Tips for importing Aperture Keyword hierarchies

By default, if you import an Aperture library into C1P8, the Aperture keyword hierarchy gets flattened. With a little preparation, it is possible to bring over the hierarchy during import.

Say for example that you have an Aperture keyword hierarchy as follows:

Stock categories
Scenic
Forests
Mountains
Waterfalls

Let's assume that no photos in your Aperture library have the keyword "Stock categories" assigned to them, but various photos have "Scenic" and the children of "Scenic" assigned to them. So a photo of a forest might have both "Scenic" and "Forests" assigned to it, a photo of a waterfall might have "Scenic" and "Waterfall" assigned to it, and a photo of a sunset might have only "Scenic" assigned to it and no child. If you didn't do anything, that hierarchy would appear in C1P8 as follows:

Scenic
Forests
Mountains
Waterfalls

At least to me, that's less than desirable, particularly since C1P8 supports keyword hierarchies. However, if you modify the keyword hierarchy in Aperture before importing into C1P8, you can preserve the hierarchy. You do this by modifying each keyword to include the keyword's parent in the keyword name itself, separated by a pipe. Thus, you want something like the following in Aperture:

Stock categories
Scenic
Scenic|Forests
Scenic|Mountains
Scenic|Waterfalls

That hierarchy will show up in C1P8 after import as follows:

Scenic
Forests
Mountains
Waterfalls

Note that we did not do something like "Stock categories|Scenic|Forests" because if we did, then "Stock categories" will get assigned to all photos with the children and that's probably not something you want. (Having "Stock categories" appear in the metadata of an output file would be strange and unhelpful.)

Please note that while C1P8 generally accepts either the pipe "|" or carrot ">" for purposes of demarcating a hierarchy, the C1P8's Aperture importer only recognizes the pipe for such purposes.