View projects

You organize your photos in containers called projects. You can view all of your projects in the Library inspector (as a list under the Projects heading) or in Projects view. Projects view displays a thumbnail of each project in your library or libraries. Double-clicking a thumbnail opens a project, displaying all of its photos in the Browser. In Projects view, you can conveniently view, organize, and sort your projects.

Switch to Projects view

In the Library inspector, select the Projects icon.

Preview the photos in a project quickly

In Projects view, do one of the following:

Slowly drag the pointer horizontally across the project’s thumbnail.
Select the project’s thumbnail, and use the Left Arrow and Right Arrow keys to navigate through the photos in the project.

Set the key photo for a project

You can set any photo within a project as the key photo displayed in Projects view.

Do one of the following:
- Move the pointer slowly over the project’s thumbnail to skim to the photo you want to set as the key photo.
- Select the project’s thumbnail, and use the Left Arrow and Right Arrow keys to navigate to the photo you want to set as the key photo.
When you locate the photo you’re looking for, press the Space bar.

The selected photo is set as the key photo to represent the project.

Play a slideshow of a project’s photos

You can select a project and play a slideshow to review the photos within it.

Do one of the following:
- Select a project’s thumbnail, and choose File > Play Slideshow (or press Shift-S).
- Control-click a project, and choose Play Slideshow from the shortcut menu.
In the Play Slideshow dialog, choose a preset from the Slideshow Preset pop-up menu, and click Start.

A slideshow of the photos in the selected project plays. Press the Space bar to pause and play the slideshow, and the Escape key to stop the slideshow. For more information about slideshows, see Slideshows overview.

View a project’s photos in the Browser

When you locate the project you want to work with in Projects view, you can display the project’s photos in the Browser.

In Projects view, double-click the project.
The Browser replaces Projects view and displays the selected project’s thumbnail images.

View and change project information in the Info HUD

In Projects view, you can use the Info HUD to add descriptive information about a project and change the project’s key photo (the thumbnail image that represents the project).

If the Aperture main window is not in Projects view, select Projects at the top of the Library inspector.
To open the Info HUD for a project, click the Info button on a project’s thumbnail.
In the Info HUD, do either or both of the following:
- To add descriptive information about the project: Type a description in the text field to the right of the project thumbnail.
- To change the key photo for the project: Skim the project thumbnail to locate the photo you want to set as the key photo, and click the “Click to make key photo” button.
  The photo you selected appears as the thumbnail image for the project.
  To view or change information for another project, navigate to the project by clicking the arrow buttons in the bottom-left corner of the Info HUD. To open a project, click the Go to Project button. To assign location information to a photo, see Places overview.