Editing of IPTC Metadata in Aperture projects

[Shadow]

Feature request regarding Apple Aperture projects:

As far as I know an Aperture project is just a package, and inside are folders containing the RAW file plus an XMP or other file containing the IPTC metadata.

Would it be possible to make PM able to read and understand such a project structure? If I open an Aperture project using 'Show Package Contents' in the finder, I can the open each image's folder and see the RAW file. Can PM do this for the whole package and then just show the images and ignore the other files?

Would it be possible to Photo Mechanic to open an Aperture Project, display the images and allow the user to edit the IPTC caption? Then the project could be re-imported into Aperture with the new meta-data changed.

Furthermore, would PM be able to open an Aperture LIBRARY (with Aperture closed) and edit the metadata. Everything else could be locked down so that only the IPTC fields are editable, thus avoiding any inconsistencies within the Aperture database.

At the very basic level, an Aperture project could be exported and then deleted from Aperture. That project would then be opened and read by PM, caption and other IPTC data edited by the user, then the project re-imported into Aperture.

[vAfotoriporter]

Interresting questions. As usually I find them interresting in relation to LightRoom as well since Aperture and LightRoom work very much a similar way.

I think when you have the right click menyu addon for PM you can simply open up the folders into a contact sheet. I couldn't test it but I think it shall work with the folders reviewed after showing the package contents. IF it works Aperture might offer you to update the metadata. At least LightRoom does signal if an image's metadata is changed and offers to update either the one in its database or the one in the file and overwrite the other with it. But it usually does erase all the image changes (crop, rotation, color, light and other modifications stored in the XMP sidecar file) edited in LightRoom.

In any case if you plan to edit your images not only with one application (either Aperture or LightRoom) both does offer you the possibility upon import NOT to move your images into its library rather leave them in their original location.
I prefer building up my own folder structure of events I photograph. Ingest cards with PM renaming files, setting up IPTC and I import my images just after these only for editing the images but I do not store any images in Aperture or LightRoom libraries that I don't have manual control over.
I hope this helps.