photo Folder, and then import from Photo Folder again, the next import will create a completely new folder structure under Photo Folder (1).

You can address these issues but only with work-arounds.

1. Once PNGs are imported using Photo Mechanic, create a Smart Folder containing only those PNGs.  Use FIle Multi Tool, select Copy creation date to modification date, add all the PNGs from the Smart Folder, and then Perform Changes.  NOTE: This must be done before you import into Aperture.  Once Aperture imports with an incorrect PNG date, you cannot fix it.
2. You have to do all your Aperture imports on sequential dates, with only new files.  Then you can drag entire projects into the right folder structure.  Otherwise you end up having to manually merge files from duplicate projects.

These are both really clunky workarounds due to Aperture not wanting to manage dates or folders properly.

ENDUPDATE

The Problem

Aperture expects you to name projects on import, not to use date-based projects.

Even in version 3.5.1 under Mac OS X 10.9.1 it has issues.

The worst of these issues is that it names projects based on time windows, not actual dates.

So if you set up an import to create date-based projects:

Aperture->Preferences... Import - Autosplit into Projects: One project per day

This is simply not true.  Instead, they have continued their other options Two-hour gaps, Eight-hour gaps, to make 24-hour gaps, but called 24-hour gaps "one per day".  I assume One project per week is actually 168-hour gaps. 

What's the difference? 

When you click the Import arrow (top left of screen), and select Destination: New Project, with Automatically split projects selected, you get the following behaviour

24-hour gaps means a photo taken Dec 1, 2013 at 9am and a photo taken Dec 2, 2013 at 8am will both go in a project named Dec 01, 2013.  This is clearly not what most people would expect from "One project per day" but Aperture persists in this behaviour.

Additionally if you import from two different memory cards or two different devices connected via USB, instead of putting everything into a single project called e.g. Dec 01, 2013 it will make new projects, one for each import, e.g. Dec 01, 2013 (1) for the second import from a device that has files on the same date.

It does, however, group the photos as you would expect on disk, if you have subfolder Year/Month/Day set for creation, it puts them all in the same folder on disk, and it puts the right dated files in the right subfolders on disk (it does actually know what the dates of the files are, it's just creating the projects incorrectly).

Note that Projects are just an Aperture-internal view of what's on disk (a way of organising things within Aperture).  You can rename projects and move photos between projects without affecting anything on disk.