Apple Aperture 1.5 Photographers' Guide

Apple Aperture 1.5: Photographers’ Guide ® Mike Cuenca ™ © 2007 Thomson Course Technology, a division of Thomson Le...

Author: Mike Cuenca

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Apple Aperture 1.5: Photographers’ Guide ®

Mike Cuenca

™

© 2007 Thomson Course Technology, a division of Thomson Learning Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without written permission from Thomson Course Technology PTR, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. The Thomson Course Technology PTR logo and related trade dress are trademarks of Thomson Course Technology, a division of Thomson Learning Inc., and may not be used without written permission. Apple® and Aperture™ are registered trademarks or trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. Adobe® Photoshop® is a registered trademark of Adobe, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Important: Thomson Course Technology PTR cannot provide software support. Please contact the appropriate software manufacturer’s technical support line or Web site for assistance.

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Educational facilities, companies, and organizations interested in multiple copies or licensing of this book should contact the Publisher for quantity discount information. Training manuals, CD-ROMs, and portions of this book are also available individually or can be tailored for specific needs. ISBN-10: 1-59863-340-6 ISBN-13: 978-1-59863-340-5 eISBN-10: 1-59863-796-7 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2006906899 Printed in the United States of America 07 08 09 10 11 BU 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Thomson Course Technology PTR, a division of Thomson Learning Inc. 25 Thomson Place ■ Boston, MA 02210 ■ http://www.courseptr.com

For Austin Cuenca and Meredith Quinn, my son and wife, for being in my life.

About the Author Mike Cuenca has been taking pictures since he was given a Polaroid Swinger as a child in the sixties. In the time since, he has taken photographs with everything from pinhole cameras to digital cameras. He is a writer, editor, photographer, and filmmaker, and has traveled the world on assignment. He has worked in newspapers, magazines, and as a university photojournalism professor. Mike was author of the ACE Photoshop 5 Exam Cram and Mastering Adobe InDesign.

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Chapter 1 Aperture Basics

1

Launching Aperture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Aperture’s Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Menu Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 The Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 The Projects Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 The Browser. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 The Viewer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 The Control Bar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 The Inspectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Switching Window Layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Basic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Maximize Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Maximize Viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Working in Full Screen Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Making Adjustments and Other Edits While in the Full Screen Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 The Full Screen Mode Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 The Filmstrip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Changing Aperture’s Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Changing the Image Management Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Changing the Interface Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Changing Output Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Changing Previews Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

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Apple Aperture 1.5: Photographers’ Guide

Chapter 2 Understanding Aperture’s Directory Structure and Storage Options

61

Aperture’s New Storage Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Understanding Aperture’s Library File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Exploring Aperture’s Library File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Understanding Previews and Referenced Masters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Working with Previews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Working with Referenced Masters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Projects and Folders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Albums and Smart Albums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Creating a New, Empty Album . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Creating an Album and Filling It with Selected Images from the Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Creating an Album from a Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Moving Library Containers Around. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Chapter 3 Getting Photos into Aperture

83

Aperture’s File Format Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 What Is the RAW Image Format? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Importing Images. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Choosing the Source of Your Images and Where to Put Them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Import All or Some . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Canceling an Import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Stacking Images as You Import Them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Automatically Generating Stacks as You Import . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Manually Creating Stacks as You Import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Choosing the Storage Location for the Masters of the Imported Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Inputting Group Metadata as You Import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Naming Files as You Import Them. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Importing iPhoto Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Importing External Folders as Aperture Projects or into Aperture Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Importing External Folders as Individual Aperture Projects. . . 106 Importing External Folders into Existing Aperture Projects. . . 107

Contents

Dragging External Files and Folders from the Finder to the Projects Panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Importing Aperture Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Chapter 4 Protecting Your Managed Images

111

Backing Up to Vaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Creating Aperture Vaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Updating Aperture Vaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Backing Up to Multiple Aperture Vaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Restoring an Aperture Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Exporting Aperture Project Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Chapter 5 Cataloguing Your Images with Metadata and Keywords

123

What Is Metadata?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Viewing the Metadata on the Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Viewing Metadata in the Viewer and Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Viewing Metadata with Image Tooltips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Badges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Working with the Metadata Inspector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Opening the Metadata Inspector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Viewing Different Sets of Metadata in the Metadata Inspector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Editing Metadata Views and Creating New Metadata Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Managing Metadata Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Applying Metadata to Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Automatically Filling Out Metadata Text Fields. . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Input or Edit Metadata for One Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Input or Edit Metadata for Multiple Images with Batch Change. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Saving and Applying Metadata Entries with Metadata Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

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Applying Metadata and Keywords with the Lift & Stamp Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Lifting Metadata and Adjustment Information from an Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Stamping Metadata and Adjustment Information onto an Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Stamping Selected Metadata and Adjustment Information onto an Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Adding to or Replacing the Metadata and Adjustment Information of an Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 Stamping Metadata and Adjustment Information onto Multiple Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 Additional Tools for Working with Keywords Only. . . . . . . . . . . . 152 Working with the Keywords HUD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 Managing the Keyword Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

Chapter 6 Sorting and Rating Your Images

163

Using Aperture’s Stacks Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 Automatically Stacking Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Manually Stacking Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Viewing and Manipulating Stacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Understanding and Selecting Picks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Adding Ratings to Your Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Applying and Removing Ratings with Menus, Keyboard Shortcuts, and Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Applying Ratings and Increasing or Decreasing Ratings with Buttons and Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Applying Ratings to Individual or Multiple Images . . . . . . . . . 177 Comparing Similar Images. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Chapter 7 Using Aperture’s Search Tools and Smart Collections

181

The Basics of Searching in Aperture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Using the Search Field of the Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Searching by Ratings Using the Search Field Pop-up Menu or Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 Searching with the Query HUD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Contents

Creating Collections with Search Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Creating Static Collections from the Query HUD . . . . . . . . . . 192 Creating Smart Collections from the Query HUD . . . . . . . . . . 193

Chapter 8 Applying Basic Adjustments to Your Images

195

Viewing and Using the Adjustments Inspector and Adjustments HUD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 Adding Adjustments with the Adjustments Inspector . . . . . . . . 197 Removing Adjustments from an Image and the Adjustments Inspector and HUD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 Turning Adjustments On and Off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 Resetting Adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 Showing and Hiding Adjustment Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 Using Sliders, Value Fields, and Value Sliders in Value Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Using the Adjustment Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Rotate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 Straighten. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 Crop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 Spot & Patch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Applying Red Eye Correction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 Applying One or More Adjustments to One or More Images Using the Lift & Stamp Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 Using Adjustment Presets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Chapter 9 Color Correcting Your Images

223

Viewing Color Information and the Histograms in the Adjustments Inspector and HUD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Using the Color Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Reading Histograms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Applying the Automatic Adjustments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Auto Exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Understanding the Auto Levels Adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

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Manually Applying Color Correction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 Fine-Tuning RAW Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Manually Adjusting Exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Manually Adjusting Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 Applying the Highlights & Shadows Adjustment . . . . . . . . . . . 244 Adjusting the White Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248 Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Applying Noise Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Understanding and Using the Sharpen Adjustments. . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Applying Color Effects to Your Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Monochrome Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Color Monochrome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Sepia Tone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

Chapter 10 Sharing Aperture Images with Photoshop and Other Applications

261

How to Integrate Aperture with Photoshop in a Digital Imaging Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 Sending Your Images on the “Round Trip” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262 Dragging and Dropping Images from Aperture into Other Applications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 Accessing Your Aperture Library from iLife and iWork Applications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Chapter 11 Sharing Your Images with Clients and Friends

269

Exporting Your Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 Exporting Masters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270 Exporting Versions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 Exporting Metadata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 Emailing Your Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 Presenting Your Images as Slideshows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 Controlling a Slideshow as It Is Running . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 The Slideshow Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 Setting Up a Custom Slideshow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Contents

Chapter 12 Designing with Photos on Aperture’s Light Table

279

Start by Creating a Light Table Album. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280 Adding and Removing Images to and from a Light Table’s Album . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282 Manipulating Images on the Light Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 Adding and Removing Images to and from the Light Table . . . 284 Resizing Images on the Light Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 Repositioning Images on the Light Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 Aligning, Distributing, and Grouping Images on the Light Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 Revealing Hidden Images from Under Other Images . . . . . . . . 289 Controlling the View of the Light Table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291 Enlarging and Reducing the View of the Light Table Area . . . . 292 Enlarging and Reducing the Light Table Work Area . . . . . . . . 294 Printing Your Light Table Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Chapter 13 Printing Images from Aperture

297

Using the Print Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 Selecting and Working with Print Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 Setting the Number of Copies and the Range of Pages . . . . . . . 299 Telling Aperture About Your Printer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 Specifying the Arrangement of Images on the Printed Page . . . 301 Turning on a Border Around the Printed Image. . . . . . . . . . . . 302 Printing Images as PDF Documents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 Printing Multiple Images at One Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 Printing Individual Images on Separate Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304 Printing Multiple Images as Contact Sheets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

Chapter 14 Publishing Your Images on the Web

307

How Web Galleries and Web Journals Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 The Difference Between Web Galleries and Web Journals . . . . . . . 309 Creating Web Galleries and Web Journals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 Adding and Removing Images to and from Galleries . . . . . . . . . . . 311 Creating Smart Web Galleries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

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Customizing Web Gallery and Smart Web Gallery Pages . . . . . . . . 313 Changing the Order of the Images on the Index Pages. . . . . . . 314 Selecting Built-in Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 Filling in the Details on the Gallery Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316 Choosing the Metadata Information to Display . . . . . . . . . . . . 316 Defining the Web Gallery’s Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317 Defining the Size of the Thumbnails on the Index Page . . . . . . 317 Defining the Size of the Detail Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319 Building Web Journal Pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319 Selecting a Header Style for Journal Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 Defining the Web Journal’s Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 Adding, Removing, and Rearranging Images on Journal Index Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 Adding Text Boxes to Journal Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322 Adding and Rearranging Web Journal Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324 Uploading Your Web Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325 Uploading to .Mac . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325 Saving to a Folder for Uploading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326 Web Export Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326 Adding Watermarks to Your Web Page Images . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

Chapter 15 Creating Picture Books in Aperture

329

Creating Book Albums. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329 Working in the Book Layout Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332 Navigating Between Book Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 Viewing Book Pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334 Designing Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 Changing Editing Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 The Basics of Master Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 Basic Manipulation of Images on Book Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339 Designing with Text on Book Pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348 Adding and Removing Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355 Advanced Book Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359 Creating and Editing Master Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360 Using Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363 Printing Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

Index

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Introduction Apple’s Aperture provides the professional photographer with a powerful new resource for organizing, adjusting, and distributing photographs. Although this young application still has some kinks in it that Apple needs to work out, it may already be the most powerful photo organizing application we’ve ever had. Today, most photographers, whether they record their images with film or a CCD, wind up using Adobe Photoshop as their primary digital imaging application. In this book, you’ll learn how to integrate Aperture into your digital photographic imaging workflow. You’ll see how Aperture complements Adobe Photoshop (rather than replaces it), and you’ll see how Aperture can make your life and work as a professional photographer much easier.

What Aperture Can Do That Photoshop Can’t As much as everyone loves Photoshop, digging into Aperture for the first time can actually prompt an occasional “wow.” Aperture offers some tools and features that either aren’t available at all in Photoshop or that work better in Aperture than they do in Photoshop.

Nondestructive Editing When you edit your photographic images in Photoshop by making changes to the exposure, the colors, or the content and then saving the file, those edits are written to the original file, permanently changing the original image. But Aperture is based on a nondestructive editing paradigm. The original image you imported into Aperture is preserved forever, no matter what you might do to alter the image in Aperture. Once you make changes to a photo in Aperture, you can export or publish that image either as the unedited, unchanged original image or as the edited newer version. Until you actually export the new version, Aperture stores the changes to the image as instructions that don’t harm or change the original image in any way. If you decide you like what you’ve done, you can export the image as the edited version—even without harming the original image file.

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Figure I.1 shows an original master image on the left and an edited version of that image on the right. You can export the edited version, but the edits you’ve applied are never written to the original image file.

Figure I.1 Aperture never changes your original image files.

In fact, even if you pass an image from Aperture into Photoshop, edit it there, and then return to Aperture, you’ll find that Aperture has created a copy to pass to Photoshop and the changes that you may have made in Photoshop have automatically loaded into the copy in Aperture. After you make adjustments to an image in Aperture, if you don’t like what you’ve done to the image, you can either start from scratch with a completely new version or go into the edited version and actually make changes to the edits before exporting it again. Here’s a quick example. Let’s say you find a few unsightly blemishes or spots that you want to eliminate from a new image. Of course, Photoshop provides several methods of eliminating them. But once you accept those edits, save the image, and then close Photoshop, those edits become a permanent part of that image. In Aperture, you could use the Spot & Patch tool to eliminate the blemishes. And even after you complete the edits, close Aperture, and reopen the image at some later time, the original image will not have been altered. If someone asks you for a copy of the original, unedited image, you can grin and send them one.

Introduction

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Editable Edits Okay, so let’s stay with that example for a moment. Let’s say you’ve made the edits in Photoshop that eliminated the blemishes from the image. You’ve closed Photoshop, and a few days later you open up the image again and realize you think that the spotting you did was too obvious. You want to try again. In Photoshop, you’re out of luck. The edits have become a permanent, digitized part of the image. However, in Aperture you can actually edit the edits after the image has been opened later, as you’ll learn in Chapter 8. You can actually adjust the size of the patch you made over the blemish. You can adjust the opacity of the patch. You can even move the patch, as shown in Figure I.2. Just try to do any of that in Photoshop! The Spot & Patch tool is just one example. All of the adjustments and edits that you make with Aperture’s tools can be edited at any point in the life of the image. And none of those edits become a permanent part of the image until you tell Aperture to apply them to a copy of the image on export.

Figure I.2 Moving a patch after it has been applied to an image.

Organize Images Photoshop is a digital painting program. Its primary purpose is to apply color to pixels, whether those pixels are in an image you are creating from scratch right in Photoshop or importing from a disk, scanner, or camera. Photoshop is not sold as an image-organizing tool. However, Aperture is primarily designed as an organizing application that is based on a model of the way photographers have worked with negatives or transparencies since the time photography was invented. With hard-copy transparencies, you can turn on a light table and scatter your slides around on the table to assess, sort, and arrange them. It just so happens that this particular organizing tool in Aperture has a bunch of digital editing and adjustment features added on. Aperture allows you to group images in pretty much whatever way you want. You can arrange them by subject, by when they were taken, by whether or not you like them, by how much you like them, even by whether their orientation is landscape or portrait. As you’ll learn in Chapter 6, you can create virtual stacks of your images, just the way you could with a bunch of slides. You can view them side-by-side, as shown in Figure I.3, or you can stack them with your favorite on top of the stack, as

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shown in Figure I.4. You can create folders, albums, and Web pages that have only those photos you want in them. You can even create albums and Web pages that change automatically to fit criteria you select. You can add ratings, metadata, and keywords to images so that you can search for them based on whatever keywords you want, as you’ll learn in Chapters 5, 6, and 7. You can add that information to one image at a time or to many images all at once, either when you import them or as you catalog them later. Figure I.3 Notice the groups of images that have a gray box around them. Those are Aperture’s stacks.

Figure I.4 Now the stacks are stacked.

Introduction

Lay Out Images In keeping with the light table model, you can also use Aperture’s Light Table feature to arrange images on a virtual light table. In Chapter 12, you’ll learn to use the Light Table to sort your images into groups that fit your preferences and select images that fit your particular needs. Better yet, you can actually make some of those images larger and smaller than others as you lay them out to try out various design layouts, as shown in Figure I.5. That’s taking the light table model a lot further than the physical light table and slides could ever go.

Figure I.5 Aperture’s Light Table feature.

You can make the light table large enough to accommodate as many images as you want, and you can print out the contents of the light table for reference. You can do something similar in Photoshop, but not in the same way you can in Aperture. In Photoshop, you’d have to create a large blank image and then copy other images onto it. You just don’t have the same flexibility or ease of use when creating image layouts in Photoshop.

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Why Aperture Won’t Replace Photoshop (or Why You May Not Need Photoshop Anymore) Aperture is an image organizing application that has a bunch of basic image adjustment and editing features added on. It is not a full-featured digital painting tool. It is limited in terms of how much you can do to alter an image. For example, you cannot create layered images in Aperture. Aperture will not help you create an alpha mask that you trace from a portion of a digital image. You can’t use Aperture to cut a portion of one image and add it to another image. Aperture won’t help you layer several original images on top of each other in one composite image, varying their opacity by layer. Aperture doesn’t have a text tool for applying text directly onto an image. So if you are a graphic designer and you create complex images made up of multiple layered images, you definitely need Photoshop, and you likely will need to add Aperture to the applications you have on your computer. Aperture is set up to organize and adjust individual images, and for you it will be a complement to Photoshop, not a replacement for it. On the other hand, many professional photographers will discover that they don’t need Photoshop now that Aperture is on the market. If you don’t design complex digital images made up of composited multiple images, text, and color washes, you may not need Photoshop. If what you do with digital images is create prints, books, Web pages, or other published collections of individual photographs to which you only need to apply color adjustments and basic image retouching, then you could easily manage with just Aperture on your computer. Aperture will help you keep track of your original images much more efficiently than Photoshop can. And in Aperture, you can enhance and repair your original source images with tools that allow you to go back and fix your fixes if you need to do so.

1 Aperture Basics Aperture should become the first stop in your new digital photo workflow. Using Aperture, you’ll import your photographs into your computer and then use Aperture’s powerful cataloguing system to keep track of them. Whether you wind up using them exclusively as individual photographs or for more complex graphic designs, Aperture will help you organize and store the photos for later use. First, you’ll need to become familiar with Aperture’s graphical user interface—its desktop—where you’ll be working.

Launching Aperture Start Aperture via whichever method you prefer. The very first time you start Aperture—and every time after that—until you have told it not to, Aperture will offer you its Welcome screen, as shown in Figure 1.1. Once you get started using Aperture, you won’t likely need to see this screen again. But some people may like having the options offered each time they start. If you’re ready to have Aperture open right up to its desktop, select Start Using Aperture and click the check box that says Show the Welcome Screen at Startup, which will make sure that the check is removed from the check box. This will prevent the Welcome screen from appearing from now on. (If you want to turn it back on again, you can do that in Aperture’s preferences.) If it’s the first time you’ve opened Aperture, you’ll also see the dialog box shown in Figure 1.2. This box allows you to set Aperture as the application that will automatically open when you connect a digital camera to your computer. If you want to change this setting later, you can do it in Aperture’s preferences.

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Figure 1.2 Do you want Aperture to be your default photo importing application?

Figure 1.1 Aperture’s Welcome screen.

Tip You can also change this preference in the Image Capture application, which is included with Mac OS X and is located in your applications folder. Its preferences govern whether Image Capture, iPhoto, Aperture, or another application will open when you connect a camera. If you make the change in Image Capture, you won’t see it reflected in Aperture until you open and close Aperture. Before you installed Aperture, changing the preference in Image Capture was the only way you could change this preference to open iPhoto when you connected a camera. Now, Aperture also provides access to this preference.

If it’s your first time opening Aperture, there’s one more dialog box that you’ll need to address before you get to the Aperture desktop. The dialog box shown in Figure 1.3 prompts you to import a sample project from among the several sample projects that Aperture installs by default on your hard disk. If you’re going to be importing some of your own images right away and don’t want to clutter your Projects panel with the sample project, just click Don’t Import. If you want to play around with the sample images before you bring in your own, click Import.

Figure 1.3 Do you want to load any of the sample projects?

Either way, you should go ahead and click the “Don’t show again” check box to put a check in it. You don’t need to see this dialog box again, even if you decide later you want to import a sample project. You can always import other projects from within Aperture, which we’ll cover a bit later.

Chapter 1 ■ Aperture Basics

Note To follow along as we explore Aperture, you’ll need some images to play with. Unless you already have some images of your own loaded into Aperture, you can go ahead and import the sample project offered here. Click Import. Don’t worry, though, if you don’t import the sample project here. You can import any project later, and I’ll show you how again before we need any images.

Aperture’s Interface Finally, you’re at the Aperture desktop. Figure 1.4 shows Aperture’s default window layout. This is what you’ll see when you first open Aperture and clear all those initial dialog boxes. This layout is also called the Basic layout. You can revert to this layout at any time by choosing Window>Layouts>Basic or by pressing Option+Cmd+S. Menu Bar

Projects panel

Toolbar

Control Bar

Figure 1.4 Aperture’s default window or Basic layout.

Viewer

Browser

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Note If you’re wondering why the keyboard shortcut for the Basic window layout is Option+Command+S, instead of Option+Command+B, it’s because up until Aperture 1.5, the default, basic window layout was referred to as the Standard View. The keyboard shortcut made sense then, but now it’s likely to be easy to forget because it doesn’t match the name of the window layout it controls.

The Projects panel is at the far left. The Viewer is the top large horizontal window, and the Browser is the lower large horizontal window Aperture desktop. The control bar is at the very bottom of the window layout.

Note Aperture has three different window layouts that you can use while performing various operations in Aperture. You can access the layouts by choosing Window>Layouts. There, you can choose between the layouts, and you can see the keyboard shortcuts for each of them. Additionally, you can click the Layout selection buttons at the upper right of the Aperture desktop. Buttons for four of the default layouts are located there.

I’ll show you each of the additional layouts later, as we go through Aperture’s operations. But for now, we’ll use the Basic layout to get a sense of how to navigate Aperture’s controls and directory structure.

The Menu Bar If you have any experience at all working on the Mac, you’re familiar with the Menu Bar. That’s the bar across the top of the screen, from where you can pull down the application-specific menus presented by Aperture, as shown in Figure 1.5. You can rely on the selections in the Menu Bar as much as you prefer. Usually, if a command that you can access via the Menu Bar also has a keyboard shortcut, you’ll see the keyboard shortcut displayed with the command in the Menu Bar, as shown in Figure. 1.5. The ellipsis (…) that appears after some of the commands in the Menu Bar, such as the one after the Batch Change command shown in Figure 1.5, and other menus indicates that another dialog box will open when you choose that command.

Figure 1.5 A pull-down menu from the Menu Bar, showing keyboard shortcuts.


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The Toolbar The Toolbar is the bar of icons that crosses the top of the Aperture window, shown in detail in Figure 1.6. The icons represent shortcuts to various tools and operations. Most of these buttons and tools are pretty intuitive. Later, as we use them, we’ll go into detail about each of the operations and tools offered in the Toolbar. You can also hide and show the Toolbar if you want by pressing Shift+T or by choosing View>Hide Toolbar/Show Toolbar. Open New Light New Version Import New New Table Slideshow from Master Panel Album Book Album button button button button button button

New New New Email Duplicate Stack Stack Project Smart Web button Version button Pick button Album Gallery button button button button

Selection Tool

Rotate Red Keywords Metadata Right Crop Eye Stamp HUD Inspector Tool Tool Tool Tool button button

Rotate Straighten Spot & Lift Tool Patch Tool Left Tool Tool

Figure 1.6 Aperture’s Toolbar.

Customizing the Toolbar As you become more familiar with Aperture and develop your own working style, you can alter the layout of the Toolbar and add and remove many of Aperture’s more common operations and tools to better fit you and your workflow. If you want to change or rearrange the layout of icons in the Toolbar, choose View>Customize Toolbar from the Menu Bar. You can also press Control and click the Toolbar to open its contextual menu; then select Customize Toolbar. The Customize Toolbar window will slide down from the Toolbar, as shown in Figure 1.7. If you’ve ever customized your Mac OS windows, you’ll find this operation familiar. While the Customize Toolbar window is open, all you have to do to add or remove icons from the Toolbar is to drag them to or from the Toolbar and the Customize Toolbar window. You can rearrange the icons on your Toolbar while this window is open by dragging the icons to new positions.

Loupe Adjustments Tool Inspector button

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Show pop-up menu

Toolset

Default Toolbar set

Figure 1.7 Drag icons from the Customize Toolbar window to the Toolbar.

Tip While you’re still learning how to use Aperture, you might find it helpful to see the text labels for the tools and operations in the Toolbar. By default, only the icons are showing. To show both the icons and their labels, click the Show pop-up menu at the lower left of the Customize Toolbar window, where you can choose to show only the text, only the icons, or both the text and the icons.

If you change your mind about what you’ve done to the Toolbar and want it to return to where it was when you launched Aperture the very first time, just drag the entire default set from the bottom of the Customize Toolbar window to the Toolbar.

The Projects Panel The Projects panel is the large vertical window on the left of the screen, shown in detail in Figure 1.8. The Projects panel displays all of the levels of Aperture’s directory and filing structure. At the very top of the listing of projects is the Library listing. This level of the directory structure shows the complete contents of the Aperture library that you’re working on.


Note No matter what you may name your Aperture library file, the first listing in the Projects panel will always be “Library.” This restriction isn’t really a problem because you can open only one Aperture library at a time.

Projects pop-up menu button Add to Library pop-up menu button Project Action pop-up menu button Query HUD button Built-In Smart Album icon Project icon Disclosure triangle Album icon Folder icon Light Table icon Smart Album icon Smart Web Gallery icon Book icon Web Gallery icon Web Journal icon

Tip When you’re busy working on a project and won’t be changing projects, you can always hide the Projects panel to make more room for the Viewer and Browser by pressing W. You can do this any time you want to maximize the window space available to the other windows. Pressing W toggles the Projects panel on and off.

The directory structure of the Library includes all of the projects, folders, albums, smart albums, Web galleries, smart Web galleries, books, Web journals and smart Web journals that you’ll create while working in Aperture. Every collection in your Aperture library file will show up in this Projects panel.

Figure 1.8 The Projects panel.

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Note Usually, while navigating a directory tree, you have to click a disclosure triangle in a directory tree to see everything that’s within that directory. Not in Aperture, though. As you can see, everything that’s in this library is already visible below the Library. The disclosure triangle next to the Library will only show and hide Aperture’s default built-in Smart Albums, which you’ll learn about later. What you will learn as you play with Aperture’s structure is that once you create projects and folders, those directory levels will work the way you expect, and their disclosure triangles will show and hide the contents of those folders and projects.

To display the list of projects, albums, books, or other collections contained in a project or folder, click its disclosure triangle in the Projects panel. To display the images contained in any project, album, book, or any other collection, simply click its name in the Projects panel.

Tip “Smart” collections of the Library, such as Smart Albums and Smart Web Galleries, are collections that have been automatically generated using one search criterion or multiple search criteria. Once created, their contents are automatically updated according to the criteria you specify.

Projects Pop-up Button The Projects pop-up menu presents three choices for sorting the projects that are displayed in the Projects panel (see Figure 1.9). You can choose to view all projects, just those you have marked as Favorites (which we’ll cover later), and just the most recent projects.

Figure 1.9 Projects pop-up menu.

Add to Library Pop-up Button You can access all of the various options for creating new collections in the Library from this pop-up menu, shown in Figure 1.10. These are the same options you can access by clicking the File drop-down menu in the upper menu bar, but the Projects pop-up menu presents them all in one menu level, rather than in submenus, as in the File drop-down menu.

Figure 1.10 Add to Library pop-up menu.


Project Action Pop-up Button The Project Action pop-up menu is a shortcut you can use to define projects as favorites, un-define projects as favorites, export projects, and turn on and off the generation and retention of previews for specific projects (see Figure 1.11). Figure 1.11 Project Action pop-up menu.

Query HUD Pop-up Button The Query HUD is a heads-up display (HUD) that appears as a translucent window above the rest of the desktop, as shown in Figure 1.12. From within this HUD, you can define search criteria that will limit the display of whatever “smart” collection you open it for. The Library has a Query HUD button because you can define Library-wide search criteria that will limit the display of images found across the entire Library.

Figure 1.12 The Query HUD.

We’ll go into detail about how to use the Query HUD in a later chapter.

Note Aperture has 10 built-in Smart Albums for the Library. You may have noticed that if you click the Library name in the Projects panel, you don’t see any images displayed in the Browser or Viewer, as in Figure 1.4. But if you click any one of the built-in Smart Albums, you’ll see images that come from a search of the entire Library, based on the criteria defined in that particular built-in Smart Album.

When you’re done using or looking at the Query HUD, you have to click the Close button at the top far left corner of the Query HUD. Only the Library and smart collections have a Query HUD button in the Projects panel.

Note HUDs were originally designed for fighter pilots, so they could see important gauges, controls, and aiming devices, even while they kept their heads up to look out the front window of their airplane or jet.

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The Browser The Browser is the bottom window in the Basic layout shown back in Figure 1.4. Click the icon of any of the albums or projects in the Projects panel. You’ll see all of the photos in that particular project displayed here in the Browser window, as shown in Figure 1.13. Grid View button

List View button

Sorting pop-up button

Sort Direction button

Thumbnail resize slider

Figure 1.13 The Browser.

Tip By default, Aperture will allow for exactly the same amount of horizontal space in the Browser for each image, regardless of whether it’s a vertical or horizontal image. The grid that Aperture uses in this case is essentially square. The Browser in Figure 1.13 shows this layout. But if you have a lot of vertical images or a lot of mixed horizontal and vertical images, that arrangement isn’t really very efficient for maximizing the space in the Browser. You’d be better off using proportional spacing in the Grid View, which allows the vertical images to squeeze together, as they are shown in the Browser in Figure 1.18. You’ll get more vertical images onto each row of the grid that way. To turn on proportional spacing, open Aperture’s preferences panel by choosing Aperture>Preferences or by pressing Cmd+comma. In the middle group of preferences, check the box for “Use proportional spacing for images in Grid View.” If your images are all horizontal, you can leave this at its default setting because it won’t make any difference in the way those images display.

Query HUD Search Scroll Shuttle bar control button field


Tip You can view multiple projects in the Browser at the same time. See the sidebar, “Working with Multiple Projects in the Browser,” later in this chapter.

Browser Controls The controls provided in the Browser allow you to vary the display of images in the Browser. Grid View and List View Buttons

As you might expect, you can toggle between the Grid View and List View by clicking their respective buttons. The Grid View, which is the view of the Browser shown in Figure 1.13, is a view of the thumbnails of the images contained in a particular collection. The List View, shown in Figure 1.14, is a directory listing of the images contained in a collection and displays the metadata for the images. You can switch back and forth between Grid View and List View by pressing Ctrl+G and Ctrl+L or by choosing View>Grid or View>List.

Figure 1.14 The Browser in List View.

If you’re working in the List View and want the thumbnails to be larger or smaller, you can use the Thumbnail resize slider in the lower right of the Browser to increase or decrease the size of the thumbnails.

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Note Notice that when you’re in the Grid View, the images displayed in the Browser have text and icons displayed with and on them, as shown in Figure 1.13. You can choose whether or not to always show the image information displayed this way and what information you want displayed. For more information about changing the options for the display of metadata with these images, see the sidebar, “Changing View Options for the Browser and Viewer,” later in this chapter.

Sorting Pop-up Button and Sort Direction Button

Click the Sorting pop-up button to access the Sorting pop-up menu, shown in Figure 1.15. You can then select the order of the sorting that Aperture will use to present the images contained within the selected collection. The Sort Direction button, next to the Sorting pop-up button (see Figure 1.13), will reverse the order of whatever Sort you have selected with the Sorting pop-up menu. Query HUD Button and Search Field

Figure 1.15 The Sorting popup menu.

Even though it doesn’t look exactly like the Query HUD buttons in the Projects panel shown in Figure 1.8, the Query HUD button here in the Browser, as shown in Figure 1.13, also opens a Query HUD, this one for the contents of the Browser. Just as with the Query HUDs in the Projects panel, you can use this Query HUD to define the criteria for displaying images. This time you can search among those that are currently appearing in the Browser. You can also access the Query HUD by pressing Cmd+F or by choosing Edit>Find.

Tip This Query HUD is where you can search through projects and albums that aren’t “smart.” (Then you can create one of the Smart Albums or other collections with those results. More on that later.)

The Search field next to the Query HUD button allows you to quickly enter a text string to search for a particular image or images. There’s a pop-up menu that offers a selection of default search criteria (see Figure 1.16). If you have any search criteria specified, either via the pop-up menu or by entering a text string, the Search field will display either a reference to a default search or the text you’ve entered. A button that’s an “x” in a circle also appears, as shown Figure 1.16 The Search field’s pop-up menu. in Figure 1.17. To clear the search criteria completely, simply click that button.


Previous Image button

Next Image button

Figure 1.17 The Search field with search criteria displayed. Shuttle Control and Scroll bar

The scroll bar works just as it does in any other application. You drag it up or down to scroll through the contents of the Browser window. The Shuttle Control is more like a fast-forward and fast-reverse control on a VCR. If you grab the Shuttle Control and drag it upward or downward, you’ll see the contents of your Browser window zoom by. This control can be really helpful if you’re browsing a collection that has lots of images.

Tip You can also shuttle through the images in the Browser by pressing the following keys: ■

Pressing J will shuttle left through the Browser.

■

Pressing L will shuttle right through the Browser.

■

Pressing K will stop the shuttling.

■

Pressing J or L multiple times will speed up the rate of shuttling.

Thumbnail Resize Slider

The Thumbnail resize slider does just what it’s called. Slide it one way or the other to increase or decrease the display size of individual images in the Browser.

Tip The Thumbnail resize slider works on the thumbnails in the List View as well as the Grid View.

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Selecting Images in the Browser To work on images in Aperture, you have to select them. In the Browser, you can select a single image or multiple images up to the total number of images active in the Browser.

Note If you’re comparing images or working with stacked images, you have a wide variety of options for selecting comparison images and for selecting images in your stacks. For more information on using Aperture’s Compare feature and working with stacks, including how to select the images in Stacks, see Chapter 6.

Selecting a Single Image

To select any one image in the Browser, simply click it. The image will then have a heavy white border around it, as shown in the Browser in Figure 1.13. Alternatively, you can select an individual image by navigating through the Browser with the left, right, up, or down arrow key or with the Previous Image button or Next Image button on the Control Bar (which are shown in Figure 1.17). Selecting Multiple Images

You can select multiple images in the Browser. In fact, you can select all of the images in the Browser if you want.

Note However many images that you select in the Browser will appear in the Viewer. Selecting a few images at a time in the Browser is a good way to compare those images, but the Viewer is capable of showing only a dozen or so images. If you have more images selected than the Viewer can display, you’ll see the images and “and [X] more…” in the Viewer, as shown in Figure 1.18. Really, if you’re selecting that many images in the Browser, you may be better off in the Maximize Browser window layout, which we’ll discuss later in this chapter.

You can use any of the actions in Table 1-1 to select multiple images in the Browser.


Table 1-1 Selecting Multiple Images in the Browser To select all the images

Press Cmd+A or choose Edit>Select All. Drag a box, as shown in Figure 1.18, around all of the images. After selecting any individual image or multiple images (using any method), press Cmd+E or choose Edit>Grow Selection, which will then select all of the remaining unselected images.

To select consecutive images

Click the first image and then press Shift as you click the last image. After selecting any individual image (using any method), press Shift and any of the arrow keys to get to the last image. Drag a box, as shown in Figure 1.18, around the range of images. (If you drag horizontally across a row, you’ll select those images consecutively, but if you drag vertically across columns, you’ll select whatever images happen to fall within the box.) After selecting any individual image (using any method), press Shift+End or choose Edit>Select to End to select all images from the selected image to the last image in the Browser. After selecting any individual image (using any method), press Shift+Home or choose Edit>Select to Beginning to select all images from the selected image back to the first image in the Browser.

To select nonconsecutive images

After selecting any individual image (using any method), press the Cmd key and click any other image.

To select every image except the current selection

After selecting any individual image (using any method) or any group of images (using any method), press Cmd+R or choose Edit>Invert Selection. Drag a box, as shown in Figure 1.18, around the range of images. (If you drag horizontally across a row, you’ll select those images consecutively, but if you drag vertically across columns, you’ll select whatever images happen to fall within the box.)

Figure 1.18 Dragging in the Browser selects multiple images.

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Tip If you have multiple images selected and realize that you want a different group of images selected, you can move the selection—not the actual images, but the designation of selections—by pressing Cmd and either the left arrow key or right arrow key to move the selection to the left or right. The selection you move doesn’t have to be consecutive, but moving a complicated selection of nonconsecutive images might wind up causing you more work than selecting the images individually.

Tip When dragging a selection box around images in the Browser, you must start in an empty gray area of the Browser. If you happen to click first on an image, you’ll select that image and then drag it to another location in the Browser, which will rearrange the Browser as described in the next section.

Selecting Multiple Images Creates a Primary Selection When you select any one image in the Browser, that image will have a heavy white border around it (see Figure 1.13). If you select multiple images, all of the selected images will have a thin white border around them and one of them will have that heavy white border, as shown in Figure 1.19. The image with the heavy white border is the primary selection. When you have a group of images selected, the image with the heavy white border is the primary selection, and the following rules will apply: ■

The primary selection will be the only image to which adjustments you make, such as Exposure, Levels, etc., will be applied if you have the Primary Only option selected (by pressing S, by toggling the Primary Only button in the Toolbar, or by choosing Edit>Primary Only).

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That image will be the only image to which metadata or keyword information will be changed or applied if you have the Primary Only option selected (by pressing S, by toggling the Primary Only button in the Toolbar, or by choosing Edit>Primary Only).

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That image will be the only image that appears in the Viewer if you have set your viewing mode to Primary (Option+R).

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If you press Shift+E or choose Edit>Reduce Selection, all of the images other than the primary selection will be deselected.

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If you want to designate a different selected image as the primary selection, press the semicolon key or Option+Cmd+left arrow to move the primary


selection designation backwards toward the beginning of the Browser or press the apostrophe key or Option+Cmd+right arrow to move the primary selection designation forward toward the end of the Browser. ■

If you want to designate a different selected image as the primary selection, press Option+Cmd and any arrow key to move the primary selection designation around in the Browser.

When you are selecting multiple images, one of those images will always be designated as the primary selection, according to these rules: ■

If you have no images selected and you press Cmd+A or choose Edit>Select All, the first image in the Browser will be designated as the primary selection.

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If you select images by dragging a box, the last selected image in the Browser will be designated as the primary selection, whether or not you have an image already selected.

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If you select an image and then Shift+click or Cmd+click another image, the last image you click on will be designated as the primary selection.

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If you select an image and then press Shift as you use the arrow keys or navigation buttons in the Toolbar, the last image you navigate to will be designated as the primary selection.

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If you select an image and then press Cmd+E or choose Edit>Grow Selection, the originally selected image will remain the primary selection.

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If you select an image and then select all the images from that image to the end of the Browser by pressing Shift+End or by choosing Edit>Select to End, the last image in the Browser will become the primary selection.

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If you select an image and then select all the images from that image to the end of the Browser by pressing Shift+Home or by choosing Edit>Select to Beginning, the first image in the Browser will become the primary selection.

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If you have an image or multiple images selected and invert your selection by pressing Cmd+R or by choosing Edit>Invert Selection, the last selected image will be designated the primary selection.

Figure 1.19 When you select multiple images, the primary selection will have the heavy white border.

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Deselecting Images in the Browser

Regardless of whether you have one image or multiple images selected, press Shift+Cmd+A or choose Edit>Deselect All to deselect all selected images. You can also simply click in an empty area of the Browser.

Rearranging Images in the Browser You can rearrange images in the Browser by using the following actions: ■

To reposition an individual image, click and drag that individual image in the Browser until you see a green bar appear between images, as shown in Figure 1.20; then let go. The individual image will move to the position of the green bar.

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To reposition a group of images, click and drag any group of selected images until you see a green bar appear between images, as shown in Figure 1.20; then let go. The entire group of images will move to the position of the green bar.

Figure 1.20 To reposition images in the Browser, drag until you see the green bar.

Note When you rearrange your images, you’ll see that the Sort pop-up menu, shown in Figures 1.13 and 1.15, will automatically change to Custom. If you decide you want to rearrange the images in the Browser back the way they were, all you have to do is click that pop-up menu and choose a different sorting order. And—dig this—Aperture will remember the Custom arrangement, so that if you want to go back to your rearrangement, you can click that pop-up menu and choose Custom once again. Aperture retains this memorization even after you’ve closed and reopened Aperture again, and it retains the Custom rearrangement for any project, album, or other collection you may choose to rearrange.

The Viewer The Viewer is topmost of the two windows on the right of the Basic layout, as shown in Figure 1.21. As its name implies, the Viewer is where you’ll view the images you’re working on in Aperture. “Working on” could mean comparing an image with another image, fixing a spot on an image, cropping an image, rotating an image—whatever you do to an image in Aperture. When you click any project in the Projects panel, you’ll see all the images from that project displayed in the Browser. If you then click any one of the images in the Browser, you should see that image displayed in the Viewer.


Tip You can show and hide the Viewer by pressing the V key.

If you want to change the size of the Viewer, simply drag the boundary between the Viewer and the Browser. The cursor will change to the resize icon, as shown in Figure 1.21, and you can reduce or enlarge the Viewer to the size you want.

Figure 1.21 Drag the boundary to resize the Viewer.

The image displayed in the Viewer in Figure 1.21 is a horizontal photo. But if you have a vertical image and want to maximize the viewing area to match it, press Shift+W to automatically rearrange the Viewer and Browser (see Figure 1.22). You can also swap the positions of the Browser and Viewer by pressing Option+W.

Note As described in the previous section and shown in Figure 1.18, if you select more images than the Viewer can display, you’ll see the images and “and [X] more…” in the Viewer.

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Figure 1.22 Press Shift+W to orient the viewer for vertical images.

Changing View Options for the Browser and Viewer Look at the Browser and Viewer displays in Figure 1.22. See the five little stars in the lower left corner of the images and the little tag icon (called a badge) in the lower right of the image? Those are the metadata displays for that image. You can choose to have these displays turned on or off in the Viewer and the Browser, and you have many options for how the information is displayed and what information is displayed. To change the View Options for either the Browser or the Viewer, press Cmd+J or choose View>View Options to open the View Options dialog box, shown in Figure 1.23. The View Options for the Viewer are at the top, with the check box labeled Viewer. The View Options for the Browser are beneath that, with the check box labeled Grid View. The metadata displays for the Browser are available only on the thumbnails in the Grid View. The options available for the List View are there in the same section with the options for the Grid View. To turn the metadata displays on or off for either the Viewer or the Browser, simply click the corresponding check box. The displays of metadata in the List View are always on, which is why there’s no check box for the List View.


You can also have two sets of options ready for both the Viewer and the Browser. The two sets of options have radio buttons marked Set 1 and Set 2. You can define options for each set in their respective pop-up menus and then just click the radio button for either set to apply those options to the respective display. When the metadata displays are on, you can choose from a bewildering variety of options for them. To define the set of metadata that you want to display, click the pop-up menu button next to either Set 1 or Set 2 to open the pop-up menu, shown in Figure 1.24. As you can see, you can choose to display any of the complete sets of metadata, such as EXIF or IPTC, or you can choose individual metadata listings, such as Name or Ratings, or you can choose mini-sets of metadata listings, such as Name & Ratings or Caption & Keywords. The options in the Placement pop-up menu are Over and Below. The Over option displays the metadata right on top of the image, in the lower corners. The Below option displays the metadata in a small box under the image, as shown in Figure 1.25. When you use the Below option, the image will be reduced in size to accommodate the display.

Figure 1.23 The View Options dialog box.

Figure 1.24 The View Options pop-up menu.

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When the Show Labels check box is not checked, you only see the metadata with the image. If you click the Show Labels check box to add a check, the labels for the displayed metadata are also displayed (see Figure 1.25). The Browser obviously doesn’t have enough space to display all the metadata for each image, so it’s pretty pointless to choose any of those expanded options for the Grid View display. But you can still choose to show the ratings and such under the images, rather than on top of them. The List View options determine what metadata will be displayed in columns across the Browser.

Figure 1.25 The Viewer with metadata displayed below and with labels.

You can change the number of images displayed in the Viewer. The Viewer has five different modes that you can switch between to optimize the Viewer to match whatever task you’re doing. We’ll go into those different modes in detail in Chapter 4 and some of them are shown in the next section, in the discussion of the Viewer Mode pop-up menu.


Note Another of the differences between Photoshop and Aperture is that in Aperture you can’t zoom in or out progressively on an image, as you can in Photoshop. In Aperture’s Viewer, you only have two options for the display of an image: You see either the entire image—at whatever size will accommodate the number of images you have open in the Viewer—or 100% full pixel resolution. The good news is that you can use the Loupe, presented in the next section, to quickly inspect areas of an image at full resolution without having to zoom that entire image to full resolution. The Loupe also allows you to zoom into a portion of the image incrementally up to 800%.

Using the Loupe in the Viewer The Loupe is one of Aperture’s coolest features. You can use it to quickly inspect areas at 100% of an image’s pixel resolution, while the full image is visible in the Viewer. As of Aperture 1.5, there’s also the new Centered Loupe, which is a great improvement over what Apple now refers to as the “classic” Loupe.

Note To access the Centered Loupe for the very first time, you must first access the classic Loupe tool following the steps described below. If you then decide you prefer the Centered Loupe, just leave it selected, and when you later activate the Loupe tool, the Centered Loupe will be the version you activate.

Activating the Loupe

Try out the Loupe. While you’re in any window layout that has one image visible in the Viewer, activate the Loupe by performing one of these operations: ■

Click the Loupe button in the Toolbar, which is shown in Figure 1.6 and again in Figure 1.26.

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Press the Accent Grave key (to the left of the number 1).

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Choose View>Show Loupe.

Immediately, your cursor will change to the Loupe. Position the small circle of the Loupe over the area of the image you want to inspect, as shown in Figure 1.26. You can quickly zip around in the image to check any area at full resolution.

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Figure 1.26 Use the Loupe to inspect details. Loupe button Position this circle over what you want to inspect.

Note If you want to zoom your entire image to full resolution, you can use the Zoom View button in the Control Bar or a couple of other methods, which are discussed in the next section.

One of the common criticisms of the Loupe has been how it can flail around the screen as you move your cursor around an image. You can see how it does this if you move it to the extreme corners of an image. To deactivate the Loupe, click the Loupe button again in the Toolbar, press Accent Grave again, or choose View>Loupe.

Tip While using the classic Loupe, you can detach the cursor from the Loupe, leaving the Loupe where it is so you can make menu selections or select different images, and so on. Detach the cursor from the Loupe by pressing Shift+Accent Grave. Clicking anywhere in the Loupe reattaches the cursor.


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Switching to the Centered Loupe

Okay, now try the Centered Loupe, which is shown in Figure 1.27. To activate the Centered Loupe, first make sure that the Loupe tool is active using one of the procedures listed above and then do one of the following: ■

Press Shift+Cmd+Accent Grave (Apple says to press Cmd+tilde, which is the same thing).

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Choose View>Use Centered Loupe.

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Ctrl+click to open the contextual menu and choose Use Centered Loupe. Figure 1.27 Aperture’s new Centered Loupe has only one “lens.”

Centered Loupe pop-up menu

Right away, you can see the difference in the appearance of the Centered Loupe. Instead of the hourglass shape of the Loupe, the Centered Loupe has only one circular lens. The reason it’s called the Centered Loupe is that when it’s in its default mode (what Apple calls Focus on Loupe), the area being magnified is in the center of the Loupe, as shown in Figure 1.27, rather than in another little lens. To magnify an area of your image, you just click anywhere on the Loupe and drag it to that area. One cool-looking feature of the Centered Loupe is how it darkens and creates a smaller disk inside the Loupe that matches the magnification setting of the Loupe, as shown in Figures 1.28 and 1.29. What’s happening is that the tool is giving you

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Figure 1.28 When you click and drag the Centered Loupe, you’ll see a circle around the area you’re magnifying.

Figure 1.29 The guide circle in the Loupe will adjust with the Loupe magnification setting.


a more precise guide to help you position the point of magnification right where you want it and also showing you how much area of the image will be magnified. Figure 1.28 shows the size of the guide circle with the Loupe magnification set low, and Figure 1.29 shows the size of the circle with the Loupe magnification set higher. While using the Centered Loupe, you can also choose Focus on Cursor, which allows you to park the Loupe anywhere on the screen and then point with the cursor at the area on your image that you want to magnify, as shown in Figure 1.30. To switch the Loupe to that setting, click the Centered Loupe pop-up menu and choose Focus on Cursor (see Figure 1.27). You can swap back to Focus on Loupe the same way.

Figure 1.30 Choose Focus on Cursor and you can park the Centered Loupe anywhere you want and magnify a different area of the image. Setting the Size and Magnifying Power of the Loupe

While you’re using either version of the Loupe, you can increase or decrease the diameter of the viewing circle by pressing Shift+Option+equal sign and Shift+Option+hyphen, respectively, or by choosing View>Increase Diameter or View>Decrease Diameter. (Choosing menu items while using the classic Loupe can be an interesting experience as the Loupe flails around to fit on the screen.)

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You can incrementally increase the magnification of the image in either version of the Loupe (up to 1600%) by pressing Shift+Cmd+equal sign and then incrementally decrease it by pressing Shift+Cmd+hyphen. If you’re using a Mighty Mouse or other scrolling mouse, you can zoom in and out to any magnification percent between 100% and 1600% by rolling the mouse’s scroll wheel or ball.

Tip While using the Centered Loupe, you can also use the Centered Loupe pop-up menu to access the magnification settings. If you have detached the cursor from the classic Loupe using Shift+Accent Grave, you can access the classic Loupe’s context menu by pressing Control and clicking to access the magnification settings there.

Determining Pixel Level Color with the Loupe

There are times when you may want to use the Loupe to determine the color and luminance values of a particular pixel. While the Loupe is activated, choose View>Show Color Value in Loupe or press Shift+Ctrl+Accent Grave to activate the RGB readout in the center of the Loupe. The values of whatever pixel is centered in the smaller circle of the classic Loupe will appear in the RGB readout. If you’re using the Centered Loupe, the values of the pixel at the center of the Loupe will display when the Loupe is set to Focus on Loupe, and the values of the pixel where the cursor is pointed will display when the Loupe is set to Focus on Cursor. If you really want to be sure you’re reading one particular pixel, you can also show a pixel grid in the Loupe. To use the pixel grid, you have to have the Loupe magnification set at 400% or higher. Then you can activate the pixel grid by choosing View>Show Pixel Grid in Loupe. You can use these two features together, as shown in Figure 1.31, or separately.

Revealing Metadata in the Viewer with Image Tooltips While the cursor is positioned over any area of any image visible in the viewer, press T or choose View>Image Tooltips to view the Image Tooltips HUD, as shown in Figure 1.32.

Tip Sometimes, even if Image Tooltips is turned on, you’ll have to toggle it on and off to activate it on an image.


Figure 1.31 The Loupes can also reveal color information down to pixel level precision.

Figure 1.32 Revealing an image’s metadata in the Viewer.

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Note An alternative to using Image Tooltips to see an image’s metadata is to choose whether or not to always show metadata with the images in the Viewer and what specific metadata you want to show. For more information about changing the options for the display of metadata with the image, see the sidebar, “Changing View Options for the Browser and Viewer,” later in this chapter.

Revealing Overexposed Areas in the Viewer In some of your images, you’re bound to have areas that have colors that either are specular highlights (full white or almost full white) or that contain colors that are outside the color gamut of your display or printer. You can view these areas in the Viewer by either pressing Shift+Option+H or choosing View>Highlight Hot Areas. Compare the two images in Figures 1.33 and 1.34. Figure 1.33 shows the default view of the image, and Figure 1.34 shows the image with Highlight Hot Areas turned on. You can see how the hot areas have been highlighted with red. You can use this feature to help you determine whether an image needs exposure adjustments or if it has too many blown-out pixels to be worth working on. You can adjust the tolerance of the Highlight Hot Areas feature in Aperture’s preferences, which we’ll discuss at the end of this chapter. Figure 1.33 A default image view.


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Figure 1.34 The same image with Highlight Hot Areas turned on.

The Control Bar The Control Bar, shown in Figure 1.35, is at the bottom of the Aperture desktop, immediately beneath the Browser. The Control Bar provides an array of tools for selecting different view options, rotating and rating images quickly, navigating the Browser, and applying keywords to images. Viewer Show Mode Zoom Master Full Primary pop-up Viewer Image Screen Only menu button button button button

Rotate Rotate Decrease Increase Previous Next Left Right Reject Rating Rating Select Image Image button button button button button button button button

Figure 1.35 The Aperture Control Bar.

The group of icons at the far left of the Control Bar allows you to jump quickly between various view options in the Aperture window layout.

Tip You can show and hide the Control Bar by pressing D or by choosing Window>Show/Hide Control Bar.

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Note As of Aperture 1.5, the Keyword Controls of the Control Bar are no longer always visible in the Control Bar. They can now be toggled on and off (but only if the Control Bar is already visible) by pressing Shift+D, which was the old keyboard shortcut for turning the entire Control Bar on and off. For more information about the Keyword Controls, see Chapter 5.

Tip When you have one or both of the Inspectors displayed, the Control Bar will be shortened by the Inspectors. If you need to see the full width of the Control Bar, to see all of the Keyword Controls, for example, just close the Inspectors (by pressing I or choosing Window>Hide Inspectors).

Viewer Mode Pop-up Menu Clicking the Viewer Mode pop-up menu will open a menu, shown in Figure 1.36, offering different options for your particular display. The modes available for the Viewer are: ■

Multi: You can select multiple images in the Browser, and all of them will appear in the Viewer.

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Primary: No matter how many images you have selected in the Browser, only the primary selection will appear in the Viewer.

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Three Up: If you select only one image in the Browser, Aperture will also display in the Viewer the images to the left and right of the selected image.

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Compare: You can set the Viewer to use Aperture’s Compare feature, which you’ll learn about in Chapter 6.

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Stack: You can view all of the images in a Browser Stack in the Viewer. You’ll learn about Stacks in Chapter 6.

Figure 1.36 The Viewer Mode pop-up menu.


Using Dual Monitors with Aperture If you have two monitors, this pop-up menu will offer options for each of the monitors (see Figure 1.37). The secondary monitor always act as another Viewer. It won’t show any of the other window information, such as the Browser. The choices for the primary monitor remain the same, but you must choose between the following options for the secondary monitor: ■

Mirror: Whatever you are viewing in the Viewer will also be viewed in the secondary monitor.

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Alternate: If you have only one image visible in the Viewer, that image will also appear in the secondary monitor. If you have multiple images visible in the Viewer, only the primary selected image will appear in the secondary monitor.

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Span: If you have multiple images selected in the Viewer, some of the images will appear on the primary monitor and some on the secondary monitor.

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Blank: The secondary monitor will go black.

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Desktop: You computer’s desktop will appear in the secondary monitor.

Zoom Viewer Button Use the Zoom Viewer button to immediately view the selected image at 100%. When you click this button, Aperture will zoom the image straight out to 100% of its pixel size, centering the image in the Viewer (see Figure 1.38). If the area of the image that you want to examine at 100% does not appear within the visible area of the Viewer, reposition the image in the Viewer by dragging the small red square in the small rectangle that appears on the right of the image in the Viewer.

Tip Alternatively, you can zoom the image to full resolution by pressing the Z key or by choosing View>Zoom to Actual Size. If you use the Z key shortcut, position the cursor in the approximate area of the image that you want to see at full resolution in the Viewer. Aperture will automatically center that area for you.

Figure 1.37 The Viewer Mode pop-up menu for dual monitors.

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Drag this little red square to reposition the image.

Figure 1.38 Viewing images at full resolution in the Viewer.

Tip Don’t forget that you can use the Loupe to inspect areas of an image without zooming it!

Show Master Image Button If, at any time, you want to see the original image instead of the version that has been edited, you can click this button to load the original. This is an effective way of comparing that original image with a version to see how your edits may have affected it.


Note If you are working with an image that has a referenced Master Image and you click the Show Master Image button, Aperture will respond according to the status of the Master Image. For example, if the Master Image is on a removable disk and that disk is not attached to your computer, when you click the Show Master Image button the Master Image won’t be loaded (because it can’t be), and you’ll see the Master Image Offline notice on the image in the Viewer (see Figure 1.39). This will also happen if the Master Image has been lost.

Figure 1.39 Aperture can’t show a Master Image it can’t find.

Full Screen Button Clicking the Full Screen button activates Aperture’s Full Screen editing mode. We’ll discuss the Full Screen mode later in this chapter.

Primary Only Button If you have multiple images selected in the Browser and you apply ratings or keyword changes, you can apply those changes to all the selected images or to just one of the selected images, depending on whether this feature is toggled on or off.

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By default, the feature is turned off, meaning that it is set to apply changes to all selected images. To turn on the feature, click the button. If the button is darkened, the feature is on, meaning that whatever changes you make to the ratings or keywords will be applied only to the primary selection.

Rotate Buttons As you might expect, the Rotate buttons will rotate images either clockwise or counterclockwise. If you have multiple images selected and the Primary Only feature turned off, these buttons will affect all of the selected images.

Rating Buttons We’ll discuss rating images later in Chapter 6. These buttons are a quick way to apply or alter an image’s rating.

Navigation Buttons You can use these buttons to move backward and forward through the Browser images. Adjustments Inspector

The Inspectors When you are editing your images, you’ll likely want to see the controls available with the various tools and operations. Those controls are in the Inspectors windows, which appear on the right side of the Aperture desktop, as shown in Figure 1.40.

Note Metadata Inspector

Prior to Aperture 1.5, if one of the two Inspectors was open, they both had to be. Now, you can show either both of them or just one, and the area on the right side of the screen is a generic Inspectors panel. Hiding or showing that Inspectors panel will hide or show one or both of the two Inspectors, depending on what configuration you last had open.

You can access the Inspectors panel at any time by pressing I or by choosing Window>Show Inspectors. Whether one or both of the Inspectors are visible, pressing I will toggle the visibility of this entire panel. To open the Adjustments Inspector, click the Adjustments Inspector button on the Toolbar (shown back in Figure 1.6), choose Window>Show Adjustments, or press Control+A.

Figure 1.40 The Inspectors.


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To open the Metadata Inspector, click the Metadata Inspector button on the Toolbar (shown back in Figure 1.6), choose Window>Show Metadata, or press Control+D. We’ll cover the specific controls offered in these Inspectors in the later chapters that deal with the respective adjustments and metadata.

Switching Window Layouts Up to now, you’ve been working in the Basic window layout. Earlier in this chapter, you learned how to swap the Viewer and Browser positions from top to bottom and from side-by-side to above-and-below, and how to show and hide the Inspectors panel, the Projects panel, and the Control Bar. In addition to those changes to the Basic window layout, you can swap between the Basic layout and the Maximize Browser and Maximize Viewer window layouts.

Note For some reason, when Aperture 1.5 was introduced, the available preconfigured window layouts had been reduced from five to three. Now, Aperture offers only the Basic layout and the Maximize Browser and Maximize Viewer layouts. Additionally, the Toolbar buttons for quickly switching to one of the three layouts are no longer included on the default Toolbar. (In fact, no window layout buttons are included on the new Toolbar, and the old style window layout buttons are not even available in the Aperture 1.5 Customize Toolbar window.) If you had customized your Toolbar for previous versions of Aperture and then upgraded to Aperture 1.5, the selection of window layout buttons on your Toolbar will have remained the same, as shown in Figure 1.41, even though other buttons will have updated to the new Toolbar format. If this is the case for you, and you want to convert your Toolbar to the new format, choose View>Customize Toolbar to open the Customize Toolbar window. Then drag the default Toolbar layout from the Customize Toolbar window up to the Toolbar position on your screen. The default Aperture 1.5 Toolbar will replace the old format. Of course, if you want to keep your Toolbar in the older format, don’t do anything. It should work fine for you.

Window Layout buttons

Figure 1.41 The old window layout buttons might still be on your Toolbar.

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You can switch to these various preconfigured layout options quickly by pressing the keyboard shortcut for that particular layout, as specified below, or by choosing Window>Layouts and the respective layout in the submenu.

Tip If you want to have a Toolbar button to use to quickly switch to any one of the three preconfigured window layouts, you can add one or all three to the Toolbar by choosing View>Customize Toolbar and then dragging one or all three to the Toolbar. Then you can switch to any of them simply by clicking its button.

Basic So far, you’ve been working in the Basic window layout, which was first shown in Figure 1.4. As you’ve seen, you can alter this layout in many different ways, such as changing the sizes of the windows, changing the orientation of the Browser and Viewer, and showing and hiding the Projects panel, Viewer, Browser, Control Bar, and Inspectors. The Basic layout is the default layout in Aperture, and Apple recommends this layout for your initial importing and processing of images. Of course, you can choose to use any of the layouts for any task you’re doing. You can switch the layout to the Basic layout by pressing Option+Cmd+S or by choosing Window>Layouts>Basic.

Tip Remember that you can always shift the orientation of the Browser and Viewer from side-by-side to top-and-bottom by pressing Shift+W. You can also swap the positions of the Browser and Viewer from left-and-right to top-and-bottom by pressing Opt+W.

Maximize Browser The Maximize Browser layout closes the Viewer and maximizes the Browser to fill the entire desktop, with enough room left over for the Projects panel, as shown in Figure 1.42. The Project Management layout is optimized for working with the contents of a project or with multiple projects, allowing you to easily move images from one project to another.


Figure 1.42 The Maximize Browser layout.

You can switch the layout to the Maximize Browser layout by pressing Option+Cmd+B or by choosing Window>Layouts>Maximize Browser.

Working with Multiple Projects in the Browser You can open multiple Projects in the Browser—in this or any other window layout. Aperture provides two options for multiple project panes in the Browser: ■

To open an additional project in a tabbed pane of the current Browser window, as shown in Figure 1.43, press Command and click a project name in the Projects panel. You can open as many projects as you like in this manner.

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To open an additional project and split the Browser into two side-by-side windows, as shown in Figure 1.44, press Ctrl and click a project name in the Projects panel. You can only split the Browser into two windows, but you can add multiple tabbed projects to either window (see Figure 1.44).

When any project is open in either a split Browser window or a tabbed pane, whatever collection of that project you select will appear in that window or pane. For example, if you have the Tibet project open and you select the Landscapes album within that project, only the images contained in that album will appear in the split window or tabbed pane.

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Figure 1.43 Viewing multiple projects in separate tabbed panes of the Browser.

Figure 1.44 Viewing multiple projects in a split Browser.


While the Browser is split into two windows, you can: ■

To close a project in one of the split panes and open a different project in that pane, click the project in the pane to activate it and then click any other project in the Projects panel.

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To open an additional project in a new tabbed pane of any split pane, click a pane to activate it; then press Command and click any other project in the Projects panel.

Once you have opened a new tab or window, you can close it by: ■

Pressing Command+W.

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Choosing File>Close Tab.

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Clicking the close button on that project’s tab.

Maximize Viewer The Maximize Viewer layout, as you would expect, maximizes the area of the Viewer on the desktop, minimizing the Browser to a strip along the bottom of the screen, as shown in Figure 1.45.

Figure 1.45 The Maximize Viewer window layout.

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The Maximize Viewer layout provides a good layout for editing individual or multiple images. By default, neither the Projects panel, the Control Bar, nor the Inspectors is shown. But you can activate any or all of them using their respective keyboard shortcuts.

Tip Remember that you can also move the Browser from the bottom to the side of the screen by pressing Shift+W. By pressing Option+W, you can swap the Browser from one side of the screen to the other side or from top to bottom.

Note You can split the Browser while in the Maximize Viewer window layout, as described in the “Working with Multiple Projects in the Browser,” sidebar earlier in this chapter.

Working in Full Screen Mode The Full Screen mode, shown in Figure 1.46, blacks out the screen and displays the contents of the Viewer. The contents of the Browser are displayed in what is called the Filmstrip, shown at the bottom of Figure 1.46. When you enter Full Screen mode, Aperture’s interface changes. For the most part, you can still find everything you would see in any of the other viewing layouts. But there are some interface collections that are not accessible, including the Menu Bar at the top of the screen. You can access the Full Screen mode by pressing F or by choosing View>Full Screen. Exit the Full Screen mode by pressing F or by pressing Esc.


Query Rotate Search HUD Navigation Rating buttons field button buttons buttons

Display Zoom Exit Full Primary controls Viewer Screen Only button button button

Shuttle Control

Scroll bar

Filmstrip

Figure 1.46 Aperture’s Full Screen mode.

Making Adjustments and Other Edits While in the Full Screen Mode While in the Full Screen mode, you can’t access the Inspectors. But all of the controls and settings that you could access in the Inspectors are available as HUDs while in the Full Screen mode—just as they are in every other viewing mode. For example, if you want to adjust the RGB levels of an image, just press H while in the Full Screen mode. The Adjustments HUD will appear, as shown in Figure 1.47. Table 1-2 is a quick reference to the keyboard shortcuts for accessing HUDs.


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Figure 1.47 Press H to access the Adjustments HUD.

Table 1-2 Keyboard Shortcuts for Accessing HUDs Adjustments HUD

H

Keyword HUD

Shift+H

Crop HUD

C

Spot & Patch

X

Red Eye HUD

E

Lift & Stamp HUD

O

The Full Screen Mode Toolbar By default, the Full Screen Toolbar is offscreen. You access it the way you would Mac OS X’s Dock—by moving your cursor up to where the Toolbar is hiding at the top of the screen. You can also set it to remain on the screen all the time. To set the Toolbar to remain on the screen: ■

Access the Toolbar by sliding the cursor to the top of the screen and then click the Always Show Toolbar button (see Figure 1.48).


Always Show Toolbar button

Figure 1.48 The Full Screen Toolbar.

All the tools that appear in the Toolbar work the same way that they do in Aperture’s other viewing modes.

The Filmstrip Take a look at the Filmstrip, shown in Figures 1.46 and 1.47. Notice that almost all of the same buttons that populate the Control Bar are stacked here in the far left of the Filmstrip. There are exceptions: The individual keyword buttons are not available, the Show Master Image button is gone, and the Full Screen button of the Control Bar has changed to the Exit Full Screen button. All of those buttons and controls that do appear here in the Filmstrip work the same way in Full Screen mode as they do in Aperture’s other viewing modes. Navigating through the Filmstrip works the same way that navigating through the Browser works, with the exception of having only one horizontal row of images, so you can’t go up and down through the Filmstrip. You can still select multiple images, in just the same way you would in the Browser. (Remember to make sure your viewing mode is set to Multiple Images.)

Controlling the Filmstrip’s Behavior In several ways, the Filmstrip also behaves the way the Mac OS X Dock does. By default, the Filmstrip is set to be there at the bottom of the screen all the time. But you can change that. To set the Filmstrip to hide when you’re not using it: ■

Press Ctrl+period.

■

Click the Viewer Mode pop-up menu and choose Auto.

Now when you move the cursor away from the Filmstrip, it will disappear. To make it reappear, simply slide your cursor to the area where the Filmstrip is hiding. To set the Filmstrip to remain on the screen at all times: ■

Press Ctrl+slash.

■

Click the Viewer Mode pop-up menu and choose On.

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Moving and Resizing the Filmstrip You can actually move the Filmstrip to anywhere you want it on the screen, even right in the middle. Just click the top of the Filmstrip and drag it to where you want to move it. If you move it to the sides of the screen, the Filmstrip will rearrange to a vertical orientation.

Note If the Filmstrip is on either side of the screen, you have to click the left-most edge to move it.

When the Filmstrip is oriented horizontally, as it is in Figure 1.49, you can make it wider or narrower by dragging the small dots on either side to enlarge it or reduce it, as shown in Figure 1.49.

Figure 1.49 Drag the little dots to resize the Filmstrip.

If the Filmstrip is oriented vertically along the side of the screen, you can make it taller or shorter by dragging those little dots up or down. Although you can’t adjust the size of the Filmstrip to show more than one row of images, you can increase or decrease the size of the images and the Filmstrip by sliding the Thumbnail resize slider from left to right, as shown in Figure 1.50.

Figure 1.50 Drag the Thumbnail resize slider to resize the images and the Filmstrip.


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Setting the Filmstrip Not to Overlap Your Images By default, the Filmstrip is set so that images displayed on the screen may hide behind the Filmstrip, as does the image in Figure 1.50. Fortunately, you can change this if it bothers you. To turn this off, so that your view of the selected image or images will not be obscured by the Viewer: ■

Press Ctrl+V.

■

Click the Viewer Mode pop-up menu and choose Avoid.

Changing Aperture’s Preferences Aperture has a minimal set of preferences compared to Photoshop. Access the Preferences window, shown in Figure 1.51, by pressing Cmd+comma or by choosing Aperture>Preferences.

Changing the Image Management Preferences

Image Management preferences

Notice that the Aperture Preferences window is divided into four sections. In the top section, Image Management, you can tell Aperture where to find your Library file and how to respond to connecting a camera.

Interface preferences

Telling Aperture about Your Library File In the preference field titled Library Location, you’ll see where Aperture is storing your Library file and the name of that Library file. The default location for Aperture’s Library file is in the Pictures directory of your Home directory, which is the same location where your iPhoto library is located. You can change the name of your Library file to anything you want, but leave the extension .aplibrary, or Aperture won’t know it’s a Library file.

Output preferences

Previews preferences

Figure 1.51 Aperture’s Preferences window.

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You can also store your Library file wherever it suits you. You don’t have to leave it in the Pictures directory.

Tip Prior to Aperture 1.5, if you renamed your Library file or moved your Library file to any other location, you had to tell Aperture here in this window what the new Library file name was and where to find it. If you didn’t make the changes in the preferences, Aperture would have automatically created a new Library file here in this location when it relaunched the next time. Now, however, Aperture has a new little trick. If you move your Library file outside your Pictures folder and give it a new name, all you have to do to reset this preference and open Aperture to that Library file is to double-click the Library file in the Finder. Just close Aperture, make whatever changes you want to your Library file name or move it to whatever location you want, and then double-click that Library file. Aperture will open to that Library file, and this preference will be automatically updated with the location and name of that Library file. This little trick can be a real timesaver if you regularly use and switch between multiple Library files.

To change the name of your Library file, follow these steps: 1. Go out to the Finder. Navigate to your Pictures directory. 2. Click the existing Library file, which has the file extension .aplibrary. 3. Click the name of the file again to highlight its Name text field. 4. Type in any new name you want, but leave the file extension. 5. Go back to Aperture and access the preferences by pressing Cmd+comma or by choosing Aperture>Preferences. 6. Click the Choose button just beneath the Library Location text field in the Preferences window. 7. When the directory dialog box opens, click the new name of your Library file. 8. Quit Aperture. 9. Relaunch Aperture. When Aperture reopens, you should see the same Library contents as before, but you will have renamed the Library.


To move your Library file, follow these steps: 1. Go out to the Finder. Navigate to your Pictures directory. 2. Open any other directory and drag the Library file to that directory. 3. Go back to Aperture and access the preferences by pressing Cmd+comma or by choosing Aperture>Preferences. 4. Click the Choose button just beneath the Library Location text field in the Preferences window. 5. When the directory dialog box opens, navigate to the new location of your Library file and click the name of your Library file. 6. Quit Aperture. 7. Relaunch Aperture. Now when Aperture reopens, it will have opened the Library file at that new location. If you want to change the name of the Library file and move it, just follow those same steps, but do both the renaming step and the moving step.

Tip As you can probably guess, you can use these steps to create any number of Library files, stored wherever you might want them. However, you can open only one Library file at a time in Aperture. So the most logical uses of multiple Library files would include deep storage, backup, libraries for different photographers, and so on—those cases when you know you won’t be using the contents of those Libraries all the time.

Telling Aperture Which Application to Open when You Connect a Camera to Your Computer When you connect a digital camera to your computer, the Mac OS will sense that connection and will launch one of your image applications. The application might be iPhoto or Image Capture, which is an application that is included in the OS and is automatically loaded onto your computer when the OS is installed. It could also be Photoshop or a proprietary software application provided by the manufacturer of your digital camera. In fact, it could be any application you want, although you probably wouldn’t want to open the Chess application when you connect your camera.

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Note This Preferences window in Aperture is one of two places that you can specify this preference. The other is in the Image Capture application preferences. Many photographers will use their computers for years without ever using Image Capture. But if you were using iPhoto before the advent of Aperture and you needed to change the preference for which application to open when a camera was connected, Image Capture was the only place to change that preference. You can’t actually change that preference in iPhoto.

To specify which application to open when a camera is connected, follow these steps: 1. Click the “When a camera is connected, open” popup menu, as shown in Figure 1.52. 2. Choose any of the default selections or choose Other. 3. If you chose Other, a directory dialog box will open. Navigate to the application you want and doubleclick it or click it once and then click the Open button of the dialog box.

Note If you have previously defined an application using this pop-up menu, that application will appear as a previously selected choice, beneath the default choices in the menu, as are Camera Window and Adobe Photoshop CS2 in the menu shown in Figure 1.52. If you navigate to an application in the directory dialog box and that application is dimmed, either it’s the application that is currently chosen or it is one of the previously selected choices in the pop-up menu. Figure 1.52 Choose an application from this menu.

Choosing to See Thumbnails of Versions in the Browser and Whether to Be Warned when You’re about to Delete a Master You also have two other choices in this region of the Preferences window. You can choose to have Aperture create a new version of any photo you edit, and you can choose to have Aperture warn you if you’re about to delete a master file or files.


Create New Versions when Making Adjustments

By default, this option is not checked. What that means is that in the Browser you’ll see only one thumbnail for each image you have in your Library, even if you’ve edited that image. But if you click this check box to turn on this option, Aperture will create a new thumbnail that shows the edited version alongside the thumbnail for the original version.

Note As you’ll learn in the next chapter, Aperture never writes edits to an original image file. Aperture merely stores information about what you’ve done to a file and then uses it to display the image on-screen and/or to export, print out, or publish. What that means to us in this context is that Aperture is always showing us a version of your original image file—even if it only shows one thumbnail for the image. This choice in the Preferences simply tells Aperture to actually create a thumbnail in the Browser that shows the edited version, next to a thumbnail of the original image.

Show Warning when Deleting Masters

By default, this option is turned on. When you attempt to delete an image from a project, you’ll see the dialog box shown in Figure 1.53, warning you that you’re about to delete a master, original image file. This is one of those preferences that really can protect you from making an irreversible error, and there’s no reason not to have it turned on.

Changing the Interface Preferences

Figure 1.53 Why wouldn’t you want to see this warning?

The Interface section of the Preferences window contains the preferences governing ways the Aperture desktop looks and how Aperture advises you about certain operations. These preferences really are about your preferences and don’t really affect the way Aperture works. For example, if you don’t want to see the Loading indicator superimposed over an image as it loads, you can turn it off and not really affect Aperture’s efficiency or your workflow. These preferences are pretty intuitive. Table 1-3 lists them and what they affect.

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Table 1-3 Interface Preferences Hot Area Display Threshold

Defines the level of brightness at which Aperture will display the red pixels that define a Hot Area, as described earlier in this chapter and as shown in Figures 1.28 and 1.29.

Viewer Background Brightness

Defines the level of brightness of the background of the Viewer, from full white to full black, in 25% increments.

Grid View Background Brightness

Defines the level of brightness of the background of the Grid View of the Browser, from full white to full black, in 25% increments.

Show Loading indicator Turns on and off this indicator. while full size images load Show tooltips on controls

Turns on and off the tooltips that appear when you hold the cursor over a control or tool on the desktop. This feature is particularly useful as you learn to use Aperture, and it’s on by default.

Use proportional spacing for images in Grid View

As described earlier in this chapter, turning on this feature will “squeeze” vertical images together tighter in the Browser’s Grid View, allowing more vertical images to appear across each row of the Browser.

Add gaps between Sort Groups

Images in the Browser are always sorted according to some criterion, whether it’s by date, rating, keyword, etc. This feature creates visual groups according to that sort criterion. So if you are sorting by date and turn on this feature, Aperture will group together all the images taken on one date, adding extra space between them and images taken on other dates, as shown in Figure 1.54.

Show number of versions for projects and albums

Numbers will appear on the right side of the Projects panel, indicating the number of versions that are in each of the collections.


Figure 1.54 Adding gaps between sort groups in the Browser.

Search Scope The one preference in this section that can have an affect on how Aperture works for you is the Search Scope preference. You have two choices with this feature. When you enter text in a search field, Aperture will search either through all of the text associated with images (Full text search) or through all text except the EXIF image data (Limited text search).

Changing Output Preferences The Output section of the Preferences window contains those preferences that affect what Aperture does when you output images to an external editor, to an email application, or to Web galleries and Web journals.

Defining an External Editor and How to Prep Images for It Here you can tell Aperture what digital imaging application (such as Photoshop) to use for editing images beyond Aperture’s capabilities and what to do with the images it sends out to that application.

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Note One of Aperture’s most helpful features is its Round-Trip feature, which interacts with your external photo editing application. We’ll go into detail about how this feature works in Chapter 10.

To define your external image editor, follow these steps: 1. Click the Choose button just beneath the External Image Editor text box. In the directory dialog box that opens, navigate to the imaging application you want to use. 2. Double-click the name of the application or click Select. When Aperture creates a version to send out to the external editor you have chosen, it will create the version as either a TIFF file or a Photoshop (PSD) file, at a dpi (dots-per-inch) setting you define. To define the file format, simply click the External Editor File Format pop-up menu and select one of the two listed formats. To define the dpi setting, enter a number in the dpi number box.

Note DPI is often misunderstood as being the definition of how large or small a digital image is. Actually, it’s the number of pixels contained in a digital image file that determines how large the file is. The subject of digital image resolution is too complicated for this space, but suffice to say that if you’re working with images destined for the Web or for other digital display, the dpi setting doesn’t matter at all. The dpi, or dots-per-inch resolution, only affects how large the external editing application will print the image you send out. This setting will not change or affect the pixel size of the image. What this means is that if you’re not intending the image for print output—from that external application—then you don’t even need to worry about the dpi setting. In fact, even if you are intending to print the image from that external editor, you can usually change its dpi resolution in that external editor.


Defining an Email Application and How to Prep Images for It You can email images directly out of Aperture. With these preferences, you can tell Aperture what email application you use and what to do with the images that you send out in an email message. Choosing an email application is easy. The email applications you can choose will appear in the Email Images Using pop-up menu. Select the one you prefer. Defining the values for the images that go out via email can be a lot more complicated. Click the Email Export Preset pop-up menu. You’ll see the menu shown in Figure 1.55. The options offered in the Email Export Preset pop-up menu provide a wide array of possible file formats, file sizes, and compression levels. If you see any one of these that fits your needs, good! Choose it. You’re done. But if none of those presets meets your needs, you can edit one of those to create a new one. To edit the Email Export Preset options, click the Edit button next to the Email Export Preset pop-up menu button to open the Export Presets dialog box, shown in Figure 1.56.

Figure 1.55 The Email Export Preset pop-up menu.

As you can see, the prebuilt export presets are listed down the left side of the Export Presets dialog box. If you select any one of those presets, you’ll see its values populate the various settings on the right side of the dialog box. You can edit any of those settings to change the preset to produce any type of file you want.

Note If you want to edit an existing preset, it’s advisable to make a copy of that preset and then edit it. If you select one of the prebuilt Export Presets and make changes to it, you may make changes to that preset that could later cause problems or confusion. For example, if you select the JPEG - Original Size preset and then change Image Format to TIFF, that preset will no longer produce a JPEG, even though its name suggests it will.

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To create a new preset, select one that offers a close approximation of the values you want. (You can’t create a new preset completely from scratch.) Then click the add (+) button in the lower-left corner of the dialog box to create a copy of the preset you’ve selected. You’ll see a new preset with the same name as the one you originally selected, with the word Copy added to its name. You can now edit the values on the right side of the dialog box to fit your needs. The preferences and settings that you can edit in the Export Presets dialog box are explained in Table 1-4. To delete an Export Preset, click its name on the left side of the Export Presets dialog box and then click the delete (-) button in the lower left of the dialog box. A warning dialog will appear, requesting approval for the deletion.

Figure 1.56 The Export Presets dialog box.

Table 1-4 Export Presets Preferences Image Format pop-up menu

Choose a file format from this menu.

Include Metadata check box (not available with the PNG-8 format)

If you want to include existing EXIF and IPTC metadata in the newly created version, make sure this check box is checked.

Image Quality slider (available only with the JPEG format)

Slide this to set a JPEG compression setting from 0 (far left) to 12 (far right). 0 is the highest compression/lowest quality setting.

Size To pop-up menu

Choose from Original Size, Fit Within (Pixels), Fit Within (Inches), or Percent of Original. Once you choose one of those options, value boxes pertinent to that option will appear below the menu.

DPI value box

Enter a numeric DPI value.

Gamma Adjust slider

Slide this to add a gamma adjustment to the exported images (an advanced option).


ColorSync Profile pop-up menu

When you click this pop-up menu button, all of the available ColorSync profiles on your computer will appear in the menu. You can select any one of them.

Black Point Turning on this option will scale the black-andCompensation check box white luminance values to the selected ColorSync profile. Show Watermark check box

Turn on this option to add a watermark to your exported images.

[Watermark] Position pop-up menu

Choose a position on the exported image, where the watermark will appear.

[Watermark] Opacityslider

Specify the opacity of the watermark by sliding this.

Choose [Watermark] Image button

Click this to open a directory dialog. Navigate to the image you want to use for the watermark.

Note More information on creating watermarks to add to your exported images can be found in Chapter 11.

Changing Previews Preferences With the major change to Aperture’s storage structure that came with Aperture 1.5, you can now substitute lower-resolution preview images for master images while working in Aperture. (You’ll learn more about previews in Chapters 2 and 3.) Here in the bottom section of the Preferences window, you can define some of the preferences that govern how previews will be generated and handled in Aperture.

Telling Aperture to Generate Previews Clicking the check box for “New projects automatically generate previews” tells Aperture that any time you create a new project and import images into that project, you want previews to be created for those images. If you don’t want previews generated automatically for every project, leave this option turned off. If it’s turned off, you can still generate previews for individual projects through the Projects panel, which you’ll learn about in Chapter 3.

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Telling Aperture to Share Previews As of Aperture 1.5, all of the images you import into Aperture can be viewed from within the iLife and iWork applications, such as iPhoto and Keynote. Turning on this option allows the previews of your images to be available in those applications.

Note The sharing previews preference isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. If you turn off sharing here, it only affects projects you create from then on. All of the projects that you already had created while preview sharing was turned on will still be available to those other applications. In other words, this preference isn’t something you can turn on and off and have it immediately make previews available and not available in other applications. And what’s even weirder is that if you delete projects from Aperture, those other applications will still see the projects from the Aperture Library—but without any previews. The deleted projects don’t disappear from the XML file that those applications are reading until you create a new project in Aperture, and Aperture then rewrites the XML file. When you turn off the sharing previews preference, Aperture does not delete that XML file. Suffice to say, this preference is a sort of long-term application preference that you should decide to turn on and off, depending on whether you think you will or won’t ever need to use your Aperture images in those other applications.

Apple also advises that if you’re sharing a lot of images, the XML file will become quite large and can affect Aperture performance. That’s another good reason to assess your need for using this feature and perhaps leaving it turned off if it’s not something you really need to use.

Tip Once you have turned on sharing previews preference in Aperture, the XML file that Aperture writes for the other applications remains in the Library file, even if you then turn off the sharing previews preference. If for some reason you want to turn off the sharing previews and remove that XML file, you can open the Library file by Control+Clicking it and choosing Open Package Contents, and then delete or move the file named ApertureData.xml. You can put it somewhere other than in that Aperture Library file, and if you ever want to use it again, you can put it back in the Library file, and Aperture will once again share it.


Defining the Size of Previews Whether you choose to have Aperture automatically generate previews when you import photos or do it yourself later, you can specify the size of the previews that will be generated. If you’re working on a MacBook or MacBook Pro and don’t want to use up all your disk storage space, you can choose to have Aperture create lower-resolution previews, which will use up less space. If you’re working on a desktop computer with lots of storage space, you might want to have Aperture create previews at the highest possible resolution. The Preview Quality slider corresponds with the JPEG quality scale. It starts at the 0 (low quality) setting and goes up to the 12 (high quality) setting. You can set it at any number in between. By default, it’s set at 5. The Limit preview size pop-up menu, shown in Figure 1.57, can be a great setting for you if you intend to use a lot of your previews as slideshows or in other media presentations. If you know the screen resolution of the display you’ll be using, such as your computer’s screen or a video projector, you can set this to make sure that previews are not created any larger than necessary for optimum display on that device. That way, the previews will be as good as they need to be but won’t take up any more space than necessary in your storage devices.

Figure 1.57 Pick a maximum screen resolution from this menu to restrict the size of your previews.

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2 Understanding Aperture’s Directory Structure and Storage Options Aperture doesn’t work like Photoshop or other digital imaging applications you might use. You’re probably accustomed to launching an application and then navigating somewhere in your directory structure to open an image to work on. You apply your edits and changes, and then you save that new, altered image back to wherever you originally opened it. As of Aperture 1.5, you have options for how you store your images. Even so, when you work on an image in Aperture, you must first “import” that image into Aperture’s Library—whether or not you choose to actually import the stored image’s original digital file into Aperture’s Library. You also need to understand how images are arranged and distributed within Aperture’s interface after you’ve imported them. In this chapter, you’ll learn about how Aperture stores images and how they’re organized in Aperture’s projects, albums, and so on.

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Note Although they are an integral part of Aperture’s directory structure and storage paradigm, previews are not related to your decision about which storage option to choose. Previews are a substitute for the original image file that shows up in the Viewer—whether that image is a managed image or referenced master. When you generate previews, Aperture will use them to display your work in the Viewer instead of relying on the larger original digital image. By using previews, you can save display rendering time, thereby improving Aperture’s performance. You will be able to choose to use previews, regardless of whether you’re working with managed images or referenced masters.

Aperture’s New Storage Paradigm When Aperture was first launched, you had only one storage option for the images you wanted to use in Aperture—you had to store them all in Aperture’s Library file. As of Aperture 1.5, however, you are no longer required to store all of your Aperture images within the Aperture Library file. You still have that option, but now you can choose to store images outside the Library file and then reference the original master files when you work on them. This new option allows you to store images pretty much anywhere you want: for example, on your hard drive, on removable drives, on a networked storage device, or anywhere else you choose. Now, when you import images into Aperture, you are given an option of importing new masters into the Aperture Library file or leaving them at whatever location from which you are importing them. If you choose to import the new master into the Library file, Aperture works the way it always has, creating new managed masters in its Library file from which all digital information about that original image will be read. If you choose to leave the original images where they are, Aperture will store a reference to the master in which it will keep the information about where Aperture can find the original image file.

Note Even when you choose to import masters into Aperture, you’re still leaving the true masters where you first got them. For example, if you import the masters from your camera as soon as you take the photos, the original images will still be on the camera after Aperture imports them as masters (unless and until you delete them from the camera). The same would be true of images that you import from a disk or other storage device. Aperture doesn’t import them and then delete the original images. Aperture creates new masters.

Chapter 2 ■ Understanding Aperture’s Directory Structure and Storage Options

What this means is that even if you’re importing full masters into Aperture, you still have some backup possibilities if you don’t delete the images from where Aperture imported them. It also means that you could wind up using twice as much storage space, if you’re keeping both the original image files and new fullsized master files in Aperture.

This new external storage feature of Aperture 1.5 allows you much greater flexibility when working with images in Aperture. You can reduce the size of your Library if you don’t import full original images, and you can store images in external drives and leave them detached from your computer when you’re not working on them, freeing up valuable storage space.

Note Don’t misunderstand what the new storage flexibility means in terms of how Aperture works. Whether you import only one managed image or 1,000 referenced masters, you must first import images into the Aperture Library file before you can work on them in Aperture. Even when you work on referenced masters that are stored somewhere else, you’re still working on images that have been imported into Aperture in one of the two ways. You still don’t have the option of opening Aperture and then simply opening one individual image somewhere on a disk drive to work on.

Understanding Aperture’s Library File As described previously, you can now choose to store your original images files in or outside of Aperture’s Library file. But regardless of which storage option you choose, you’re still going to be working within Aperture’s Library file, and you should have an understanding of how it is structured. When you import files into Aperture’s Library file, whether you’re creating a brand new master of that image or referencing a master stored elsewhere, Aperture will read and use that original image as it applies all of the edits you make in Aperture. Unlike the way Photoshop works, where you go out into your own directory structure and select an image file to edit, Aperture works only on images that have been imported into its own Library file. This approach is different even from Aperture’s sister application, iPhoto. Even though iPhoto also creates new “originals” and puts them in a directory structure of its own, it puts them in a directory tree that works just like the rest of the folders in your Mac OS directory structure.

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Note The Aperture Library file is one of the package files originally introduced in Mac OS X. Package files are essentially folders, but they can’t be accessed the same way that other folders are accessed. They don’t even appear to be folders. But they are, and they may have a bunch of files and folders within them, just like regular folders.

If you think of the Library file as a folder, it may be easier for you to understand the structure within it. Just as you can add files and folders to a normal folder, you can add files and folders to an Aperture Library file—but in this case, you’ll do it from within Aperture. And everything you have inside your Aperture Library file will appear in the Projects panel.

Note Although Aperture only allows you to open one Library file at a time, you can have different Library files. To open a different Library file than the one you currently have open, press Cmd+Comma or choose Aperture>Preferences to open the Preferences dialog box, where you can choose a new Library file. You can also quickly change Library files by closing Aperture, navigating in your computer’s directory structure to a different Library file, and then double-clicking that Library file to reopen Aperture to that Library file. For more information, see the section, “Telling Aperture about Your Library File,” in Chapter 1.

Exploring Aperture’s Library File Think of Aperture’s Library file as a mixture of a folder and a database file. In reality, it’s one of the Mac operating system’s package files, which are essentially folders that just don’t happen to appear the same way regular folders do in the Mac OS Finder. To explore a Library file, go to your Finder desktop and locate the Library file, which has the icon shown in Figure 2.1. By default, Aperture will create your first Library file at the top level of your Pictures folder in your Home directory. Aperture’s library files have the extension .aplibrary, so you could also do a search for files with that extension if you have trouble locating a Library file.

Figure 2.1 The Aperture Library file’s icon.


Once you locate the file, press Option and click the file name, or right-click the file name. Select Show Package Contents from the context menu. Now the library/package file will open just like a normal folder, as shown in Figure 2.2, and you can see what’s inside. Look for the files in this first folder that have the .approject file extension and the icon shown in Figure 2.3. If you imported the sample project offered when you first opened Aperture, you should see the file Tibet.approject. This file and all other project files are also package files.

Figure 2.3 The icon for Aperture’s project files.

Figure 2.2 Once opened, the Library file’s contents are displayed.

Repeat the procedure described previously to open the Tibet project file. Press Option and click the file, and select Show Package Contents. In the project’s window, choose View>List to display the contents as a directory listing, as shown in Figure 2.4. Now you’ll see several files and folders. The one here in this Tibet project file that starts with a date and ends with .apimportgroup is the folder that contains all the original images that were imported into that project. Double-click it or click its disclosure triangle to open it.

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Figure 2.4 Open the image folder to find the image file.

That folder will open to show a bunch of folders that begin with _DSC and EPV and so on, as shown in Figure 2.5. Each of these folders contains one original image and all of the data files that tell Aperture what edits you’ve applied in Aperture. Figure 2.5 The original image file stored in the Library.

The file that is highlighted in Figure 2.5 is the original image file. Notice that in this case, the file is 19.3 megabytes in size and that all of the other files in this folder are much smaller, and many are only a few kilobytes in size. Those smaller files are the files in which Aperture stores the information about what you may have done to an image in Aperture. If the image had been a referenced master, the directory window would show all the same contents except the large original master file. As described in Chapter 1, Aperture applies a nondestructive method of editing to the original images. These smaller files tell Aperture how to display and export the image with the edits applied. But the original image file is untouched. No matter what you might have done to that image in Aperture, if you copy it to another disk, that original image will look exactly the way it did when you first imported it into Aperture.


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Figure 2.6 When previews are generated, an image’s folder will have additional folders for previews and thumbnails.

Look at the directory window shown in Figure 2.6. Notice that there are now two additional folders in that same image’s folder. The Previews folder and Thumbnails folder were created when Aperture created a preview for that particular image. This is the way to find any original image file that you’ve imported into Aperture. It’s also important to remember that “original” image files may be duplicates of original files, if you imported them from other camera disks, CDs and DVDs, or hard drives and didn’t—or couldn’t—delete those originals when you imported them into Aperture.

Understanding the Difference Between the Way Aperture and Photoshop Work and Store Images If you’re an experienced Photoshop user, you know that in order to work on a digital image in Photoshop, all you do is open Photoshop and then navigate to a particular image file that you have placed somewhere within the structure of your computer’s directory. Photoshop opens the file, and you can work on it. After you complete your work, you save the file, and Photoshop writes a new version of the file, completely obliterating the previous version of the file you opened. Aperture doesn’t work that way at all. Think of Aperture as a storage application blended with Photoshop. Before you can work on an image in Aperture, you have to import the image into Aperture’s Library—even if you’re storing the actual digital image file somewhere outside of Aperture’s Library. All images that you work on in Aperture are being stored in or at least referenced from within Aperture’s Library, even if you’re not actively working on them. That’s one of the significant differences between Aperture and Photoshop. Aperture isn’t just an editing application. It’s a database of images, with all the images stored within or referenced from within the application’s active Library file.

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That’s one of the reasons that Aperture eats up computing resources and requires high-powered computers; it’s keeping track of all those images at once. Perhaps the most important difference between these two applications is that Aperture never overwrites the original digital file that contains the image information. You know that when you save an image in Photoshop, that image is changed forever. You can’t change your mind and go back and apply a different color correction to the original image—the original image is gone. But Aperture never overwrites your masters or your referenced masters—or even the previews. You can edit them in any number of different ways, creating different versions for each different edit if you want to. And Aperture will write only the instructions—to a separate file—and will only apply them to original files when you ask it to output files as prints, new digital images, or photos for Photoshop to edit.

Understanding Previews and Referenced Masters It’s a common misconception to think that previews are the result of using referenced masters, but previews are separate from referenced masters and are not the substitute for the original image file. Both of these features were new in Aperture 1.5, so it’s easy to associate them. But you can have previews even if you’re working with all managed images, and you don’t have to have previews even if you’re working with all referenced masters. When you choose to store your original image files outside the Library file, Aperture will store only the information about where to find these referenced masters. Aperture won’t automatically generate preview images for these masters unless you have chosen that option in Aperture’s preferences. Additionally, if you tell Aperture to generate previews for all projects or for specific projects, you will generate previews even for managed images. Even if you don’t want Aperture to automatically generate previews, you can manually generate previews for any individual images you choose. Understanding how these features work is important to understanding how you can optimize your Aperture workflow and image storage plans.

Working with Previews Previews are JPEGs generated by Aperture according to your instructions. As you learned in the section on setting Aperture’s preferences in Chapter 1, you can tell Aperture to automatically generate previews for every new project or not to generate previews for every new project. You can also have Aperture create and maintain previews for any or all of your existing projects.


Why Use Previews? There are two main reasons to use previews in Aperture: One is performance and the other is to share them with the iLife and iWork applications. Aperture can now share images with iPhoto and the other iLife and iWork applications—but only previews of those images. Aperture doesn’t share the original image files, whether they’re managed or referenced. So if you want use your images in iPhoto, you have to generate and maintain previews. The performance issue is about screen drawing or rendering time. One of the reasons that Aperture can use up a lot of computing resources is that when you edit an image in Aperture, the application is not saving that edited image as a new file on the disk. Aperture is only saving the instructions that tell it what to do with that image. So each time you want to look at that image in Aperture, Aperture has to redraw the image based on all those instructions—going back to the very first edits you may have made. If you’re working on an original master file rather than a smaller preview file, that redrawing on the screen can take a while. Unless you choose to generate and maintain previews, Aperture is always working with the data from the original image file, whether it’s a managed image stored in the Library or a referenced master. Regardless if you’re seeing that original file in the Viewer at 10% of its size or at 100% of its size, Aperture is using the entire original file data to make the calculations necessary to draw that image on the screen. If you’re working with original images taken with a 12-megapixel digital camera, it can take a lot of calculating to render an image on-screen with a new color tint to it. If you select multiple images in the Browser to display in the Viewer, Aperture has to draw all of those images by applying the stored calculations to their original image files. This is where Aperture’s new previews feature can help performance. Now you can generate and maintain previews for any or all of your images. By using previews, you can speed up Aperture, because Aperture won’t have to spend as much time rendering images. What this all means is that if you’re taking large RAW format photos with a professional digital SLR, you could significantly improve the performance of Aperture by generating previews for those photos. If, on the other hand, you’re using Aperture to work on images that are already JPEGs saved from a lower-megapixel camera, using previews may not result in significant performance changes. Additionally, previews can help performance when displaying images as a slideshow. If you generate previews that are the same size as the display you’ll be using for a slideshow, Aperture won’t have to calculate a change of pixel resolution to draw the image for display, and as a result, your slideshows can run more smoothly.

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Turning On and Off Previews for Individual Projects or All Projects If you have imported projects without automatically generating previews, you can later change your mind and have Aperture create and maintain previews for any one project or all projects in your library. You might find this option beneficial if you’re upgrading from any Aperture version prior to 1.5 and have a large library full of existing projects that don’t have previews. To turn on the maintenance of previews for one particular project, select that project in the Projects panel and then click the Project Action pop-up menu and choose Maintain Previews for Project (see Figure 2.7). To turn on the maintenance of previews for all projects in your library, select the Library in the Projects panel and then click the Project Action pop-up menu, which will then offer Maintain Previews for All Projects.

Figure 2.7 Choosing Maintain Previews for Project will turn on previews for one project.

Tip If you have a lot of existing projects that don’t have previews and you tell Aperture to maintain previews for those projects, you may see a degradation of performance in Aperture. Once you tell Aperture to maintain previews for those projects, Aperture will generate previews in the background until previews have been generated for all of the images in those projects. This background process may slow Aperture’s performance considerably, because Aperture will be applying computing resources to the preview generation. You may want to wait to turn on preview maintenance for those projects when you’re not busy with Aperture.

Manually Generating and Updating Previews If you have chosen not to have Aperture automatically generate previews, you can manually create previews by selecting any one image or multiple images, pressing Option, and then choosing Images>Generate Previews, which will create new previews for those images that don’t have previews, while not updating any existing previews. Alternatively, you can create new previews while you update existing previews by selecting images and choosing Images without holding the Option key. Instead of seeing Images>Generate Previews, you’ll see Images>Update Previews. Choosing Images>Update Previews will update any existing previews and create new previews for selected images that don’t already have previews.


Tip Aperture doesn’t like to update previews if it doesn’t have to. So if you try to update previews that are already up to date, you get a warning dialog box telling you that you have to press the Option key to get the Images>Generate Previews command if you really want to re-render or update the already up-to-date image. You can actually use this re-render feature if you decide to change the size of any existing previews you might have. Let’s say you originally had Aperture generate previews at a JPEG compression setting of 5, but now you realize you want them to be a higher quality. You can go to the Aperture Preferences window (by pressing comma or choosing Aperture>Preferences) and set the Preview Quality slider to where you now want it. Go to the Browser, select all the images you want to change, and then press Option while choosing Image>Generate Previews. Voila! You’ll have all new, higher quality previews. You could use this tip to change your previews in any way you might want.

Deleting Previews You can delete any previews you want by selecting images and choosing Images>Delete Previews. If you then open the Library file and navigate to individual image files, you’ll see that the Previews and Thumbnails folders are still there, but they’re empty.

Working with Referenced Masters Remember that you can’t work on any image in Aperture unless you first import that image into Aperture. You can, however, choose to import only a preview of an image and store the original image file elsewhere. When you do choose to import an image and leave its original image file somewhere else, Aperture will keep a reference to where that original image is kept. Referenced masters are the original image files for images you have imported into Aperture while choosing to store the originals somewhere other than within the Aperture Library file. Referenced masters can be stored on your hard drive, external drives, removable drives, CDs, DVDs, or any other storage device you may have.

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Note You can’t work on a referenced master in Aperture unless that reference master is available to Aperture. In other words, even if you can see the preview of a referenced master, you won’t be able to make adjustments or other edits to it unless Aperture can find the original referenced master somewhere. If you have stored the referenced master on an external or removable drive, you’ll have to connect that drive in order to work on the image.

Identifying Referenced Masters in the Browser and Viewer When an image is relying on a referenced master, Aperture will display a badge on it that indicates that it is a referenced master and show the status of the referenced master, as shown in Figure 2.8. Referenced master is lost. Referenced master is offline. Referenced master

You can turn off that referenced master badge by checking the Badge referenced images preference in the Aperture preferences. Even if you do, however, the badges will be displayed on images whose referenced masters are offline or lost.

Changing Managed Images to Referenced Masters Even if you import images as managed images, which means that their original image files are imported into Aperture’s Library file, you can later remove those original image files, move them to another location, and make the images have referenced masters. You can convert one image by selecting it, you can convert multiple images by selecting multiple images, and you can convert all of the images in an entire project by selecting a project. After selecting an image, images, or a project, choose File>Relocate Masters. Aperture will open a directory dialog box, and you can choose a new location for the masters. If the masters are currently within the Library file, moving them to a new location will change the images from managed images to referenced masters.

Figure 2.8 Types of badges for referenced masters.


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Moving Referenced Masters Relocating referenced masters is the same process as that described above for changing managed images to referenced masters. You select images, choose File>Relocate Masters, and then navigate to where you want to move the masters.

Changing Referenced Masters into Managed Images Bringing referenced masters into the Library turns them into managed images. You can easily do that by selecting either an image, a group of images, a project, or even the entire Library and then choosing File>Consolidate Masters. If you have selected a project, you’ll see File>Consolidate Masters for Project. If you have selected the Library, you’ll see File>Consolidate Masters for Library. Aperture will then offer you a choice of either moving the master files from their location or just copying them. This is an important consideration because moving the files means that they’ll be deleted from the original location after they’re moved to the Aperture Library file. If you want to keep copies of those original image files where they are, you should select Copy.

Figure 2.9 Do you want to move the masters or just copy them?

Pinpointing Referenced Masters on Your Storage Devices You know how tedious it can be to locate a particular image on your hard drive, even if you know where it is. You have to go out to the Finder, open a window, and navigate through several levels before you finally get there. If the image is a referenced master in Aperture, however, you can jump right to that image’s original file. Just select the image and choose File>Show in Finder or press Control and click to open the contextual menu and choose Show in Finder. Aperture will pop open that image’s enclosing folder in the Finder for you.

Managing Referenced Masters If you have lost track of where you may have stored referenced masters, you can locate them in one of two ways. You can either search for them or look at the Referenced Files window. You also can use the Referenced Files window to reconnect images to their referenced masters. Search for Referenced Masters with the Query HUD

You can search for referenced masters easily in the Query HUD. (You’ll learn more about the search capabilities of Aperture in Chapter 7.) Access any of the various Query HUDs, such as the one adjacent to the Library listing in the Projects panel, as shown in Figure 2.10,

Figure 2.10 Select File Status in the Add Filter pop-up menu of the Query HUD.

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and then click the Add Filter pop-up menu and select File Status. The file status filter will be added to the Query HUD, as shown in Figure 2.11. Make sure the check box next to File Status is checked and then choose Referenced from the File Status pop-up menu, as shown in Figure 2.12. Search for and Manage Referenced Masters with the Referenced Files Window

Figure 2.11 Then select Referenced in the File Status pop-

If you need to find out where referenced masters are up menu of the Query HUD to find referenced files. stored, find out which referenced masters are in your Library, or reconnect referenced masters, you can use the Referenced Files window. You can open this window with a display of referenced files for a project or for the entire Library, depending on what you select before opening it. To open the Referenced Files window, as shown in Figure 2.12, select a project or the Library and then choose Files>Manage Referenced Files. As you can see in Figure 2.12, referenced files and their links are displayed in the Referenced Files window. Here, you can make any necessary reconnections by selecting a referenced file and then navigating in the directory window to reconnect the master image. If the directory window is not visible, as it is in Figure 2.12, click the Show Reconnect Options button.

Figure 2.12 The Referenced Files window.


Projects and Folders At the highest level of the Aperture directory structure, just inside the Library, you can put anything you create in Aperture. If you want, you can create and store individual albums, smart albums, Web galleries, or whatever you’d like at this level. However, that would be like opening your Mac’s Home directory and then just adding loose, unrelated documents. Over time, you’re going to have a big, disorganized mess. Building a big, disorganized mess is exactly what Aperture is designed to help you avoid. With Aperture, you’re going to organize your digital photographs. So, as you work in Aperture, you’ll find it much more efficient to organize your work by dividing it into projects and folders. Use projects and folders to separate your images and work into a filing system that makes sense for you. Apple describes both as “containers.” Folders are like other folders you’re accustomed to using on your computer, and projects are really just folders that are called projects.

Note The main difference between projects and folders is that you cannot put loose images into folders—at any level. You can put projects into Library-level folders, and you can put albums and other elements into folders in projects, but you can put loose images only into projects. There is also a difference in the way that Aperture stores folders and projects in the library file, and you’ll only need to know this difference if you ever need to dig into the library file.

In Figure 2.13, you can see icons for both folders and projects. Folders have an icon that looks like a folder. Projects have an icon that is supposed to look like a little photo storage box.

Note You can create folders and put projects inside them. You can create projects and put folders inside them. But you cannot put projects in projects, and you cannot put images into folders.

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You will see all of your projects and folders in the Projects panel, shown in Figure 2.13. You should use these directory elements to create a structure that organizes your images in ways that make sense for what you’re doing with them. For example, if you’re a wedding photographer, it would make sense that you’d create projects based on individual weddings. Within each project, you’d store the albums or books or other collections of images you’ll build from the photos of that particular wedding. Over time, maybe you’ll wind up with a bunch of these wedding projects. You could then create a folder for the projects that you worked on in the year 2006. If you’re busy enough, maybe you’ll want to create folders to organize the projects by month.

A folder at the Library level is blue. A folder at the Project level is yellow. Project icon

What you’ll find is that these folders and projects will work for you the same way that folders work for you in your computer’s operating system. You can use them to create an organizing system that’s as complex or as simple as you need. To create a new folder at the highest level of the Library: 1. Click Library so that the folder will be created at the highest level of the Library. 2. Select File>New Folder, press Shift+Cmd+N, click the Add to Library popup menu, and select New Folder, or Ctrl+click anywhere in the Projects panel to access the context menu and select New Folder. 3. While the folder name is highlighted, type in a name for the folder. If the name isn’t highlighted, double-click the name to highlight it. To create a new project at the highest level of the Library: 1. Click Library so that the project will be created at the highest level of the Library. 2. Select File>New Project, press Cmd+N, click the Add to Library pop-up menu, and select New Project, or Ctrl+click anywhere in the Projects panel to access the context menu and select New Project. 3. While the project name is highlighted, type in a name for the project. If the name isn’t highlighted, double-click the name to highlight it. If you want to create new folders within projects or new projects within folders, follow the instructions above for creating a folder or a project, but start by clicking the specific folder or project where you want the new folder or project to be created.

Figure 2.13 Blue folders are at the Library level, and yellow folders are in Projects.


Albums and Smart Albums After you have imported images into Aperture and stored them in either a folder or a project, you can begin to group them into another type of container, albums. Albums can contain photos that you personally choose, or they can be automatically included and updated in smart albums by setting criteria in a query HUD.

Note You’ll learn how to create and populate smart albums in Chapter 7.

Albums can exist at any level in the directory structure. You can create albums and smart albums at the top, Library level, or within folders or projects. Once you create your albums, you can move them around within the Library structure.

Differences Between Projects, Folders, Albums, and Smart Albums You’ve already learned about the differences between folders and projects. Although both are collections, only projects contain the actual original image files. Albums are also collections of images, but they only contain versions of images. The original images are stored in the project, and the albums contain only references to the original images. Smart albums are collections that have their contents generated automatically by a search or filter. You use a Query HUD or search field to define search criteria, which Aperture then uses to display images in the Browser. Once you have searched or filtered images in the Browser, you can create a smart album from the results of that search.

Creating a New, Empty Album To create a new, empty album, first select the level in the Projects panel at which you want to create the album. If you want the album to be at the Library level, you can either click in any open area of the Projects panel or click the Library name. If you want the album to be inside a project or folder, navigate to that specific folder and make sure it’s highlighted.

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Once you have selected the level where you want to create an album, create the new album using any of the following methods: ■

Click the New Album button, as shown in Figure 2.14.

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Click the Add to Library pop-up menu and choose New Empty Album (see Figure 2.15).

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Choose File>New>Album.

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Press Option+Cmd+N.

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Right-click or press Ctrl and click in the Projects panel in an empty area or at the level you want and choose New>Album, as shown in Figure 2.16.

You should see a new album icon in your Projects panel, along with a highlighted text field and the default name of Untitled Album. You can enter a name for the album, or you can continue to work with the album untitled.

Figure 2.14 Click the New Album button to create a new album.

Figure 2.15 Choose New Empty Album in the Add to Library pop-up menu. Figure 2.16 Right-click or Control+click to access the Projects panel’s context menu.


Creating an Album and Filling It with Selected Images from the Browser You also create a new album and populate it with images you have selected in the Browser.

Note As described in the previous section, you can create a new empty album at any level of the Library by simply selecting that level in the Projects panel. But when you create an album from a selection of photos in the Browser, you are limited to creating that album at the level that you have selected to view images in the Browser. For example, if you select a project and then select images from that project, you can create an album from those selected images, but it will be created within the selected project. If, while you had those images selected, you were to click somewhere else in the Projects panel, the images you had selected would disappear, and they’d be deselected. This isn’t a problem if you want to create an album from a selection of images from all or some of your projects and folders. If you want to create an album from multiple projects or folders, just click the disclosure triangle next to the topmost Library level in the Projects panel and select the prebuilt smart album called All Images (or any one of the other prebuilt smart albums that matches your needs). You should see all of your images, and you can select the ones you want to include in an album. The new album you create from those selected images will be at the Library level. Alternatively, you can use a search to create an album from all the images in all your projects and folders. See the section on creating albums from a search later in this chapter.

To create an album from selected images in the Browser, first select all the images in the Browser that you want to include. Once you have selected the images you want to include in the new album, create the new album using any of the following methods: ■

Choose File>New from Selection>Album.

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Press Cmd+L.

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Click the Add to Library pop-up menu, as shown in Figure 2.15, but this time choose New Album from Selection.

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Right-click or press Ctrl and click in the Projects panel in an empty area, as shown in Figure 2.16, or at the level you want, and this time choose New from Selection>Album.

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Right-click or press Ctrl and click in either the Browser or the Viewer and choose New from Selection>Album.

You should now see a new album icon in your Projects panel, along with a highlighted text field and the default name, Untitled Album. You can enter a name for the album, or you can continue to work with the album untitled.

Creating an Album from a Search You can also do a search for images in a project or across your complete library and create a new album from the results, which you’ll learn about in Chapter 7.

Note Aperture also has other levels of the directory structure, such as Light Tables, Books, and Web Galleries and Journals. These other containers, or collections, are more geared for exporting and publishing your images and not so much for basic organization, and you’ll learn about those collections in later chapters.

Moving Library Containers Around You can change the positions of many of your projects, folder, albums, and other directory containers by simply dragging one container into or out of another container. When you drag a container, you’ll see a bar with a circle on the end of it, as shown in Figure 2.17. The position of that bar tells you where you’ll reposition the container when you release the mouse button.

Note One interesting behavior of this feature is that Aperture will limit you to placing the container in alphabetical order within whatever other container you place it. If you feel as if you’re fighting the little line, it may be because it has determined the alphabetical position of the container and is only offering you that spot. Figure 2.17 Drag an element to position it somewhere else.


Repositioning Library containers is governed by several limitations, such as: ■

You can’t move the Library.

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You can’t move the Library’s prebuilt smart Albums.

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You cannot reposition Library-level folders. Once you create a folder at the Library level, it must stay at that level.

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You can move projects only into Library-level folders and not into other projects.

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You can move anything else anywhere you want.

At this point, you have all the knowledge you need to understand how Aperture’s directory structure works. From here, you can import your images and begin to refine your organizational structure to pare down large collections of photos into the smaller collections that you’ll give to your clients, publish, or print.

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3 Getting Photos into Aperture The whole point of using Aperture is to organize and sort digital photographs. To do that, you first have to get your images into the Library to start working on them. In this chapter, you’ll import images and apply metadata to them as you import them. You’ll import individual images, complete iPhoto libraries, and projects exported from Aperture. You’ll learn to import your images from cameras and camera cards, from your hard drive, from iPhoto, and from Aperture. You’ll find out how to apply metadata and keywords to the images as you import them, how to automatically generate custom names for them, and even how to start organizing them by having Aperture stack them as they import. You also have a choice of whether to import the original images into your Aperture Library file, leave them where they are, or move them to another location for storage.

Aperture’s File Format Compatibility Aperture’s ability to see or read an image file is an important consideration that may even influence your camera purchasing choices. If you’re going to work quickly and efficiently in Aperture, you’re better off working in formats that produce the highest possible quality and the greatest flexibility when you later export and publish your work.

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By default, Aperture is compatible with the following file formats: ■

GIF: This would be the lowest quality format for images that you can use in Aperture. GIF files must be saved as indexed-color images, which means they’re limited to a defined palette of 256 colors. Most digital imaging professionals limit their use of GIF to images with fewer colors and larger areas of solid color. Most often, GIF is used for images created in vector-based graphics programs such as Illustrator.

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JPEG and JPEG2000: Even though the JPEG format allows for varying levels of compression resulting in varying levels of quality, it is a lossy compression format, which means that original image data is thrown away when saving files in this format. Files saved as JPEGs can be really low quality, depending on the compression setting. Even when saved at higher compression settings, JPEG files may not be suitable for printing on paper at larger sizes. Although it has the potential to generate much higher quality images than its older brother, JPEG2000 is a relatively new file format that is not yet universally compatible with all Web browsers. The JPEG2000 format also includes a lossless compression option.

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PNG: Because it is a lossless compression method, PNG is more desirable for image storage. It doesn’t compress as much as JPEG, but it doesn’t discard data.

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PSD: The Photoshop proprietary format is widely used by digital imaging professionals because it supports the storage of alpha channels and layers. Aperture will preserve this extra data but will not display the layers or channels. PSD files are not compressed, and although they are intended for use within Photoshop, they are becoming more widely accepted outside Photoshop.

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TIFF: The TIFF format is the recommended format for high quality storage of master images. It has a lossless compression method that can be applied, but more often the images are stored uncompressed. The TIFF format is also the most widely used format for images destined to be printed on a printing press.

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RAW: This is the granddaddy of all file formats, in terms of preserving your image data. The format is described in detail in the next section.

Chapter 3 ■ Getting Photos into Aperture

What Is the RAW Image Format? The RAW format does what it sounds like it does: It stores image data completely raw, without any translation or compression at all. When a camera or scanner records an image and saves it as a RAW file, every pixel of information is stored exactly as the light sensor in the camera or scanner originally recorded it. This raw storage method provides the purest image quality in terms of the original scene. It makes sense to capture and store image data in this format, but it also takes a lot of disk space. If your 8-bit camera can capture light on 12 million pixels and each of those pixels requires at least 3 bytes of information to record the color, the resulting RAW file’s size would be 36 megabytes. A newer 12 million-pixel camera that can record 16-bit color would generate a RAW file of 72 megabytes. Multiply that by hundreds or thousands of images, and you’ll see why professional photographers require a lot of disk space for image storage. Different camera manufacturers have different proprietary RAW file formats. For example, Canon cameras record CRW RAW files, while Nikon cameras record NEF RAW files. Consequently, RAW format files are not automatically compatible with Aperture. They must be files for which Apple has developed compatibility with Aperture. On Apple’s Web page for Aperture’s technical specifications, the following proprietary RAW formats are listed as supported: ■

ARW

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CR2

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CRW

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NEF

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RAF

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SRW

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TIF

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OLY

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DNG

Unfortunately, even within those compatible formats, Aperture can’t read all the files from all the cameras. For example, while Aperture can read RAW files from the newer Canon cameras, it can’t read RAW files from all Canon cameras. If you’re wondering whether Aperture can read RAW files generated by a specific camera, you can check at www.apple.com/aperture/raw.

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Don’t RAW if Your Camera Isn’t Compatible Make it easy on yourself. If your camera isn’t on the list of cameras that record a RAW image that Aperture can read, don’t mess with trying to get those images into Aperture. Set your camera to record them as JPEGs or TIFFs or some format that Aperture can import by default. Trying to convert incompatible RAW images for import into Aperture is a real headache. In case you don’t want to simply take this warning on faith, here is an example of the steps you’d have to take. First, you have to get the images off the camera. You can’t just import them into Aperture because they won’t display in Aperture. You’ll have to use your camera manufacturer’s RAW importer/converter. Once you use that application to get them onto your disk, you still don’t have an image that Aperture can see. Even if you export the images from your importer/converter in a file format that Aperture can supposedly read—let’s say DNG—Aperture still won’t be able to read them unless the RAW format they were converted from is Aperture compatible. So you might wind up having to open them individually in Photoshop or some other application, convert them, and then import them into Aperture. If you’re working with dozens or even hundreds of images at a time, you won’t want to have to go through all these steps.

Importing Images You can import images into Aperture in a variety of ways and from a variety of sources. You can import images from digital cameras, from a card reader, from a hard disk, from iPhoto, from CDs, and from Aperture. As you import images, you can automatically generate names, metadata, and stacks. Once you have attached a digital camera, inserted a camera card into a card reader, or decided on a location on your disk from which to import images, the first step inside Aperture is always the same: access the Import panel, which is shown in Figure 3.2. Access the Import panel, in one of these ways: ■ ■

■ ■

Press Cmd+I. Click the Show Import Panel button on the Toolbar, as shown in Figure 3.1. Choose File>Import>Images. Press Ctrl+Click or right-click in the Projects panel and select Import>Images.

Figure 3.1 Click the Show Import Panel button.


Import panel

Import dialog

Import button Figure 3.2 The Import panel and the Import dialog.

From the Import panel, you control the source of the import of images into Aperture. After you select a source of images, the available images in that source will display in the large Import dialog, which is where you’ll select the specific images you want to import, tell Aperture where to store the originals, and apply any metadata, keywords, or names to the images that you import. Now that you’re ready to import some images into Aperture, you want to make sure you pick the right source and that you put the images where you want them. It’s easy.

Choosing the Source of Your Images and Where to Put Them Notice in Figure 3.2 that the Import dialog has two little indicators that extend out from the left side. Those two indicators are telling you where Aperture will get the images and where it will put them. The indicator at the top is the beginning of an arrow. It is pointing to a source of images in the Import panel. The lower indicator is the arrowhead, and it points to a destination in the Projects panel.

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To change the source of your import, simply click one of the other available sources in the Import panel. In Figure 3.2, the top indicator is aligned with the digital camera icon, so the Import dialog is showing you the contents of the digital camera. In Figure 3.3, the top indicator is aligned with an attached card reader, with a card inserted. The Import dialog is showing you the contents of that card.


Figure 3.3 The Import dialog will display the contents of the source you select.

You can resize the thumbnails displayed in the Import dialog by sliding the Thumbnail resize slider at the bottom of the Import dialog, shown in Figure 3.3. You can also choose to import from your hard drive or hard drives. In Figure 3.4, notice that an external drive is shown there, and you could select that source. Also in Figure 3.4, you can see that the source indicator is aligned with a disk icon that is called Local Files. When you select this source, you’ll see the entire directory structure of your computer at the top of the Import dialog, and you can navigate to wherever you want to import images. All of your attached drives will appear here, along with any card reader you may have attached. Once you’ve selected the source of your import, you need to specify where you want Aperture to put the images it imports. That’s where the lower indicator, the one with the arrowhead, is pointing.


Figure 3.4 Selecting the Local Files source will allow you to explore your hard drive.

In Figure 3.2, the arrowhead is pointing to the Frogs project. The images you import will be placed in that project. In Figure 3.3, the arrowhead is pointing to the Library. In this case, Aperture will create a brand new, untitled project for your imported images. Importing into Aperture is also governed by the following rules: ■

If you try to select a folder inside a project for the source, Aperture will override your selection and select the folder’s source project for you. However, Aperture will allow you to select an album, light table, or other element inside a folder inside a project as your target.

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You can choose any of your projects, albums, smart albums, books, light tables, Web journals, Web galleries, and Library-level folders as the target for your import.

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If you select an album, book, light table, Web gallery, or Web journal as the target, Aperture will place the master copy of the imported image or images in the source project of that album, book, light table, Web gallery, or Web journal and only place a version of that image or images in the album, etc.

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If you select a book, light table, Web gallery, or Web journal as the target, Aperture will put the image or images in with the other images that are in

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those elements, but it will not place the image or images on a book page, on the light table, or in the pages of a Web gallery or Web journal. ■

If you select a smart album, Aperture will put the images in the smart album’s source project, Library-level folder, or the Library (if the smart album is generated from the entire Library), and the image will appear in the smart album only if it matches the specified criteria for that smart album.

Import All or Some After you have defined the source of your import and where you want to put the imported images, you can decide whether you want to import all of the images available on the source or only a few of those images.

Tip If you would rather see your source images in a List View, simply click the List View button in the lower-left corner of the Import dialog, as shown in Figure 3.5. To increase or decrease the size of the thumbnails in the List View, slide the Thumbnail resize slider, shown in Figure 3.5, to the right or left.


Figure 3.5 The Import dialog will display the contents of the source you select.


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To import all of the images that are available in your chosen source, make sure you have no images selected in the Import dialog and click the Import button in the Import dialog. To import fewer than all of the images available in a source, select the images you want to import using one of these methods: ■

To select one image, click any one image.

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To select multiple consecutive images, click one image and then navigate to the last image in the sequence you want to import, hold down the Shift key, and click that last image.

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To select multiple nonconsecutive images, click one image and then hold down the Command key as you click the additional images you want to select.

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To select images in an area of the Import dialog, drag to draw a selection rectangle around the images you want to select.

If you select fewer than all of the available images to import, the Import button will display the number of images that you have chosen to import, as shown in Figure 3.6. Figure 3.6 The Import button will display the number of images you have selected.

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Canceling an Import Once you click the Import button, Aperture will begin the process of importing your images. Depending on the number and size of the images to be imported, this can take a while. As the import proceeds, you’ll see a countdown timer in the Projects panel, at the level of the import, as shown in Figure 3.7. While this countdown timer is still visible and the import is still proceeding, you can cancel the import by choosing File>Import>Cancel Import. If you cancel the import before it completes, you will have imported whatever images were completely imported by that time.

Stacking Images as You Import Them One of the coolest features of Aperture is the stacking feature. Stacking allows you to pile images, providing another level of organizing your images. You’ll learn about working with stacks in more detail in Chapter 6.

Tip If you stack your images when you import them, you don’t have to leave them that way. Images can be stacked and separated at any time.

Automatically Generating Stacks as You Import Aperture can generate stacks for you automatically. You’ll find this handy if you frequently bracket exposures or shoot multiple photos in bursts. Aperture allows you to automatically stack images based on a time between exposures, up to one minute. If you’ve bracketed a shot, taking three different exposures of the same image, those images will have been taken close together in time. If you have taken a burst of multiple exposures, those images will have been taken close together in time. You can stack those images together so that they will be easier to edit later. To automatically stack your images when you import them, simply drag the AutoStack slider to the right, from the off position toward the one-minute position, as shown in Figure 3.8. Figure 3.8 shows the Import dialog with images grouped together in stacks. Notice that the stacked images are in a group and have a darker box around them. The first image in the stack has a number in the upper-left corner, telling you how many images are in that stack.

Figure 3.7 Aperture gives you this visual reference during the import.


Open Close Stacks Stacks button button

AutoStack slider

Stack button

Split Stack button

Unstack All Stacks button

Figure 3.8 Sliding the Auto-Stack slider to stack images on import.

Manually Creating Stacks as You Import You can also create stacks manually, to match whatever groupings make sense to you. In this way, you can group images that may be of the same subjects or all share a common exposure problem, etc. When you group images manually, those images don’t have to be adjacent in the Import dialog. Notice that the images selected in Figure 3.9 are a series of nonadjacent images. Next, click the Stack button at the bottom of the Import dialog, shown in Figure 3.8. Notice in Figure 3.10 that the selected images have moved from their original positions in the Import dialog to come together as a stack.

Note For more detailed information about working with stacks in Aperture, see Chapter 6.

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Figure 3.9 Select the images you want to stack.

Store Files pop-up menu Move Files button Copy Files button Subfolders pop-up menu Folder text field

Figure 3.10 Clicking the Stack button rearranges the images to stack them.


Choosing the Storage Location for the Masters of the Imported Images As you import images, you now need to tell Aperture what to do with the master images upon which all of the work in Aperture will be based. One of the most significant changes made between earlier versions of Aperture and version 1.5 was the addition of the options for storing image master files outside of the Aperture Library file. The original Aperture storage scheme placed all of the images in the Aperture Library file. But now you can also choose to leave the images where they are being imported from or move them to a completely different location. As you import, you’ll see the Store Files pop-up menu in the Import dialog, as shown in Figure 3.11. The top two options for storing files are easy to understand. If you choose the In the Aperture Library option, the original images will be copied into the Library file, and the imported images will become managed images. If you choose the In Their Current Location option, the original images will remain outside the Aperture Library, and the imported images will have referenced masters.

Figure 3.11 Choose a storage option from the Store Files pop-up menu.

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Note Aperture won’t let you leave originals in their current location if that location is a camera or a camera card.

You can also choose to have Aperture move or copy the original images to a completely new location on your computer. If you choose the Pictures option, Aperture will move or copy the images to the Pictures folder in your user account. If you want to specify a different location, select Choose to open a directory dialog where you can navigate to the location you want. Selecting either the Pictures option or Choose from the Store Files pop-up menu will activate the Subfolders popup menu, shown in Figure 3.12. If you want the original images to be moved or copied to the Pictures folder or the folder you selected for the Choose option, just select the None option in the Subfolders popup menu. If, however, you want Aperture to create a subfolder or a series of subfolders, you can choose from the Naming Preset default options in the Subfolders pop-up menu or create a custom storage scheme by selecting Edit in the Subfolders pop-up menu to access the Folder Naming Presets dialog box, shown in Figure 3.13.

Choose None to use the folder you have selected. Name Preset default options.

Access the Folder Naming Presets dialog box here. Figure 3.12 Tell Aperture how to name the locations where you want to store the originals.

In the Folder Naming Presets dialog box, you can rearrange the Naming Presets, edit existing presets, and create new Naming Presets, in the following ways: ■

If you select any Naming Preset and then make changes in the Format field, you’ll be editing the selected preset.

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To create a completely new preset, click the Add (+) button in the lower-left corner.

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To rename any preset, double-click it to activate its Name text field. Figure 3.13 Manage and create Naming Presets for your subfolders in this dialog box.


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You can rearrange the presets by dragging them in the Name window.

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You can delete any preset by selecting it and clicking the Delete (-) button in the lower-left corner.

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To edit and change presets, you merely drag the naming criteria one at a time into the Format field. As you do, you’ll see an example of what you’re telling Aperture to do above the Format field. You can remove a criterion from the Format field by selecting it and pressing the Delete key on your keyboard. While applying this feature, Aperture can automatically create additional subfolders to create an even more divided file structure. For example, if you want to copy the photos from your camera into a folder on your hard drive that contains each of the images in its own folder (steps 5 and 6 below), within a folder containing all images taken on a particular date (steps 3 and 4 below), or within a folder named for that particular download (step 2 below), you would perform these steps: 1. Click the Add button to create a new folder naming preset. When the new preset appears in the Name window, type in a name for it. 2. Drag the Custom Name button to the Format field and enter a custom name in the Custom Name field. (This will add a folder with the name you enter.) 3. Drag the forward slash (/) button to the Format field. (This will create a new level of folders.) 4. Drag the Image Date button to the Format field. (This will add a folder named for the date the images were taken.) 5. Drag the forward slash (/) button to the Format field. (This will create a new level of folders.) 6. Drag the Version Name button to the Format field. (This will add a folder that is named the same as the version name applied to the images.) Your Folder Naming Presets box should now look like the one shown in Figure 3.14. When you click OK, your new preset will appear in the Subfolders pop-up menu of the Import dialog. If, in the Folder Naming Presets box, you entered a custom name for the folder, it will appear in the Custom Name field of the Import dialog. You can also change that custom name here in the Custom Name field of the Import dialog.

Figure 3.14 Here’s the Folder Naming Presets window created by the steps above.

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Note Whatever version naming preset you have selected from the Version Name pop-up menu will be applied to the images. You’ll learn more about the Version Name pop-up menu and naming your images later in this chapter.

When you use this preset to import a selection of images, the resulting file structure will be what’s shown in Figure 3.15. Figure 3.15 Here’s the file folder resulting from the preset created in this example.

Note It’s important to understand how the forward slash button will affect the subfolder naming scheme. Placing the forward slash in the Format field will create a new folder level at that spot in your naming scheme. Notice in the previous example how the two forward slashes resulted in two levels of folders being created. Figure 3.16 shows what would have happened if you had left out the last of the forward slashes and the Version Name criteria from the preset used in that example (steps 5 and 6 in the example above). Notice that the images are now loose in the folder named for the dates the images were taken.

This subfolder creation feature can be tricky to learn. You may have to experiment with it a bit before you get the hang of it.


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Figure 3.16 Here’s the file folder resulting from removing the last forward slash from the preset.

Inputting Group Metadata as You Import One of the amazing and wonderful features of digital photos is all of the information that is recorded with each photo as you take it. The camera records information such as the time, the shutter speed, the aperture, any exposure compensations, etc. Each photo has that kind of information available, and all of that information will automatically be imported for each photo. In Aperture, you can add all kinds of metadata and keywords to images. You can do that after you’ve imported the images, and you can do it here as you import. This can be a time-saver if you’re importing the results of a shoot for one particular client, photos taken in one particular place, etc.

Note The level of complexity of the metadata that you can apply to images is nearly overwhelming. You’ll learn a lot more about viewing, applying, and removing metadata and keywords in Chapter 5.

To input metadata for images as you import them, simply enter the metadata in the Add Metadata From area of the Import dialog (see Figures 3.10, 3.11, and 3.12) before you import the images.

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Note You can’t apply metadata to individual images as you import an entire group of images. Any metadata that you enter here in the Import dialog will be applied to all the images that you import.

Naming Files as You Import Them You probably already know that your camera stores images with an arbitrary name the camera creates that may be based on the number of images the camera has taken, the date, or some other information that does not help you identify images by name. Aperture, however, allows you to apply various manual and automatic naming schemes to the images that you import. Even when you manually add name information to the files that you’re importing, Aperture automatically adds some additional information, even if it’s something as simple as sequential numbers. For example, notice in Figure 3.17 that the Custom Name with Index option is selected from the Name Format pop-up menu on the right side of the Import dialog and that the word “Frogs” is entered in the Custom Name text box.

Name Format popup menu Custom Name text box

Figure 3.17 Entering text in the Custom Name field applies that word to the names of the imported images.


In the Import dialog, you’ll see a preview of the naming scheme you’ve created, highlighted in red, as shown in Figure 3.17. After you click the Import button, Aperture will complete the import and name the images accordingly. Notice the results in Figure 3.18. Aperture added the selected images to the Frogs project and automatically named them in sequence as “Frogs 1,” “Frogs 2,” and so on.

Figure 3.18 Aperture created names for the imported images based on the Custom Name text.

Aperture’s Preset Name Formats are described in Table 3-1.

Table 3-1 Aperture’s Preset Name Formats Preset Name Format

Description

Example

Custom Name with Index

Creates a name based on text you enter in the Custom Name text box and consecutive numbers.

Custom Name 1

Custom Name

Applies only the text you enter in the Custom Name text box. Be careful with this one because you can wind up with hundreds of images with the same name.

Custom Name

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Table 3-1 (Continued) Preset Name Format

Description

Example

Custom Name with Sequence

Creates a name based on text you enter in the Custom Name text box, preceded by a “1 of X” sequence.

1 of 10 Custom Name

Custom Name with Index (no spaces)

Creates a name based on text you Custom Name1 enter in the Custom Name text box and consecutive numbers, with no space between the custom text and the automatically generated number. If you enter custom text with a space, that space will be preserved.

Version Name

Preserves the existing name already applied to the imported image. If you are importing an original image file, this preset will generate the same results as the default, Master File Name.

IMG_001

Version Name and Date/Time

Creates a name based on the file’s existing name and automatically adds the date and time from the image’s embedded metadata.

IMG_001 - 2006-05-13 024830PM

Version Name with Sequence

Creates a name based on the file’s existing name, followed by a “1 of X” sequence.

IMG_001 (1 of 10)

Version Name with Index

Creates a name based on the file’s existing name and automatically adds consecutive numbers.

IMG_001 1

Image Date/Time

Creates a date and time name based on the embedded metadata of the image.

2006-05-13 024830PM

Custom Name with Counter

Creates a name based on text you enter in the Custom Name text box and a three-digit counter.

Custom Name 001


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By clicking the Name Format pop-up menu, you can access the Preset Name Format options that you can apply, as shown in Figure 3.19.

Figure 3.19 Click on the Name Format pop-up menu to access the Preset Name Formats.

If none of the Preset Name Formats suit you, you can create a copy of any one of them and adjust it to better fit your needs or create a new one. To edit a Preset Name Format, access the Naming Presets dialog box, shown in Figure 3.20, by clicking on the Name Format pop-up menu, shown in Figure 3.19, and choosing Edit.

Add new preset Delete preset

Figure 3.20 The Naming Presets dialog box.

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Note Notice that the Naming Presets dialog box shown in Figure 3.20 matches the names applied to the images used for the subfolder naming example earlier in this chapter. You can see how the images wound up with the names they did.

Working in the Naming Presets dialog box is pretty straightforward. Click a naming preset to see its values in the Format field to the right. Figure 3.20, in which the Custom Name with Index preset is selected, shows how the values that make up the preset’s naming scheme appear in the Format field. To add values, all you have to do is drag any of the Include buttons into the Format field. To remove values, click one in the Format field and press the Delete key on your keyboard. To create a new naming preset, click the Add (+) button in the lower-left corner. If you add the Custom Name value and enter text in the Custom Name text box, that text will automatically be entered in the Custom Name text box in the Import dialog when you close this Naming Presets dialog box and choose the preset you made. Even if you do that, you can override the custom name by entering what you want in the Custom Name text box in the Import dialog. As you edit an existing preset or create a new one, you can see what effect you’re having on the naming scheme next to the Example area at the top of the Naming Presets dialog box. If you enter text in the Custom Name text box, you have to click away from that text box or press Tab to see the effect in the Example area. You can delete any naming preset by clicking it to highlight it and then clicking the Delete (-) button in the lower-left corner. You can rename any naming preset by double-clicking its name and entering a new name. If you add a new preset, its name will appear in the Name Format pop-up menu after you close the Naming Presets dialog box and return to the Import dialog.

Importing iPhoto Libraries Importing your iPhoto library is really very simple. You just select File>Import>iPhoto Library. Aperture will do the rest. If your iPhoto library is large, it can take a while for Aperture to go through all the images and find a place for them in its Library.


When it imports your iPhoto library, Aperture will follow these rules: ■

Aperture will create one folder named iPhoto Library, in which it will place everything it finds in your iPhoto library.

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Inside the iPhoto Library folder, Aperture will create individual albums for every iPhoto album you have in your library. The new albums will be named the same as the albums in iPhoto.

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Inside the iPhoto Library folder, Aperture will create a folder named “Rolls,” in which it will place all of the individual rolls that it finds. The iPhoto rolls will become Aperture projects. The new projects will be named after the date of the roll followed by whatever name you may have given the roll in iPhoto.

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No iPhoto slideshows, books, or smart albums will be imported.

Photos Edited in iPhoto Will Come in as Duplicates If you import your library from iPhoto and that library contains images that you have edited in any way—even if you only rotated an image—Aperture will import both the original image file and the edited version. This process will increase the disk space necessary for Aperture’s Library and create a bunch of image files you don’t really need. Unless the images you’ve edited in iPhoto are too numerous or the edits are too complex (complex edits in iPhoto?), then you may want to delete those extra images. Fortunately, the power of Aperture’s search functions allows you to do this quickly in these steps: ■

Open the Library’s Query HUD, shown in Figure 3.21, by clicking on the Query HUD button to the right of the Library name in the Projects panel.

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Click the Keyword check box to activate a search by keyword. All of the keywords that have been applied to images in the Library will appear, each with its own check box. Click the one called iPhoto Edited to activate it. All of the images that have been edited in iPhoto will now appear in the Browser. However, you’ll notice that they will come in stacked with their original images.

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Click the Ignore Stack Groupings check box. Now you’ll see only the edited versions of the images imported from iPhoto.

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Close the Query HUD.

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Select all the images in the Browser.

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Choose File>Delete Versions or press Cmd+Delete. You’ll get a warning that you’re about to delete the master files. Don’t worry. You’re only deleting the master files of these duplicate versions.

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Now examine your iPhoto library imports, and you should see only the original, unedited versions of all these images. If at first it appears that you’ve deleted all the image files, wait a while and close and reopen Aperture. You should wind up with only the original versions of the iPhoto images. Of course, you shouldn’t delete your original iPhoto library until after you’ve verified that you have all of the images successfully imported and that you only deleted the edited versions of the iPhoto images.

Tip You don’t actually have to import an entire iPhoto library if all you want is a few images from that library. To import less than all of the images from an iPhoto library, skip the first step listed above for importing iPhoto libraries. Instead, follow the steps for importing images from a disk, described in the next section. You’ll find that in its Import dialog box, Aperture will present the albums and rolls as you’ve organized them in iPhoto. You can navigate to the images you want to import, select them, and import them.

Figure 3.21 Search for the duplicate iPhoto imports using the iPhoto keywords.

Importing External Folders as Aperture Projects or into Aperture Projects If you’re going to import entire folders from your disks, you can also do that by importing the contents of a folder as an Aperture project or as a folder in an Aperture project. Importing your external folders to Aperture as projects may be useful if you already have a large library of images that you have organized in a structure that you want to preserve in Aperture.

Importing External Folders as Individual Aperture Projects When you import folders as Aperture projects, the directory folder you choose to import will become an Aperture project, and the following rules will apply: ■

All of the imported files, folders, and albums will be imported within the project created for the top-level folder.


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Folders that have only images in them will be imported as individual albums.

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Folders with both images and folders inside them will be imported as folders. The images inside will be grouped and imported as an album with the title, Images From, followed by the name of the folder. The additional folders inside that original folder will be imported as individual albums (unless they have a mixture of images and folders in them).

To import folders of images as new Aperture projects, select the Library in the Projects panel and then choose File>Import>Folders as Projects. Navigate in the dialog box shown in Figure 3.22 to the folder you want to import. Highlight its name, apply any storage and naming options you might want (as described earlier in this chapter), and then click the Open button. As you can see in Figure 3.22, the storage and naming options pop-up menus and fields, described earlier in this chapter when they appeared in the Import dialog, are available right there in the directory dialog. If necessary, follow the instructions for choosing the storage location and naming the imported images described earlier in this chapter.

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Figure 3.22 Navigate to the folder you want to import.

Importing External Folders into Existing Aperture Projects You can also select any existing Aperture project and import a folder of images into that project. When the folder is imported into the Aperture project, the following rules will apply: ■

All of the imported files, folders, and albums will be imported into one folder within the selected project.

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All of the imported images will be visible in the selected project’s top level.

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Folders that have only images in them will be imported as individual albums.

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Folders that have both images and folders inside them will be imported as folders. The images inside will be grouped and imported as an album with the title, Images From, followed by the name of the folder. The additional folders inside that original folder will be imported as individual albums (unless they have a mixture of images and folders in them).

To import folders of images into an existing Aperture project, select a project and then choose File>Import>Folders into a Project. Navigate in the dialog box to the folder you want to import. Highlight its name, apply any storage and naming

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options you might want (as described earlier in this chapter), and then click the Open button. As you can see in Figure 3.22, the storage and naming options popup menus and fields, described earlier in this chapter when they appeared in the Import dialog, are available right there in the directory dialog. If necessary, follow the instructions for choosing the storage location, adding metadata, and naming the imported images described earlier in this chapter.

Dragging External Files and Folders from the Finder to the Projects Panel Alternatively, you can drag any one image, multiple images, or entire folders of images from the Finder onto the Projects panel and bypass the Import dialog or the respective File>Import Directory dialogs. Obviously, if you do bypass the directory dialogs, you won’t be able to apply storage or naming options to the images as you import them. If you drag a folder from the Finder to an open area of the Projects panel, a new project will be created and named for that folder. If you drag a folder from the Finder to a project in the Projects panel, a new folder will be created in that project and named for the folder.

Note You can select multiple folders, multiple images, or even a combination of folders and images in the Finder and then drag them into Aperture.

If you drag loose images from the Finder to an open area of the Projects panel, a new, untitled project will be created and filled with the loose images. If you drag loose images from the Finder to any project in the Projects panel, the images are added to the project.

Note When you import loose images into Aperture by dragging them from the Finder, the images will automatically be imported as managed images, meaning their originals will be imported into the Aperture Library file.


Importing Aperture Projects You can also import projects that have been exported from Aperture. These exported projects can be from previous Aperture libraries of your own or from other users’ Aperture libraries.

Tip If you need to search for a project file or aren’t sure if a particular file is an Aperture project file, you need to know that Aperture project files have the file extension “approject.”

Importing Aperture projects is simple. Choose File>Import>Projects. A directory dialog box will open. Navigate to where you have stored the project file you want to import. Select it and click the Open button. Aperture will import the project as if it were a project you have created yourself. (Of course, maybe you did.)

Note You’ll learn to export Aperture projects in the next chapter.

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4 Protecting Your Managed Images Now that you’ve seen how much work it takes to import all your images and now that you understand that many, if not all, of those images are stored in one big package file, you know just how devastating it would be to have that package file corrupted or lost. You would lose all those images. Even if you have some sort of backup of your original image disks, you might wind up having to repeat the importing and naming and organizing of your entire Aperture Library. Aperture has a backup feature that can help prevent all that extra work in case of disaster. Aperture’s Vaults backup system allows you to store a backup of your library that you can use to quickly recover from a disk crash or other unpleasant occurrence.

Note Aperture’s Vault backup feature backs up only the managed images that are stored inside the Aperture Library file. If you have a storage scheme that includes images stored on locations outside the Library file, you’ll have to develop a separate backup system for those images.

Additionally, protecting your images includes protecting the Library file. Apple warns against using copies of the Library file as a backup because copying over an existing Library file is dangerous and could cause you to lose important data. You

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just can’t be sure that the two Library files are exactly the same, and copying one over the other may delete image files.

Tip As is always the case, it is imperative that you back up your data to a storage device that is completely separate from where you store your working data. Ideally, you should also store your backups in a location other than where you keep your working data. In case of fire or flood or whatever, you’re much safer if your backup data is in another location. Of course, that’s not always possible. But at the very least, you should back up to a separate storage device. Not doing so undermines the very reason for backing up, because if you keep your working data and your backup data on the same drive, a drive failure could wipe out both.

Backing Up to Vaults Aperture’s Vaults system is easy to use and efficient. It allows you to make incremental backups of your images; that is, once you create a backup vault, Aperture will only make changes to that vault to match the changes you have made in Aperture. This means the backing up will be fast and easy. In other words, there is no reason not to use it. You may have noticed that up until now the Projects panel has filled the left side of the screen from top to bottom. At the bottom of that panel, however, you can see the Vaults panel controls, as in Figure 4.1. Vault Action pop-up menu Vaults Panel button Update All Vaults button

Click the Vaults Panel button, shown in Figure 4.1, or press Shift+R to access the Vaults panel, which will be empty, the way it is shown in Figure 4.2, when you first open it.

Figure 4.1 By default, Aperture’s Vaults panel is hidden at the bottom of the Projects panel.

Chapter 4 ■ Protecting Your Managed Images

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Figure 4.2 When you have no vaults, nothing appears in the Vaults panel.

Creating Aperture Vaults To create your first vault (and any new vaults hereafter), do one of the following things: ■

Choose File>Vault>Add Vault.

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Click the Vault Action pop-up menu (see Figure 4.1) and then choose Add Vault.

When the Add Vault dialog shown in Figure 4.3 opens, give the vault a name and select the location for the new vault.

Figure 4.3 Give the vault a name and choose a location for it.

Tip Again, it’s imperative that you create the vault on a different drive than your working Aperture library.

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Once you click the Add button, you’ll see the new vault show up in the Vaults panel, as shown in Figure 4.4. Figure 4.4 One vault is now available in the Vaults panel.

Vault Action pop-up menu Vaults Panel button Update All Vaults button

By default, as shown in Figure 4.4, the Vaults panel will show only the name of the vault and how much space is available on the storage device. To reveal the location of the vault, click on the disclosure triangle next to the vault’s name, as shown in Figure 4.5. Disclosure triangle

Figure 4.5 Click the disclosure triangle to see the vault’s location.

Vault Status button

Tip Depending on the size of your Projects panel, you may not see all the available information in the Vaults panel. There’s not much more, but as you can see in Figure 4.6, if you widen the Projects panel by dragging the border between the Projects panel and the Browser and Viewer, the Vaults panel will tell you how large the vault is, in addition to how much space is available on the storage device.

Figure 4.6 Widen the Projects panel to see more of the Vaults panel.


Updating Aperture Vaults You have now created the vault, but there’s nothing in it. You know that because when you create a new vault, all you do is create the file that will contain all the information from your Library. You also know that because the little Vault Status button, pointed out in Figure 4.5, is red. The Vault Status button will show you the state of your vault, according to these colors: ■

Red: You have master image files that have not been backed up.

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Yellow: You have version information about your image files that has not been backed up. This could be as simple as the rotation of one image, or it could be that you’ve made adjustments to dozens of images since you last updated this vault.

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Black: Everything is backed up.

Note I’ve noticed that even if you’re conscientious about updating your vault each time you close Aperture, when you open Aperture, you’ll see a yellow Vault Status button. You can choose to go ahead and update the vault immediately or you can wait until you’re ready.

Okay. Update the new vault with all of the information in the current library. You can do that in one of the following ways: ■

Click the Vault Status button next to the vault you want to update. This method will only update the vault for which you have clicked the Vault Status button.

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Click the Vault Actions pop-up menu and choose Update Vault. This method will only update the vault that is highlighted in the Vaults panel.

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Click the Update All Vaults button, shown in Figure 4.4.

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Choose File>Vault>Update All Vaults.

Tip The Vaults panel doesn’t have to be open for you to update your vaults. Even when the Vaults panel is hidden, you can still see the Update All Vaults button at the bottom of the Projects panel, as shown in Figure 4.4, and you can still choose File>Vault>Update All Vaults.

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Once you tell Aperture to update your vault or vaults, you’ll see the warning dialog shown in Figure 4.7. Don’t worry. Even though it says you’re going to be replacing the contents of the vault, you’re really only replacing any versions that have changed and adding any new master files for new images you’ve added to the Library since you last updated the vault. Click Update. It could take some time for Aperture to fill up the vault the first time you update a new vault. Be patient.

Figure 4.7 Verify that you want to update the Vault.

After the update is complete, the Vaults panel will change to display how much space the vault is taking up on the storage device. As shown in Figure 4.8, the green area of the space indicator shows how much space the vault is using. The white area in that indicator is the available space. The small indicator to the right is displaying how much space any other files on that storage device may be using. As you can see in Figure 4.8, the vault you just made isn’t taking up much space on that particular storage device, and there aren’t many other files on that disk. Figure 4.8 The vault is now up to date. Space used by the vault. Available space on the storage device. Space used by other files on the storage device.

Tip You may have noticed that when you first open Aperture each time, the opening splash screen advises you how many images you have not yet protected, as shown in Figure 4.9. That’s a good reminder that it’s time to update the vault.

Figure 4.9 Aperture doesn’t want you to forget to update your vaults.


Backing Up to Multiple Aperture Vaults Apple recommends that you back up your Aperture Library to a vault that is kept at a location remote from where you normally work. You know, like a safe-deposit box at your bank or in your parents’ storage room. The reasoning behind that is that even if you keep a backup of your library on a storage device right there in the room with your working computer, a disaster could wipe out both the original library and the backup library stored in a vault. By keeping another storage device at another location, you reduce the risk of catastrophic loss of your image data. You may or may not follow that advice, but if you do, you may also decide that you can’t get to the remotely stored backup device as frequently as you’d like to back up the data. So maybe you’ll use a backup in your primary location that you update regularly and another backup that you store remotely and bring back to update less frequently. If you follow this sort of backup regime, you’ll need to know how to safely disconnect your vaults and open them back up again when you want to update them later.

Disconnecting Aperture Vaults To disconnect a vault, make sure you can see the name of the storage device associated with that vault in the Vaults panel, as shown in Figure 4.5. If you can’t see the device’s name, click the disclosure triangle next to the vault’s name (see Figure 4.5). Once you can see the name of the storage device, you should also see the usual Mac operating system Eject symbol to the right of the device name, as shown in Figure 4.5. To disconnect the vault, simply click that Eject symbol. The vault will close, the storage device will unmount from the Finder, and you can safely disconnect it and move it to your storage location. Aperture will remember the vault and will continue to display its name in the Vaults panel with the notation that it is disconnected, as shown in Figure 4.10.

Figure 4.10 The disconnected vault will be listed as such in the Vaults panel.

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Note Warning: Do not confuse disconnecting a vault with the operations that will actually delete the vault. For some strange reason, the commands that will delete a vault aren’t labeled “delete.” They’re labeled “remove.” For example, click the Vault Actions pop-up menu, and you’ll see the option Remove Vault. That command won’t just remove your vault, it will completely delete it. To disconnect a vault for later use, don’t remove it, but rather eject it.

For some reason, the Eject symbol is not always there in the Vaults panel. If it’s not, you can disconnect the vault by switching to the Mac Finder and ejecting the vault’s storage device from there. You can also disconnect a vault in this way, even if you do see the Eject symbol in the Vaults panel.

Tip It’s never a bad idea to update a vault immediately prior to disconnecting it. That way, it will be as up to date as possible.

Opening Existing Aperture Vaults After you’ve disconnected a vault and then want to update it, all you have to do is hook it back up to your computer. Aperture will automatically detect the drive and scan it for a vault. If it finds one, it will mount it in the Vaults panel, and you can update it. Reconnecting a Vault That Has Moved from Its Original Location

If you reconnect a vault that has been moved or that is on a disk that has been renamed, Aperture won’t know how to find it. The vault will continue to be listed as disconnected, as in Figure 4.10. You have to tell Aperture where it is. To reestablish a link to a vault that Aperture can’t find, click the name of the vault or the name of its previous storage device. Click the Vault Actions popup menu and choose Update Vault Path, as shown in Figure 4.11. Aperture will open a directory dialog. Navigate to the new location of the vault, click its name, and click the Update Path button.

Figure 4.11 Choose Update Vault Path to tell Aperture how to find the vault.


Restoring an Aperture Library Restoring an Aperture Library can mean two different things, depending on what is causing you to restore the Library. If you have a healthy Library file and you are merely telling Aperture to use that different Library file rather than the one that is currently open, you can do that by specifying the different Library file in Aperture’s Preferences, as described in Chapter 1. You can do this if you’re working with multiple libraries. But if you need to restore a corrupted Library and you have a vault file to restore it from, you need to use the Vault restore operation. To restore an Aperture Library from a vault, choose File>Vault> Restore Library. Aperture will open the combination advisory/ dialog box shown in Figure 4.12. Clicking the Source Vault pop-up menu will open a directory dialog. Navigate to the location of the vault from which you want to create a new Library and click Select. The Library Destination pop-up menu opens a directory dialog for you to use to specify the location where you want Aperture to build the restored library. Navigate to the location you want and click Select.

Figure 4.12 Use the Restore Library dialog to re-create a default Library.

Note Notice that the Library Destination pop-up menu shown in the Restore Library dialog in Figure 4.12 says, “Aperture Library.aplibrary,” in it. When you click that button, the directory dialog that Aperture opens will not offer you a text field in which you can type a new name for the Library. That’s because Aperture is determined to name the new Library whatever name the Library has that is already specified in the Preferences. Aperture is kind of squirrelly about the name of the Library. If you want to give the Library a different name, or for more information on that issue, see the sidebar, “Aperture and Its Library Naming Limitations,” later in this chapter.

When you’re ready, click Restore. Aperture will show you the Alert shown in Figure 4.13, warning you that you’re about to restore the Library and that your old Library will be renamed. If that’s okay with you, click Restore. Depending on the size of your Library, the restore can take some time—and you’re not done yet. Once the restore completes, Aperture will prompt you to relaunch Aperture, as shown in Figure 4.14—but you’re not done yet.

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After Aperture relaunches, you’ll see yet another dialog, like the one shown in Figure 4.15. The dialog will list all of the new projects and albums that it has found upon restarting. If everything seems okay, click Recover Now.

Figure 4.13 Are you sure you want to restore the Library?

Figure 4.14 Relaunch me!

Figure 4.15 Whew! Surely this process is almost complete.

When the recovery is complete, you’ll see one more dialog, this one advising you that the recovery is complete. You don’t have to make any more decisions, just click Okay. Now you’re finally done.

Aperture and Its Library Naming Limitations Aperture is stuck on the name Aperture Library. When you install and open Aperture for the very first time, it will create a Library with that name in the Pictures folder. If you specify in the Preferences a different location for your Library and restart Aperture, Aperture will create a Library in that location with the name Aperture Library. Aperture offers no method for changing the name of the Library. If you want to give the Library a different name, you have to do it in the Finder, the way you would rename any other file in the Mac operating system. Then you have to open Aperture’s preferences and choose the Library with the new name—even if it’s the same Library file with a new name.


You can use different names for Library files; there are apparently no warnings or advisories about changing it or needing to retain the default name. In fact, if you restore the Library from a vault, Aperture will itself rename the old Library file. What this all means is that if you want to restore your Library and give it a name other than that offered name, you have to first go out into the Finder and locate the .aplibrary file currently specified in the Preferences. Give that file a new name. Then you need to open the Preferences and choose that file. Then go ahead and start the library restoration process described earlier in this chapter. Aperture will then offer to restore the Library file to the location with the name specified in Preferences.

Exporting Aperture Project Files As mentioned earlier, Apple makes a point of strongly advising against copying over Library files. But if you’re one of those photographers who carries a Powerbook out into the field to work in Aperture while you’re on a shoot and then returns to an office or studio where you work on a desktop or other computer, you need a way to safely copy your new image files from one computer to another. If you regularly work on more than one computer at a time, you should use Project files to transfer your work from one computer to another. In Chapter 3, you learned that it’s easy to import Aperture project files. Exporting them is just as easy. To export a project from Aperture, select that project in the Projects panel. Then do one of the following: ■

Choose File>Export Project.

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Press Shift+Cmd+E.

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Click the Project Action pop-up menu and choose Export Project.

Aperture will open a directory dialog box. Navigate to the location where you want to save the project. Give the project a name (if you want to change it) and click Save.

Tip Copying your project files to DVD is another way of backing up your images. Obviously, you’ll only be copying individual projects, but having copies of individual projects on disk can be useful for transporting them, trading them with clients, or for just storing them away.

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Moving Your Project Files from One Computer to Another You can transfer your project files from one computer to another in several ways. You can use any of the following methods that you would normally use to copy files from one computer to another, such as these: ■

You can copy a project file to a CD or DVD and load that disk into the other computer.

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You can connect two computers via a network.

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You can use the Mac operating system’s Firewire Target Mode to hook one computer up to another as an external hard drive. To do this, connect the computers with a Firewire cable and then hold down the T key on the one you want to use as an external drive. The computer will start up and display a Firewire symbol on the screen instead of the normal Mac desktop. It will then behave as any external drive would on the other computer.

5 Cataloguing Your Images with Metadata and Keywords You could just import all of your images into Aperture and then clamber painstakingly through the entire library of images looking for one or a few specific images or subjects. But that would defeat one of the most important reasons for using Aperture. Aperture is more than just a storage application for digital images. Aperture is also a database of information about your digital images, with the information connected to the images so that when you search for information about images, the images will be right there with the results.

What Is Metadata? One of the most powerful features among the search capabilities of Aperture is the ability to store metadata with images. Metadata is a termed coined in the jargon of storing information on computers. Metadata is, simply, data about data. In the case of Aperture, the real data is the digital photograph. The metadata, then, is the data that you can store with the photograph that describes the photograph in verbal or numerical terms.

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Tip Once metadata is associated with an image in Aperture, you can search for images based on that metadata. You can then build “smart” albums, Web pages, Web journals, books, and light table layouts with the results of your searches. After you’ve created a smart element, it will automatically update to include any additional images to which you apply the metadata criteria of that element, or it will remove any images from which you remove the metadata criteria. You’ll learn more about searching for images based on metadata and keywords in Chapter 7.

When you take a photograph with a modern digital camera, the camera doesn’t store just the image information that tells a computer how to reconstruct the image on the screen. The camera also stores information about the photograph, such as the model of camera that took the photo, the focal length, the shutter speed and aperture setting, the date and time when the photo was taken, and maybe a lot more. All that information is metadata.

Keywords Are Metadata; Keywords Aren’t Metadata Based on the official definition of metadata as “all data about data,” keywords are metadata. In Aperture, however, metadata and keywords are distinct and they aren’t handled the same way in every respect. In fact, in terms of how Aperture handles metadata, everything about an image except keywords is considered metadata, and keywords are considered a different cataloguing element. In general, viewing the keywords and metadata that may have been applied to an image is pretty much the same. Both metadata and keywords can be viewed in the Metadata Inspector, and you can apply metadata and keywords to images through the Metadata Inspector. You can apply and remove keywords to and from an image in all of the ways that you can apply and remove metadata. You can’t, however, apply and remove metadata in all the same ways that you can apply and remove keywords. The main differences between keywords and metadata are the availability of the additional tools for viewing, applying and removing keywords: the Keywords HUD and Keyword Controls. No features like either are available for metadata. In any case, keywords are an important part of the cataloguing power of Aperture, and you’ll learn about how to view, apply, and remove keywords, along with other metadata, here in this chapter.

Chapter 5 ■ Cataloguing Your Images with Metadata and Keywords

When you import images into Aperture, you’ll also be importing whatever metadata the camera has stored with the images. Either at the time of import or later, you can add more metadata of your own. You can add information about yourself or whoever took the image. You can add keywords that will help you locate images quickly later. You can add a caption for the image.

Note Adding metadata is similar to but different than the automatic naming of images that you learned about in Chapter 3. The names you give images on import become the file names of those images. The metadata is information that is stored inside the image file or inside Aperture’s database of information about your images.

When adding metadata to images, you can add that metadata to one image at a time, or you can add it to a group of images all at once. Of course, you most likely wouldn’t want to add a single caption to a hundred different images, but you might want to add a keyword that describes the subject of a hundred different images.

Note When adding metadata to images during import into Aperture, you can’t add specific metadata for individual images unless you’re only importing one image at a time. Generally, when adding metadata on import, you’re going to add general metadata that describes the group of images you’re importing. On the other hand, after importing your images, you can add metadata to both groups of images and individual images.

The metadata stored with an image can be as simple as its exposure information or as complex as name, rating, caption, photo credit, copyright, etc. You decide what metadata you want to include and what metadata you want to see in the Aperture workspace. You can add, delete, and edit the metadata associated with your images in the Metadata Inspector, the Keywords HUD, the Keyword Controls, and the Lift & Stamp HUD.

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Viewing the Metadata on the Screen Even when you don’t add any of your own metadata to images on import, metadata will have been embedded by the camera and will be imported with your images. You can choose from several different options for viewing that metadata— from very comprehensive lists of the metadata to a symbolic “badge” that just tells you that you have associated metadata with an image.

Viewing Metadata in the Viewer and Browser By default, when you open Aperture and select a project in the Projects panel, Aperture will display the names of the files just beneath the images’ thumbnails in the Browser, as shown in Figure 5.1, and no metadata is shown in the Viewer.

Figure 5.1 By default, the file names of images are displayed beneath the thumbnails in the Browser.

Note The default view options make it seem that no set of metadata has been chosen for the Viewer, but that’s not really the case. What’s happening is that the default view option for the Viewer is Viewer - Basic, which includes only ratings and badges. Badges only appear on images that have had metadata added by you, the user. And ratings only appear after you have rated images. So unless you have added keywords to images as you have imported them (you can’t rate them as you import them), you won’t see any metadata in the Viewer when you first look at a newly imported image. Once you rate the image or add keywords or other metadata, then you’ll see the rating and the badge along with the image in the Viewer, as shown in Figure 5.2.


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Figure 5.2 The default metadata set for the Viewer includes ratings and badges.

Even though other EXIF metadata has been imported with the images, that information doesn’t show up by default. You can see the additional metadata using several methods. You can open the Metadata Inspector, as described in the next section, or you can choose to display a variety of sets of metadata right there in the Viewer and Browser. Figure 5.3 shows metadata displayed in both the Browser and Viewer. Figure 5.3 Metadata can be displayed right there in the Viewer and Browser.

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Tip Notice how the metadata is abbreviated in the Browser view in Figure 5.3. As you learn to manipulate the display of metadata in the Browser and Viewer, it’s good to understand that the size of thumbnails in the Browser can affect the display of metadata in the Browser. If you’re viewing small thumbnails in the Browser, you shouldn’t select too much metadata for display.

Changing the Displayed Metadata Set You have control over what metadata is displayed in the Viewer, the Browser, and Image Tooltips. (Image Tooltips are described later in this section.) To edit the metadata displays of the Viewer and Browser, open the View Options by choosing View>View Options or by pressing Cmd+J. As you can see in Figure 5.4, the View Options dialog box is divided into three sections: one each for the Viewer, the Browser, and Image Tooltips. Each section controls the sets of metadata that will be displayed in the respective desktop window. Figure 5.4 The View Options dialog box.

Note The Browser section of the View Options dialog box is not labeled Browser, but it is the section containing the Grid View and List View Columns selections.

For example, the default selection for Set 1 in the Viewer is the Viewer – Basic set. If you click on the Set 1 button, as shown in Figure 5.5, and choose EXIF – Expanded, you’ll see a completely different set of metadata in the Viewer (see Figure 5.6).


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Figure 5.5 Changing the metadata view in the View Options dialog box.

Figure 5.6 Expanded EXIF metadata in the Viewer.

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The metadata content of the various preset metadata view sets is listed in Table 5-1.

Tip If you’re wondering what metadata a particular view set will display, you can refer to Table 5-1, or you can open the Metadata Inspector and select any of the view sets using the Metadata View pop-up menu. Selecting a view set will then display the corresponding metadata in the Metadata Inspector.

Table 5-1 Metadata Groups Group

Information Included

All IPTC

All IPTC fields

General

Rating, badges, caption, keywords, version name, image date, aperture, shutter speed, exposure bias, ISO speed rating, focal length (35mm), focal length, pixel size, file name, file size, credit, copyright notice, object name, camera model, master location

Name Only

Version name

Caption Only

Caption

Name & Rating

Version name, rating, and badges

Name & Caption

Version name and caption

Ratings

Rating and badges

Caption & Keywords

Version name, caption, and keywords

Caption & Credits

Version name, byline, credit, caption, and copyright notice

File Info

Version name, file name, file size, pixel size, color model, image date, and badges

Photo Info-EXIF

Version name, image date, camera model, pixel size, aperture, shutter speed, exposure bias, focal length (35mm), focal length, and ISO speed rating


Group

Information Included

EXIF-Expanded

Version name, image date, camera make, camera model, pixel size, aperture, shutter speed, exposure bias, focal length (35mm), focal length, ISO speed rating, aspect ratio, orientation, depth, color space, exposure mode, flash, serial number, lens minimum (mm), maximum lens aperture, lens maximum (mm), color model, profile name, and badges

IPTC-Basic

Version name, caption, keywords, credit, copyright notice, and object name

IPTC-Expanded

Version name, caption, credit, copyright notice, object name, city, province/state, country name, special instructions, byline, category, date created, headline, source, and keywords

Grid View-Basic

Badges and rating

Grid View-Expanded

Badges, rating, and version name

Viewer-Basic

Badges and rating

Viewer-Expanded

Rating, badges, aperture, shutter speed, exposure bias, focal length (35mm), focal length, caption, keywords, version name, image date, ISO speed rating, file size, and master location

List-Basic

Version name, badges, rating, image date, aperture, shutter speed, exposure bias, focal length (35mm), focal length, pixel size, orientation, aspect ratio, file name, file size, camera model, import group, and master location

List-Expanded

Version name, badges, rating, image date, caption, keywords, credit, copyright notice, object name, file name, camera model, import group, master location, aperture, shutter speed, exposure bias, ISO speed rating, focal length (35mm), focal length, and pixel size

Tooltips

Version name, file name, image date, caption, keywords, aperture, shutter speed, exposure bias, ISO speed rating, focal length (35mm), focal length, pixel size, camera model, and rating

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What Are EXIF and IPTC? A lot of the metadata in Aperture is grouped by the two abbreviations EXIF and IPTC. You don’t really need to know what those abbreviations mean as much as you need to know what’s in those groups. But just for reference, here’s what they stand for: EXIF stands for Exchangeable Image File. This information storage format includes the basic technical information about a digital photograph, such as the camera model that took the photo, what the shutter speed and aperture settings were, the focal length, and so on. Although most of that is numerical information, some of it is stored as text, such as the camera model and the orientation of the camera when the photo was taken. IPTC stands for International Press Telecommunications Council. This metadata includes the verbal information that helps media outlets sort, catalog, and reference photographic images. IPTC metadata includes captions, photographers’ names, copyright information, and so on. Most of the IPTC information is added to the image file after the photograph is taken. The list of possible IPTC data is lengthy. Take a look at Figure 5.7, which shows the Metadata Inspector view set to All IPTC. There isn’t room for all of the possible values, even when the Metadata Inspector is stretched to fill the entire area reserved for the Inspectors.

Turning off Metadata Display in the Viewer and Browser Clicking the check box next to the Viewer, Grid View, and Image Tooltips labels in the View Options dialog box will toggle the corresponding metadata displays on and off in their respective windows. You can also turn the metadata displays on and off with these operations: ■

To turn the Viewer metadata display on and off, press Y or choose View>Metadata Overlays>Viewer.

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To turn the Browser metadata display on and off, press U or choose View>Metadata Overlays>Browser.

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To turn the Light Table metadata display on and off, press Shift+G or choose View>Metadata Overlays>Light Table.

Figure 5.7 You can add a lot of information via IPTC.


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Choosing Where the Metadata Will Display in the Viewer and Browser Notice in Figure 5.4 or Figure 5.5 the Placement buttons to the right of the Set 1 and Set 2 buttons. The two options in these menus are Over and Below. Look back at Figure 5.6. The metadata displayed there in the Viewer is laid over the image, much like a HUD, and you can see through it to the image underneath. That’s an example of the Over selection. Now look at Figure 5.8. See how the same image has been shrunk and all the metadata is placed under the bottom edge of the photo? That’s an example of the Below selection. You can make that selection for metadata in both the Viewer and the Browser.

Figure 5.8 The metadata can be set to display below the bottom edge of the image.

Quickly Changing Metadata Displays in the Viewer and Browser If you’re wondering why there are two sets of selections in the View Options dialog box for the Viewer and the Browser, close the View Options dialog box and then press Shift+Y. You’ll see the metadata display shift between the two selections of the View Options dialog box (unless you have the exact same selections set for both Set 1 and Set 2). Pressing Shift+Y toggles the metadata display in the Viewer between its Set 1 display and its Set 2 display. Pressing Shift+U toggles the metadata display in the Browser between its Set 1 display and its Set 2 display.

Tip Using the Shift+Y and Shift+U shortcuts can help you maintain a “clean” Viewer and Browser while offering a quick way to view the metadata of an image. To use this tip, select None for Set 1 and whatever metadata set you want to see. Then when you’re in the Aperture interface, you can toggle between no metadata display and your selected metadata display by pressing Shift+Y or Shift+U.

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Displaying the Metadata Labels with the Metadata Information If you have a complex set of metadata selected for display in the Viewer or Browser, you might also want to see exactly what that metadata information is. For example, look at the metadata shown in Figure 5.9 and compare it with the labeled metadata shown in Figure 5.10. Figure 5.9 Hmm. What do all those numbers mean? Figure 5.10 You can choose to add the metadata labels to the display.

Defining the Columns Displayed in the Browser List View When you are viewing the Browser in List View, you’ll see columns of metadata information. Those columns of metadata displayed in the Browser List View correspond to the set of metadata you have chosen in the List View Columns selections in the Browser section of the View Options dialog box, shown in Figure 5.4 and Figure 5.5.

Viewing Metadata with Image Tooltips You can also view a set of metadata for an image by using Image Tooltips, which is a HUD that operates the same way as Tooltips: Placing the cursor over an image pops up a display that shows a set of that image’s metadata, as shown in Figure 5.11. In the Image Tooltips HUD, you can’t edit the metadata information that has been applied to an image; you can only view that metadata. To activate Image Tooltips, press the T key or choose View>Image Tooltips. The resulting HUD displays a set of metadata corresponding to the metadata set selection you have made in the View Options dialog box, as described in the previous section.

Figure 5.11 Image Tooltips provide quick viewing of applied metadata.

Tip You can customize the set of metadata displayed by Image Tooltips. See “Managing Metadata Views” in the next section.


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Badges Aperture’s badges are simple visual shorthand. Instead of displaying all the details about the ratings, cataloguing information, or adjustments you’ve applied to an image, Aperture displays a badge, like the ones in the lower-right corner of the image in Figure 5.12, that indicates that you have applied something to the image and that more information about the image is available. Badges Figure 5.12 Badges indicate whether you’ve applied edits or metadata to an image.

Note Badges can also indicate trouble. Some badges may warn you that an image’s master file can’t be found, or that an image will print poorly because of poor resolution, etc. See Table 5-2 for all the types of badges that appear in the Viewer.

You control whether badges display in the Viewer or the Browser. To view badges, you must have selected in the View Options a metadata set that includes badges. You select the metadata sets for display in the View Options as described in detail in the section, “Changing the Displayed Metadata Set,” earlier in this chapter. To pick a metadata set that includes badges, refer to Table 5-1, which lists the contents of all the metadata sets.

Tip Toggling metadata overlays on and off also turns badges on and off. As described earlier in this chapter, you can turn the metadata displays on and off with these operations: To turn the Viewer metadata display on and off, press Y or choose View>Metadata Overlays>Viewer. ■ To turn the Browser metadata display on and off, press U or choose View>Metadata Overlays>Browser. ■ To turn the light table metadata display on and off, press Shift+G or choose View>Metadata Overlays>Light Table. ■

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While working in the light table, you can turn badges on and off using the following operations: ■

Choose View>View Options (or press Command+J) and click the Show Decorations check box.

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Press Shift+G.

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Choose View>Metadata Overlays>Light Table.

The various badges and what they indicate are listed in Table 5-2.

Table 5-2 Badges Badge

What It Means You have applied adjustments to the image (displayed in Viewer). You have applied adjustments to the image (displayed in Browser). You have applied keywords to the image. This is a stack, and the number indicates the number of images in the stack. You have edited this image in your external editor, and this is the edited version. When working in a book, Web journal, or light table, this indicates how many times this particular image is used in that book, Web journal, or light table. This image is a preview, and it has a referenced master file. This image is a preview, and it has a referenced master file that is offline. This image is a preview, and it has a referenced master file that can’t be found. When working in an album, Web gallery album, Web journal album, light table album, or book album, the image that is the pick image of a stack will have this badge. When working on a book or Web page, images that may not be high enough resolution to print or display properly will have this warning badge.


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Working with the Metadata Inspector Of the three metadata interfaces, the Metadata Inspector, shown in Figure 5.13, is the most powerful. From the Metadata Inspector, you can add, edit, and delete all the various types of metadata, including keywords. You can also use the Metadata Inspector to view all the metadata associated with an image and change the sets of metadata that are displayed with the image.

Figure 5.13 The Metadata Inspector. Metadata Actions pop-up menu Metadata View pop-up menu

Metadata Type buttons

Opening the Metadata Inspector Open the Metadata Inspector using one of the following methods: ■

Click the Show/Hide Metadata button in the upper-right corner of the Aperture window, as shown in Figure 5.14.

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Press Control+D.

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Choose Window>Show Metadata

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Press I

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Choose Window>Show Inspectors

Show/Hide Metadata Show/Hide Adjustments

Figure 5.14 The two new Inspectors’ buttons.

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Tip

If you started using Aperture at version 1.0, up to version 1.1.2, you may be expecting to see the Metadata Inspector and the Adjustments Inspector show up in the default Aperture window layout. As of version 1.5, none of the window layouts includes the Metadata Inspector or Adjustments Inspector by default. You must now open these Inspectors yourself, and there are now two new buttons on the Toolbar, shown in Figure 5.14, that individually show or hide one or the other.

When you use Cmd+I or Window>Show Inspectors to open the Inspectors, you may be expecting to see both the Metadata Inspector and the Adjustments Inspector. However, as of version 1.5, opening the Inspectors with one of these operations will open whichever of the Inspectors was opened last time the Inspectors were open—or both of them if both were open the last time. For example, if you choose Window>Show Metadata to open the Metadata Inspector, only the Metadata Inspector will open in the area where the Inspectors reside, as shown in Figure 5.14. If you then use Cmd+I or Window>Show Inspectors, only the Metadata Inspector will appear.

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Figure 5.15 The Metadata Inspector alone in the Inspector’s area.

Viewing Different Sets of Metadata in the Metadata Inspector As you can see in Figure 5.15, by default the Metadata Inspector opens to the General Metadata View. You can change the Metadata View by clicking the Metadata View pop-up menu (see Figure 5.16). The options in the Metadata View pop-up menu correspond to preset views of metadata information. The preset groupings of metadata available in Aperture’s Metadata Inspector are listed back in Table 5-1.

Editing Metadata Views and Creating New Metadata Views Although the available metadata views are very comprehensive, you’re not limited to viewing only those preset collections of metadata tags provided in Aperture. You can change those preset views, and you can create custom sets of metadata tags that match your own preferences and needs. To edit an existing metadata view, select the view you want to edit in the Metadata View menu and then click the Metadata Actions pop-up menu (see Figure 5.17). In this case, the selected view is General. So to edit that view, choose Edit General.

Figure 5.16 The Metadata View pop-up menu.


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Figure 5.17 Click the action icon to open the Metadata Actions pop-up menu. Delete a value

The Metadata Inspector will change to the editing configuration, shown in Figure 5.18. You can then edit the selected view in the following ways: ■

In the upper portion of the Metadata Inspector, click the delete icon, shown in Figure 5.18, to the right of any metadata tags you want to remove from the set.

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To add new metadata tags to the set, click a Metadata Type button at the bottom of the Metadata Inspector to access all of the possible tags that are available in that particular metadata type. The Metadata Inspector in Figure 5.19 shows the EXIF values available for adding to the view. To add a tag, click the check box to the left of it.

Figure 5.18 Once you choose to edit an existing metadata view, you’ll see this configuration.

Figure 5.19 Access other available tags by clicking a Metadata Type button at the bottom of the Metadata Inspector.

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Tip The Archive metadata type provides a single tag with information about when and where you have backed up an image to an Aperture Vault. To add that information to a view set, click the Archive button at the bottom of the Metadata Inspector, shown in Figure 5.19. Then click the Include in Summary check box above the Archive list.

You can add any mixture of tags from the various metadata types. For example, you could have a view that includes some keywords, some of the EXIF data, and some of the IPTC data.

Note The Hide Empty Tags check box at the top of the editing area of the Metadata Inspector will toggle the view in the editing area between showing all possible tags in that selected metadata type and showing only those tags for which the selected image has a value. You can use that feature to cull the list of tags down to those that match the values already applied to an image. On the other hand, if that feature is activated, you may not realize that you have additional tags that you can apply. For example, in the Metadata Inspector shown in Figure 5.18, the Hide Empty Tags feature is on, and there are no additional tags shown in the list of tags, even though there are a couple of dozen additional IPTC tags that could be applied. That’s happening because Aperture is hiding all of the IPTC tags for which the selected image has no values. (See the Metadata Inspector shown back in Figure 5.7 to see just how many other available IPTC tags would be listed if the Hide Empty Tags feature were turned off.)

To create a completely new metadata view, click the Metadata View pop-up menu, as shown in Figure 5.17, and this time choose New View. Aperture will offer you the dialog box shown in Figure 5.20, in which you can enter a name for the new set. Once you enter a new name (or keep Untitled), you follow what is basically the same procedure as that used for adding additional tags while editing an existing view, as explained previously. You can add any combination of tags from any metadata type.

Figure 5.20 Give the new Metadata View a name.

The new metadata view you create will then appear in the Metadata View popup menu, and you can access it any time you want.


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Tip You can also create a new view set by duplicating and then editing an existing set, as described in the next section.

Managing Metadata Views You can rearrange, duplicate, and delete any of the default metadata views and any you may have edited by clicking the Metadata Actions pop-up menu (refer to Figure 5.17) and choosing Manage Views. The Manage Views window will open, as shown in Figure 5.21. In the Manage Views window, you can drag the views to a different position in the list (see Figure 5.21). You can duplicate an existing set by clicking the Duplicate button. You can delete an existing set by clicking the Delete button. Duplicate a Metadata View. Delete a Metadata View. Figure 5.21 You can rearrange, delete, and duplicate views in the Manage Views window.

Applying Metadata to Images When you have an understanding of how the various metadata displays and interfaces work, you can apply metadata to your images. By choosing the correct method, it’s possible to apply keywords to multiple images at the same time, to apply multiple keywords to individual or multiple images at the same time, and to remove keywords from individual or multiple images at the same time.

Automatically Filling Out Metadata Text Fields You know how when you start to enter text in a text field while you’re filling out forms on a Web page, your Web browser automatically guesses what you’re starting to type and fills it in for you? Aperture can do the same thing for you as you enter keyword text and other metadata values. Once you’ve entered metadata or keywords in a text field yourself, the entries you make are stored in Aperture’s AutoFill feature, and the next time you start to type in the same respective text

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field in another image, Aperture will fill in the information that matches what’s stored in the AutoFill List. After you have entered text and it’s stored in the AutoFill List, you can then edit it or remove it from the AutoFill List by accessing the AutoFill List Editor.

Tip In theory, you don’t have to wait until you’ve already entered text in a field. You can open the AutoFill List Editor and input a value that will be stored for a particular metadata tag’s text field, so that when you want to apply that value to an image, you just have to start typing it, and Aperture will fill it in automatically. On the other hand, all you have to do to enter text into the AutoFill List is to enter it once into any image, so you may prefer to enter it the first time in an actual image. Then it will be automatically filled in the very next time you start typing it, just as if you had entered it first in the AutoFill List Editor.

To enter, edit, or remove values stored in the AutoFill List, first open the AutoFill List Editor by choosing Metadata>Edit AutoFill List (see Figure 5.22). In the AutoFill List Editor, you’ll see all of the metadata tags that can have custom entries. For those tags that have had entries stored, you’ll see the values that have been entered. Delete an entry. Add a new entry.

Tip After you’ve used Aperture for a while, you may have a lot of entries for some of the tags, and you can close those disclosure triangles to save space in the AutoFill List Editor. By default, all of the disclosure triangles next to the tags will be opened, but if you’ve closed any, you can once again display the list of values by clicking the disclosure triangle.

Figure 5.22 All of the stored AutoFill values are accessible in the AutoFill List Editor.


Add, edit, or remove an entry in the AutoFill List Editor using one of these operations: ■

Edit an existing entry by double-clicking the specific entry to activate its text field and then making your changes.

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Delete an existing entry by selecting the specific entry and then clicking the delete button, shown in Figure 5.22.

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Add a new entry by selecting a metadata tag (or any of its existing entries) and then clicking the Add button, shown in Figure 5.22. An empty text field will open under the selected metadata tag, and you can type in the value you want to store.

Input or Edit Metadata for One Image By now, you probably have a pretty good idea how to apply metadata or keywords to an individual image. You’ve seen how the Metadata Inspector works. Any time you enter, edit, or delete metadata information in the Metadata Inspector, those changes apply to whatever individual image you have selected in the Browser. All of the above examples of how to use the Metadata Inspector involved just one image.

Note If you have more than one image selected in the Browser, any changes you make to the metadata in the Metadata Inspector will apply only to the primary selection. (Refer to Chapter 1 for more detailed information about selecting images in the Browser.) If you want to make metadata changes to more than one image at a time, you must use the Batch Change feature described in the next section.

Input or Edit Metadata for Multiple Images with Batch Change Aperture also provides a powerful Batch Change feature for applying metadata and keyword changes to multiple images at the same time.

Tip In addition to the Batch Change feature, the Lift & Stamp tools provide another means of applying metadata to multiple images at the same time. For keywords, you can use these two features and some additional keywords tools, as described in the next sections.

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To make metadata changes to multiple images at the same time, in the Browser select the images you want to apply the changes to. Then open the Batch Change window, shown in Figure 5.23, by choosing Metadata>Batch Change or by pressing Shift+Cmd+B. As you can see in the Batch Change window shown in Figure 5.23, three adjustment options are available. You can change the time zone associated with images, you can change the file names of images, and you can add and replace metadata associated with images.

Changing the Time Zone on Multiple Images If you imported a bunch of images and forgot to adjust the time zone when you imported them, you can make that adjustment here in the Batch Change window. Click the Adjust Time Zone radio button and then make the change to either the stored Camera’s Time Zone or the Actual Time Zone, or both; then click OK.

Changing the Version Name on Multiple Images If you imported a bunch of images and didn’t separate them with unique Figure 5.23 You can make metadata names, you can give them a batch name with this feature. For example, changes to multiple images with the let’s say you have 1,000 imported pictures that you took while on a trip Batch Change feature. to multiple cities. When you imported them, you just imported them all at once, without going through and separating them by city. Now you realize that for cataloguing purposes you want to have them named by city. With the Batch Change feature, you can now rename the images to have a batch name. To rename a batch of images, select in the Browser all the images that you want to rename and then open the Batch Change window. In the Version Name Format pop-up menu, choose a naming format and, if necessary, enter a name in the Custom Name text field. You’ll see an example of what you’re about to do just below that text field. Click OK when you’re satisfied with your selection and entry.

Changing Metadata on Multiple Images The metadata section of the Batch Change window works the same way that the Metadata Inspector works, except that you’re applying the changes in metadata to all of the images selected in the Browser. The first step in making the metadata changes is to select the Metadata View in the Add Metadata From pop-up menu. The selections are the same that would appear in the Metadata View pop-up menu in the Metadata Inspector, as described earlier in this chapter.


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Once you have made the selection that provides the text field for the specific metadata you want to change, you can either add new information or replace existing information, according to these respective procedures: ■

If you want to add some additional metadata info to the selected images, click the Append radio button and enter the information. When you click OK, the information will be added to whatever may already be in that particular metadata tag’s field.

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If you want to delete some existing metadata, click the Replace radio button, which will add check boxes to the metadata values (see Figure 5.24). When you click on a metadata tag that has values already entered, you’ll see Clear Values appear in that metadata tag’s text field, as shown in Figure 5.35. If you click OK, whatever values are already entered for the selected images will be deleted.

■

If you want to change some existing metadata, click the Replace radio button, which will add check boxes to the metadata values, as shown in Figure 5.24. When you click a metadata tag that has values already entered and then start to type, you’ll see the existing metadata values appear. You can edit the values, and when you click OK, the changed values will be applied to the selected images.

Figure 5.24 Clicking the Replace radio button adds check boxes to the Batch Change metadata section.

Note If you have created or imported any metadata presets, those presets will appear in the list of metadata views when you click the Add Metadata From pop-up menu. Because presets have information that has already been entered in some fields, both the Append and Replace radio buttons will activate the check boxes to the left of the metadata tag name. You can then choose to selectively add or replace information from that particular preset. Metadata presets are described in detail later in this chapter.

Note Even though you can add, edit, and delete keywords right along with the other metadata in the Batch Change window, you’re not limited to the Batch Change feature when you want to make keyword changes to multiple images. You have additional options for adding, editing, and deleting keywords, as described later in this chapter.

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Saving and Applying Metadata Entries with Metadata Presets You can save time when applying the same set of metadata entries to images by creating metadata presets that can apply multiple values to metadata tags on images. Let’s say you regularly sell images to one particular media outlet, and they require that you add specific IPTC information to the images you provide them. You can create a metadata preset that contains that specific IPTC information, and you can then apply it to individual images and multiple images quickly and efficiently.

Note The Metadata Presets feature in Aperture is not yet the powerful tool it could be. As of Aperture 1.5, the Metadata Presets feature is really useful only for applying metadata information to an image or images. Unfortunately, the feature doesn’t allow you to remove metadata information from images or to edit metadata globally across all images to which a preset has been applied. (Of course, those are things Batch Change can do.) However, if you are applying the same metadata information to a number of images, using a metadata preset can save you a lot of time.

You can use metadata presets to apply metadata information when you first import images, when using the Batch Change feature, or when editing images individually.

Creating a Metadata Preset The process of creating a metadata preset starts with selecting or creating a Metadata View that contains the metadata tags you want to include in the preset. You learned how to use, edit, and create Metadata Views earlier in this chapter. Once you have defined the Metadata View that you want to save as a preset, enter the values you want to save and then click the Metadata Actions pop-up menu, as shown in Figure 5.25, and choose Save as Preset. Aperture will open a dialog box, the same one shown back in Figure 5.20 that is also used for naming Metadata Views. Give the metadata preset a name and click OK.

Figure 5.25 Access the Metadata Preset actions in the Metadata Actions pop-up menu.


Applying Metadata Presets to Images After creating a metadata preset, you can then quickly append all the information it may contain to an image or a selection of images. Simply select an image or multiple images in the Browser; then click the Metadata Actions pop-up menu and choose Append with Preset. When you click Append with Preset, Aperture will offer you the available presets. Slide the cursor over to the one you want to apply and click it.

Note Even though you can’t add most metadata tag values to multiple images at the same time in the Metadata Inspector, you can append a metadata preset to more than one image at a time in the Metadata Inspector by selecting multiple images in the Browser and following the steps listed previously.

Changing Metadata Information with Metadata Presets You can also use a metadata preset to change metadata information that has already been applied to an image or images. In reality, what you’ll be doing is creating a new preset with the edited metadata in it and appending it to the image or images, which then replaces the old information with the new.

Note The Replace with Preset feature is buggy. As of Aperture 1.5, you’ll find that you can’t actually remove any metadata values that have been applied to an image or images. You can replace the information that may be in a particular metadata tag’s field, but you can’t completely remove information from that particular tag and leave it empty.

To change existing metadata information, select an image that has the existing metadata you want to change. Make the change you want and then click the Metadata Actions pop-up menu and select Save as Preset. Give the new preset a name and click OK. Now select all the images you want to apply the change to. Click the Metadata Actions pop-up menu, choose Replace with Preset, and then click the name of the new preset. The new metadata information you created will replace what is already there.

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Modifying Metadata Presets If you have created or imported any metadata presets, you can then use an existing preset as a template for creating a new preset. First follow the steps for appending a preset, as listed previously. Add new metadata fields you might want and edit any information that is already in the preset. Then click the Metadata Actions pop-up menu, select Save as Preset, give the new preset a name, and click OK.

Note Although you can modify an existing metadata preset, what you’re really doing is using an existing metadata preset to create a new metadata preset. Unfortunately, Aperture does not provide a method for editing an existing metadata preset so that changes you make to that existing preset are changed in all images to which that preset has been applied. In other words, if you want to change the values that you have applied with a metadata preset to an image or images, you have to make a new preset and replace the existing metadata information using that new preset. That means you have to select all of the images to which you might have applied the original preset before you replace the metadata information with a new preset. If you’re lucky enough to be making a change that you can apply with Batch Change, you could select all of your images and use the Replace option. Hopefully, Apple will add a true editing feature to Metadata Presets in some later version.

Deleting, Importing, and Exporting Metadata Presets All existing metadata presets are listed in the Manage Presets window, shown in Figure 5.26, which you access by clicking on the Metadata Actions pop-up menu and choosing Manage Presets. Use the Manage Presets window to perform the following Metadata Presets maintenance functions: ■

Rename a preset by double-clicking its name and typing in a new name.

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Move a preset up or down in the list by dragging it to the desired position, as you would in the Metadata Views window shown in Figure 5.21.

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Delete a preset by selecting it and pressing the Delete key.

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Export a preset by clicking the Export button.

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Import a previously exported preset by clicking the Import button.

Figure 5.26 Access the Manage Presets window in the Metadata Actions pop-up menu.


Any changes you make to presets in this window won’t be applied unless you click the OK button. For example, you could delete a bunch of presets from the list in the window, but those deletions won’t actually happen if you click the Cancel button.

Applying Metadata and Keywords with the Lift & Stamp Tools Aperture’s Lift & Stamp tools allow you to “lift” the metadata information from an image and then “stamp” it onto an image or images. Although the Lift & Stamp tools lift all metadata information and all the adjustments made to an image, you don’t have to stamp all that information, and you can pick and choose what information to stamp. (The Lift & Stamp tools will be described in more detail in Chapter 8.)

Tip The Lift & Stamp tools provide another means of applying metadata to multiple images at the same time. You can also use the Batch Change feature to apply metadata to multiple images at the same time. For keywords, you can use these two features and some additional keywords tools, as described later in this chapter.

Lifting Metadata and Adjustment Information from an Image To lift the metadata information from an image, activate the Lift tool by clicking the Lift Tool button, shown in Figure 5.27, or press O.

Lift Tool button Stamp Tool button

Once you activate the Lift tool, the cursor will change to the Lift cursor and the Lift & Stamp HUD will open, as shown in Figure 5.28. Click any image in the Browser or Viewer to lift that image’s metadata and adjustments information. When you click an image, that image’s metadata and any adjustments you may have made to the image will load into the Lift & Stamp HUD, and the cursor will change to the Stamp tool, as shown in Figure 5.29.

Figure 5.27 The Lift & Stamp Tool buttons.

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Lift cursor

Figure 5.28 Click an image to lift its metadata and adjustments information.

Stamp cursor

Figure 5.29 After you click with the Lift tool, you’ll see the information in the Lift & Stamp HUD.


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Tip If the cursor doesn’t automatically change to the Stamp tool, or if you are working with another tool and want to activate the Stamp tool, you can click the Stamp Tool button in the Toolbar or press Shift+O.

Stamping Metadata and Adjustment Information onto an Image To stamp all the information you just lifted from that image, you just click with the Stamp cursor onto any image in the Browser or Viewer. If you do that right away, all the information that you lifted from the first image will be stamped onto the next image that you click with the Stamp cursor. But you don’t have to stamp all that information if you don’t want to.

Note You don’t have to perform your lifting and stamping all at one time. After you lift information from an image, that information will remain in the Lift & Stamp HUD until you delete it or lift the information from another image. You can always close the Lift & Stamp HUD, do other things, and then click the Stamp button on the Toolbar (or press Shift+O) to open the Lift & Stamp HUD and stamp the stored information onto an image or images.

Stamping Selected Metadata and Adjustment Information onto an Image To stamp only selected information from the Lift & Stamp HUD onto another image, click the check boxes next to the information you don’t want to stamp, removing the check from the box, as shown in Figure 5.30.

Note The check boxes only appear to the left of groups and types of metadata, such as the Adjustments, IPTC, and Custom groups (see Figure 5.30). If more than one entry is available for a group or type, you can open its disclosure triangle to see all of the entries. If you want to stamp only a portion of the available information in a group or type, you have to delete the information you don’t want to stamp. To delete that information, click on it and press the Delete key.

Figure 5.30 Use the check boxes next to the metadata and adjustments to include and exclude information from the stamping process.

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Adding to or Replacing the Metadata and Adjustment Information of an Image If the image or images that you choose for stamping the lifted metadata already have some entries in the values you have lifted, you can choose to either add the lifted information to that already in the image or replace what’s already there. To add lifted metadata information to an image, select the Add option from the pop-up menu in the lower-left corner of the Lift & Stamp HUD. To replace any existing metadata information in an image with the information you have lifted, select Replace from the pop-up menu in the lower-left corner of the Lift & Stamp HUD.

Stamping Metadata and Adjustment Information onto Multiple Images To stamp information onto multiple images at one time, select a range of images prior to clicking one with the Lift tool. After you load the Lift & Stamp HUD with the information from one image and select the lifted information to stamp by clicking check boxes or deleting information, then click the Stamp Selected Images button in the Lift & Stamp HUD to apply the selected information to all the selected images.

Additional Tools for Working with Keywords Only If you’re applying, editing, changing, or otherwise working only with the Keywords elements of metadata, you have a couple of additional, powerful tools that allow you to work only with keywords.

Working with the Keywords HUD The Keywords HUD doesn’t allow you to work with any metadata other than keywords. But if you’re working exclusively with keywords, you might find it more efficient to work with the Keywords HUD rather than the Metadata Inspector. As with all HUDs, the Keywords HUD floats above the workspace, and you can move it around on the screen to wherever it may work best for you at any given time.


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Figure 5.31 The Keywords HUD floats above your workspace.

Remove Keyword button Add Subordinate Keyword button Add Keyword button Lock button

Open the Keywords HUD, shown in Figure 5.31, using one of the following methods: ■

Click the Keywords HUD button on the Toolbar.

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Press Shift+H.

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Choose Window>Show Keywords HUD.

The list space of the Keywords HUD displays all keywords that have been assigned to any image in all of the projects in your library.

Note When you open Aperture for the very first time, you’ll see a default selection of keywords that come with the Aperture installation. That’s the default set shown in the Keywords HUD in Figure 5.31. You can use these keywords or create any of your own. You can also delete those keywords, following the instructions described later in this section.

Working with Keywords and Keyword Groups in the Keywords HUD The Keywords HUD shows both keywords and keyword groups (see Figure 5.32). A keyword is an individual word or phrase that you can apply to an image that will help you identify and locate an image. A keyword group is like a folder or category full of what are called subordinate keywords. You can use keyword groups to organize keywords in some sensible fashion to save space in the Keywords HUD and to refine keywords into more precise descriptions.

Keyword list space

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A keyword group consists of a keyword with subordinate keywords under it. As you can see in Figure 5.32, keyword groups can be used to better organize the possible subtopics of a topic. In that example, the keyword “Wedding” has a long list of subordinate keywords that provide additional descriptive detail about the activities and subjects you’d find in a typical wedding shoot.

Figure 5.32 Both Keywords and Keywords groups are listed in the Keywords HUD.

Keyword Keyword group

Intuitively, you might think that dragging a keyword group to an image or images would apply all the keywords in a keyword group. But that isn’t how Aperture’s keyword groups work. Aperture’s keyword groups work from the bottom up. What this means is that when you drag the top keyword in a keywords group (such as Wedding in Figure 5.32), that action won’t apply all the keywords in that group to an image or images. That action only applies the keyword “Wedding” to that image or images. However, if you drag a subordinate keyword from the “Wedding” keyword group, you will be applying both that keyword and any keywords above it in the hierarchy of the Keywords HUD list. For example, if you drag the keyword “Candids” to an image or images, both the keywords Figure 5.33 A subordinate “Candids” and “Wedding” will be applied to the keyword’s parent keyword or image or images. You won’t actually see the higher-level keywords displayed in the Image Tooltips, the Viewer, the Browser, or the Keywords text field of the Metadata Inspector, but you will see them in the Keywords editing section of the Metadata Inspector after you click the Keywords Metadata Type button at the bottom of the Metadata Inspector, as shown in Figure 5.33. Additionally, when you search for images using keywords, you’ll be able to search with either the subordinate keyword or the keyword’s parent keywords. (You’ll also find out a little later in this chapter how the keyword groups are used in the Keyword Controls.)

keywords are visible only in the Keywords list of the Metadata Inspector.

Parent Keyword


Managing Keywords in the Keywords HUD If you add any keywords to any image in your Library, whether through the Metadata Inspector or other method, those keywords will be added to the list of keywords displayed in the Keywords HUD. But you can also edit and delete existing keywords and add new keywords directly to the Keywords HUD, using the following operations: ■

To edit an existing keyword in the Keywords HUD, double-click the keyword. The keyword’s text field will become active, and you can type in any changes. Press Enter, Return, or click away from the keyword to set it. The edited keyword will be changed in all images to which the keyword has been applied.

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To delete a keyword from the Keywords HUD, select the keyword and press Delete. You can also delete multiple keywords by selecting additional keywords.

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To add a new keyword to the Keywords HUD, click the Add Keyword button, shown in Figure 5.31. A blank row will appear, with an active text field. Type in your new keyword. Pressing Enter or Return or clicking away from the new row will set the keyword.

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To add a new subordinate keyword for a keyword in the Keywords HUD, select a keyword and then click the Add Subordinate Keyword button, shown in Figure 5.31. A blank row will appear under the selected keyword, with an active text field. Type in your new subordinate keyword. Pressing Enter or Return or clicking away from the new row will set the subordinate keyword.

Searching for Keywords in the Keywords HUD After you have worked with Aperture for a while and have entered a lot of keywords, your list of keywords can become quite long. If you have a lot of keywords and a lot of keyword groups, you might not see all of your keywords in the Keywords HUD, even if you maximize its size on the screen. In this case, you can search for the keywords in the Keywords HUD.

Note Searching for keywords in the Keywords HUD is not the same as searching for images that have a particular keyword applied to them. This operation is only for locating keywords that can be applied to images from the Keywords HUD.

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To search for a particular keyword or keywords, click the Search field at the top of the Keywords HUD. Entering a word or even a portion of a word will display a list of matching keywords in the Keywords HUD, as shown in Figure 5.34.

Locking All Keywords Controls via the Keywords HUD If you decide you want to prevent any changes to the existing keywords or prevent any more keywords from being created for your library, the Keywords HUD provides a Lock button with which you can prevent any changes being made to the keywords. The Keywords HUD Lock button applies to all keywords controls in Aperture. If you lock the keywords and then try to edit a keyword, nothing will happen. If you lock the keywords and then try to add a keyword, you’ll be prompted to either cancel the edit or addition or unlock the keywords and make the change, via the dialog box shown in Figure 5.35.

Figure 5.34 Searching for a word or part of a word will display all keywords that match.

Note When the keywords lock is in effect, you can still apply and remove keywords to and from images. You just can’t make changes to the keywords or add and delete keywords from the application’s Keyword Library.

Applying Keywords from the Keywords HUD

Figure 5.35 You can either cancel the addition or unlock the Keyword library and add the keyword.

From the Keywords HUD, adding keywords to an image is as simple as dragging a keyword from the Keywords HUD to an image in the Viewer or Browser. It’s that easy.

Applying Keywords from the Keywords HUD to Multiple Images You can also apply keywords to a selection of multiple images in the Browser by selecting any number of images and then dragging a keyword from the Keywords HUD to any one of the selected images. The keyword will be applied to all of the selected images.

Applying Multiple Keywords from the Keywords HUD You can apply more than one keyword at a time to an image or images from the Keywords HUD. Simply select the multiple keywords in the Keywords HUD and then drag them onto an image in the Viewer or Browser or to one image in a selection of images in the Browser.


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You can select multiple keywords in the Keywords HUD using the following methods: ■

Click a keyword; then hold down the Shift key and click another keyword. All keywords between the two keywords will be selected.

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Click a keyword; then hold down the Shift key and press the up arrow or down arrow key. As you scroll up or down, all keywords you move to will be selected.

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Click a keyword and then hold down the Control key as you click other keywords. Only those keywords you click will be selected.

Once you have selected the multiple keywords, drag the group to an image or images.

Working with the Keyword Controls Aperture’s Keyword Controls provide the fastest ways to add keywords to images. The Keyword Controls are the buttons, pop-up menu, and text field located on the right side of the Control Bar at the bottom of the screen, as shown in Figure 5.36. Keyword buttons

Keyword Preset Add Keyword Group pop-up menu text field Figure 5.36 Press D or Shift+D to open the Keyword Controls.

To show the Keyword Controls, the Control Bar must also be visible. If the Control Bar is not visible at the bottom of the screen, press D to open it. If the Keyword Controls were visible the last time the Control Bar was visible, they’ll appear when you show the Control Bar. If the Keyword Controls were not visible, you’ll need to press Shift+D to show them.

Applying Keywords with the Keyword Controls When the Keyword Controls are visible, applying existing keywords to an image or images is as simple as clicking a Keyword button or pressing a two-key keyboard shortcut. You can also add new keywords from the Keyword Controls. To apply to an image or images an existing keyword that is represented by a Keyword button, select the image or images in the Browser and then click one of the buttons in the Keyword Controls. To apply to an image or images an existing keyword that is represented by a Keyword button, select the image or images in the Browser and then press the Option key and the number from 1 through 8 (on the keyboard, not the numeric

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keypad) that matches one of the first eight buttons shown in the Keyword Controls. To apply to an image or images an existing keyword that is included in the preset group currently selected in the Keyword Preset Group pop-up menu, select the image or images in the Browser and then choose Metadata>Add Keyword and the keyword you want to add. To apply a new keyword to an image or images, select the image or images in the Browser, then type in the new keyword in the Add Keyword text field in the Keyword Controls and press Enter or Return. (You can also activate the Add Keyword text field by pressing Option+Accent Grave or by choosing Metadata>New Keyword.)

Removing a Keyword with the Keyword Controls The Keyword Controls also provide two methods for removing a keyword from images. Both methods are particularly helpful in removing an individual keyword from multiple images at the same time. If you want to remove from an image or images a keyword for which there is a Keyword button in the Keyword Controls, select the image or images in the Browser and then press the Shift+Option keys as you click the keyword’s button. The keyword will be removed from all selected images. If you want to remove from an image or images a keyword for which there is a Keyword button in the Keyword Controls, select the image or images in the Browser and then press the Shift+Option keys as you press the keyword’s keyboard shortcut. The keyword will be removed from all selected images. To remove from an image or images an existing keyword that is included in the preset group currently selected in the Keyword Preset Group pop-up menu, select the image or images in the Browser and then choose Metadata>Remove Keyword and the keyword you want to add. If you want to remove from an image or images a keyword that is not represented by a Keyword button, select the image or images in the Browser and then type the keyword in the Add Keyword text field in the Keyword Controls. Instead of pressing the Return key, press Shift+Return. The keyword you typed will be removed from all selected images.

Managing the Keyword Controls The keywords displayed in the Keywords buttons correspond to the preset group selected in the Keyword Preset Group pop-up menu. Depending on how much available space you have on your screen, you’ll see Keywords buttons for up to 20 keywords from the selected preset group. The first eight keywords in the selected


preset group will also have keyboard shortcuts.

Note The selection of the Keyword Preset Group also determines what keywords will be available in the Metadata>Add Keyword and Metadata>Remove Keyword menus.

Selecting a Keyword Preset Group You can change the selected preset group using the following methods: ■

Press comma (,) or period (.) to cycle forward and backward through the available preset groups.

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Click the Keyword Preset Group pop-up menu and choose a preset group.

Managing the Keyword Preset Groups Aperture installs a default set of Keyword Preset Groups, but you aren’t limited to those groups. You can create new groups and delete existing groups, and you can rearrange the keywords in existing groups.

Tip Remember that only the first 20 keywords of a Keyword Preset Group can have Keyword buttons, and only the first eight will have keyboard shortcuts. Consequently, arranging the keywords in Keyword Preset Groups can be an important operation.

To manage the Keyword Preset Groups, you must first open the Edit Button Sets window, shown in Figure 5.38, by choosing Edit Buttons from the Keyword Preset Groups pop-up menu, as shown in Figure 5.37. The far right column of the Edit Button Sets window contains the Keywords Library list. The contents and the controls of this column are the same that you see in the Keywords HUD, described earlier in

Figure 5.37 Choose Edit Buttons to open the Edit Button Sets window.

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Figure 5.38 Use the Edit Button Sets window to manage your Keyword Preset Groups.

this chapter and shown in Figure 5.31, and working in this column is the same as working in the Keywords HUD. The left column of the Edit Button Sets window shows the list of existing button sets. If there is a check in the check box of a button set, that button set will be available in the Keyword Preset Groups pop-up menu of the Keyword Controls. If you click the name of a button set in the left column, the keywords in that list will appear in the middle column. You can complete the following tasks in the Edit Button Sets window: ■

Rename a button set by double-clicking it and editing the existing name or typing in a new name.

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Delete a button set by clicking it and then clicking the Delete (-) button at the bottom of the Button Sets column.

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Add a button set by clicking the Add (+) button at the bottom of the Button Sets column. A new row will appear in the Button Sets column, and you can type in a new name for the set.

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Turn off a button set by clicking its check box to remove the checkmark. The button set will no longer appear in the Keyword Preset Groups pop-up menu of the Keyword Controls.

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Turn on a button set by clicking its check box to add a checkmark. The button set will appear in the Keyword Preset Groups pop-up menu of the Keyword Controls.

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Add a keyword to a new or existing button set by clicking the name of the button set to activate it and then dragging the keyword from the Keywords Library column on the far right into the Contents column in the middle.


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Add multiple keywords to a new or existing button set by clicking the name of the button set to activate it and then selecting multiple keywords and dragging them from the Keywords Library column on the far right into the Contents column in the middle. You can select multiple keywords in the Keywords Library column by pressing Shift and clicking adjacent keywords, by pressing Control and clicking keywords that are not adjacent, or by pressing Shift and the up or down arrow key.

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Delete keywords from a button set by clicking the keyword in the Contents column and then clicking the Delete (-) button at the bottom of the Contents column.

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Rearrange the keywords in a button set by dragging them up or down in the Contents column.

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Export button sets by clicking the Export button.

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Import button sets by clicking the Import button.

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6 Sorting and Rating Your Images Once you have imported images into your library and have given them names that make sense to you and have applied metadata that will help you sort them into sensible groups, you can take your sorting to the next level. So far, your groupings may have been as simple as by date or place or client. But now you can sort them even more precisely, by adding ratings and using Aperture’s “stacks.” In this chapter, you’ll learn to apply these additional cataloguing and sorting tools.

Deeply Contemplate Your Philosophy of Ratings By adding metadata and keywords to your images, you’ve already begun the sorting process. Based on your cataloguing data, you could already be sorting your images into sensible, manageable groups, according to your workflow and intended use. Up to now, your cataloguing has been by “objective” groups, that is, by those criteria that are determined by the technical, chronological, and logistical information about the images. Now you’re ready to begin the process of subjective review. You can look through the images and rate them according to aesthetics—how good they look. But don’t be tempted to apply numerical ratings to images without first considering how you want those ratings to help you find images later. Today you remember that wonderful image of the fall leaves reflected in the still surface of a lake, but two

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years from now, you may not be able to recall that image and all of the other great ones you’ve taken since then. Remember that ratings are just one of the criteria that you can apply to images that will help you search through hundreds or thousands of images to find exactly what you’re seeking for a particular project. You definitely want to develop a rating scheme that gives you some options later. If you rate all of your images as either rejects or selects, you won’t be doing yourself any favors. Later, you’ll find yourself doing a lot of evaluating of images when you realize you have several hundred or several thousand select images. You can use a simple 1-5 approval rating scheme that reflects how likely you are to use a particular image. But the bottom line is that you should be thinking about how you’re going to be using the ratings, right along with keywords and other metadata when you search. The ratings you apply should reflect not just how much you like an image, but also how you want to search and how you want to store your images. Here’s an example of how you can devise a rating system that gives you more flexibility than a simple 1-5 approval system: You could rate only your “for sure” images, the ones you’ll want for your portfolio, at the 5 level. You could rate your client review images at 4. Then, using a combination of both keywords and ratings, you’ll have an even more complex rating system. Following that 5 and 4 approach, you add keywords to images that tell you who the client is and even the particular project for that client, while still giving them a numerical rating. Then you could search for images that contain the client/project keywords that also are rated 4 and above. Then you’d know you’re giving that client the best images of that shoot, while still having a rating that you have for your images that you’ll want to see, regardless of who the client was or what the project was. Think through your own needs and how you think. Develop a storage/rating scheme that best fits you. And then when you do, you should consider writing down and posting your rating system for yourself, so you can remember what you’re doing and what to search for later.

Using Aperture’s Stacks Feature Stacking your images is one of the most powerful features for organizing your images in Aperture. Using Stacks, you can group images together in a stack and then close the stack so that only one of the images takes up space in the Browser. You can move images around in the stacks, and you can add and remove images from the stacks. The images shown in Figure 6.1 are the top images in closed stacks. The badges in the upper-left corners of the images indicate how many images are hidden behind that top image in the stack. You can also view stacks open, which is shown in Figure 6.2.

Chapter 6 ■ Sorting and Rating Your Images

Aperture will stack images for you automatically when you import them, or you can create stacks manually when you import them. You can also wait and stack them, either automatically or manually, after import.

Tip Think about what you intend to accomplish with stacks before you start organizing your images into stacks. The most common use of stacks will likely be for grouping together images that are very similar in content, from which you will only need to use one image. For example, if you’re bracketing images of a landscape, it makes perfect sense to stack the bracketed images so that only the best of them is visible in the Browser. Likewise, if you’re organizing images taken in multiple exposure bursts at a basketball game, it would make sense to stack the images that were taken in those individual bursts in order to select the one image that best captures that moment of action. On the other hand, if you’re organizing images of your recent family vacation, it wouldn’t be sensible to stack images of different family members into one stack. You’d then hide all but one of those images when you closed the stack. (In this particular case, you’d be better off creating an album of those family shots, rather than a stack.)

Automatically Stacking Images After you have connected a digital camera or otherwise opened the import dialog showing all the images that you’re about to import, as described in Chapter 3, you can specify automatic stacking of images that were taken within a range of time between zero seconds (Off ) and one minute.

Automatically Stacking Images During Import To automatically create groups according to how close in time they were taken, drag the Auto-Stack slider to the time you want, as shown in Figure 6.2.

Note Stacking images during import is also covered in Chapter 3.

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Figure 6.1 The top image in a stack will have a badge that indicates how many images are in that stack.

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Figure 6.2 Drag the Auto-Stack slider to group images according to the times they were taken.

As you can see in Figure 6.2, the images that were taken within that period of time are automatically grouped together in stacks, separate from the images that were taken earlier or later. When you now import the images, they will be stacked automatically on import.

Note The closed stacks shown back in Figure 6.1 are the same stacks that are shown open in Figure 6.2.

Automatically Stacking Images After Import To automatically stack images after you have already imported them, select a project in the Projects panel to display its contents in the Browser; then choose Stacks>Auto-Stack or press Control+Command+A to access the Auto-Stack Images HUD, shown in Figure 6.3. Now select any image in the Browser and drag the Auto-Stack slider in the Auto-Stack Images HUD. Your images will stack together automatically, according to the time you select.

Figure 6.3 To automatically group images that are already in your Library, use the Auto-Stack Images HUD.


Manually Stacking Images Either during import or after images are already in your Library, you can create stacks manually. To manually create stacks, select any two or more images and then press Command+K, choose Stacks>Stack, or click the Stack button on the Toolbar.

Viewing and Manipulating Stacks As soon as you have created stacks, you can open and close them, rearrange the images in them, add and remove images, unstack them, and rearrange the stacks in the Browser.

Note When you view a closed stack in the Browser, only the top image will be visible. The image at the far left of the opened stack is the image that will be the top or visible image when the stack is closed. That image is also called the pick image, and pick images are covered in more detail later in this chapter.

Opening and Closing Stacks The available operations that open and close stacks are the same, but they toggle between opening and closing. In other words, if a stack is closed, the operations will open it. If the stack is open, the operations will close it. Additionally, you can perform these operations on multiple stacks at the same time if you select more than one stack. The following operations will open and close stacks: ■

Press Shift+K to open and close any one stack or a selection of multiple stacks.

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Choose Stacks>Open/Close Stack to open and close any one stack or a selection of multiple stacks.

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Click the Stack badge in the upper-left corner of a closed stack to open the stack, or the left-most image in an open stack to close the stack. Regardless of how many stacks you may have selected, this operation will work on only one stack at a time.

Note While in the Import dialog, you also have the Open Stack and Close Stack buttons in the lower-left corner of the dialog, as shown in Figure 3.8 of Chapter 3.

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The following operations will open and close all the stacks in a selected project: ■

Choosing Stacks>Open All Stacks or pressing Option+semicolon (;) will open all the stacks in a project, regardless of whether or not some are open already.

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Choosing Stacks>Close All Stacks or pressing Option+apostrophe (’) will close all the stacks in a project, regardless of whether or not some are closed already.

Adding and Removing Images to and from Stacks Add an image to a stack either by dragging an image into an open stack or by selecting both the stack and the image and pressing Command+K, choosing Stacks>Stack, or clicking the Stack button on the Toolbar.

Note If you add an image to a stack and that new image has been assigned a higher rating than the existing pick image of the stack, that new image will be automatically promoted to the pick position.

Remove an image from a stack by simply dragging the image out of the stack, by selecting the image and choosing Stacks>Extract Item, or by pressing Shift+Option+K.

Rearranging Images in a Stack You can change the arrangement of images in a stack by dragging an image from one position in the stack until you see the green bar in the new position where you want to move the image, as shown in Figure 6.4.

Figure 6.4 Drag images in stacks to rearrange them.


You can select and drag multiple images within a stack to move them in the stack. You can also “promote” and “demote” an individual image in a stack, which moves the image one position from right to left and left to right, respectively. Promoting and demoting are operations related to selecting a pick image, as described later in this chapter. To promote an image in a stack, select that image and choose Stacks>Promote or press Command+[. To demote an image in a stack, select that image and choose Stacks>Demote or press Command+].

Unstacking and Splitting Stacks You can instantly unstack a stack or multiple stacks at the same time, and you can split a stack into two stacks. To unstack a stack or multiple selected stacks, select the stack or stacks and then choose Stacks>Unstack or press Shift+Command+K. The stack or stacks can be opened or closed. Splitting a stack divides one stack into two at a position you choose. You select an image in the stack, and then all the images to the left of the selected image become one stack, and the selected image and all images to the right of it become another stack. To split a stack into two stacks, select an open stack and then select the image that you want to choose as the pick image of the new stack. Choose Stacks>Split Stack or press Option+K to divide the stack in two.

Moving Stacks to Different Locations in the Browser or into Another Project You can move stacks in the Browser and between projects. To drag an entire stack, close it and then drag it to any other position in the Browser. To drag a stack to another project, select a closed stack or any image in an open stack and drag it to the name of another project in the Projects panel.

Note Moving a stack from one project to another moves all of that image’s master files and other data into the new project. However, if you move images from one project to another and those images’ masters are referenced masters, the masters will remain in their original locations, and only the versions and previews are moved to the new project.

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Viewing and Working with Stacks in List View Although it’s not nearly as efficient for assessing and comparing images, you can view and manipulate stacks in the List View of the Browser, just as you can in the Grid View. To view your project in the List View, click the List View button in the top left corner of the Browser, choose View>List, or press Control+L. As you can see in Figure 6.5, stacks display as if they are folders, with an initial thumbnail and a disclosure triangle that opens and closes the stack. The pick image of the stack will appear as the initial thumbnail and then once again as the first image in the listed stack. You can work with stacks here in the List View in the same way that you can in the Grid View.

Figure 6.5 Stacks display as folders in the Browser’s List View.

Viewing and Working with Stacks in Full Screen Mode As shown in Figure 6.6, stacks appear in the Full Screen mode filmstrip just as they appear in the Browser. There are, however, some limitations when working with stacks in the Full Screen mode.


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Viewer Mode pop-up menu

Figure 6.6 You can view your stacks in the filmstrip. Set Set Album Open All Close All Pick Promote Demote Stacks Stacks Pick button button button button button button

Figure 6.7 Additional stacking buttons are available in the Full Screen Toolbar.

You can perform the following operations on stacks in the filmstrip: ■

To rearrange images in a stack, you must use the Promote Item and Demote Item buttons in the Toolbar, shown in Figure 6.7, or the keyboard shortcuts listed earlier in this chapter. You can’t drag images to move them in the filmstrip, because clicking on any image that is not in the center of the filmstrip scrolls the filmstrip to center that image.

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To open and close stacks in the filmstrip, use the Open All Stacks and Close All Stacks buttons in the Toolbar, click directly on a stack’s badge, or use the appropriate keyboard shortcuts listed earlier in this chapter.

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To rate stacked images in the filmstrip, use the rating buttons at the left of the filmstrip or the appropriate keyboard shortcuts.

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Tip When using the Toolbar to manipulate stacked images in the Full Screen mode, you’ll probably find it helpful to make sure the filmstrip stays on the screen even when you’re not holding the cursor over it. If it doesn’t, click the Viewer Mode button on the filmstrip, shown in Figure 6.6, and choose Open.

Tip A contextual menu is always available in the Full Screen mode that you can use to rate stacked images, unstack individual stacks, split individual stacks, and extract images from stacks. Control+click the image or the filmstrip to access the contextual menu.

Understanding and Selecting Picks Several times throughout this chapter, you’ve read about pick images. A pick image is the one image in a stack that you have selected as the best of that stack. It is the image that represents the stack by appearing when the stack is closed. By default, Aperture automatically defines the left-most image in a stack as the pick image, but you can change the pick image at any time. The image immediately to the right of the pick is referred to as the alternate image.

Designate a Pick Image for a Stack To designate an image as the pick of a stack, select that image and choose Stacks>Pick, click the Pick button on the Toolbar, or press Command+backslash (\). Alternatively, you can simply drag an image to the far left of a stack, which will automatically make that image the pick of the stack. Or you can select an image and choose Stacks>Promote Item or press Command+[ until that image is the left-most image in the stack. You could also select the current pick image and choose Stacks>Demote Item or press Command+] to switch the pick to the alternate or next left-most image. If you split a stack into two, the image you select prior to splitting the stack will become the pick of the new stack that is generated from the original stack.


Note The concept of the pick image is important because when you place a stack image in an album or other project element, only the pick image of that image’s stack will appear. Also, when searching for images, only the metadata of the pick image is available for the search. So you want to make sure that you’ve set the pick selection to the image you want out of your stacks. This is another good reason not to use stacks for grouping images that would be better grouped in an album and for relying on stacks to edit out images that you’re not likely to use.

Designate an Album Pick for a Stack Even though you’ve learned that it’s best to use stacks to cull similar images and pick the best one of that group, there may be times when you want to use different images from one stack in separate albums, books, Web galleries, or other project elements. According to what you just learned about stack picks, you would expect that only the pick image would appear in these elements. But you can actually define a separate pick for each of the different albums or other elements you create.

Tip You can think of the Album Pick as an “override” of the pick selection in a stack.

To designate an image as the album pick for a stack, you first have to add a stack to some other element. For example, create a new album and add a stack to it. Automatically, Aperture will display only the pick of the stack in that album. Once you have added a stack to any album, book, etc., you can then open that stack and choose Stacks>Set Album Pick or press Shift+Command+backslash. From now on, even when the stack is closed in that album or when that album is published, that Album Pick image will be the one you see. You can repeat this for each album, book, Web gallery, etc., in which you use that particular stack—selecting a different Album Pick in each one if you want. The sequence of images in Figures 6.8, 6.9, and 6.10 shows a simple, two-image stack that is being used in two different albums. Figure 6.8 shows the stack opened so you can see the two images. Figure 6.9 shows the same stack in an album with the first of the two images automatically displayed. Figure 6.10 shows the same stack in a different album with the second image set as the Album Pick. The checkmark badge indicates that this is an Album Pick.

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Album Pick badge

Figure 6.8 Only the left-most image is the official pick of the stack.

Figure 6.9 By default, the first image becomes the visible image for this album.

Note The stack used for the example depicted in Figures 6.8, 6.9, and 6.10 is a good example of a stack that includes images that probably should not be stacked together. Both have been rated 5 stars, which means they’ll probably both be used for publication at some point. Hiding one of them behind the other in a stack means that one of them wouldn’t appear in the results of searches and would be hidden when the stack is closed.

Adding Ratings to Your Images The next step in cataloguing your images is to rate them. For many photographers, this may be the last step in the workflow before moving on to preparing the highest-rated images for final use. In Aperture, you can rate your images from Reject to Select (5) and also leave them unrated (0) or neutral.

Note In case you missed it, you might want to go back and read through the sidebar on rating systems earlier in this chapter.

As with most other features of Aperture, you can add ratings to your images in one or more of several different ways. You should experiment to find the one that allows you to rate images the most quickly. For example, you could try selecting a bunch of images at one time that fit a particular rating and then applying the rating to them all. Or you might find yourself pushing images of a particular rating into an album, where you could then select them all and apply a rating to them

Figure 6.10 The second image has been set as the Album Pick for this album.


all at once. Then again, you might be the kind of person who will want to go through each and every image one at a time and apply a rating to each one individually as you go. All of these approaches and more are possible in Aperture.

Tip Right off the bat you’ll have a lot of images that you know for sure you won’t ever need to look at twice. You know the ones: way overexposed, way underexposed, blurred by too short of a shutter speed, out of focus, etc. You can go through your images pretty fast and cull out those rejects. You can use the Reject rating, or you can delete those images. Some people can’t bear to delete even those flawed images, but you might consider the cost to risk ratio between freeing up valuable and expensive disk storage space and needing those technically flawed images ever again.

Even after you decide on your particular ratings workflow, you’ll have options when actually applying the ratings. You have two main approaches for applying ratings. One is to apply a numerical rating, and the other is to increase or decrease an image’s rating using the buttons on the Control Bar or filmstrip. And you can use keyboard shortcuts, contextual menus, and buttons on the Control Bar and filmstrips for either of those two approaches. You can also apply ratings to more than one image at a time.

Note “Select” is synonymous with a rating of 5 stars. You’ll find the Select rating in both the keyboard shortcuts and buttons.

Applying and Removing Ratings with Menus, Keyboard Shortcuts, and Buttons You have several options for applying ratings by number or by Select/Reject. To apply a rating of five stars, perform one of the following operations: ■

Choose Metadata>Select.

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Press backslash (\).

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On the Control Bar, click the Select (÷) button.

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To reject an image, perform one of the following operations: ■

Choose Metadata>Reject.

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Press Command+9.

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On the Control Bar, click the Reject (x) button.

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Control-click an image to access the contextual menu and then choose Ratings and Reject.

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Press the hyphen (-) key to apply the Reject rating to an image that has not been rated. (Pressing Shift+hyphen also works.)

To apply a rating by number, perform one of the following operations: ■

Press Command and a number key from 1 to 5.

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Choose Metadata and the numerical rating you want to apply.

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Control+click an image to access the contextual menu and then choose Ratings and the numerical rating.

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Press the equal (=) key to apply a rating of 1 to an image that has not been rated. (Pressing Shift+= also works.)

To remove a rating and leave an image as Unrated, or neutral, perform one of the following operations: ■

Press Command+Zero.

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Choose Metadata>Unrated.

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Control+click an image to access the contextual menu and then choose Ratings and Unrated.

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Press the equal (=) key to remove the rating from an image that has been rejected. (Pressing Shift+equal also works.)

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Press the hyphen (-) key to remove the rating from an image that has been rated 1. (Pressing Shift+hyphen also works.)

Applying Ratings and Increasing or Decreasing Ratings with Buttons and Keyboard Shortcuts To apply ratings by increasing or decreasing ratings, you can use the Control Bar buttons (which are also on the filmstrip if you’re in the Full Screen mode) or keyboard shortcuts. The Control Bar buttons are shown in Figure 6.11.

Reject button

Decrease Increase Rating Rating button button

Select button Figure 6.11 The ratings buttons on the Control Bar.


Click the Reject or Select button to apply those respective ratings. Click the Decrease Rating or Increase Rating button to decrease or increase an image’s rating by one star. You can also increase an image’s rating by one star at a time by pressing the equal (=) key. (Pressing Shift+equal also works.) You can also decrease an image’s rating by one star at a time by pressing the hyphen (-) key. (Pressing Shift+hyphen also works.)

Tip In the scale of Reject to 5 stars, Unrated comes between Reject and 1 star, which means that you can use the increase/decrease approach to applying ratings to remove ratings and leave an image unrated by “passing through” between a rating of 1 star and Reject. For example, if an image is rated 3 stars, you can decrease the rating 3 times to reach the Unrated rating. If you decrease one more, you’ll be at the Reject rating.

Applying Ratings to Individual or Multiple Images To apply a rating to an image, simply select it and use one of the ratings operations described later in this section. You can also select any number of images and apply the same rating to all of them at the same time. But you can also have a selection of multiple images and wind up applying a rating to only one of them. You have to make sure you have turned on or off the Primary Only option before you apply the rating.

Note You first learned about the Primary Selection back in Chapter 1, in the sidebar, “Selecting Multiple Images Creates a Primary Selection,” which you can review again if you need to.

When you select multiple images to which you want to apply a rating, one of those images will automatically be the Primary Selection. If the Primary Only option is turned on, only the primary selection will receive the rating you apply. That can be great if you happen to have a bunch of images selected and realize that you want to apply a rating or change its rating. But if you’re intending to save time by applying the same rating to all of the images you selected, you need to make sure that you turn off the Primary Only option.

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Figures 6.12 and 6.13 each show the Primary Only button on the Control Bar. In Figure 6.12, the Primary Only button is the same light color as the rest of the Control Bar, which means that the Primary Only option is turned off. Figure 6.13 shows the Primary Only button darkened, which means that the Primary Only option is turned on. You can also turn on and off the Primary Only option by choosing Edit>Primary Only or by pressing S.

Primary Only button

Figure 6.12 The Primary Only option is turned off when the Primary Only button is light colored. Primary Only button

Tip Remember: If the Primary Only button is dark, only the primary selection will receive the rating.

Comparing Similar Images As you begin to analyze your images for whatever end use you may have, you’ll likely have images that come down to close calls in terms of final choices. For these cases, Aperture offers a cool comparison feature.

Note You can always select more than one image in the Browser to see two or more images in the Viewer. That’s different than this compare feature. In the compare feature, only two images will ever show up in the Viewer.

If you select an image in the Browser and then press Return or choose Edit>Set Compare Item, you’ll activate the compare feature. As shown in Figure 6.14, that selected image will open in the Viewer with a yellow border, and the image to its immediate right will open next to it. The image with the yellow border is the “compare” image, and the image with the white border is the “alternate” image. To navigate to and compare other alternate images, use the arrow keys to navigate in the Browser, click on an image in the Browser, or click on the Next Image or Previous Image button on the Control Bar. If you’re satisfied that your first image choice is the better of the two and you want to deactivate the compare feature, press Option+Return or choose Edit>Select Compare Item. The alternate image will close, and the compare feature will deactivate. Your original selection will appear alone in the Viewer.

Figure 6.13 The Primary Only option is turned on when the Primary Only button is darkened.


Compare image Alternate image

Figure 6.14 Select an image and press Return to activate the compare feature.

If it turns out that you like the alternate image better than the compare image, but you still want to compare that image with others, press Return or choose Edit>Set Compare Image, just as you did to first activate the compare feature. This time, however, the alternate image will become the compare image, and the next image in the Browser will appear as a new alternate image. The original compare image will be closed. If you like the alternate image better and are finished with the compare feature, press Command+Return or choose Edit>Set Compare Item. The alternate image will appear alone in the Viewer, the original selection will close, and the compare feature will be deactivated.

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7 Using Aperture’s Search Tools and Smart Collections At its core, Aperture is a database. You use Aperture to store and catalog digital images. As a database, Aperture would be worthless without adequate search capabilities. Fortunately, Aperture’s search features are comprehensive and intuitive. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to use Aperture’s search features to locate images and to use the search features to populate albums and other project elements, and to create and maintain Aperture’s “smart” elements, such as Smart Albums, Smart Web Galleries, and so on.

Note Aperture’s smart collections are called “smart” because they can update without your help. For example, if you create a Smart Album, you’re creating an album that is filled with images that meet specified search criteria, and then later, as you make changes to your database of images, any images that then meet those criteria are automatically added to the Smart Album. It’s a really amazing and great feature.

If you think about it, you’re searching Aperture’s database most of the time you’re using Aperture. Every time you click on a project icon in the Projects panel, you’re conducting a search of the database for images that have been placed in that project. Using the dedicated search tools, you can conduct more precise searches in a particular project and across the entire collection of images.

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The Basics of Searching in Aperture Aperture allows you to search either the entire library of images or in individual projects. You perform one of these two searches depending on where you access the various search features. For example, if you enter text in the Search field of the Browser, you’ll only search in the Browser. If you activate the Query HUD of the Library, you’ll search the entire Library. Search results always display in the Browser. Once you retrieve results in the Browser, you can search again among those results. What that means is that even if you initially search the entire Library using the Query HUD of the Library, you can then search again through the results in the Browser by using the Query HUD or Search field of the Browser. You search Aperture in one of these four basic ways: ■

Entering text in a Search field, which will search through the image metadata for text that matches your text string.

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Choosing a preset value from a search pop-up menu, which will apply that search criteria to the images in the Browser or across the Library.

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Opening the Query HUD and specifying one criterion or multiple criteria.

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Clicking a smart collection in the Projects panel to see images that match the predetermined search criterion or criteria specified for that particular smart collection.

Using the Search Field of the Browser You can search for images in any one selected project, album, book, or other collection that has a particular text string in its metadata by using the Search field of the Browser, shown in Figure 7.1. To begin, select a collection in the Projects panel.

Query HUD button Search field pop-up menu Reset button

Note You can also search for a text string across the entire Library using the Search field in the Library Query HUD, which you’ll learn about later in this section.

Figure 7.1 The Search field is located in the upper-right corner of the Browser.

Chapter 7 ■ Using Aperture’s Search Tools and Smart Collections

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When the Browser is displaying all the images in a collection without any search filter, the Search field will show the Unrated or Better text, as it does in Figure 7.1. To search for images by a text string, all you have to do is click that Search field to activate it, as shown in Figure 7.2, and then enter text into that Search field and click the Return button. If any images have text in their metadata that matches, they’ll be displayed in the Browser. Figure 7.2 Click the Search field to There are two types of text searches in Aperture: Limited text search and activate it and then type in your text string. Full text search. As you might expect, conducting a Full text search will search through all the metadata in the searched collection of images. A Limited text search will not search the EXIF, IPTC, and badge metadata or any custom metadata you may have created. Because a Limited text search doesn’t sort through all the metadata for the images, it doesn’t take as long to produce results, which may be a consideration if you’re searching a large library or other collection.

You specify which search you want by clicking the Search field pop-up menu and choosing either the Full or Limited search, as shown in Figure 7.3. The Search field in the Browser also serves as an indicator of what criteria have been applied in the Browser’s Query HUD. For example, the Search field shown in Figure 7.4 indicates that a text string, a rating value, a date, and a keyword value have been applied, as you can see in the Query HUD displayed there.

Figure 7.3 Choosing Full text search in the Search field pop-up menu.

Figure 7.4 The Search field does double-duty as an indicator.

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If any criteria have been applied via the Browser’s Query HUD, as indicated in the Search field shown in Figure 7.4, you won’t be able to enter text in the Search field. If any values have been selected in the Search field pop-up menu, or if any criteria at all have been set in the Query HUD, you’ll need to clear this field to enter text in it. You can clear it the way you would clear anything from the Search field—by clicking the Reset (X) button at the right of the Search field. In fact, clicking the Reset (X) button of the Search field of the Browser will clear any and all search criteria that have been applied either there or in the Browser’s Query HUD.

Tip As long as any search criteria are being applied, whether through the Search field, the pop-up menu, or the Query HUD, only the images—if any—that match that criteria will be displayed. If you want to see all the images in the selected collection, just click the Reset (X) button at the right of the Search field.

Searching by Ratings Using the Search Field Pop-up Menu or Keyboard Shortcuts To quickly search for images based on ratings, you can click the Search field popup menu, as shown in Figure 7.3, and select one of the ratings values displayed there. To search for images in the Browser by ratings using keyboard shortcuts, click anywhere in the Browser and then press the Control key and Accent Grave (`) or any number key on the keyboard from 1 to 8. As you can see in Figure 7.3, the keyboard shortcuts for the ratings values are listed on the Search field pop-up menu.

Searching with the Query HUD If you’re only searching for images using text or ratings and only searching for images in one collection, you can stick to using the Browser’s Search field. But if you want to search across the entire Library or use other criteria, you’ll have to use one of the Query HUDs, such as the one shown in Figure 7.5. Aperture has two standard Query HUDs: one for the Browser and one for the Library.


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Note Once you create a smart collection of any kind, that collection and any others you create will have a permanent Query HUD of its own that you use to define the collection’s criteria.

You can access the Query HUD for the Browser by clicking the Query HUD button in the Browser, as shown in Figure 7.5. Alternatively, you can click the Browser and then press Command+F or choose File>Find. Notice that the Browser’s Query HUD’s name is Filter, followed by the name of the collection you have selected in the Projects panel.

Match pop-up menu Search field pop-up menu New Smart Album button New Album With Current Images button

Figure 7.5 Click this Query HUD button to search in the Browser. Add Filter pop-up menu Reset button Search field Query HUD Action pop-up menu

To open the Query HUD for the entire Library, click the Query HUD button next to the Library in the Projects panel, as shown in Figure 7.6. The Library’s Query HUD is titled, Smart Settings, followed by the name of its collection and then, in parentheses, the name of the collection’s parent project or the Library. Figure 7.6 Click this Query HUD button to search in the Library.

Ignore stack groupings check box

Tip After you have opened the Query HUD, you can drag it to anywhere you want on the screen.

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Searching Through Stacks As you can see in Figures 7.5 and 7.6, the Query HUDs are the same, with one exception: In the Library or smart collection Query HUDs, shown in Figure 7.6, there is a criterion called Ignore stack groupings. Checking that box will tell Aperture to search through all the images in stacks and pull out from the stacks the individual images that match the search criteria. Otherwise, if the Ignore stack groupings check box is not checked, Aperture will only search the pick of each stack, but it will display the entire stack if its pick image meets the criteria.

Using the Query HUD Controls You can adjust the operation of the search and add more filters using the controls provided at the top of the Query HUD. Matching Any or All Criteria

If you have specified multiple criteria, choosing the Match pop-up menu and selecting All will require that retrieved images match all of the specified criteria. Selecting Any will retrieve images that match even just one of the specified criteria. Adding More Search Criteria

Clicking the Add Filter pop-up menu, as shown in Figure 7.7, allows you to add the criteria types shown on the menu to the Query HUD. Figure 7.7 Add more criteria options with the Add Filter pop-up menu.

Tip Notice that the Add Filter pop-up menu has Text and Rating options, even though those options are already in the Query HUD. That means that if you want to, you can add multiple instances of those search filters with the Add Filter pop-up menu. For example, if you want to search for text strings that aren’t consecutive, you can add more than one text search field to search for both strings or either string.


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Specifying Search Criteria in the Query HUD You can probably see how the Query HUD works. You can add search criteria by clicking the check box next to the type of criteria and then, if necessary, specifying more detail for that criteria. The various types of search criteria and their variables and options are described below. Quick Search (Search Field)

Enter a text string in the Quick Search field (the Search field) to run a quick text search. This Search field works just the same as the Browser’s Search field, as described earlier in this chapter, but the Reset (X) button in this Search field only clears this search field, not all of the search criteria. The Quick Search pop-up menu allows you to choose between a Limited and a Full text search, also described earlier in this chapter.

Tip Remember that you can add more text fields if you need to search for nonadjacent words in metadata by clicking the Add Filter pop-up menu and choosing Text.

Rating

If you’re searching based on ratings, choose one of the three options from the popup menu; then drag the slider to the specific rating level you want from Rejected to 5 stars. The three possible options are “is,” “is greater than or equal to,” and “is less than or equal to.” Calendar

Clicking the Calendar check box opens the calendar display, as shown in Figure 7.8. Figure 7.8 The calendar display of the Query HUD. Navigate through the calendar

The Reset button clears selections in the calendar

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Note The Calendar search filter searches only through EXIF data saved with images. If you are searching images that were not saved with EXIF data, you’ll need to use the Date search filter to search their creation dates.

Notice the brighter dates of July 5 and 7 in the calendar display shown in Figure 7.8. Those highlighted dates indicate that your selected collection has images taken on those dates. You can select dates and ranges of dates using the following procedures: ■

To select any one date, click it.

■

To select multiple, nonconsecutive dates, press the Command key as you click the dates.

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To select a single range of consecutive dates, click one date to select it, navigate to another, and then press the Shift key and click that date.

■

To select multiple ranges of consecutive dates, click one date to select it, navigate to another, and then press the Shift key and click that date. Then press Command and click another date outside the selected range, navigate to another date, and then press the Shift key and click that date.

Clear any date selections you have made by clicking the Reset button. Keywords

To search by keywords, click the Keywords check box. If any keywords have been applied to your images, then all of them—every last one of them—will be displayed in the Query HUD, as shown in Figure 7.9. You can then specify which keywords you want to search for by clicking their respective check boxes. You specify whether you’re searching for images that “contain one or more of the following” or that “contain all of the following” keywords, by choosing one of those two options in the pop-up menu at the top of the Keywords section of the Query HUD. Import Session Is One or More of the Following

If you want to search for images that were imported at a particular date and time, click the Import Session check box. As in the Keywords section, all possible import sessions will be displayed, and you simply check the session or sessions you want.


Figure 7.9 Every keyword applied to any image in your Library will appear in the Query HUD. Date

The Date search filter searches the creation dates of image files. This search is different from the Calendar search filter in that way, as the Calendar search filter searches through the EXIF data of images for the dates they were taken. This search filter can be useful for finding images that were not imported directly from a camera—that may not have had EXIF data imported with them. You can add multiple instances of the Date search filter to search for additional date criteria. EXIF

You can search by EXIF values by adding the EXIF search filter. All possible EXIF values will be available, as shown in Figure 7.10. You can add as many instances of the EXIF search filter as you need. IPTC

You can search by IPTC values by adding the IPTC search filter. All possible IPTC values will be available, as shown in Figure 7.11. You can add as many instances of the IPTC search filter as you need.

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Figure 7.11 Are you sure you want to dive into all these?

Figure 7.10 Pick an EXIF value, any value.


File Status

By adding the File status search filter, you can search for images that are managed images, referenced masters, online, or offline. You can add as many instances of the File status search filter as you need. Other

If you need to search by metadata other than that included in the EXIF and IPTC categories, use the Other Metadata search filter. Using this filter, you can search for the metadata types shown in the pop-up menu in Figure 7.12. You can add as many instances of the Other Metadata search filter as you need.

Figure 7.12 The Other Metadata types.

Creating Collections with Search Results After you have defined your search, you can use it to create any of Aperture’s various types of collections, from Albums and Smart Albums to Web Galleries. The two types of collections are static collections that don’t automatically update themselves, such as Albums and Books, and “smart” collections, the Smart Albums and Smart Web Galleries, which automatically change according to the criteria of the search that defines them.

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Note You don’t have to commit to creating a collection with the results of a search before you perform the search and close the Query HUD. As long as any criterion is filtering the display of images in the Browser, you can open the Query HUD and then send the retrieved images to a collection. The Query HUD will continue to filter images until you clear it. Of course, once you have images in the Browser, you can always select any or all of them and create collections using the other methods described throughout the book for creating new Albums, Light Tables, Books, Web Galleries, and Web Journals.

Creating Static Collections from the Query HUD The static collections you can create in Aperture include the following: ■

Album

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Light Table

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Book

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Web Gallery

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Web Journal

The Query HUD has controls that will automatically send the results to one of these types of collections, as shown in Figure 7.13. Figure 7.13 Send the search results to new collections with these controls.

New Smart Album button

New Album With Current Images button

Query HUD Action pop-up menu


To create any one of these collections with the results of a search, all you have to do is define the search and then do one of the following: ■

To create a new Album with the search results, click the New Album with Current Images button, shown in Figure 7.13.

■

To create a new Light Table, Book, Web Gallery, or Web Journal, click the Query HUD Action pop-up menu, as shown in Figure 7.13, and choose the appropriate option.

Tip If you inadvertently click another project or folder and lose the results of your search, reopen the Library’s Query HUD. At first, you won’t get any results. But the Query HUD should have retained the previous search criteria, and you can click the check boxes next to the criteria types to reactivate the search.

After you create one of these collections, you’ll see it listed in the Projects panel as Untitled. You can double-click its name to name it and manage it as you would any other element in the Projects panel.

Creating Smart Collections from the Query HUD To create new Smart Albums or Smart Web Galleries from the Query HUD, all you have to do is one of the following: ■

To create a new Smart Album from the search results, click the New Smart Album button.

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To create a new Smart Web Gallery from the search results, click the Query HUD Action pop-up menu, as shown in Figure 7.13, and choose Smart Web Gallery.

Once you create a Smart Album or Smart Web Gallery, you’ll see their new listing in the Projects panel, with the Untitled name. Double-click the listing to name it. You’ll also see that it has a Query HUD button of its own, as does the Smart Gallery shown in Figure 7.14. After a smart collection is created, its contents will be changed automatically if one of the following things happens: ■

You change any of the criteria upon which the smart collection is based. If you click on that collection’s Query HUD and make changes to it, Aperture will automatically change the contents of the Smart Album, adding or removing images that meet the new criteria.

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Figure 7.14 Changing the criteria in a smart collection’s Query HUD will change the contents of the collection. ■

You change the images in the Library or project upon which the smart collection is based. For example, the Smart Album shown in Figure 7.14 is based on a search for all images rated five stars from one particular project. If you were to go through and give another image in that project a rating of five stars, that image would automatically be added to the Smart Album. You wouldn’t have to open the Query HUD or even open the Smart Album for it to be updated. It would happen regardless.

■

You add images to the Library or project that match the criteria defined for the smart collection.

As you can probably imagine, these smart collections can be powerful tools. You can create Smart Albums in which you keep all your best work, and as you add new images to your Library that you rate highly, they will be automatically added to the matching Smart Albums. Likewise, if you post your images to the Web, your Smart Web Galleries can do a lot of updating work for you.

Note The creation and maintenance of Web Galleries and Smart Web Galleries are covered in detail in Chapter 14.

8 Applying Basic Adjustments to Your Images Whatever end use you have for your images, before you distribute them for review or publication or purchase, you may need to repair them in some ways. The repairs often range from cropping to straightening off-kilter horizons to removing red eye to removing a color cast. You don’t have to leave the Aperture application to perform most of these simple repairs and adjustments. In this chapter, you’ll learn to handle the tools you can use for basic image processing.

Tip As you experiment with the Adjustment Tools and the color correction features described in the next chapter, remember that you can use the Undo command to remove any edits you make. Access the Undo command by pressing Command+Z or by choosing Edit>Undo. If you want to compare the before and after image, the Redo command is Shift+Command+Z or Edit>Redo. Additionally, in many cases you can turn on and off adjustments using the Adjustments Inspector or HUD.

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Viewing and Using the Adjustments Inspector and Adjustments HUD Anytime you make an adjustment or apply a color correction to an image, that action will be recorded and displayed in the Adjustments Inspector, shown in Figure 8.1, and the Adjustments HUD, shown in Figure 8.2. You can also apply an adjustment to an image without using an adjustment tool by adding the adjustment to the Adjustments Inspector or HUD and setting parameters for that adjustment.

Add Adjustments pop-up menu

Figure 8.1 Aperture’s Adjustments Inspector.

Adjustment Action pop-up menu

Disclosure triangle On/Off check box Reset button Preset Action pop-up menu

The Adjustments Inspector is not visible by default in any of the preset window layouts. You can toggle it on and off by pressing Control+A or by clicking the Adjustments Inspector button on the Toolbar, shown in Figure 8.5. You can also display it by choosing Window>Show/Hide Adjustments. Alternatively, you can choose Window>Show/Hide Inspectors or press the I key to show and hide the Inspectors, but this operation will show the Adjustments Inspector only if it was open the last time the Inspectors were opened. The Adjustments HUD is the same display as the Adjustments Inspector, but it is in the form of a HUD, which you can move around anywhere on the desktop. You can show and hide the Adjustments HUD by choosing Window>Show/Hide Adjustments HUD or by pressing the H key. When working in the Full Screen mode, you can click the Adjustments HUD button on the Full Screen mode Toolbar, as shown and described in Chapter 1.

Figure 8.2 Aperture’s Adjustments HUD.

Chapter 8 ■ Applying Basic Adjustments to Your Images

Note If an adjustment area is in the Adjustments Inspector, it will also be in the Adjustments HUD. You can assume so even it is not expressed each time the Adjustments Inspector is mentioned in the text.

Tip These two powerful tools don’t just display the adjustments and corrections you apply to images. In most cases, you can actually edit the adjustments and corrections, even long after you have applied them, using the Adjustments Inspector or HUD. As you learn to use the Adjustment Tools and Color Corrections, you’ll also learn how the Adjustments Inspector and HUD work coincidentally with those operations.

The areas of the Adjustments Inspector and HUD that control the respective adjustments vary according to the adjustment, and you’ll learn about each one as you learn about applying the adjustments. There are, however, some universal operations in the Adjustments Inspector and HUD, described in the next section.

Adding Adjustments with the Adjustments Inspector Aperture provides several adjustment tools, described later in this chapter, with which you can apply adjustments to images. But you don’t have to use those tools to apply adjustments. You can also add an adjustment to the Adjustments Inspector and HUD and then apply the adjustment to an image by selecting the image and setting parameters in the Adjustments Inspector or HUD. To add an adjustment to a selected image using the Adjustments Inspector, you can click any of those adjustments that are included by default in the Adjustments Inspector, shown in Figure 8.1, or you can click the Add Adjustments pop-up menu and select an adjustment, as shown in Figure 8.3. Then adjust the respective controls available in the Adjustments Inspector and HUD. If an adjustment is dimmed in the Add Adjustments pop-up menu, that adjustment has already been added to the Adjustments Inspector and HUD. Figure 8.3 Adding an adjustment from the Adjustments Inspector.

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Removing Adjustments from an Image and the Adjustments Inspector and HUD If you want to remove an adjustment that you have applied to an image and also remove it from the Adjustments Inspector and HUD, you can select the adjustment in the Adjustments Inspector or HUD and then click the Adjustments Action pop-up menu and choose Remove Selected (see Figure 8.4). You can also remove all but the default adjustments from the Adjustments Inspector and HUD by clicking the Adjustments Action pop-up menu and choosing Remove All Adjustments. Alternatively, you can select an adjustment in the Adjustments Inspector or HUD and press the Delete key on your keyboard.

Note You cannot remove the default adjustments that are always in the Adjustments Inspector and HUD, which are Exposure, Levels, Highlights & Shadows, White Balance, and Color. You can only remove adjustments that you have added using the Add Adjustments pop-up menu.

Figure 8.4 Removing a selected adjustment.

Turning Adjustments On and Off After you’ve applied an adjustment, you can turn it on and off without disturbing its settings and without removing it from the Adjustments Inspector and HUD by clicking the On/Off check box next to the adjustment’s name in the Adjustments Inspector, shown in Figure 8.1. This operation is a good way to check the before and after states of an adjustment on an image.

Resetting Adjustments If you decide you want to start from scratch with an adjustment, you can reset it to its null or zero state by clicking the Reset button, shown in Figure 8.8. Resetting the adjustment doesn’t remove the adjustment from an image; it just resets it to where the adjustment isn’t adjusting.

Showing and Hiding Adjustment Controls To save space in the Adjustments Inspector and HUD, the controls for each adjustment can be collapsed or hidden. To show and hide them, you can click the disclosure triangle next to the respective adjustment’s name or click the little pointed disclosure button on the divider between two adjustments. Clicking the


disclosure button that points to an adjustment will expand or collapse that adjustment’s area and either show or hide its controls.

Using Sliders, Value Fields, and Value Sliders in Value Fields The Adjustments Inspector and HUD have normal sliders for most of the adjustment controls, which work the way sliders typically work; you drag the slider one direction or another to alter the controls. Most controls also have Value fields, such as those shown in Figure 8.6, which display the values you have applied either with the adjustment’s tool or with the slider in the Adjustments Inspector or HUD, and in which you can type a numeric value to quickly specify a control’s value. To enter a value in a Value field, you have to double-click the Value field to activate it. Value fields are also sliders. Unlike typical sliders that you grab and drag from left to right, you click in the Value field and drag one direction or the other to alter the control values. The values will correspond to those of the control and will be governed by the limits of that control. If you press the Shift key as you drag in the Value field, you will increase or decrease the values in greater increments.

Using the Adjustment Tools Along the top of the Aperture interface, on the Toolbar, are the nine buttons that activate the adjustment tools (see Figure 8.5). Rotate Right Crop Red Eye Stamp Tool Tool (R) Tool (C) Tool (E) (Shift+O) Figure 8.5 Aperture’s adjustment tools.

Rotate Left Tool (R) Selection Tool (A) Straighten Spot & Patch Lift Adjustments Tool (G) Tool (X) Tool (O) Inspector button

The keyboard shortcuts for activating the adjustment tools are shown in Figure 8.5. For the most part, using these tools is highly intuitive, and you’ll find them quite easy to use. You already learned how to use the Selection tool in Chapter 1, in the section, “Selecting Images in the Browser.” You’ll learn about the others here.

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Rotate You can rotate an image 90 degrees clockwise or counterclockwise with one of these tools. To use them, click the one that represents the direction of rotation you want; then click the image you want to rotate. No matter how many images you may have selected in the Browser, and regardless of whether you have the Primary Only option turned off, clicking with either of these Rotate tools will rotate only the one image you click. The Rotate tools don’t have an associated control in the Adjustments Inspector or HUD.

Straighten The Straighten tool rotates an image more precisely. Of course, you can make drastic adjustments with it, but you’ll likely use it more for slight adjustments of images that aren’t “square,” that is, images that need leveling or straightening, such as the image shown in Figure 8.6. To use the Straighten tool, select an image in the Browser to open it in the Viewer; then select the Straighten tool. To rotate the image, drag up and down with the

Figure 8.6 This image is a little off-kilter.


Straighten tool. When you click the image with the Selection tool, a grid will display that will help you see the horizontal and vertical planes more precisely, as shown in Figure 8.7.

Figure 8.7 The grid will help you align the image.

As you use the Straighten tool, be aware of the following points: ■

It is easier to control the rotation of the image if you click away from the center of the image.

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Aperture will automatically crop the image to retain a rectangular aspect ratio. What this means in practice is that if you rotate the image, you’ll likely lose a little image area off all four sides. The more you rotate an image, the more area you’ll lose. You can see this if you compare the before and after straightened version of the images shown in Figures 8.6 and 8.8.

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The Straighten tool can use up computing resources, so be patient if it seems sluggish.

Once you apply the Straighten adjustment, a Straighten area will be added to the Adjustments Inspector, as shown in Figure 8.8. You can then edit your edit, if you want, by dragging the Rotate slider to the left or right, by dragging the Value slider, or by entering a numeric value in the Value field. You can reset the Straighten

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Straighten area Rotate slider Reset button Value field Value slider

Figure 8.8 This image didn’t need much straightening, so not much area was lost.

adjustment to no adjustment by clicking the Reset button. If you want to remove the adjustment from the image but save the values you’ve entered or applied, click the check box next to the area’s title.

Crop Cropping is the process of cutting away parts of an image. The images shown in Figures 8.9 and 8.10 show the results of this process. When you select the Crop tool and then click an image, the Crop HUD will appear, as shown in Figure 8.9. The Crop HUD defines any aspect ratio limits you may want for the image. If you want to crop the image to a predetermined, common aspect ratio, click the “Constrain cropping tool to” pop-up menu and select an aspect ratio, as shown in Figure 8.9. If you want to crop to an arbitrary shape, make sure the “Constrain cropping tool to” check box is checked off (empty). To crop the image, drag the Crop tool to draw the crop box around the area of the image you want to keep, as shown in Figure 8.10. As you drag with the Crop tool, you’ll see a bounding box with handles on the four corners and the sides. After you draw this initial crop box, you can adjust it by dragging any of these handles. You can also reposition the box by dragging it from inside the bounding box.


Figure 8.9 Clicking with the Crop tool activates the Crop HUD.

Figure 8.10 Drag the Crop tool to draw a crop box around the area you want to keep.

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By default, the area that you are choosing to crop away is darkened in the Viewer as you draw your crop box. If you want a preview of the cropped image without the darkened crop area, click A to activate the Select tool and then click C to go back to editing the crop box.

Note In reality, as soon as you draw a crop box or specify some crop values in the Adjustments Inspector or HUD, Aperture is cropping the image. You may be seeing the entire image and a crop box, but as long as the crop adjustment is turned on in the Adjustments Inspector or HUD, that image will be cropped if you output it or use it in a collection. The crop box doesn’t ever go away as long as you have applied the crop adjustment; it only disappears from view any time the Crop tool is deselected or any other tool is selected. That’s why if you activate any other tool and then reactivate the Crop tool, you’ll see the crop box again, just as if you had just started the crop process. That’s also why you don’t have to press Return or otherwise accept the crop. The crop is always applied to the image, according to the crop box you have drawn or the parameters you have specified in the Adjustments Inspector or HUD. You can press Return, if you want, and that will hide the crop box, but all it’s really doing is activating the Select tool. It doesn’t do anything permanent to the image.

As with the Straighten adjustment, the controls for the Crop adjustment will appear in the Adjustments Inspector and HUD as you apply the crop. You can adjust the crop by altering the values in the Crop area of the Adjustments Inspector or HUD, shown in Figure 8.10. (Of course, you can always apply a crop by adding the Crop adjustment to the Adjustments Inspector or HUD.)

Note If you’re wondering how to rearrange the Aperture interface to the way it’s laid out in Figures 8.9 and 8.10, all you have to do is press Shift+W to move the Browser and Viewer side-by-side, press Option+W to move the Viewer to the right of the Browser, and press I to show the Inspectors. If you want to remove the Projects panel, you can press W. For more information about controlling the layout of the interface, refer back to Chapter 1.


Spot & Patch The Spot & Patch tools in Aperture are much more powerful than the methods for spotting images that you can use in Adobe Photoshop CS, if for no other reason than that you can edit them after you apply them. Additionally, the spotting is never applied to the original image, so if you ever want to see the original without them, you can—something that’s impossible with Photoshop once the edits have been rendered to the image and saved. The Spot repair works by filling a selected area with colors taken from around it. You don’t have to select the area to be used for the repair. Aperture will automatically assess the area around the blemish and fill it in with pixels that make it blend in with its surrounding pixels. This Spot type of repair is for areas of even color, such as skies. The Patch repair works by allowing you to define an area to be used to cover the blemish. You define both the blemish and the area to use for the cover. This Patch type of repair is for areas that may have noticeable details and textures.

Tip The more precisely you match the size of the patch to the actual blemish, the less noticeable the patch will be. So as you repair images, you should zoom them to 100% by pressing the Z key or choosing View>Zoom to Actual Size. This way you can home in on the blemish.

Applying a Spot Repair To apply a simple spot repair to an image, click the Spot & Patch tool button on the Toolbar, shown in Figure 8.4, or press X. The cursor will change to the target overlay, and the Spot & Patch HUD will appear (see Figure 8.11). The black circle in the target overlay, not the crosshairs, indicates the size of the patch. The crosshairs just help you position the patch exactly where you want it. If you need to reduce or enlarge the size of the target overlay before you click it onto the image, drag the slider in the Spot & Patch HUD. You’ll see the target overlay size change right there as you drag, as shown in Figure 8.12. You can also enter a value in the Value field or drag the Value slider to change the size.

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Figure 8.11 Position the crosshair over the spot you want to patch.

Tip If you have a scrolling mouse, you can increase and decrease the size of the target overlay by scrolling. That really gives you great control when trying to match a particular blemish. You can lay the cursor right over the blemish and scroll to perfectly size the target overlay.

Figure 8.12 You can see the difference as you drag the slider to resize the target overlay.

After you get the target overlay sized as closely as possible to the blemish, position it over the blemish and click. It’s that simple. Aperture will automatically fill the circular area of the patch with pixels that match the surrounding area, as shown in Figure 8.13.

Applying a Patch Repair Sometimes blemishes will be in areas of detail that don’t readily match their surroundings. This is most common when the blemishes are over lines in the image, such as the dust mark on the highway line in the photo shown in Figure 8.14.


Figure 8.13 If you’re lucky, most patches will be imperceptible.

Figure 8.14 You’re better off fixing this type of blemish with a Patch.

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To begin, select the Spot & Patch tool and then just go ahead and proceed as if this were a spot repair by clicking the Spot & Patch target overlay on the blemish. Once you have clicked to place the patch, you’ll see that the Patch placed a circle of solid color over an area that has a line running through it, as shown in Figure 8.15. Now notice that the Spot & Patch area of the Adjustments Inspector has appeared, as in Figure 8.15. In that area, look for the Patch check box next to the Spot # indicator. Because you need to make this particular repair a patch, click that Patch check box. Aperture will add the white source target overlay to the image, placing it arbitrarily on the image (see Figure 8.16). What you’re seeing there is the target for the area you want to apply over the blemish. To see how it works, drag that source target overlay around the image. You’ll see that wherever you place the source target overlay, the area underlying it will be filled into the original yellow target overlay, which is now the destination target overlay. Once you drag the source target overlay to an area that appropriately fills the blemish, the blemish will be filled with a more effective patch, as shown in Figure 8.17.

Figure 8.15 The circle of solid color doesn’t really help here.


Figure 8.16 The connected white circle is the source target overlay.

Figure 8.17 The source target overlay fills the destination target overlay.

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You don’t actually have to click or press Return or do anything to apply the source pixels. Just let go of the source target overlay, and it will stay where you leave it. If you don’t like the effect generated by that placement, you can move it at any time. If the alignment of the detail of the area you choose for patching doesn’t match the alignment of the detail to be replaced in the blemish, you can rotate the patch. In the Spot & Patch area of the Adjustments Inspector or HUD, drag the Angle slider to rotate the patch on the destination overlay (see Figure 8.18). Of course, you can also drag the Value field or enter a value there.

Note You can apply as many Spot & Patch repairs as you need on an image.

Figure 8.18 If you need to rotate the detail, drag the Angle slider.


Viewing the Image Without Spot & Patch Overlays Once you have placed target overlays on an image, as long as the Spot & Patch tool is active, you’ll see however many target overlays you have placed. If you want to see the image without the target overlays, just select any other tool, such as the Select tool (by pressing A). The overlays will disappear. You can return to the Spot & Patch tool by pressing X or clicking the Spot & Patch button on the Toolbar.

Adjusting Patches After Applying Them One of the more helpful aspects of the Spot & Patch feature is the ability to edit or adjust the patches after you’ve initially placed them. Because of this, you don’t have to worry that you’ll get each one perfect. You can always come back and fix any patch that turns out to be noticeable. Selecting Patches

The first step in editing or adjusting a patch is to select it. Look at the Spot & Patch area of the Adjustments Inspector shown in Figure 8.19. See the Spot # indicator and how it says “17 of 17”? That’s telling you that there are 17 patches on that particular image. On the image itself, you can see all the yellow target overlays and one source target overlay for a patch repair. You can see the white source target overlay because that repair is the actual 17th spot of 17.

Spot & indicator

Figure 8.19 The Spot # indicator tells you which spot is selected.

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To select any other spot, click it in the Viewer. After you click on any other spot, the white source target overlay will disappear until the next time you select that spot. Whichever patch overlay you select will be active for editing and adjusting.

Note Although there should be some way to scroll up and down through the spots on an image without having to actually select each one, there isn’t such an option. Don’t bother searching for it. It’s just another of those features that, hopefully, will be added in a later version of Aperture. For now, you have to click the overlay for the patch you want to activate.

Tip The Spot & Patch tool doesn’t have to be selected or active for you to edit or adjust a patch. As long as you have used it to select a particular patch, you can be in any other tool and still edit or adjust the patch via the Spot & Patch area of the Adjustments Inspector or HUD. In this way, you can watch the effects of any edits or adjustments to a patch without the overlay obstructing your view of the image.

Moving Target Overlays

Once you have placed a target overlay, you can select it and drag it to any new position on the image. As long as you see the Hand cursor, as shown in Figure 8.17, you’ll be able to drag the target overlay. Resizing Target Overlays

To resize a target overlay after you have placed it, select it with the Spot & Patch tool and then drag the Radius slider, enter a value in the Value field, or drag the Value slider in the Spot & Patch area of the Adjustments Inspector or HUD. If you have a scrolling mouse, you can increase and decrease the size of a selected target overlay by scrolling, but all existing target overlays—including the selected overlay—disappear as you scroll, which can make it difficult to assess the adjustment when scrolling. Softening the Edge of Target Overlays

Softening spots and patches is like feathering a selection in Photoshop. If you’re not familiar with that operation, it’s where the edges or outlines of a selection are blurred or softened to fade gradually into the pixels under them. For example, compare the two circular spots in Figures 8.20 and 8.21. The edges of the circle


Figure 8.20 A low softness setting produces a hard-edged patch.

Figure 8.21 A higher softness setting fades the patch from the outside to the center.

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in Figure 8.20 are harder (low softness value), while the edges of the circle in Figure 8.21 are softer (high softness value). What you see is that the higher the softness value, the more gradually the patching is applied, from the outside to the center of the patch. Adjust the softness by dragging the Softness slider, by entering a percentage in the Value field, or by dragging the Value slider. Adjusting the Opacity of Target Overlays

As you would probably expect, adjusting the opacity setting for a spot’s target overlay affects how much of the patching you see over the blemish. In other words, if you set a high opacity, the pixels used for patching will completely cover the pixels of the blemish. If you set a lower opacity, the patching pixels will be more transparent, and some of the underlying pixels will show through. Adjust the opacity by dragging the Opacity slider, by entering a percentage in the Value field, or by dragging the Value slider. Adjusting the Detail of Pixels in Target Overlays

The best way to describe the detail adjustment is that it’s a sort of blurring control. If you set the detail parameter to a high value, the full image sharpness of the patch will be applied to the underlying area, preserving all the sharp contrast between pixels. If you set a lower detail value, the contrast between the pixels inside the patch will be softened so that the patch becomes more of a vaguely detailed color patch. Compare the patch shown in Figure 8.20 with the patch shown in Figure 8.22. The Figure 8.20 patch is fully sharp with a high detail setting. The detail setting for the patch shown in Figure 8.22 is as low as it can be. You can see how the texture of the source target area has been blurred with the lower detail setting. Adjust the detail level by dragging the Detail slider, by entering a percentage in the Value field, or by dragging the Value slider. Deleting Target Overlays

Delete target overlays by selecting the one you want to delete and then clicking the Delete button in the Spot & Patch area of the Adjustments Inspector or HUD.

Applying Red Eye Correction Even though Aperture is marketed to professional photographers who are probably least likely to take photographs that have red eye problems, Aperture does have a Red Eye Correction tool. You apply the Red Eye Correction pretty much the same way as the Spot & Patch feature. When you click the Red Eye tool in the Toolbar, or press E, a target overlay and the Red Eye HUD appear on the image.


Figure 8.22 A lower detail setting blurs the overlay pixels.

As with the Spot & Patch tool, you can then adjust the size of the Red Eye target overlay by dragging the slider in the Red Eye HUD. You’ll see the target overlay size change right there as you drag, as shown back in Figure 8.12. You can also enter a value in the Value field or drag the Value slider to change the size. And, again, if you have a scrolling mouse, you can increase and decrease the size of the target overlay by scrolling. When you get the target overlay appropriately sized, click it onto the eye you want to fix. Repeat this process for the other eye and any others you need to fix.

Adjusting Red Eye Correction When you have applied the Red Eye overlays, you can adjust them to better repair the red eye problems. To adjust any one overlay, click it with the Red Eye tool; then make changes to the parameters in the Red Eye Correction area of the Adjustments Inspector or HUD.

Moving Red Eye Target Overlays Move any Red Eye target overlay by placing the cursor over it so that the open hand cursor shows and then dragging it to a new location. You may have to click the overlay to activate it if you have more than one and a different one is activated.

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Resizing Red Eye Target Overlays You can resize a Red Eye target overlay at any time in the image by activating it and scrolling with the mouse or by dragging the Radius slider, entering a value in the Value field, or by dragging the Value slider in the Red Eye Correction area of the Adjustments Inspector or HUD. If you have a scrolling mouse, you can increase and decrease the size of a selected target overlay by scrolling, but all existing target overlays—including the selected overlay—disappear as you scroll, which can make it difficult to assess the adjustment when scrolling.

Adjusting the Sensitivity of Red Eye Correction The Red Eye Correction feature works by removing, desaturating, or removing color from certain pixels inside the area defined by the target overlay. Ideally, you want to be desaturating only the red pixels inside the pupil of the eye. If, however, a target overlay is so large that it overlaps other areas of an eye, such as the eyelids, you may affect those areas, too. The sensitivity parameter of the Red Eye Correction feature determines how wide a range of colors will be included when the desaturation is applied. Adjust the detail level by dragging the Detail slider, by entering a percentage in the Value field, or by dragging the Value slider.

Deleting Red Eye Target Overlays Delete Red Eye target overlays by selecting the one you want to delete and then clicking the Delete button in the Red Eye Correction area of the Adjustments Inspector or HUD.

Applying One or More Adjustments to One or More Images Using the Lift & Stamp Tools You may have tried to select multiple images and then apply adjustments to them and found that the adjustments were applied only to the Primary Selection. The most efficient way to apply the same adjustments to multiple images is with the Lift & Stamp tools. The Lift & Stamp tools work just as they’re named: They lift information from an image and then stamp it onto another or others.

Lifting Adjustments from an Image Lifting information from an image is as simple as selecting the Lift tool, by clicking the Lift tool button on the Toolbar, or by pressing O and then clicking an image in either the Viewer or the Browser. The Lift & Stamp HUD will appear, as shown in Figure 8.23. All adjustments, metadata, and keywords that have been applied to the image will load into the Lift & Stamp HUD, ready for stamping onto another image or images. The Lift tool will automatically switch to the Stamp tool.


Figure 8.23 Lifting information from an image loads it into the Lift & Stamp HUD.

Note You might have to adjust the size and shape of the Lift & Stamp HUD by dragging its corner handle to see all the information loaded there.

Choosing What Information Will Be Stamped Look at the Lift & Stamp HUD shown in Figure 8.23. You can see that adjustments, keywords, and some custom metadata have been lifted from the image and loaded into the HUD. If you can’t see all the information, click the disclosure triangles next to the categories to reveal the detailed information. To specify what information you want to stamp, you can use one of these two following methods: ■

Click the check box next to a category name. If a check is in the box, that entire category of information will be stamped. If there is no check in the box, nothing at all from that category will be stamped.

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Click a specific adjustment, keyword, or other listing and press the Delete key on your keyboard to remove that listing and its information from the Lift & Stamp HUD. Only information that appears here in the Lift & Stamp HUD can be stamped. You have to make sure that the check box for the deleted information’s category has a check in it, or any information you don’t delete won’t be stamped anyway.

Once you are satisfied with the selection of information in the Lift & Stamp HUD, you can stamp that information onto one image or multiple images.

Choosing to Replace or Add to Any Existing Information If you’re about to stamp information onto an image that already has information stored with it, you can choose between adding the new information to it and completely replacing the information. Click the pop-up menu in the lower-left corner of the Lift & Stamp HUD, shown in Figure 8.23, and choose either Add or Replace. The Add option will add the newly stamped information to any already stored with the image or images. The Replace option will delete any existing information and replace it with the newly stamped information. You should be cautious about using the Replace option because you don’t want to lose valuable image-specific information.

Stamping Adjustments onto One Image To stamp the loaded information onto any one image, navigate in the Browser to that image and then make sure the Stamp tool is selected, as shown in Figure 8.23. If it isn’t, press Shift+O or click the Stamp tool button on the Toolbar. To stamp the information, click the image with the Stamp tool.

Stamping Adjustments onto Multiple Images If you want to stamp the lifted information onto multiple images, select the images in the Browser following the rules and procedures you learned in Chapter 1. Then activate the Stamp tool by pressing Shift+O or by clicking the Stamp tool button on the Toolbar. Then click the Stamp Selected Images button in the Lift & Stamp HUD, shown in Figure 8.23.


Using Adjustment Presets In addition to using the helpful Lift & Stamp tools, you can save and apply customized adjustments to images using Adjustment Presets. Unlike the Lift & Stamp tools, however, the Adjustment Presets can apply only one adjustment type at a time. You can create an Adjustment Preset for any adjustment that is controlled in the Adjustments Inspector and HUD. After you have defined the control settings for the adjustment you want to save, create an adjustment preset by clicking the Preset Action pop-up menu in the control area of the adjustment you want to save in the Adjustments Inspector or HUD, as shown in Figure 8.24, and choosing Save as Preset. The Adjustments Presets window, shown in Figure 8.25, will then open. Give the new preset a name and click OK to save it. Once you save a preset, it will be available in the Preset Action pop-up menu of the adjustment where it was saved, as is the preset named HighRoad green cast, which is listed in the Preset Action pop-up menu shown in Figure 8.24. You then apply presets to a selected image simply by accessing that Preset Action pop-up menu and choosing the one you want to apply.

Figure 8.24 Access Adjustment Preset controls through the Preset Action pop-up menu.

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Note The Adjustments Presets window, such as the one shown in Figure 8.25, will be named for whichever adjustment you’ve accessed it from. For example, the one shown in Figure 8.25 is titled Exposure Adjustments Presets because it was opened at the Exposure area of the Adjustments Inspector. If it had been opened at the Levels area, it would have been named Levels Adjustments Presets.

Figure 8.25 You can manage all your presets from the Adjustments Presets window.

Once you have saved adjustments presets, you can manage them in the Adjustments Presets window by choosing Manage Presets, shown in the Presets Action pop-up menu in Figure 8.24. Whatever presets you may have already saved for a particular adjustment will appear in the Adjustments Presets window for that adjustment, such as the one preset already in the Adjustments Presets window shown in Figure 8.25. You can perform the following operations in the Adjustments Presets window: ■

Rename a saved preset in the Adjustments Presets window by doubleclicking its name and typing in a new name.


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Delete any saved preset by accessing the Adjustments Presets window where it is stored, clicking it to highlight it, and then pressing the Delete key on your keyboard. You’ll be prompted to approve the deletion.

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Rearrange the saved presets in any Adjustments Presets window by dragging them to new locations. The presets will appear in the Presets Action pop-up menu in the order they appear in the Adjustments Presets window.

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9 Color Correcting Your Images You can also apply several different color and exposure correction adjustments to your images in Aperture. None of these adjustments have tools in the Toolbar, but they are accessed and controlled in the Adjustments Inspector and HUD, in the same ways as the adjustments that have tools. There are also several automatic adjustments you can make to the color and exposure levels of images, all of which are controlled through the Adjustments Inspector and HUD.

Do You Understand Digital Color? Throughout the following pages, you’re going to be reading about shadows, midtones, and highlights; about black and white; about brightness and luminance; and about color. You need to make sure you understand what those terms mean, in order to understand what the color correction controls do and how they affect image color. Digital color is created on your computer screen when tiny little pixels on the screen light up to varying levels. Each little pixel is actually made up of three individual dots, one red, one green, and one blue. The amount of light emitted by each dot can be varied, so that each of those individual dots can be completely black, fully bright, or somewhere in between. That’s important: Each dot can be completely black or as bright as it can be. The dot can be fully bright, but not white. There are no white dots. Each of the three

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dots can be either black or some level of intensity of its dedicated color, which would either be red, green, or blue. On a digital display, white is created when all three of those dots are fully bright, which makes them together appear white. A fully dark dot—one that has no brightness—generates no color at all, and a fully bright dot generates as much color as it can. On a digital display, each dot has 256 different levels of brightness, from 0 to 255. Zero is black, and 255 is fully bright. Each of the three colored dots can be set to glow at any brightness level in between. When they vary in intensity, together they create an illusion of being some color other than red, green, or blue. That’s how the other colors are generated—by varying the amount of brightness of each individual dot. The simplest examples would be the colors red, green, and blue. For example, to generate a red color, the red dot would be fully bright, while the green and blue dots would be fully black. Nothing but the red would show up. Turning off the red and blue dots and turning up the green dot would create green, and turning off the red and green dots and turning up the blue dot would create blue. Turning the dots up to varying levels creates a mixture of the three colors that, in turn, creates an appearance of a completely different color. Remember how when all three dots are fully bright, they create white? Well, anytime the three dots are the same brightness value, they create an illusion of a shade of gray. For instance, if they are all glowing at a brightness level of 127, which is exactly in the middle between 0 and 255, they create the middle gray color. If they’re all the same at 50, they create dark. If they’re all the same at 200, they create light gray. Here’s a glossary of some important terms you’ll see in this chapter on color correction: ■

Brightness is the numerical setting between 0 and 255 that each color dot, or pixel, or color channel, can have.

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Luminance represents the cumulative brightness values of all three colors in a pixel.

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Midtones are the colors in an image that have brightness values in the middle of the 0-255 scale. Midtones can be gray or any other color that’s created with a mixture of red, green, and blue dots with brightness values in that middle range.

Note Applying color and exposure adjustments to images is based on aesthetics and is highly subjective. In this book, you’ll find the instructions for applying these adjustments, but you should seek other sources of information for when, how much, and what kind of color and exposure corrections you should apply to specific images.

Chapter 9 ■ Color Correcting Your Images

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Viewing Color Information and the Histograms in the Adjustments Inspector and HUD Applying the image adjustments varies according to the specific adjustment, but there are some universal controls and displays, particularly the displays of color and exposure level information.

Using the Color Meter If you need to determine the precise color value of an area of an image, you can use the cursor’s Color Meter. When the cursor’s Color Meter is turned on, the color values are displayed in the Adjustments Inspector and HUD, above the Histogram, as shown in Figure 9.1.

Note If you need to be more precise about exactly which pixel’s color values you’re measuring, remember that you can use the Loupe to display color values for individual pixels. For more information about the Loupe, see Chapter 1.

Color Meter

Figure 9.1 When activated, the color values at the cursor are displayed in the Adjustments Inspector and HUD.

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Turning the Color Meter on and off If the Color Meter is not activated, you can turn it on by clicking the Adjustment Action pop-up menu and choosing Show Color Value, as shown in Figure 9.2.

Selecting a Color Space As you can see in Figure 9.2, you can also specify which color space you want the color information to display by choosing a color space from that Adjustment Action pop-up menu.

Setting the Sample Size The Color Meter samples an area of pixels. In the Adjustment Action pop-up menu, you can specify how large or small you want the sample to be, from a 1-pixel square sample to a 7-pixel square sample.

Reading Histograms

Figure 9.2 Turn on the Color Meter and specify color space in the Adjustment Action pop-up menu.

A histogram is a bar chart that displays the number of pixels that are at various brightness levels, from 0 brightness (black) to 255 brightness (white). Looking at a histogram can give you a much more technical interpretation of the exposure level of an image than you could get with your naked eye. The histogram shown in the Adjustments Inspector in Figure 9.1 shows the distribution of pixels of various levels of brightness in the image displayed in the Viewer. The taller “peaks” show areas where there are a lot of pixels, and the low “valleys” show areas where there are few or no pixels. In that particular image, you can see that the pixels are most numerous in the high brightness levels and in the lower-middle values.

How the pixels should be distributed in an image depends on the image. A lowkey or dark image would have a histogram with pixels clumped at the left side, where the darker brightness values are. A high-key or bright image would have more pixels at the right side of the histogram. In general, one could say the pixels in an image should be spread out evenly across the full range of brightness. Of course, that’s not always the case, and the distribution of pixels will depend on the content of the image. As mentioned earlier in this section, determining correct color and exposure values is beyond the scope of this book. However, you should have enough understanding of histograms to be able to look at a histogram and get a good idea about whether an image is under- or overexposed.


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Showing and Hiding the Histogram By default, the histogram at the top of the Adjustments Inspector and HUD is visible. You can toggle it on and off by clicking the Adjustment Action pop-up menu and choosing Show/Hide Histogram.

Selecting a Histogram View Histograms can display pixel values for different color values. For example, the histogram in Figure 9.1 is for the Luminance values of the image, while the histogram in Figure 9.3 is showing the separate RGB values in one view. You can choose between the luminance, RGB, red only, green only, and blue only histogram views by clicking the Adjustment Action pop-up menu, shown in Figure 9.2, and choosing one of those options.

Applying the Automatic Adjustments

Figure 9.3 The RGB histogram view.

Even without having a high level of knowledge about color correcting images, you can apply effective color correction adjustments by letting Aperture make the determinations of what should be adjusted and by how much. Aperture provides an Auto Exposure adjustment for RAW format images and for all format types an Auto Levels adjustment that can be made independently by color channel or by the color channels combined. Although these auto adjustments will generally produce acceptable results, in some cases the resulting corrections may not enhance the image. You should always rely on your own visual assessment of the image as the final check.

Auto Exposure If you’ve imported RAW images directly from a camera, they have not been adjusted in any way. Aperture’s Auto Exposure adjustment applies an initial exposure correction to RAW images. You can compare before and after images and histograms in Figures 9.4 and 9.5. Notice how the image lightened up and the pixel values spread out from being bunched up on the left to being more evenly distributed across the histogram.

Understanding the Auto Levels Adjustments While the Auto Exposure adjustment is only for RAW images, you can use one or both of the Auto Levels adjustments for all image formats. But you should understand the difference between what they each do to images. To see how these adjustments affect an image, compare the three images shown in Figures 9.6, 9.7, and 9.8.

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Figure 9.4 A RAW image directly out of the camera.

Auto Exposure button

Figure 9.5 The same RAW image after clicking the Auto Exposure button.


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Figure 9.6 Here’s the original image with a green cast.

Auto Levels Combined button

Figure 9.7 Clicking the Auto Levels Combined button increased the contrast but didn’t affect the green cast.

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Auto Levels Separate button Reset button

Figure 9.8 Clicking the Auto Levels Separate button improved the contrast and also corrected the green cast.

Auto Levels Combined Consider the Auto Levels Combined adjustment an auto contrast adjustment. Aperture evaluates the luminance of the image and adjusts the luminance levels accordingly. The color cast of the image is not affected.

Auto Levels Separate The Auto Levels Separate adjustment, on the other hand, is both a contrast adjustment and a color correction adjustment. Aperture evaluates each color channel and adjusts each one separately. Any imbalance in individual channels will be evened out, resulting in more even contrast and more correct color.

Removing Auto Levels Adjustments from an Image As you apply the Auto Levels adjustments, you can always use the Undo command (Command+Z or Edit>Undo) to reset the image. But this option isn’t always practical for many different reasons. Fortunately, you can remove the Auto Levels adjustments quickly by clicking the Reset button, shown in Figure 9.8, to reset the image to its original values. You can also click off the check box next to the adjustment in the Adjustments Inspector or HUD to remove the adjustment.


Setting the Auto Levels Options Usually, when you click one of the Auto Levels adjustments, Aperture will assess all the pixels in an image and spread them out fairly evenly between black and white. The Auto Levels options allow you to override that tendency and to tell Aperture to actually overadjust pixels at the extremes of the brightness range. For example, if you raise the Black Clip level, Aperture will go up into the lower gray values and turn some of them pure black. At the other extreme, if you raise the White Clip level, Aperture will turn some of the higher gray values to pure white.

Note When you raise the White Clip level, you’re actually lowering the upper limit of the range of pixels that will be considered pure white. Thinking of it that way may help you understand what’s happening.

You can see how this works in the two images shown in Figures 9.9 and 9.10 by comparing them with the original image back in Figure 9.6 and the adjusted images in Figures 9.7 and 9.8.

Figure 9.9 Setting the Black Clip level at the maximum of 10% results in large areas of shadow being turned to pure black.

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Figure 9.10 Setting the White Clip level at the maximum of 10% results in large areas of highlight being turned to pure white.

By default, the Auto Levels options are hidden. You can show them by clicking the Adjustment Action pop-up menu and choosing Show Auto Adjust Options. You can adjust the clip levels by dragging the Black Clip or White Clip slider, by entering a value in the value field, or by dragging the value slider. The range of adjustment is from 0 to 10%. The only reason to change these clip settings is to compensate for how images print on a printer. You may need to experiment with printed images to obtain the optimum setting.

Manually Applying Color Correction The automatic exposure adjustments described previously often produce acceptable results that will resolve your color-related image quality problems. There are times, however, when you’ll want to take more control over the correction of those problems by manually adjusting the exposure and colors of an image. You can make those manual adjustments in the Adjustments Inspector and HUD. Figure 9.11 shows all of the manual color adjustments in the Adjustments Inspector, expanded to show all of their respective controls.


As you can see in Figure 9.11, the manual color adjustment controls are, for the most part, the same types of controls you’re already accustomed to using in Aperture. There are histograms, sliders, value fields, and value sliders, which all operate the same way as in other controls in Aperture. In addition to those common types of controls, you’ll also see the eyedroppers and the histogram sliders, which you’ll learn to use with their respective adjustments.

Note Again, determining the correct amount of correction or adjustment to apply to an image is a subjective judgment based on your own knowledge, experience, and visual assessment of an image. In this book, you’ll learn to control these adjustments and how they affect an image.

Many of these controls overlap; that is, they apply the same kind of color correction or adjustment. As you learn to use them, you’ll learn which ones are appropriate to use in different situations.

Fine-Tuning RAW Images As the name implies, RAW format images have not been adjusted or compressed in the camera. When Aperture imports RAW images, no adjustments are made to the raw image file. Aperture doesn’t do anything to the RAW image until you select it in the Browser, and it appears in Figure 9.11 All of the manual the Viewer. As the RAW image opens for display, Aperture color correction adjustments in automatically applies several adjustments—a process the Adjustments Inspector. called decoding. As of Aperture 1.1, you have the option of refining those adjustments or even removing them. If you do make changes to these adjustments, you can save the customized set and automatically apply it to all images from a particular camera. As of Aperture 1.5, you can also save your fine-tuning settings as an adjustment preset.

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Slider Value field/slider

Eyedropper

Histogram slider

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The RAW Fine Tuning area appears automatically in the Adjustments Inspector when you select a RAW format image, as shown in Figure 9.12. Images imported from some cameras will not have all the controls available. As you can see in Figure 9.12, the RAW Fine Tuning area tells you the camera from which the image was imported and provides the following controls.

Boost The Boost adjustment is an automatic contrast adjustment, set at the full adjustment level of 1 by default. You can reduce this adjustment by dragging the Boost slider, entering a value in the value field, or dragging the value slider. Although there is no check box to turn this adjustment on and off, you can effectively turn it off by setting it to 0.00.

Sharpening Although the Sharpening adjustment is turned on by default in the Apple RAW Fine Tuning preset, you can see in Figure 9.12 that it is not applying any sharpening adjustment because the Intensity and Edges controls are set at 0.00. You can add Sharpening by dragging either of the available sliders, entering a value in the value field, or dragging the value slider. The effects of the two available controls are described below. Setting the Sharpening Intensity

Digital image sharpening is a process of increasing the contrast of adjacent pixels that are determined to define the edges of details in an image. Setting the intensity level defines how much contrast to apply to pixels that are determined to be edge pixels. Sharpening Edges

Edges pixels are selected by how much difference in brightness there is between adjacent pixels. If the low edge value is set low, adjacent pixels with less brightness difference between them will be selected as edge pixels. If the edge value is set high, adjacent pixels won’t be selected as pixels unless they have a lot of difference in brightness.

Chroma Blur When images are captured on digital sensors, the colors of the original scene are not captured as purely as they occur in real life. All digital sensors have varying levels of what is called noise, which appears as off-colored dots or pixels in areas of color. You most often see this in dark images that have been taken with high ISO (film speed) settings, and it may look like snow in the image. Even though it’s not as noticeable in brighter and better-exposed images, it is often there.

Figure 9.12 The RAW Fine Tuning controls.


Chroma Blur is a process of reducing the color and brightness difference between adjacent pixels, and it’s almost but not quite the same thing as sharpening. Chroma Blur actually smears colors, as if they were finger paints. If, for example, a broad area of dark blue had speckles of white or light yellow dots of noise, a chroma blur adjustment would smear the blue color over the lighter colored dots to hide or eliminate the noisy appearance of the image. You define the amount of this adjustment you want by dragging the Chroma Blur slider, entering a value in the value field, or dragging the value slider.

Auto Noise Compensation When sharpening or chroma blue adjustments are applied to an image, the computer can be confused by true edge pixels and pixels that are really noise. The Auto Noise Compensation adjustment tells the computer about the noise characteristics of a particular camera to help it better define which high-contrast adjacent pixels are and are not noise. You can turn this adjustment on and off.

Saving the RAW Fine Tuning Settings If you adjust the RAW Fine Tuning controls to optimize the RAW decoding process for images from a particular camera, you can save the settings as a new preset. You can then apply the preset manually or define it as the default preset for all subsequent RAW decoding. Saving and applying adjustments presets are described in Chapter 8. Once a saved RAW Fine Tuning preset is saved, you can set it as the default decoding adjustment preset for RAW images by clicking the Preset Action pop-up menu and choosing Save as Camera Default. As long as that preset is set as the camera default, any RAW image you select in the Browser will be decoded with that preset as it is displayed in the Viewer. You can change the camera default preset any time you want.

Manually Adjusting Exposure In the Exposure area of the Adjustments Inspector and HUD, you can apply and control the following adjustments.

Exposure The Exposure adjustment mimics the exposure control you have in the camera when you take a picture. By adjusting this control up or down, you can make an image appear underexposed or overexposed, essentially darkening or lightening the image. Of course, you may actually be using the adjustment to correct an image that was overexposed or underexposed when taken.

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This adjustment will move all the pixels in the image in unison toward either the darker or brighter side of the histogram, making the image appear uniformly more dark or more light. To make an image appear darker or brighter, increase or decrease the Exposure value by dragging the slider, dragging the value slider, or entering a value in the value field of the Exposure control.

Saturation The Saturation adjustment affects the amount of color in individual pixels, which then affects the apparent amount of color in an image. The easiest way to comprehend saturation is to drag the Saturation slider all the way to the left, or 0 value. You’ll see all the color in the image drain out, and the image will become a blackand-white or grayscale image. Boosting saturation too high will exaggerate colors and create unnatural-looking images. To increase or decrease the amount of color information in the pixels of an image, drag the slider, drag the value slider, or enter a value in the value field of the Saturation control.

Brightness The Brightness adjustment controls the apparent brightness of an image, especially in the midtones or middle gray areas of an image. For instance, increasing the brightness of an image will brighten the middle ranges of color more than the dark shadows and bright highlights. This differs from the exposure adjustment, which affects all the brightness ranges of images. To increase or decrease the brightness of an image while preserving the shadows and highlights, drag the slider, drag the value slider, or enter a value in the value field of the Brightness control.

Contrast Contrast is the relative brightness difference between colors in an image. A high contrast image will have a lot of very dark colors and very bright colors. A low contrast image will have a lot of colors that are very close in brightness, in any range. For example, one low contrast image could be made up of a lot of very bright colors and few very dark colors, while another low contrast image could be made up of a lot of very dark colors with few very bright colors. Increasing contrast will spread the colors out across the 0–255 brightness range, creating more differences between colors, while decreasing contrast will compress colors tighter together in the 0–255 brightness range, creating fewer differences between colors.


To increase or decrease the difference between the ranges of brightness levels of the colors in an image, drag the slider, drag the value slider, or enter a value in the value field of the Contrast control.

Tint The Tint adjustment affects the general color of the shadows, the midtone colors, and the highlights. In general, the shadows should be black, the highlights should be white, and the midtones should be neutral. In some images, however, the colors of those areas somehow get tinted wrong—most often because of color temperature issues—and you need to fix them. Basically, when you use the Tint adjustment, you’re telling Aperture what color is black, what color is white, and what colors are in the middle.

Note Adjusting the tint of an image can completely change its character. That may or may not be a good thing. If you’re repairing an image that has an unnatural color cast, it will likely be a good thing. But you could just as easily create an unnatural color cast with this adjustment, so proceed cautiously and look carefully at your image.

When adjusting the tint of an image, you can use the eyedroppers or the color wheels. Regardless of which method you use to set the tint, you can reset a color point back to its original setting by double-clicking its color wheel. Adjusting Tint with the Eyedroppers

Using the eyedroppers to adjust tint is definitely the easier of the two methods. You set the black, gray, and white points by clicking the respective Eyedropper button to activate the eyedropper. That automatically opens the Loupe and turns on the color meter in it, as shown in Figure 9.13. You position the cursor over a pixel that you select and then click. Aperture sets that pixel’s values as the corresponding color point. Figure 9.13 shows the black point being set in the image. Notice that the color value display in the Loupe shows very low numbers. That’s what you want when you’re setting the black point. You want to find the darkest black pixel you can find, which means you’d search for a pixel with RGB values as close to zero as possible. If you are setting the white point, you want to find the brightest white pixel you can find—one with RGB values as close to 255 as possible. If you are setting the gray point, you want to find a pixel with RGB values as close to 127 as possible.

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Figure 9.13 Activating an eyedropper turns on the Loupe.

To see just how powerful and how helpful the Tint adjustment can be, compare the before and after states of the image shown in Figures 9.14 and 9.15. The original image had a terrible green cast that was probably the result of a bad scan. After using the eyedroppers to set the black, white, and gray points, the image looks a lot more natural. Adjusting Tint with the Color Wheels

You can also manipulate the black, gray, and white points by dragging the white dots in the respective color wheels of the Tint controls. It is a lot more difficult to determine for yourself where the points should be, but it can help to remember that you drag the white dots on the color wheels toward the color opposite of the color of the tint you’re trying to remove. You can see that this was true for the image shown in Figure 9.15. In the Adjustments Inspector shown in Figure 9.15, notice how the white dots are all on the sides of the color wheels away from green, which was the color of the tint that was removed.

Manually Adjusting Levels Using the Levels adjustments, you can adjust only the luminance of an image, or you can also adjust its color. Adjusting the luminance adjusts only the light and dark of an image without affecting the colors of the image. By adjusting the levels of the individual color channels, you can change the colors of an image.


Figure 9.14 Ah, the emerald tones of the desert sands are so beautiful. Not!

Figure 9.15 That looks a lot more realistic.

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To understand what a levels adjustment does, look at any histogram, such as the one in the Adjustments Inspector shown in Figure 9.15. What you’re seeing there is a bar chart that is displaying a representation of how many pixels or dots are present at each of the 256 levels of brightness. Zero is at the far left of the histogram, and 255 is at the far right of the histogram. If you’re looking at a luminance histogram, the representation is pixels, and if you’re looking at an individual color channel histogram, the representation is individual color dots. The heights of the peaks are determined by how many pixels or dots have that particular level of brightness are in the image. The pixels or dots are stacked up at the various levels, depending on how many there are at that brightness level. The peaks at the far left of the histogram shown in Figure 9.15 indicate that there are a lot of pixels at some of the lower brightness levels. The tall peak at the far right indicates a lot of pixels at some of the higher brightness levels. Areas where there are no peaks, or that look like valleys, indicate that there are very few pixels at those brightness levels. What happens with a levels adjustment is that you move pixels from one level to another. You can move pixels from low brightness values to higher brightness values, and you can move pixels from high brightness values to lower brightness values. Whichever way you move pixels, you’ll affect the appearance of the image. You select whether you want to adjust the luminance of the image by clicking the Channel pop-up menu and choosing Luminance. If you want to adjust any one of the individual color channels, you choose that color from the Channel pop-up menu. Depending on your selection, the Levels control will display either a luminance or color channel histogram.

Adjusting Levels by Entering Numeric Values In Aperture, the zero point on the histogram is zero. But for some reason, the 255 brightness level point on the histogram is 1. Think of it as a percentage number— that 1 is 100%. You can adjust the black, gray, and white points of an image by entering numeric values in the B, G, and W values fields. If you want the white point to be 90% instead of 100%, type .9 in the W values field. If you want the black point to be 10% instead of 0%, type .1 in the B values field. The same goes for the G values field.

Adjusting Levels by Dragging Levels Sliders If you enter a numeric value in the B, G, or W values field, you’ll see the Black, Gray, or White Levels slider move to the corresponding point on the histogram. You can also move those sliders by dragging them to the points where you want them.


In general, when you’re adjusting the luminance of an image, you want to move the Black and White Levels sliders to where the corresponding black and white points should be. Look at the Levels histogram for the image in Figure 9.16. Notice how the peaks of pixels don’t stretch all the way from the far left side to the far right side; they’re bunched up in the lower two-thirds of the histogram. Now look at the same image and its Levels histogram after dragging the Black and White Levels sliders to where the peaks begin, shown in Figure 9.17. You can see the results of the adjustment in the image itself and also in the histogram at the top of the Adjustments Inspector. Compare the two histograms. The Levels histogram shows the pixels as they are, and the upper histogram shows the pixels as they will be displayed or printed. They will be spread out across the histogram, producing more even luminance and some minimal highlights in the image. Notice in that same Levels histogram that the Gray Level slider is no longer in the middle. According to the G values field, it’s now at the .39 or 39% point. It got there automatically, when the White Levels slider was dragged to the left, which occurs because Aperture is going to automatically spread out the pixels, and the ones at the .39 position will now be output as .5 or 50% bright. That’s why the entire image seems a bit brighter.

Figure 9.16 This image’s histogram shows a lack of highlights.

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Figure 9.17 The pixels have been spread out to produce more even luminance and some highlights.

If you think you need to, you can drag the Gray Levels slider to adjust the midtones of the image.

Adding Quarter-Tone Sliders Using the three default sliders, you’re only adjusting the midtones of the image and the upper and lower extremes of brightness levels. If necessary, you can also adjust the brightness levels between the midtones and the extremes by adding the Quarter-Tone Levels sliders, shown in Figure 9.18, or by clicking the QuarterTone Controls button. When you drag the Quarter-Tone Levels sliders, you’ll notice that they don’t cause any other sliders to move, unlike when you drag the Black, Gray, or White Levels sliders. In this way, they allow you to lock the other values and independently adjust the quarter-tone pixels. Once you add the Quarter-Tone Levels sliders, you can also input numeric values in their respective values fields.

Adjusting Brightness by Dragging the Brightness Levels Sliders The triangular sliders pointed out in Figure 9.18 on the top of the Levels histogram are the Brightness Levels sliders. When you drag a Brightness Levels slider,


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Brightness Levels slider Quarter-Tone Controls button Shadows and Highlights Brightness Levels sliders Quarter-Tone Levels sliders

Figure 9.18 The Quarter-Tone sliders can move independently of the Black, Gray, and White Levels sliders.

you’re increasing or decreasing the overall brightness of the image, as opposed to redistributing the pixels as you do when you drag the Levels sliders and QuarterTone Levels sliders.

Adjusting Brightness by Dragging the Shadows and Highlights Sliders When you have activated the Quarter-Tone Levels controls, they also have their own brightness levels sliders at the top of the Levels histogram, as shown in Figure 9.18. The one to the left of center is the Shadow Brightness Levels slider, and the one to the right is the Highlight Brightness Levels slider. Dragging one or the other of them will affect only the respective areas of the image, independently of the Brightness Levels slider.

Adjusting the Levels of Individual Color Channels You can apply these same levels adjustments to individual color channels by selecting either Red, Green, or Blue from the Channel pop-up menu. The Levels controls all work the same way, but you’re only affecting one color channel at a time. Adjusting the levels of an individual color channel can have a major effect on the overall appearance of an image. Table 9-1 lists the effects of adjusting the levels of each individual color channel.

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Table 9-1 Effects of Levels Adjustments of Color Channels Channel

Action

Area of Effect

Red

Drag Black Levels slider right Drag Gray Levels slider left Drag Gray Levels slider right Drag White Levels slider left

Shadows

Green

Blue

Midtones Midtones Highlights


Shadows


Shadows



Result

Removes red and adds cyan. Removes cyan and adds red. Removes red and adds cyan. Removes cyan and adds red. Removes green and adds magenta. Removes magenta and adds green. Removes green and adds magenta. Removes magenta and adds green. Removes blue and adds yellow. Removes yellow and adds blue. Removes blue and adds yellow. Removes yellow and adds blue.

Applying the Highlights & Shadows Adjustment When you apply an automatic levels adjustment or adjust the exposure in an image, you’re adjusting the entire range of brightness values in the image. That can be fine for images that are uniformly too dark or uniformly too light, because the entire image will be adjusted to make it brighter or darker. But if you have an image that is well exposed in, say, the highlights but underexposed in the shadows, you would make the highlights too bright if you adjusted the entire image at once.


Aperture’s Highlights & Shadows adjustment allows you to adjust the upper or lower brightness ranges of an image independently, so that you can preserve the proper exposure in one area while improving the exposure of the other. Look at the image in Figure 9.19. It has decent midtones, but it has little detail in the shadows, and the highlights in the background are a bit washed out. Look at that same image in Figure 9.20, after the Exposure adjustment was applied in an attempt to brighten the image. There are details in the shadows now, but the highlights are even more blown out.

Applying the Basic Highlights & Shadows Adjustments Now look at the same image in Figure 9.21. The highlights haven’t changed from the way they appeared in Figure 9.19, but the shadows have been brought up toward midtones. That’s how the Highlights & Shadows adjustment can work for you. Of course, the same thing can be done at the other end of the brightness values. You can darken highlights while preserving shadow area exposure. Just look at the image in Figure 9.22, after adjusting the highlights. Now you have an image that has good detail in areas that before had no detail or poor detail. To apply the Highlights & Shadows adjustment, first click the disclosure triangle to open its control area in the Adjustments Inspector or HUD. You can then click its on/off check box, but you don’t have to. As soon as you make an adjustment, it will come on. You then can adjust the Highlights or Shadows controls by dragging the respective slider or by entering a value in or dragging the value field of the respective adjustment.

Modifying the Highlights & Shadows Adjustments If you need to refine the Highlights & Shadows adjustments, you can open the Advanced control area by clicking its disclosure triangle. Each of the controls in the Advanced area can be modified by dragging its respective slider or by entering a value in or dragging its value field. In the Advanced control area of the Highlights & Shadows adjustment, you can modify the following controls. Radius

When Aperture applies the Highlights & Shadows adjustments, it compares a pixel with those around it to determine if and how much it should be adjusted. The Radius control defines the size of the circle of pixels around a pixel that will be used for the determination. The setting can have a major impact on how the adjustment is applied, which you can see if you drag its slider to the left or right extremes.

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Figure 9.19 No hope for this image? Don’t bet on it.

Figure 9.20 Whoa! Those highlights are off the chart!


Figure 9.21 Adjusting the Shadows control of the Highlights & Shadows adjustment brought up the lower brightness levels.

Figure 9.22 Adjusting the Highlights control of the Highlights & Shadows adjustment brought down the upper brightness levels.

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Color Correction

When areas of an image are underexposed or overexposed, the color in those areas is often subdued or reduced in intensity. Consequently, there are instances where you may want to tell Aperture to increase the color saturation of the pixels it adjusts. In Figure 9.22, you can see that the Color Correction control is set at 0.0, which means that no color correction is being applied. If you drag the slider or the value slider to the left or enter a value less than 0, color will be removed from the affected area. If you drag the slider or the value slider to the right or enter a value higher than 0, color will be added to the affected area. High and Low Tonal Width

You can tell Aperture to apply the Highlights & Shadows adjustment to a lesser or greater range of brightness levels using the High Tonal Width control or the Low Tonal Width control. Lower values will result in only the very highest highlights or lowest shadow levels being affected. Higher values will result in more levels at each end being adjusted and moved toward the midtones. Mid Contrast

The Mid Contrast control increases or decreases the differences in brightness values in the middle tones of the image. The amount of difference between colors determines the apparent contrast between colors. You can create less contrast in the middle brightness values with lower Mid Contrast values and increase contrast in the middle values with higher Mid Contrast values.

Adjusting the White Balance The most common use of a White Balance adjustment is to repair a color cast caused by the wrong color temperature setting when a photo was taken. For example, if your camera thinks that it is in daylight, but you’re actually inside a building with artificial light, you’ll likely wind up with images that have a yellowish tint to them. Using the White Balance adjustment can make the whites appear white and can make other colors appear the ways they should, too. Look at the image shown in Figure 9.23. Although it is an outdoor setting, it was night, and the area was lit with artificial lights of various color temperatures. The dominant light was much cooler than sunlight, but the camera had not been adjusted for artificial light, which resulted in the yellowish cast of the image. The White Balance adjustment works a lot like the Black Point, Gray Point, and White Point settings in the Exposure adjustment. However, with the White Balance adjustment you’re only defining what color is white. To apply the White Balance adjustment, you can use either the eyedropper or the controls for Temp and Tint.


Figure 9.23 This scene was illuminated by artificial light.

To set the White Balance with the eyedropper, click the Eyedropper button in the White Balance control area of the Adjustments Inspector or HUD. The Loupe will automatically activate with its color meter, as shown in Figure 9.24. Select something in the image that should be white and click. Aperture will adjust the image accordingly, as you can see in Figure 9.25.

Tip Be sure to click on a color that should be white, but isn’t. If you find an area that, for some reason, is truly white (like one of the white posts in the extreme foreground of the image in Figure 9.24), and you click on that, you won’t see a change in the image. With this adjustment, you’re correcting a white balance problem, so you need to tell Aperture what needs to be corrected.

You can also shift the color balance of the image using the Temp control. By dragging the slider or the value slider or by entering a value in the value field, you can change the color temperature setting. Look at the Temp control in the White Balance area shown in Figure 9.25. Notice the little blue “sun” at one end and the little yellow “sun” at the other. This will tell you what color you’re likely to produce if your values favor one end or the other.

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Figure 9.24 Find something that should be white and click it.

Figure 9.25 Aperture will correct the color of the image.


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Sometimes, after you’ve made the primary adjustment using either the eyedropper or the Temp control, there will still be some lingering color casts to the image, which are usually either green or magenta. By adjusting the Tint control, you can reduce or remove that remaining color cast.

Color When you adjust the colors in an image with the White Balance adjustment or the color wheels of the Exposure adjustment, you tell Aperture to take a pixel that appears a certain way in an image and make it appear a different color. For example, in the White Balance adjustment, you find a color pixel that isn’t white and tell Aperture to make it white. Working with the Color adjustments is opposite: You tell Aperture to make the actual colors appear different, while leaving their pixels alone. In other words, using the Color adjustments, you could tell Aperture to show all red pixels as yellow. You aren’t, however, likely to make such drastic color changes. You’re more likely to make subtle changes that help you match the same sky blue from one image to another or the same leaf green in two images. The images shown in Figure 9.26 are examples of good candidates for the Color adjustment. They are photos of the same building, taken at almost the same moment, but for some reason, they came out quite different. You could use the Color adjustment to match up the color of the building in the two shots.

Expanded View button

Figure 9.26 The same building looks like it’s two different colors in these two images.

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You can make these color adjustments to the three primary digital colors: red, green, and blue; and the three additive colors: cyan, magenta, and yellow. Click open the disclosure triangle of the Color adjustment area of the Adjustments Inspector or HUD, shown in Figure 9.26. That’s the default layout of the Color control area—just one control set and buttons to switch between the six available colors. If you click the Expanded View button, you’ll see individual control sets for each color, as shown in Figure 9.27. Figure 9.27 is a composite image that shows the two images and their respective Adjustments Inspectors after tweaking the colors in each image. As a result of the color adjustment, the colors of the church and the rest of the scene match much better. You can see in the Adjustments Inspectors which colors were adjusted and by how much. When the Color adjustment control area is collapsed, as shown in Figure 9.26, you can adjust the individual colors by clicking the button for the color you want to adjust. The expanded view allows the same adjustments, but they’re all out there where you can see them all at one time, as shown in Figure 9.27. You adjust the controls in each color’s control set by dragging the slider, dragging the value slider, or entering a numeric value in the value field. You can adjust the following individual controls for each color.

Figure 9.27 Adjusting the colors of each image helped match the color of the building in the two images.


Hue The Hue control actually changes the color of the selected color. On each color’s Hue control, you can see the effect you will produce by dragging the slider toward one end or the other. For example, on the Hue control for the color Red, shown in Figure 9.27, you can see a magenta swatch at the left end and a yellow swatch at the right end. Those swatches indicate the color shift you’ll produce by moving the value in that direction. So, if you were to move that Red color’s Hue control to the right, you’d make the red in the image appear a little more yellowish.

Saturation The Saturation control adjusts the intensity of the selected color, that is, how much of the selected color is allowed to show. You can reduce the amount of the color by adjusting toward the faded swatch on the left, and you can increase the intensity of the color by adjusting toward the full-color swatch on the right.

Luminance The Luminance control sets the brightness level of pixels of the selected color. Increase the brightness of the color’s pixels by adjusting toward the white swatch, and decrease the brightness of the color’s pixels by adjusting toward the black swatch.

Range The possible range of change each color can be adjusted is between the two colors at opposite ends of the Hue control. For instance, Red can be adjusted all the way from magenta (the swatch on the left end of the Red’s Hue control) to yellow (the swatch on the right end of the Red’s Hue control). The Range control determines the degree of color change you’ll produce with each step of the Hue control. The default Range value is 1, the minimum is 0, and the maximum is 20. If you drag the slider in the Range control, you’ll max out at 2, and you have to enter values above that in the value field.

Applying Noise Reduction Noise is like visible electronic static in a digital image, and it is a result of the limitations of the light-gathering sensor. Noise in a digital image appears as multicolored pixels where there should be solid colors. It’s often most noticeable in dark images and images taken at high ISO speeds. Figure 9.28 shows an image with visible noise. Noise reduction is a process of blurring those multicolored pixels so that they blend in with the pixels that are the colors they should be. Figure 9.29 shows the same image after applying noise reduction.

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Figure 9.28 A “noisy” image.

Figure 9.29 Reducing the noise with Noise Reduction.


Apply Aperture’s Noise Reduction adjustment by clicking the Add Adjustments pop-up menu and choosing Noise Reduction. When the Noise Reduction control area opens in the Adjustments Inspector or HUD, you can set the following two values to optimize the repair: ■

Radius: The Radius setting determines how much noise reduction is applied.

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Edge Detail: The Edge Detail setting allows you to preserve some of the sharpness of the image, which will unavoidably be reduced by the noise reduction process.

As is usually the case with the controls in the Adjustments Inspector and HUD, you can adjust the values of the above controls by dragging their slider, dragging their value slider, or entering a value in their value slider.

Tip Be careful not to apply too much noise reduction, which can result in a fuzzy or blurry image.

Understanding and Using the Sharpen Adjustments Aperture now has two different versions of its adjustments for sharpening images. The Sharpen adjustment is left over from versions prior to Aperture 1.5. The Edge Sharpen is the new version of that adjustment and offers much more control over the sharpening process. Unless you’re working with a version prior to Aperture 1.5, you should use the new Edge Sharpen adjustment. If you use the keyboard shortcut of Control+S to access the Sharpen adjustment, you’ll see that it’s the Edge Sharpen adjustment that opens by default. Apply sharpening by adding the Edge Sharpen adjustment to the Adjustments Inspector or HUD. Click the Add Adjustments pop-up menu and choose Edge Sharpen or press Control+S. As with most of the controls in the Adjustments Inspector and HUD, you adjust them by dragging their slider, dragging their value slider, or entering a value in their value field.

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What Is Sharpening? Sharpening digital images is a process of increasing the contrast between adjacent pixels that are determined to be edge pixels. The increased contrast makes the edges appear more pronounced, creating more definition between the things in a photograph. Sharpening is not refocusing, however. You cannot focus an image that was taken out of focus. Sharpening can help make an image appear more crisp and detailed, but it won’t give you sharp lines where there weren’t any before. Sharpening depends on the identification of the edge pixels of an image. Edge pixels are those pixels that define the boundaries of details in an image. Most things we photograph have a definite shape, and even when they’re similar in color and brightness to other things behind them in a photograph, their shape boundaries are marked by a change in color or brightness—even if it’s just a slight change. Those changes in color or brightness are what a computer looks for when determining which pixels are edge pixels. In fact, that explains why sharpening doesn’t help much with out-of-focus or blurry images. In an out-of-focus image, the lines that should be sharp and distinct are not sharp and distinct. So the computer can’t even find them to enhance them. Once the computer determines which pixels are edge pixels, it increases the contrast between adjacent edge pixels in an effort to increase the brightness difference between them, which in turn should result in an image that appears to be sharper or have more detail. Even when images are saved and exported from a camera as RAW images, the camera has processed them to some degree. The information captured by the light sensor in the camera has to be translated to produce the image. Cameras apply what is called a demosaic filter that reduces the distinction between individual pixels that can make an image look like a mosaic of small tiles. Consequently, that processing can sometimes soften your detail images. You can then apply sharpening if the details in an image appear soft or poorly defined. You can also use sharpening to counter the effects of noise reduction adjustments. You’ll see the most drastic sharpening effects on RAW images. A camera that compresses the image before you import it often applies a sharpening adjustment as part of the camera’s internal processing of the image.


To control the amount of sharpening, you adjust the following three controls: ■

Intensity: The Intensity control determines how much contrast will be applied to the edge pixels, which increases or reduces the sharpening effect.

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Edges: The Edges control specifies how much difference there has to be between pixels for them to be identified as edge pixels. The lower the value, the more different they have to be to be considered edge pixels. The higher the value, the less different they have to be. With higher values, more pixels will be falsely identified as edge pixels, increasing the noisiness of the adjustment.

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Falloff: When Aperture applies the sharpening adjustment, it evaluates the image three times. The first time through, it applies the sharpening effects, and then it refines those effects on the second and third passes. The Falloff setting determines how much sharpening will be added on the second and third passes.

Applying Color Effects to Your Images The color adjustments described up to this point in this chapter have been primarily for correcting color problems. But you can also apply color adjustments that are designed and provided specifically for creating special color effects.

Monochrome Mixer If you have a color image and you want to make it look like it was taken with black-and-white film, you can simply remove all the color information, and you’ll be left with a monochrome image. If you do it that way, however, you’ll also be left with a less-than-optimum black-and-white image. Using the Monochrome Mixer, you can mix the three color channels at various percentages to convert color images to better looking black-and-white images. If you are experienced shooting black-and-white film, you are probably familiar with the use of color filters to enhance black-and-white film. Aperture’s Monochrome Mixer is preset to behave as if you were converting your color images to black-and-white images that had been shot with various color filters on the camera lens.

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Figure 9.30 Use the Monochrome Mixer to convert images from color to black and white.

Apply the Monochrome Mixer by adding it to the Adjustments Inspector or HUD. Click the Add Adjustments pop-up menu and choose Monochrome Mixer or press Control+M. As with most of the controls in the Adjustments Inspector and HUD, you adjust them by dragging their slider, dragging their value slider, or entering a value in their value field. Look at the Monochrome Mixer shown in Figure 9.30. You can see the Red, Green, and Blue controls and the Preset pop-up menu. The Monochrome Mixer comes with a set of Monochrome Mixer Presets in which the color channel information has been mixed in ways to mimic the effects of shooting black-and-white film through color filters. By default, the plain Monochrome preset is applied when you first apply the Monochrome Mixer. You can then choose a different preset from the Preset pop-up menu, or you can adjust the color channels any way you want, which will create a new preset called Monochrome with Custom Filter. Table 9-2 shows the various Monochrome Mixer Presets and their respective effects on the image shown in Figure 9.30.


Table 9-2 Aperture’s Monochrome Mixer Presets Preset

Action

Monochrome

Straight Desaturation

Monochrome with Red Filter

Lightens reds, darkens blues

Monochrome with Orange Filter

Darkens blue more than yellow filter

Monochrome with Yellow Filter

Darkens blue, increases white intensity

Monochrome with Green Filter

Lightens greens, darkens reds

Monochrome with Blue Filter

Lightens blue, darkens greens

Resulting Image

Color Monochrome The Color Monochrome adjustment creates a straight monochrome image and then adds a color tint to it. This mimics the effect commonly known as duotone. Apply the Color Monochrome adjustment by adding it to the Adjustments Inspector or HUD. Click the Add Adjustments pop-up menu and choose Color Monochrome. The Color Monochrome control area has the Color swatch button and the Intensity slider, as shown in Figure 9.31.

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Figure 9.31 The Color Monochrome mixer produces a duotone effect.

To control the Color Monochrome effect, click the Color swatch button to open the Colors selector window (see Figure 9.31). Then set an Intensity value by dragging the slider, dragging the value slider, or entering a value in the value field of the Intensity control.

Sepia Tone The Sepia Tone adjustment works the same way as the Color Monochrome adjustment, except that the color is already selected for you, and you can’t change it. You can only set the intensity. To apply and control the Sepia Tone adjustment, follow the instructions above for the Color Monochrome adjustment and ignore the color selection step.

10 Sharing Aperture Images with Photoshop and Other Applications So far, you’ve seen just how powerful Aperture’s internal organizing and editing capabilities are. There are times, however, when you just have to export an image into Photoshop to perform more complex operations, such as drawing alpha channels and masks or layering images. Additionally, you may frequently use iPhoto or some other of Apple’s “i” applications, and you may want to use images that you have stored in Aperture. The good news is that Aperture cooperates with these external applications in ways that can make your entire workflow more efficient and effective.

How to Integrate Aperture with Photoshop in a Digital Imaging Workflow Now that Aperture is available as an organizing, basic adjustment application, you can alter your workflow to utilize its tools and capabilities most effectively as you produce your final image output. Whether that final output is a selection of prints for newlyweds, digital images for a magazine editor, or a Web-based portfolio of your own work, Aperture belongs in your production workflow. And if you need to edit some or all of your images in Photoshop, Aperture automates the process of sending an image out to Photoshop and keeps track of the

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changes you make in Photoshop. (As of version 1.1, Aperture imports and exports layered Photoshop files without a hassle.) Here’s an example of professional photography workflow that integrates these two imaging applications: ■

Shoot your pictures.

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Import your pictures into Aperture.

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Back up your images with Aperture.

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Organize and catalog your pictures in Aperture.

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Repair blemishes and apply color correction in Aperture.

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Send images to Photoshop for advanced editing/design.

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Return to Aperture for export/publishing/distribution.

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Sending Your Images on the “Round Trip” One of the great features of Aperture is its ability to interface with Photoshop. When you need to send an image out to Photoshop for editing, Aperture will create a new alternate master of the image, based on whatever adjustments you may have already applied in Aperture, as shown in Figure 10.1, and then send that image out to Photoshop. As you work in Photoshop and save your changes, those changes will appear automatically in the new master back in Aperture (see Figure 10.2). After you’re done editing the image in Photoshop, all you have to do is save the file and close it. Aperture will keep track of the image and its changes all along—and all without changing or harming your original master image file.

Note You may, of course, use some other photo editing application as your external editor. For the purposes of this discussion, because Photoshop is the default photo editing application in the world, Photoshop will be used for the model of how to export Aperture images to external editors.

The target badge that you can see on the left image in Figures 10.1 and 10.2 indicates that the image is a master file that has been edited in the external editor.

Chapter 10 ■ Sharing Aperture Images with Photoshop and Other Applications

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Figure 10.1 Aperture creates a new master file before sending it out to Photoshop.

Figure 10.2 And then automatically updates the new master, after you save your changes in Photoshop.

Note It’s important to understand that the file that Aperture sends out isn’t a typical version. It’s a brand-new master image file. It will always be linked to the original image, but it is also a stand-alone image file. If you dig into the Aperture Library package file and the project package file for one of these images, you’ll find that Aperture has created a new master image folder and named it with a “(1)” appended to the original name of the file. As you work on the new master in the external editor, the changes will always be shown in Aperture. But just as with any other master, if you make changes to the image in Aperture, Aperture will create a

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new version—based on the new alternate master, not the original master. What that means is that you could wind up creating a lot of versions if you’re not careful. It also means that you’ll get a scary message that you’re about to delete a master image when you attempt to delete one of these alternate masters. It’s scary because it reads like you’re about to delete the master image file. In a way that’s true, but you’re not actually going to delete the original master, you’re going to delete the new alternate master.

How Aperture Handles the Layers of Photoshop Files You know by now that one thing you cannot do with images in Aperture is create or view layers in images. However, when you use the Send to External Editor option to work on an image in Photoshop, you can create layers in Photoshop, and when the image is returned to Aperture, Aperture will honor and preserve those layers—even though you won’t be able to access the individual layers. What that means is that the next time you export the image to Photoshop, you’ll find the layers intact. In past versions, when you made changes in Aperture to an image that had been sent out to Photoshop and back, it would flatten the layers of the image. That doesn’t happen now because Aperture will create a new version of the new alternate master when you make changes to it. That new version won’t have layers, but the original alternate master with layers will still have its layers.

To send an image out to Photoshop, all you have to do is specify Photoshop as the external editor and then export the image, following these steps: 1. Open the Aperture Preferences window, shown in Figure 10.3, by choosing Aperture>Preferences or by pressing the Command+comma (,). 2. Click the Choose button in the Output area of the Preferences window, as shown in Figure 10.3, to open a directory dialog. 3. Navigate to the Photoshop application (or your preferred photo editing application) and click the Select button. 4. Close the Preferences window by clicking its Close button in the upper-left corner. 5. Select the image or images you want to export to Photoshop and choose Images>Open with External Editor or press Shift+Command+O.


You should see a new version of the image or images you selected, and Photoshop will automatically open it, if it’s not already open. The images from Aperture will open in Photoshop, and after you make any changes and save the file, the changes will show up in Aperture.

Tip If you get a gray box in your version preview after your return to Aperture, just be patient. Aperture is loading the new version.

After you have sent an image out to Photoshop, if you then want to make additional changes to the image in Photoshop, make sure you select the version that has the target badge and then repeat this process to return that same image to Photoshop. If you select the original master, you won’t be sending back the same image that you have already edited in Photoshop. You’ll be sending a new version based on the original master, and Aperture will create another new alternate master.

Dragging and Dropping Images from Aperture into Other Applications

Figure 10.3 The Aperture Preferences window.

If you have set Aperture to create and maintain previews of your images, you can drag those images directly from Aperture into other applications. All you have to do is click an image and drag it to the target application, as shown in Figure 10.4.

Note When you drag an image from Aperture, you’ll be dropping the preview, not the master image file. So whatever resolution your preview already is, that’s what you’ll get. If you want to use images of a different resolution in another application, you can change your preview settings in the Aperture preferences and then update the previews, or you can simply use the Export operations described later in this chapter.

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Figure 10.4 Dragging from Aperture to iWeb.

When dragging and dropping images from Aperture, these rules apply: ■

The previews that are available for dragging will be at the resolution and compression that they were when they were originally created, based on your settings in the Aperture Preferences file, shown in Figure 10.5, and as described in Chapter 1.

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If there is an available JPEG preview image for an image, the Copy (+) icon will appear over the cursor, as shown in Figure 10.4.

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If you attempt to drag and drop an image that has no preview, nothing will happen.

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The target application must be able to accept JPEG files.

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If the target application is an imaging application that can open image files, you can drag images from Aperture to the application’s icon in the Dock or in the Finder.

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If the target application is a page layout application or other application in which you can place images, you’ll have to have an open page from that application visible to drag the image to.

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You can drag images to a folder in the Finder, and they will be copied there. The copied image file will be given the name of the master file.


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Accessing Your Aperture Library from iLife and iWork Applications If you’re familiar with iPhoto, the other iLife applications, or the iWork applications, you know about the media browsers in those applications, which are like the one shown in Figure 10.5. As of Aperture 1.5, you can see and use the previews stored in the Aperture Library from within the media browsers of those Apple applications, as shown in Figure 10.5, which shows the media browser from iWeb. Figure 10.5 Accessing the Aperture Library from iWeb.

Note In order to use the Aperture previews in the iLife and iWork applications, you must have previews generated, and you must have the “Share previews with iLife and iWork” option turned on in Aperture’s preferences, as described in Chapter 1.

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Only previews are shared with these other applications. You won’t see any images that don’t have previews. To access Aperture’s Library from iPhoto, you choose File>Show Aperture Library in iPhoto. From the other iLife and iWork applications, you choose View>Show/Hide Media Browser. You can then click the Aperture Library’s disclosure triangle, shown in Figure 10.5, to expand the library’s directory.

11 Sharing Your Images with Clients and Friends After you’ve imported your images and fine-tuned their appearance, you’ll likely be ready to show the images to someone, be it a client or your mom. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to export the images and set up slideshows of select images. Regardless of your reasons and your destination, you start exporting images by selecting those images in the Browser. After you have made your selection, you can then export the images.

Exporting Your Images When exporting images, you can either export the original, unchanged master images or export the edited versions you’ve created in Aperture. You can export the images into folders for storage, and you can export them for use on the Web or as email attachments. You can even apply a watermark image to them that will identify them as yours.

Note You should be aware that you are exporting copies of your original images and their edited versions. You won’t be deleting any of them or harming them in any way when you export.

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Exporting Masters To export unchanged and unedited master image files, choose File>Export>Export Masters or press Shift+Command+S to open the Export Masters dialog box, shown in Figure 11.1.

Note You may recognize the keyboard shortcut for exporting masters (Shift+Command+S) as the same keyboard shortcut used for Save As in many applications. The reason for this is that saving your image as something else is exactly what you’re doing when you export your master. Figure 11.1 The Export Masters dialog box.

Tip Take a close look at the Export Master dialog box shown in Figure 11.1. You’ll see that there is a handy search field in the upper right-hand corner. You can save time navigating through your directory structure by entering the name of a folder or other image that may be located where you want to export the images. This same search field is also available in the Export Versions dialog box.

Once the Export Masters dialog box opens, navigate in your directory structure to where you want to send the images. Then, as necessary, define the following options: ■

Subfolder Format: As you export your masters, you can choose to place them in one folder to have Aperture automatically create subfolders for them, just as when you imported the masters. For more information about naming and defining subfolders, see the Chapter 3 section, “Choosing the Storage Location for the Masters of the Imported Images.”

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Name Format: Just as you were able to rename the master image files as you imported them, you can rename them as they export. For more information on automatically naming files, see the Chapter 3 section, “Naming Files as you Import Them.”

Chapter 11 ■ Sharing Your Images with Clients and Friends

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Create IPTC4XMP Sidecar File: As of Aperture 1.5, you can export your masters with an attached “sidecar” file that contains the IPTC image data. That data can then be accessed when the image is opened in other applications that may not be able to read the IPTC data from within the image file.

When you’re satisfied with your export settings, click the Export Masters button.

Exporting Versions You’ll likely need to know how to export your edited versions for client review or publication or some other use. It’s really pretty simple. Start by selecting the images for export, then choose File>Export>Export Versions, or press Shift+Command+E, to open the Export Versions dialog box, shown in Figure 11.2. After the Export Versions dialog box opens, navigate in your directory structure to where you want to send the edited images (or use the search field in the upper-right corner). Then, as necessary, define the following options: ■

Export Preset: Whether or not you select one, an export preset will be applied to the edited version file or files that you’re exporting, so you have to make sure that the selected export preFigure 11.2 The Export Versions dialog box. set is the one you want. The one that will be applied will appear here in the Export Preset pop-up menu. You can use the export presets to quickly adjust the size and change the format of the exported versions. For more information about setting and creating export presets, see the Chapter 1 section, “Changing Output Preferences.” If you want to include a watermark on your exported images, make sure you select a preset that includes a watermark. For more information about watermarks, see the sidebar “Creating and Applying Watermarks to Your Exported Versions," later in this chapter.

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Subfolder Format: As you export your masters, you can choose to place them in one folder or have Aperture automatically create subfolders for them, just as when you imported the masters. For more information about naming and defining subfolders, see the Chapter 3 section, “Choosing the Storage Location for the Masters of the Imported Images.”

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Name Format: Just as you were able to rename the master image files as you imported them, you can rename them as they export. For more information on automatically naming files, see the Chapter 3 section, “Naming Files as you Import Them.”

When you’re satisfied with your export settings, click the Export Versions button.

Creating and Applying Watermarks to Your Exported Versions A true watermark is used on paper to signify something or to place a brand name on the paper. You can’t normally see it, but you can see it when you hold it up to the light. New United States currency has watermarks that you can reveal by holding the bills up to a light. You can also add virtual watermarks to photographic images by superimposing one image over another, as shown in Figure 11.3. The most effective watermarks are high contrast images with bold lines and little detail, saved with a transparent background. Watermarks can be your name or a symbol or a combination of the two. Of course, watermarks could be any image you want to use, but you can get some pretty weird results with images that aren’t suited for use as watermarks. To add a watermark to an image as you export it, open any export preset for editing and then activate the watermark by clicking the Show Watermark check box in the Export Presets dialog box, shown in Figure 11.4. Select an image for the watermark and drag the opacity slider to get the look you want. Choose a position for the superimposed watermark from the Position pop-up dialog. Click OK when you’re done and proceed with the export operation. Aperture will automatically size the watermark image and place it in the location you select.

Note As of the writing of this book, Aperture has a major bug that causes watermarks not to imprint properly on images. The problem has been around for a while, and it may be related to specific computers. If you have this problem, you’ll know it when you see it: The watermark will appear in the position you select, but it will be on a black square rather than superimposed over the image. If you have the problem, don’t waste time trying to get it to work. Use Photoshop or some other application to create the same effect with layers.


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Figure 11.4 Add a watermark to any export preset by clicking the Show Watermark check box and selecting an image.

Figure 11.3 The translucent peace symbol in the lower right corner is a watermark.

Exporting Metadata You can export just the metadata for an image into a tab-delimited text file that you can use in databases and other applications. To export only metadata, select an image or images in the Browser; then Choose File>Export>Export Metadata to open the Export Metadata dialog box. Navigate to where you want to save the file, give it a name, and click Export Metadata.

Emailing Your Images You can also export your images directly to email applications, where the image or images will be loaded into a single new message. You set up Aperture for emailing images in the Preferences dialog, as described in Chapter 1. Once you have Aperture ready for emailing images, select one or more images in the Browser and choose File>Email. Aperture will take over from there.

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Note When you choose File>Email, Aperture won’t give you a chance to define any parameters or values for the selected images. So you need to make sure you have the email preferences set up the way you want them before you choose File>Email.

Presenting Your Images as Slideshows You can display the images in a collection, whether that might be the full Library, one project, or even just one album, as a slideshow. An Aperture slideshow is a virtual slideshow that can play a sequence of images on your computer or through a projector or any other display. Presenting a slideshow is as simple as selecting images and then telling Aperture to start displaying them one at a time, with music maybe and even some special effects. To create a slideshow, you don’t have to do anything special. You can simply select a project, an album, a folder, or any other collection of images in the Projects panel. Or you can select a sequence of images in the Browser. Then you just choose File>Slideshow, and the Run Slideshow dialog will open, as shown in Figure 11.5. You choose a preset, shown in Figure 11.6, click Start, and the show begins.

Figure 11.5 The Run Slideshow dialog box.

If you want to have more control over how the slideshow plays, you can define a new slideshow preset by choosing Edit from the Slideshow Preset pop-up menu.

Note The check box titled Show File Status Badges applies only to images with referenced masters. This option turns on the display of the icons that tell you that an image is a referenced file and that its master is not available or that its link to the master is broken.

Controlling a Slideshow as It Is Running As a slideshow is running, you can control it with the keyboard using the following controls: ■

To pause and restart the slideshow, press the spacebar.

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To go to the next image, press the right arrow key.


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To go to the previous image, press the left arrow key.

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To stop the slideshow, press Esc.

Note When you use the right and left arrow keys to navigate through the slideshow, the slideshow will automatically pause its transitions, as if you had pressed the spacebar. Once you reach an image where you want to resume the slideshow, you will then need to restart the slideshow with the spacebar.

The Slideshow Presets By default, Aperture offers the slideshow presets listed and described in Table 11-1.

Table 11-1 The Default Slideshow Presets Preset

Effects

Dissolve

Two-second cross fades between images displayed for 3 seconds.

Fade through Black

Fades all the way to black before fading up to the next image, in 2 seconds. Shows each image for 3 seconds.

Manual

You control the slideshow using the left and right arrow keys.

Slow Dissolve

Five-second cross fades between images displayed for 5.1 seconds.

4-Up Slow

Creates a grid of four images, starting with a blank screen and adding one image at a time until all four spots are filled. Then replaces the first image with the fifth image, the second with the sixth, and so on. After displaying an image for 3 seconds, the next image fades up from black or cross fades in 2 seconds.

4-Up Fast

Same as the 4-Up Slow preset except that the images appear immediately rather than dissolve or fade, after the previous image displays for only 1 second.

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Note As you can see in Table 11-1, Aperture offers two varieties of displays for slideshows. One is the standard display of one image on the full screen followed by another image on the full screen. The other type is the grid type of slideshow, in which a smaller image appears on the screen and then others appear until the full grid is completed, as shown in Figure 11.6. Then the next set of images starts replacing the original images in that same order. The number of rows and columns that the grid creates will determine how large the images can be. Aperture provides the two grid presets, 4-Up Slow and 4-Up Fast, and you can modify the grid parameters in the Slideshow Presets dialog box, as described in the next section.

Figure 11.6 A grid slideshow.


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Setting Up a Custom Slideshow If you don’t like any of the default presets, you can customize any one of them or create one from scratch. Start by choosing Edit from the Slideshow Preset pop-up menu of the Run Slideshow dialog box, shown in Figure 11.7, to open the Slideshow Presets dialog box, shown in Figure 11.8. Figure 11.7 Select a slideshow preset or Edit. Figure 11.8 Customize your slideshows in the Slideshow Presets dialog box.

The default slideshow presets and any others you have created are listed in the Presets panel of the Slideshow Presets dialog box. To delete a preset, select it and click the delete (-) button. To create a preset, you first select a preset to copy and then click the add (+) button. You can then specify the behavior of the slideshow using the following options in the Slideshow Presets dialog box: ■

Timing: You have three options in the Timing pop-up menu, including Fit to Music, Show Images for Fixed Time, and Manually Navigate Images. The Fit to Music option is described in the Play Music during Slideshow Section below.

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Duration: If the Show images for fixed time option is selected in the Timing pop-up menu, the Duration slider will be active, and you can drag the slider to specify a duration of 0 to 2 seconds.

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Loop Slideshow: If you turn on the Loop slideshow option, your slideshow will play once and then repeat until you stop it with the Esc key.

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Quality: You can choose to have Aperture display your images at the highestpossible resolution (Best) or at a more optimum display resolution (Good) by clicking on one of the radio buttons in the Quality area. The Good setting will speed the display of the images.

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Play Slideshow on Main Display Only: If you’re viewing Aperture on two monitors, the slideshow will play on both of them unless you turn on this option.

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Rows/Columns: If you’re creating a grid-type slideshow, you specify the number of rows and columns by dragging these sliders.

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Background: By default, the background of slideshows is a black screen. However, you can change that by clicking this button to select a new color from the color palette that will open.

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Padding: Increase or decrease the amount of space between images in a gridtype slideshow by dragging this slider.

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Fade Time: Set the time for the transitions between images from 0 to 2 seconds by dragging this slider.

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Crossfade: Check this box to have Aperture dissolve the images across each other; as one fades away, the other will fade up. If you turn this option off, each image will fade to black before the next image fades up from black.

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Play Music during Slideshow: You can choose to have background music play during your slideshow by turning on this option. You can then navigate through the iTunes library to play a selection of music as the slideshow plays. If you have selected Fit to Music from the Timing pop-up menu, the slideshow will be timed to run for the duration of the music selection. For example, if you select a song that runs one minute, Aperture will determine the amount of time to show the number of images in the slideshow so that the complete slideshow runs and completes in one minute.

12 Designing with Photos on Aperture’s Light Table The Light Table is one of Aperture’s most unique features. Based on the concept of a real light table on which you can arrange slides or negatives for reviewing, sorting, arranging, and comparing, Aperture’s virtual light table goes well beyond the physical limitations of a real light table. Because you’re working in a digital environment, when you work in Aperture’s Light Table you can enlarge and reduce the sizes of images as you review them (see Figure 12.1). Aperture’s Light Table may be the most powerful digital tool available for newspaper and magazine page designers and other graphic designers who design photo layouts. Being able to quickly overlay and size images as you arrange them makes designing with them easier than ever. Beyond its design capabilities, you can also use the Light Table to sort your images, compare colors on multiple images, make groups for new albums and other collections, and so on. It truly is a versatile and powerful tool. As you can see in Figure 12.1, the Light Table looks much like the regular Viewer. However, you can tell it’s a Light Table by the grid you can see under the images. That grid is the Light Table’s work area, and as you can see in Figure 12.1, it may not always fill the entire Viewer area. That work area is resizable, as you’ll learn in the following sections.

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Figure 12.1 Laying out a photo spread in the Light Table.

Tip The Light Table work area will appear in any window layout that normally includes the Viewer. While working on a light table, you can change between window layouts just as you can when looking at the Viewer.

Start by Creating a Light Table Album A light table is based on a collection that is essentially an album that you view differently than other albums, and it’s made up of two distinct parts: the album of images included in the light table and the layout area of the Light Table. To work on images on a light table, they must first be added to a light table album. You can create an empty light table album or stock one with selected images as you create it. Before you create the new light table album, consider where you want it to be created. If you want it associated with a particular project, select that project in the Projects panel. If you want it to be at the Library level, select the Library.

Chapter 12 ■ Designing with Photos on Aperture’s Light Table

You can create a new, empty light table album by performing one of the following operations: ■

Choose File>New>Light Table.

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Click the Add to Library pop-up menu in the Projects panel and choose New Empty Light Table.

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Press Control and click the Projects panel to open the contextual menu and choose New>Light Table.

To create a new light table album and load it with images, select the images in the Browser you want to add to the light table album and then do one of the following: ■

Choose File>New from Selection>Light Table.

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Click the New Light Table from Selection button on the Toolbar.

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Click the Add to Library pop-up menu in the Projects panel and choose New Light Table from Selection.

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Press Control and click the Projects panel to open the contextual menu and choose New from Selection>Light Table.

Note If you use any of the New from Selection options for creating a new light table album, Aperture will load into the new light table album any images that are selected in the Browser. If no images are selected in the Browser, Aperture will load all of the images from the current selection in the Projects panel. For example, if you have any one project selected but no images from that project selected, when you choose File>New from Selection>Light Table, Aperture will load all of the images from that project into the new light table album.

When you create a new light table album, it will appear as an untitled Light Table in the Projects panel. You can give it a name when you first create it, or you can wait and name it later. As soon as it appears in the Projects panel, you can begin using it. When you first create a new light table album, you’ll have either an empty Browser or a Browser full of images. Either way, the new light table won’t have any images placed on the work area. In order to start working with images on the Light Table, you’ll need to make sure there are some images in its album. Then you can start adding images to the work area.

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Note Light table albums can be deleted by clicking their names in the Project panel and then choosing File>Delete or pressing Command+Delete. Deleting a light table will only delete the versions that were being used in that light table. It won’t delete the originals, nor will it delete any versions in other collections that were created when images were transferred from the light table to other collections.

Adding and Removing Images to and from a Light Table’s Album If you create a new light table album using the New from Selection options, you’ll already have some images in the Browser of the new light table. If you created a new, empty light table album, you won’t have any images in the Browser. Whether or not you have any images in the light table album, you can add images to it, and you can remove images from it, at any time. To add new images to a light table album, select any other project or album in the Projects panel. When the images from that selection appear in the Browser, you can drag one or more images from that Browser onto the name of the Light Table in the Projects panel. To remove images from a light table album, select the images to remove and press Delete. Don’t worry—you’re only deleting the images from the light table album. You shouldn’t see any warnings or other dialogs because you’re not in danger of harming your Library or any other collections by deleting images from the light table’s album. Once you have created a light table and stocked it with images, you can start laying out images on its work area.

Tip While working in the Light Table, if you want to see the various badges that indicate the status of your images, choose View>Options or press Command+J and turn on the Show Decorations option in the Light Table area of the View Options dialog box.


Tip Just as with any other collection in the Projects panel, you can select images in a light table album and use them to create other collections, such as albums, Web galleries, Web journals, and books. Just select the images you want to use and then use one of the methods described in Chapter 1 to create the new collection you want.

Manipulating Images on the Light Table The second part of the Light Table is its work area, which is the functional part of the Light Table. You can add and remove images from the layout on the work area. You can move the images around, and you can change their sizes. You can lay images on top of each other and under each other.

Note You cannot use the Straighten, Crop, Spot & Patch, or Red Eye Toolbar adjustment tools to make adjustments to images while working in the Light Table work area. If you want to use those adjustment tools on an image, select the image in the work area or Browser and then click the Show Viewer for This Browser button, shown in Figure 12.2. Once that Viewer is active, you can select any additional images in the Browser to edit. You can then return to the Light Table work area by clicking the button again when you’re done.

Look at the light table in Figure 12.1. Notice the red tabs in the upper right corners of several of the images in the Browser? Those red tabs indicate that the image is being used in the Light Table layout, and the numbers in the red tabs tell you how many times that image is being used in that layout.

Note One of the most important things to know and remember about working in the Light Table is that the Undo function is not fully functional in the Light Table. For example, you can undo resizing, but you can’t undo moving images, aligning, distributing, or removing images. It’s a strange quirk in the application.

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Adding and Removing Images to and from the Light Table To work with an image on the Light Table, all you have to do is drag an image from the Light Table’s Browser to the work area (see Figure 12.2).

Put Back button

Show Viewer for This Browser button Show All button Show Unplaced Images button

Figure 12.2 Dragging an image onto the Light Table.

You can add multiple images by selecting more than one image in the Browser to drag. To remove an image from the Light Table work area, you can click the Put Back button in the top-left corner of the Light Table, shown in Figure 12.2, or you can press Control and click the image in the Light Table and choose Remove from Light Table. You can remove multiple images by selecting more than one image on the Light Table to put back.


Tip As you add images to the Light Table, you may want to restrict the view of the images in the Browser to only those images that you haven’t already placed on the Light Table work area. To see only the unused images, click the Show Unplaced Images button in the upper-right corner of the Browser, shown in Figure 12.2. To return to viewing all the images in the Light Table’s album, click the Show All button next to it.

Resizing Images on the Light Table When you first drag images onto the Light Table, they are placed at the same size, correlating to their size in the Browser, and they may appear larger or smaller, depending on the view size of the Light Table. To resize images on the Light Table, position the cursor over an image to activate its handles and then drag to resize it, as shown in Figure 12.3.

Figure 12.3 Resizing an image on the Light Table.

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Repositioning Images on the Light Table To rearrange the layout of images on the Light Table, simply drag images to new positions. If the Light Table work area is not fully visible on the screen and you want to move an image to an area that’s not visible, just keep dragging and the Light Table work area will scroll.

Aligning, Distributing, and Grouping Images on the Light Table You can line up images on the Light Table, and you can automatically separate them by an equal amount of space. To align a selection of scattered images, such as those shown in Figure 12.4, select the images and then press Control as you click any one of the selected images to activate the contextual menu (see Figure 12.4). Choose one of the Align options to line up the images, as shown in Figure 12.5, according to your choice.

Figure 12.4 Control+click one of the selected images to access the alignment options.


Figure 12.5 The selected images have been aligned along their bottom edges.

Note You can select images on the Light Table in most of the same ways you can in the Browser. You can click an image, you can Command+click to select additional images, and you can drag a selection box around multiple images. Be careful, though, because pressing Shift+A will select all the images in the Browser, too.

Notice now how the images shown in Figure 12.5 are neatly aligned along their bottom edges, but they’re unevenly spaced from left to right, and a couple are even overlapping. You can distribute them equally between the farthest left and farthest right images in the selection by pressing Control and clicking one of the images to activate the contextual menu and then choosing one of the distribution options, as shown in Figure 12.6. The images will then be automatically spread out with an equal amount of space between them, as shown in Figure 12.7. Aperture can also automatically group images on the Light Table, but not in the way that you might think. In many applications, grouping elements provides a method of locking them together for purposes of moving them together and performing other operations. But in Aperture, grouping is just a way of organizing

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Figure 12.6 Choose a distribution option from the contextual menu.

Figure 12.7 The selected images are now distributed equally.


images visually on the Light Table. For example, if you decide that a number of images should be associated and separated from other images on the Light Table, you can group them, which clumps them together in a group on the Light Table, as shown in Figure 12.8, in which the four images on the right have been grouped. To group images, select multiple images, press Control and click on one of the selected images to activate the contextual menu, and then choose Arrange.

Figure 12.8 The four images on the right are grouped.

Revealing Hidden Images from Under Other Images As you start laying out images on the Light Table, you might wind up hiding images under other images. The image in Figure 12.9, for example, is now hiding the four images grouped in Figure 12.8. You can automatically retrieve these hidden images by selecting the larger images and then clicking the Uncover button in the upper-left corner of the Light Table, shown in Figure 12.9, or pressing Shift+X. Aperture will pull the images out from under the larger image and place them around it (see Figure 12.10). If, after you reveal the hidden images, you decide you liked them better hidden, you can click the Uncover button again, press Shift+X again, or click directly on the large image, and they’ll all go back under the larger image.

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Uncover button

Figure 12.9 Where have all the images gone?

Figure 12.10 Clicking the Uncover button reveals the hidden images.


If, however, you click directly on any of the previously hidden images, the others will all hide behind the larger image, and the one you clicked on will be on top, as shown in Figure 12.11.

Figure 12.11 Clicking one of the smaller images will hide the others and put it on top.

Note Once you have initiated the first uncovering of images, every time you click an image, you’ll trigger more covering and uncovering. It may seem that you can’t stop it. To stop the uncovering and recovering, you have to click the top image— whichever image it may be at that moment—and move or resize that image.

Controlling the View of the Light Table As long as you have a Light Table album selected, you’ll see the Light Table in the window layout. However, your selection of a window layout will affect how you see the Light Table, according to the following rules: ■

If you select the Maximize Browser window layout by pressing Option+ Command+B or by choosing Window>Layouts>Maximize Browser, you will see only the Browser, showing all the images currently loaded into the Light Table.

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If you select the Maximize Viewer window layout by pressing Option+Command+V or by choosing Window>Layouts>Maximize Viewer, you’ll see the Light Table and the minimized Browser.

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If you select the Basic window layout by pressing Option+Command+S or by choosing Window>Layouts>Basic, you’ll see the Light Table, the Browser, and the Projects panel.

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You can show and hide the Projects panel by pressing W or by choosing Window>Show/Hide Projects.

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You can show and hide the Adjustments Inspectors at any time by pressing I, Control+D, or Control+A or by choosing Window>Show/Hide Inspectors, Window>Show/Hide Adjustments, or Window> Show/Hide Metadata.

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You can show and hide the Control Bar by choosing Window>Show/Hide Control Bar or by pressing D.

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You can rearrange the Light Table and Browser by choosing Window>Swap Workspace or Window>Rotate Workspace or by pressing Option+W or Shift+W.

Enlarging and Reducing the View of the Light Table Area To quickly zoom in and out of the Light Table work area, you can drag the Light Table Zoom slider, shown in Figure 12.12, to increase and decrease the size of the work area on the screen.

Tip If you are zoomed way out and want to zoom in to a specific image, select that image before dragging the Light Table Zoom slider, and you’ll zoom right into that image.

When your view of the work area is too large to show all the images on the work area, as shown in Figure 12.12, you can simply scroll around the view using the scrollbars at the bottom and right side of the Light Table work area. However, if you have a very large work area with images spread out all over, such as in the layout shown in Figure 12.13, and you need to move to another part of it, you can use the Navigator feature to quickly move the view. Activate the Navigator by clicking the Navigator button (see Figure 12.12).


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Navigator button Light Table Zoom slider Scale to Fit All Items button

Figure 12.12 Not all the images on the work area are visible.

Figure 12.13 When the Navigator is active, a brighter window area shows where you’re moving.

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Clicking the Navigator button activates a brighter area of the window that indicates the current view, as shown in Figure 12.13. You can drag this brighter area to another part of the work area (see Figure 12.13) and then release to zoom into that area. Another option for quickly viewing the entire work area is to click the Scale to Fit All Items button, shown in Figure 12.12. The view will zoom out to show the entire work area.

Note Clicking the Scale to Fit All Items button actually zooms out to show the entire work area, whether or not there are images anywhere else on the work area, as shown in Figure 12.14. In that sense, it should be named Scale to Fill Entire Area, which is more indicative of what it will do.

You can also press Control and click in the work area, away from any images, and then choose Zoom to 100% in the contextual menu. The view will zoom in or out to 100% (whatever that is). The contextual menu also offers the Zoom to Fit option, which will zoom the work area view out to the entire work area.

Enlarging and Reducing the Light Table Work Area When you first create a light table, the empty work area will be created to fill the screen area. As you add images and arrange them, you may wind up increasing the size of the work area by dragging images to positions that would place them off the existing work area. Aperture will automatically enlarge the work area accordingly. If, on the other hand, you have concentrated the images on the Light Table work area to an area much smaller than the existing work area, as shown in Figure 12.14, you can reduce the work area to only the area needed to display those images by pressing Control and clicking on the work area and choosing Minimize Size from the contextual menu, as shown in Figure 12.14, to crop the work area. You can then click the Scale to Fit All Items button to fill the screen with the new work area.


Figure 12.14 Control+click and choose Minimize Size to crop the work area down to size.

Printing Your Light Table Layout As you arrange images on the Light Table, you can print out the entire layout, preserving the positioning, the sizing, and the layering of the images, by choosing File>Print Light Table or pressing Option+Command+P. Alternatively, you can print only a portion of the Light Table layout by dragging a selection box around a portion of the layout. The Print dialog box that opens will preview the layout you’ve selected for printing, as shown in Figure 12.15. You can then specify the printing parameters and print the Light Table layout. For more specific information on printing, see Chapter 13.

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Figure 12.15 Printing a Light Table prints the layout of the Light Table.

13 Printing Images from Aperture One of the most basic computer skills is printing from a computer. But printing from imaging applications can be a lot more complicated than printing from a text editor. When printing color photographs, one must consider all the various parameters that determine whether or not a photographs prints as it should. Aperture is one of those applications that prints color photographs. Consequently, getting the highest quality prints possible requires an understanding of the possible settings available when printing from Aperture.

Using the Print Dialog The heart of the printing process is the Print dialog box, shown in Figure 13.1. From here, you can quickly print a single image, or you can set up the printing of books, contact sheets, your light tables, and so on. The following sections explain the various settings you can make in the Print dialog box.

Tip You can increase the size of the preview area by dragging the lower-right corner of the dialog box to resize the entire Print dialog box.

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Figure 13.1 Aperture’s Print dialog box.

Selecting and Working with Print Presets In the far-left column of the Print dialog box, shown in Figure 13.1, you see the Preset Name panel. The presets are simply saved sets of printing parameters. Aperture distinguishes between two types of presets: Single Images presets and Contact Sheet presets. Selecting one or the other will affect not only how you print the image, but also what options are available in the Print dialog box. You can select any one of the default presets presented in the Preset Name panel, you can modify one, or you can create a new one from scratch. You can also delete presets if you have created any. (You can’t delete the default presets.) You can create presets in three different ways: You can create a brand new preset, you can duplicate an existing preset, and you can modify an existing preset and then save it as a new preset.

Chapter 13 ■ Printing Images from Aperture

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Tip When creating a new print preset, you can either start from the defaults or duplicate an existing preset. If you don’t select a specific preset before creating a new one, you’ll be starting from the defaults, which may require more work to get set up for your specific printer. So you might as well select one that most closely matches a new one you want to make and base the new one on that existing one. To do that, you can either select an existing preset, duplicate it, modify it, and save it or you can select an existing preset, modify it, and then do a Save As to create a new preset.

When you’re ready to create a new preset, click the Print Preset Action pop-up menu and choose either New Single Image Preset or New Contact Sheet Preset. Alternatively, choose Duplicate from the Print Preset Action pop-up menu or choose Edit>Duplicate, if you have selected an existing preset to modify. After you are satisfied with the settings of your new preset, click the Save button to save it. If you’re modifying an existing preset and you don’t want to permanently alter that preset, click the Save As button to save that existing preset as a modified new preset. You can delete any preset you have added by selecting it and then choosing Delete from the Print Preset Action pop-up menu or by pressing the Delete key. You’ll be asked to verify the deletion. You can lock any preset to prevent if from being altered or modified by selecting it and then choosing Lock from the Print Preset Action pop-up menu.

Note The next sections describing the options in the Print dialog box are based on the selection of an individual image and a Single Images preset. For information on how the Print dialog changes when you print multiple images, see the section on printing multiple images later in this chapter.

Setting the Number of Copies and the Range of Pages Obviously, some of the print settings are easier to understand than others. For example, the top section of the Print dialog box is the Copies & Pages section. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that if you want one copy of an image, you put a 1 in the Copies value field.

Figure 13.2 The Print Preset Action pop-up menu.

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The Pages setting is for when you print multiple images, contact sheets, and light tables that will require more than one page to print. You can click the All button or enter a page range in the From value field.

Telling Aperture About Your Printer The Printer Selection section is where you tell Aperture how to translate the color you see on your computer to the page printed from your particular printer. This section includes the following settings and displays: ■

Printer: The printer that you have selected as the default printer in your Printer Setup Utility will appear here by default. If you change that printer there or by clicking the Print Settings button below, the name of the printer will automatically change in this display. If your printer doesn’t show up here or when you click the Printer Settings button, you probably need to install the printer driver.

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Printer Settings: Clicking this button will open the print settings dialog box specific to your printer. Apple recommends that you choose the Color Management submenu and turn off the color compensation in the printer by checking the No Color Adjustment option.

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Paper Size: Click the pop-up menu to specify your paper size. The results of the selection you make will appear below this pop-up menu.

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Orientation: If you’ve really looked closely at all of Aperture’s menus, you’ll have noticed that there is no page setup dialog box in the File menu, as there usually is in most applications. That’s where you would usually select a page orientation. In Aperture, you do it here. You can choose either Portrait, Landscape, or Best Fit. The Best Fit option is an automatic determination of which way the selected image will print best on the page. If you select this option, check the result in the Preview area to the right before printing to make sure it’s what you want.

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ColorSync Profile: ColorSync is the Mac color utility. If you’re familiar with it, you know that the display devices and printers in your system have “profiles” that tell the computer how to handle color for them. In this pop-up menu, you can select the profile that best matches your printer and paper.

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Black Point Compensation: This option can help make images look better, and it can make images look terrible. You’ll have to experiment with it to see if your printer requires black point compensation or not. What it does is spread out the black values so that you can see better detail in the dark, shadowy areas of the image.


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Gamma: The Gamma setting compensates for where the middle values of the image will print compared with how they appear on your display. In most cases, the image will appear brighter or lighter on your computer than on paper. If you need to, you can raise the gamma up to 1.3 to lighten the printed image.

Specifying the Arrangement of Images on the Printed Page In the Layout Options section, you tell Aperture how to lay out the image or images on the printed page. You have the following options in this section: ■

Scale To: In this pop-up menu, you can select from the following options: Fit Entire Image, Fill Entire Page, 4 6, 5 7, 8 10, and Custom Scale. The Fit Entire Image option sets the image dimensions so that the image is as large as it can be and still print the entire image, even if there will be uneven margins on the page. The Fill Entire Page option sets the image to completely fill the page, even if some portions of the image have to be cropped off. The numeric dimension options match three common print sizes. If you choose the Custom Scale option, the value fields just below become active, and you can enter the dimensions you prefer.

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Print Resolution: If you want to specify a dots-per-inch (DPI) setting for the print, enter it here. If you have turned on the Use Best DPI option, this option won’t be editable. If you try to tell Aperture to print the image at a DPI that is impossibly high for that image, it will tell you so and set the image to print at the highest DPI it can.

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Use Best DPI: If you turn on this option, aperture will print the image at the highest possible DPI setting allowed by the print dimensions and the pixel resolution of your image. If you turn on this option and change the Scale To option, you can see the DPI number automatically change in the DPI value box.

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Note As is always the case, the DPI, the print dimensions, and the pixel resolution of your image are interrelated. The higher the pixel resolution of your image, the larger you can print it at a particular DPI. For example, say you have an image that has a pixel resolution that will allow you to print the image as a 5 7 print at 300 DPI. If you then set it to print at 8 10, the highest possible DPI will be reduced because the number of pixels available for obtaining the image information will have to be spread out over that larger area, resulting in a reduced DPI. Don’t worry. You don’t have to understand exactly how it works. Suffice to say that you want to always print the highest resolution images that you can, in order to print at the highest possible DPI that you can. The higher the DPI, the more solid and even the lines and colors in the image will appear. The lower the DPI, the more spotted or dotty the image will appear.

Turning on a Border Around the Printed Image The Border option allows you to be lazy and not have to think about reducing the printed size of an image on a sheet if you want to print it with a blank, white border around it. Aperture allows you to specify a border of up to one inch around the image and will automatically reduce the size of the image accordingly. So if you specify print dimensions of 8 10, you will actually get a print of 6 8. In this section, you can also tell Aperture to print the image with crop marks defining the outer edges of the print, including the border.

The Aspect Ratios of Our Images Don’t Often Match Our Favorite Print Sizes If you turn on crop marks, you may notice that they don’t correctly define the dimensions of your image. That is likely because the image’s aspect ratio doesn’t match the selected print dimensions. For example, if you are printing an image that was taken with a camera that produces an image with a 4 3 (or 3 4) aspect ratio, and then you tell Aperture to print it at 5 7, the image will have to be cropped or enlarged to fit that shape because it would want to print at 5 6.66, not 5 7. Here’s how it works: Go to the Viewer or Browser, position the cursor over an image, and press T to see the Image Tooltips for that image. Write down the pixel dimensions and then divide the larger number by the smaller number. The result will be the amount you need to multiply the smaller dimension in order to get the same shape of image. For example, say you have an image that is 2272 1704; the


result of dividing 2272 by 1704 is 1.33. So if you want to print the image at 4 something, you multiply 4 by 1.33. The result is 5.32. So your image would print at 4 5.32, not at 4 5, and you would be cropping off .32 of an inch from the sides. If you want to determine the size when you know the larger dimension, divide by that earlier result. For instance, if you wanted to print the same image with a width of 7 inches, you’d divide 7 by 1.33. The result is 5.26, so the image would print at 5.26 by 7, and you’d lose a quarter of an inch of image at that size. However, in some cases, such as in Aperture, the application will limit the image so that it prints the full image, even if it has to reduce the size. So if you tell that previous image to print at 5 7, it will reduce the image to get all of the image area within the 5 7 print dimensions. That will leave white bands at the top and bottom of the printed image. That explains why sometimes when you print to these common print sizes, you either lose some image area or you wind up with white bands on the top and bottom or the sides.

Printing Images as PDF Documents Under the preview area of the Print dialog box, you’ll see the Save as PDF button and the Preview button. The result is the same, but you get there via different routes. The Save as PDF button will send the image straight to wherever you tell it as a PDF document. The Preview button will send the image to the Preview application and open the image in that application, where you can save it if you want.

Printing Multiple Images at One Time If you select multiple images in the Browser and then choose File>Print Images or press Command+P, you’ll have two choices for how those images print. You can either print each of those images on its own page, at a size you specify, or you can print them all on one page or more, depending on the number of them and how many of them you tell Aperture to print per page. You specify which option you want by choosing either a Single Images preset or a Contact Sheet preset from the Preset Name panel in the left column of the Print dialog box. Depending on your choice, the options in the Print dialog box will change to match the possible options for that choice.

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Printing Individual Images on Separate Pages To print multiple images as individual pages, select multiple images in the Browser before choosing File>Print Images or pressing Command+P. Then, in the Print dialog box, select one of the Single Images presets. You can create a new one or modify an existing one, also. One difference between printing multiple images with the Single Images presets and a single image with the Single Images presets is that you’ll activate the arrow buttons in the preview panel of the Print dialog box when you’re printing multiple images on single pages. Using those arrow buttons, you can navigate between the selection of images to check them before printing. Additionally, you can specify a range of those images to print by entering numbers in the From value fields in the Copies & Pages section at the top of the center panel of the Print dialog box.

Printing Multiple Images as Contact Sheets When you want to print the selected multiple images as a contact sheet, you select one of the existing Contact Sheet presets in the Preset Name panel of the Print dialog box. You can also create a new preset, or duplicate, and modify any existing Contact Sheet preset. When you select a Contact Sheet preset, you will see a different set of options in the Layout Options section in the center panel of the Print dialog box, as shown in Figure 13.3, compared with the Single Images Print dialog box shown in Figure 13.1. The options available for printing contact sheets determine how many images will wind up on each page and whether or not they will have metadata printed with them. You can specify the number of pages, in which case Aperture will automatically determine how large to size the images and how many to put on each page, or you can specify a number of columns and rows, in which case Aperture will automatically determine the number of pages necessary for that particular layout. In the Metadata pop-up menu, you can select a set of metadata to include with the images, such as the selection shown in Figure 13.4. You can then specify one of three sizes for the type for the metadata in the Font Size pop-up menu. If your contact sheet layout results in multiple pages, you can navigate between them with the arrows in the Preview panel, and if you want to, you can specify a range of pages in the Copies & Pages section.


Figure 13.3 Printing a Contact Sheet of images.

Figure 13.4 You can include metadata with the Contact Sheet images.

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14 Publishing Your Images on the Web Aperture provides a Web page building feature that helps you to create two different kinds of photo Web sites. Although the pages are not fully customizable and are limited in design features, they do offer a quick and easy way to display your images online. They may be most effective as preview pages for clients and friends. For the most part, creating these Web pages is automated. You don’t have to do much other than select a base template and add a title. You can do that little, or you can customize the pages in a few simple ways.

How Web Galleries and Web Journals Work Aperture’s Web pages—both galleries and journals—are simple and rudimentary in structure and functionality. They are based on an index page or pages on which thumbnails appear, as shown in Figure 14.1. You can click any of the thumbnails to see a larger version of that image on a page of its own, called a detail page, as shown in Figure 14.2. There are links on the detail pages that allow the visitor to proceed forward and backward through the detail pages or to return to the index page. That’s all they do.

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Figure 14.1 The index page of an Aperture Web gallery.

Figure 14.2 A detail page from an Aperture Web gallery.

Chapter 14 ■ Publishing Your Images on the Web

The Difference Between Web Galleries and Web Journals Web galleries are best described as simple photo contact sheets for the Web in which you can put up a grid of images with a selection of their metadata. Clicking an image takes you to a detail page that shows a larger version of that same image. Web journals are a glorified version of those photo contact sheets, allowing you more control over image placement and the ability to add more text than just image metadata. You can base the Web galleries on search results, making them “smart,” so that when you add to your library images that match the search criteria, for instance, those images are added to the galleries automatically. They work just the same way that Smart Albums work. Web journals, on the other hand, can’t be smart.

Creating Web Galleries and Web Journals Creating either of these types of Web sites starts with creating a collection of images. You can do that the way you normally would create any album of images. You can use search criteria, or you can drag images from projects. Of course, you can use entire projects if you want.

Note New, empty Web sites will be located within whatever project may be currently selected or within the Library if you select the Library before creating a new Web gallery or journal. When you create a Web site from a selection of images, those images will naturally be from within a project, so the new Web site will be created within that project.

To create a new, empty Web gallery, perform one of the following operations: ■

Choose File>New>Web Gallery.

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Choose New Empty Web Gallery in the Add to Library pop-up menu of the Projects panel.

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Press Control and click in the Browser, Viewer, or Projects panel and choose New>Web Gallery from the contextual menu.

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To create a Web gallery from a selection of images in the Browser or from a project selected in the Projects panel, perform one of the following operations: ■

Click the New Web Gallery from the Selection button on the Toolbar.

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Choose File>New from Selection>Web Gallery.

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Choose New Web Gallery from Selection in the Add to Library pop-up menu of the Projects panel.

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Press Control and click in the Browser, Viewer, or Projects panel and choose New from Selection>Web Gallery from the contextual menu.

To create a new, empty Web journal, perform one of the following operations: ■

Choose File>New>Web Journal.

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Choose New Empty Web Journal in the Add to Library pop-up menu of the Projects panel.

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Press Control and click in the Browser, Viewer, or Projects panel and choose New>Web Journal from the contextual menu.

To create a Web journal from a selection of images in the Browser or from a project selected in the Projects panel, perform one of the following operations: ■

Choose File>New from Selection>Web Journal.

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Choose New Web Journal from Selection in the Add to Library pop-up menu of the Projects panel.

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Press Control and click in the Browser, Viewer, or Projects panel and choose New from Selection>Web Journal from the contextual menu.

The new Web gallery or Web journal you just created will appear in the Projects panel. You should remember to give it a name because the name that appears in the Projects panel will be the name that the Web page will show in the title bar of the Web browser. Figure 14.3 Aperture doesn’t think you really want to build a one-image Web site.


Note If you choose to create a new Web gallery or journal after selecting a project, you’ll get a dialog box asking you about your intentions, as shown in Figure 14.3. Generally, when you select a project, Aperture automatically selects the first image in the Browser when it opens the project. The dialog box will ask you if you want to create a Web gallery or journal from just that one image, or if you want to use all the images. You’ll get this same dialog box any time you have only one image selected.

Adding and Removing Images to and from Galleries As mentioned earlier, galleries automatically show all the images that are in that gallery’s Browser. When you create a new Web gallery from a selection of images, the Browser of the new Web gallery will be stocked with those images. Obviously, though, if you create a new, empty Web gallery, you’ll need to fill its Browser with images. You can do that by dragging images to the name of the Web gallery in the Projects panel from any other project. You can do this to add additional images to any Web gallery. To remove an image from a Web gallery, you have to remove it completely from the Web gallery. To remove an image from a gallery, select it in the gallery’s Browser and press the Delete key, choose Images>Remove from Album, or press Control and click the image and choose Remove from Gallery from the contextual menu.

Note These procedures for adding and removing images from galleries do not apply to smart Web galleries. Because smart Web galleries are based on the results of a search, you can only add and remove images from them by changing the search criteria or by changing the properties of images.

Creating Smart Web Galleries You create Smart Web Galleries the same ways you create Smart Albums: You perform a search and create the Smart Web Gallery from the results, or you create a Smart Web Gallery and perform a search to fill it. To create a Smart Web Gallery from the results of a search, perform the search and then click the Query HUD Action pop-up menu and choose Smart Web Gallery, as shown in Figure 14.4.

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Figure 14.4 You can create a new Smart Web Gallery from the results of a search.

Note Using the Query HUD and creating Smart Web Galleries from the results of a search are covered in more detail in Chapter 7.

To create a new, empty Smart Web Gallery, perform one of the following operations: ■

Choose File>New Smart>Web Gallery.

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Choose New Smart Web Gallery in the Add to Library pop-up menu of the Projects panel.

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Press Control and click in the Browser, Viewer, or Projects panel and choose New Smart>Web Gallery from the contextual menu.

Once you have created an empty Smart Web Gallery, you stock it with images by clicking the Query HUD button to the right of its name, as shown in Figure 14.5, and then performing a search. The results of the search will become the contents of the Smart Web Gallery. Figure 14.5 The Query HUD button to the right of the gallery’s name opens its Query HUD.


After you have initially created a Smart Web Gallery, that gallery will change when one or more of three things occur: You change the search criteria in the Smart Web Gallery’s Query HUD; you makes changes to existing images that cause them to fall within the search results; you add new images to the Library or project that fall within the search results. When a Smart Web Gallery changes due to one of these factors, you’ll see the results immediately within Aperture, but you’ll have to update the gallery online to see the results online. Uploading and updating Web pages from Aperture is covered in more detail later in this chapter.

Customizing Web Gallery and Smart Web Gallery Pages Because Web galleries are basically simple contact sheets of the images in them, their pages are generated automatically using the images in their Browsers and according to the parameters you define for the gallery. You have control over how the page builds, in terms of how many images wind up on each page, what metadata is published with the images, the name of the page, and so on. Although you can customize them to a degree, there isn’t a lot you can do to them. For example, beyond the variations you’re offered through the templates supplied with Aperture, you don’t even have control over the size and typeface of the text on the page. When you first create a Web gallery, whether it’s a static Web gallery or a Smart Web Gallery, Aperture will automatically place the images in the Browser onto the Web pages in the order they appear in the Browser, as you can see in Figure 14.6. The window in which the Web gallery appears is referred to as the Webpage Editor. While editing a Web gallery, the Webpage Editor is divided into three sections. The larger panel is the preview panel that shows you what the Web page will look like. The narrow panel on the left is split into two sections, with the Gallery Pages panel at the top and the Detail Images panel at the bottom. The Gallery Pages panel shows all the existing pages of the Web gallery, and the Detail Images panel shows the layout that all the detail pages will share.

Note As you can see, the window layout shown in Figure 14.6 has been altered to better fit the various panels on the widescreen layout. To get to this layout, you can press Option+Command+S for the Basic layout and then press Shift+W to rotate the windows so that the Browser and Webpage Editor are side-by-side. If those two windows aren’t where you want them, you can swap them by pressing Option+W.

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Site Theme button

Metadata View pop-up menu

Gallery Pages panel

Detail Images pane

Fit images within pop-up menu

Figure 14.6 You’ll customize your Web page in the Webpage Editor.

When your Web gallery has more than one index page, you’ll see them displayed in the Gallery Pages panel of the Webpage Editor, shown in Figure 14.6. You can click any one of those displayed thumbnails to preview and edit an index page. Alternatively, you can click the Next Page and Previous Page buttons in the lowerright corner of the Webpage Editor to navigate between those index pages and also through the Detail Images pages. You can also jump to the detail image page of any thumbnail by clicking the curved arrow link that appears when you position the cursor over an image (see Figure 14.6). That same link also appears on thumbnails in the Web Journal Webpage Editor.

Changing the Order of the Images on the Index Pages As mentioned previously, when you first create a Web gallery, Aperture will automatically place the images in the Browser onto the Web pages in the order they appear in the Browser. You can change that order, just as you can at any time in the Browser, by dragging the images in the Browser to rearrange them. Whatever changes you make to the order of the images in the Web gallery’s Browser will be reflected on the index pages of the gallery automatically and immediately.


Selecting Built-in Themes Aperture provides five built-in themes for Web galleries. You pick one by clicking the Site Theme button, clicking the corresponding thumbnail in the Choose Web Theme window (see Figure 14.7), and then clicking Choose. Aperture will automatically apply the theme to your Web gallery. These are the only themes you can choose from.

Figure 14.7 Pick a look for your Web gallery.

Note Choosing a theme locks you into that theme, from a design standpoint. You can’t change the appearance of the type or even the arrangement of the text boxes on these Web gallery pages. Heck, you can’t even center the horizontal images in the middle of their boxes. You can, of course, change to a different theme at any time, but then you’ll be limited to the design of that one.

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Filling in the Details on the Gallery Page Notice that the gallery page shown in Figure 14.6 has no title or subtitle, and the copyright information is waiting to be customized. To fill in this information, click the respective type box area, highlight the default text, and type in your own text. The text boxes on the index pages previewed in Figures 14.8 and 14.9 have been customized this way.

Note For some reason, double-clicking the text in these text boxes doesn’t always activate the text for deletion or typing. You often have to click and drag to select the text in those boxes.

Tip You can have Aperture automatically add your page copyright information to the pages of your Web galleries and journals by making an entry in the Web Copyright text field of Aperture’s preferences. Choose Aperture>Preferences or press Command+Comma (,) to open the Preferences window. The Web Copyright text field is at the bottom of the Output section. Whatever text you enter there will automatically be entered in the copyright text of new Web pages.

Choosing the Metadata Information to Display The gallery page shown in Figure 14.6 has no metadata displayed with the images. That’s probably not the best format for your Web page if you’re expecting a client or someone else to pick images from that page. You can choose to add any metadata set that is already defined in the Metadata Inspector, and you should at least include the name of the image. The page shown back in Figure 14.1 has captions included with the images. To define what metadata information is included on the page with the image, click the Metadata View pop-up menu. You’ll see the familiar list of metadata sets pop-up. You can pick one, or you can return to the Metadata Inspector and create a custom metadata set specifically for your Web gallery. At the bottom of the Metadata View pop-up menu, you’ll see an option to Enable Plate Metadata. Enabling that option simply adds consecutive image numbers to each image on the index pages, which could be used as an alternate means of providing a way for someone to identify the images on the pages.


Defining the Web Gallery’s Grid The index page of the Web gallery will be a grid of images, just like a contact sheet. You can specify how many rows and columns you want on each page by dragging the Rows or Columns value sliders or by entering a number in those respective value fields. The grid you create will be one of the factors that determines how many index pages you wind up with, along with the size of the thumbnails and the number of images you have. So you should consider that fact when defining the number of those rows and columns.

Defining the Size of the Thumbnails on the Index Page You can also define how large the thumbnails will be on the index pages. Two settings affect this size selection. Of course, the values you enter in the width and height value fields will make a difference. And the option you select from the “Fit images within” pop-up menu will, too. Look at the Web gallery index page previewed in Figure 14.6. If you look at the “Fit images within” pop-up menu, you’ll see that the Square option is selected. The values in the width and height value fields match, each set at 300. Notice that the horizontal and vertical images are the same respective sizes. That is, they would be the same size if they were all horizontal or all vertical. Now look at the index pages previewed in Figures 14.8 and 14.9. See how the vertically oriented image on the index page in Figure 14.8 is much smaller now? See how it is much larger in Figure 14.9? Compare the “Fit images within” selections and the numerical values in the width and height value fields. You can see how those respective selections affect the way thumbnail images will appear on the index pages. When you choose the Rectangle selection, all of the thumbnails will be constrained to fit within the shape of the rectangle created by the values entered in the width and height value fields, regardless of their orientation. That means vertically oriented images will be shortened to fit in the same vertical space as the horizontal images, which will make the vertical images display much smaller. When you choose the Width selection, you wind up with only one value: width. All the images will be displayed at the width you enter in the width value field, which means that the vertical images will wind up a lot bigger than the horizontal images.

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Figure 14.8 These thumbnails are constrained to a rectangular shape on the page.

Figure 14.9 These thumbnails are all displaying at a specified width.


Defining the Size of the Detail Images You can also specify how large or small you want the larger images to display on the detail pages of the gallery. You’ll use the same parameters as when setting the sizes of the thumbnail images on the index page, as described previously. But you first need to click the Detail Images area of the left panel of the Webpage Editor to activate a Detail Page preview, as shown in Figure 14.10.

Figure 14.10 Click the Detail Images window of the Webpage Editor to edit the detail pages.

You’ll notice that the custom title and copyright information you typed on the index page also appears here by default. You can change it here if you want, but it will change the text on the index pages, too.

Building Web Journal Pages Because Web journals allow you more control over the appearance of the pages in your journal than when creating Web galleries, the Webpage Editor is slightly different when editing Web journals. Specifically, there is the additional Add Text Box button, there is only a Column value for the grid, and there are some additional buttons and pop-up menus in the lower-left corner, as you can see in Figure 14.11.

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Add Text Box button Journal Pages panel Detail Images panel Page Action pop-up menu Page Template pop-up menu Remove Page button Add Page button Figure 14.11 The Webpage Editor for Web journals is different.

Note Those customizations that are the same as in Web galleries, such as selecting themes, picking metadata sets, and specifying the sizes of thumbnails and detail images, are not covered in this section. Refer back to the section on Web galleries for those instructions.

Tip If you’re wondering whether you’re working on a Web gallery or a Web journal, you can tell which one you’re on by the name of the Journal Pages panel. It will say “Journal” or “Gallery.”


Selecting a Header Style for Journal Pages Although the procedure for selecting a site theme is the same for galleries and journals, journals have one additional option. If you choose any theme other than the Stock or Stock Black theme, you can select a header for journal pages that is either an image with text or just text. You choose between the two by clicking the Page Template pop-up menu, shown in Figure 14.11, and choosing either Header with Text or Header with Image.

Defining the Web Journal’s Grid Although you can’t define both dimensions of a grid on Web journal pages, you can specify how many images to place across a Web journal page. Simply drag the Columns value slider or enter a value from 2 to 6 in the Columns value field.

Adding, Removing, and Rearranging Images on Journal Index Pages Unlike Web galleries, Web journals display only those images that you add to the index pages. You can have any number of images in the Browser for a Web journal, but none of them will appear on any page unless you add it. You can add images to the index pages of a Web journal by dragging one or more images to the preview panel of the Webpage Editor. Once you have added images to journal index pages, they will show two bounding boxes when you position the cursor over them in the preview pane, as shown in Figure 14.12. The outer bounding box is for the row of images, even if there is only one image in that row, and the inner box is for that specific image. To remove any one image, click its Remove button. To remove an entire row of images, click the Remove button on the outer bounding box. You can rearrange the individual images on the page by dragging them to another position on the page. A green bar like the one shown in Figure 14.15 will appear in the positions where you can place the image. You can also move the entire row of images up and down on the page by clicking on its little grid icon and dragging it to where you see the green bar like the one shown in Figure 14.15.

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Click here to drag the entire row to another position. Jump to Detail Images page button. This Remove button will delete the entire row of images. This Remove button will delete this image.

Figure 14.12 Images added to Web journal index pages can be removed and rearranged.

Adding Text Boxes to Journal Pages The main difference between Web galleries and Web journals is that you can add text boxes to the pages of Web journals. You don’t, however, have any control over the width of those text boxes or the typeface of the text in them. To add a text box to a Web journal page, click the Add Text Box button. By default, the new text box will appear at the bottom of the page, as shown in Figure 14.13. You can drag that text box upward in the layout, as shown in Figure 14.14, and place it anywhere a green bar appears (see Figure 14.15). However, you can only move it up and down. You can’t change its width or try to place it between two images. The text boxes on Web journal pages can have one of two possible type styles. Look at the text box shown in Figures 14.13 and 14.14. The Sub Title button is the large “T” button, and the Text button is the button with what looks like a paragraph of text in it. Clicking one or the other will apply the respective style to the text in the box. As you probably expect, the Sub Title style is larger than the Text style.


Figure 14.13 The new text box is added at the very bottom of the page.

Click here to switch to Sub Title text. Click here to switch to Text style text. Click here to drag the text box to a new position on the page. Delete text box button

Figure 14.14 Grab the text box by its little grid icon…

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Figure 14.15 …and release it when you see a green bar.

Adding and Rearranging Web Journal Pages Again, unlike Web galleries, Web journals don’t automatically create additional index pages. You have to add the pages yourself and then add images to those pages. To add pages, you can simply select a page in the Journal Pages panel of the Webpage Editor and then click the Add Page (+) button at the bottom of the page, shown in Figure 14.11. The new page will be added after the page you selected in the Journal Pages panel. You can also have Aperture automatically create additional pages based on the metadata choices shown in Figure 14.16 from the Page Action pop-up menu, pointed out in Figure 14.11. Choosing one of those options will create one additional page with all the images that match any occurrence of the selected option. For example, if you choose the New Page for Each Day option, Aperture will automatically create one page for each day found in the images of that Web journal and will fill that page with all the images that match each day. In other words, if your Web journal had images taken on July 4 and July 5, Aperture

Figure 14.16 The Page Action pop-up menu.


would create one page with all of the July 4 images and one page with all of the July 5 images. If you have multiple pages in your journal, you can rearrange their order by selecting any page in the Journal Pages panel and then choosing either Move Current Page Up or Move Current Page Down from the Page Action pop-up menu (see Figure 14.16). You can delete one page at a time from Web journals by selecting a page and clicking the Remove Page (-) button in the lower-left corner of the Webpage Editor, shown in Figure 14.11.

Uploading Your Web Pages After you complete your Web pages, you can either upload them to a .Mac account or save them to a folder on your computer for uploading to your own server.

Uploading to .Mac If you have a .Mac account, Aperture can automatically upload its Web pages to that account. When you’re ready to upload a page to .Mac, select that page in your Projects panel and click the Publish to .Mac button at the bottom of the Webpage Editor. You’ll be offered the dialog box shown in Figure 14.17. All you have to do in this dialog box is enter a value in the Publish Album As text field and then choose the quality settings you want for the thumbnail and detail images. When the new page is uploaded, its URL will be http://homepage.mac.com/ [yourmembername]/[thePublishAlbumAsvalueyouentered].

Figure 14.17 Prior to uploading, give your page an upload term and choose the image quality settings.

Tip You should understand that what you’re entering in the Publish Album As text field is essentially the folder name that will be created at your .Mac site. And that value will become the final portion of the site’s URL. Don’t think you need to enter the entire name of the Web site if you don’t want to. There’s no reason you have to use more than one word. In fact, if you do use more than one word, do yourself a favor and create an easy name with no spaces in it. Even though .Mac will accept names with spaces, your eventual URL for the page will include the hexidecimal equivalent of “%20” for each space in the name.

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A bonus feature of the compatibility between Aperture and .Mac is the updating feature that only uploads any new or changed files and/or images.

Saving to a Folder for Uploading If you host your Web pages on any other Web server, you’ll need to first save your new Aperture Web pages to your computer and then upload them to the appropriate server.

Tip The most important thing to understand about this exporting process is that Aperture will be creating an entire directory of files and folders that you must keep intact, no matter where you put it. You can’t take out a file or image or folder and then expect the site to work properly.

When you are ready to save a Web page to your computer, select that Web page in the Projects panel and then click the Export Web Pages button in the lowerleft corner of the Webpage Editor’s preview pane. Aperture will open a directory dialog with the pop-up menus at the bottom for the thumbnail and detail image quality settings. Navigate to where you want to save the Web page, enter a value in the Export As text field, and select the appropriate quality settings.

Tip The value you’re entering in this dialog box is a folder name. You don’t have to give it the same elaborate name you may have titled the Web page. Also, Aperture will save the entire Web page directory into a new folder with that name you’re entering in this dialog box. So you don’t have to worry about creating a new folder just for the files of this Web page.

Web Export Presets Those choices that appeared in the .Mac and local export dialog boxes for the thumbnail and detail images quality are Web Export Presets. If you want to, you can create additional Web Export Presets and edit exiting presets. The process is much the same as with other presets you’ve learned about while using Aperture. To access the Web Export Presets dialog box, shown in Figure 4.18, choose Aperture>Presets>Web Exports or choose Edit from one of the preset pop-up menus in the .Mac or Export As dialog box.


Tip If you click the name of any existing Web export preset and then make changes to its parameters, you will permanently alter that preset. If you make changes that aren’t reflected in its name, that could be confusing later.

Figure 14.18 The Web Export Presets dialog box.

You can create a new preset by clicking the Add (+) button and then setting the parameters where you want them. Give the preset a name and click OK. The new preset will appear in each of the preset pop-up menus in the .Mac and Export As dialog boxes. After you have added presets, you can delete them by selecting their name and then clicking the Delete (-) button.

Adding Watermarks to Your Web Page Images Notice the Show Watermark area of the Web Export Presets dialog box shown in Figure 14.18. You can choose to add watermarks to your images as you upload them to .Mac or export them for uploading to your own server. The process is the same as that described in the “Exporting Versions” section of Chapter 11.

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Tip None of the existing presets includes watermarks, so if you’re interested in including watermarks on your uploaded images, you’ll want to create a new preset or add a watermark to one of the existing presets.

15 Creating Picture Books in Aperture Aperture can help you become your own publisher. You can create Aperture picture books to use for everything from presenting images to clients for review, to actual products for your customers, to gifts, to portfolios of your work. In Aperture, you can design books using your own images and add as much text as you need. After you create a book, you can send the electronic book file out to a book printing service, or you can print it out yourself.

Creating Book Albums Once you have decided to build a book, you need to create a book album. By now, you won’t be surprised to hear that Aperture’s books are based on a collection of images. Of course, you can create an empty book album and then add images as you need them, but you can also start by selecting images in the Browser and creating a book album from them, or you can perform a search and create a book album with the results. Pretty much the same old routine, eh?

Note As is usually the case, the new book album will be created at whatever level of the Library you have selected prior to creating the book album. If you select a project, the new book album will appear in that project. If you select the Library, the book album will be created in the Library.

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The operations that will create a new book album all have two steps. First, you tell Aperture you want to create a new book album, using one of several possible operations. Then Aperture asks you what you want your book to look like. The first step can be any one of the following possible operations: ■

To create a new, empty book album, choose File>New>Book, click the Add to Library pop-up menu in the Projects panel and choose New Empty Book, or press Control and click anywhere in the Projects panel and choose New>Book from the contextual menu.

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To create a book album based on a selection of images, make the selection and then choose File>New from Selection>Book, click the Add to Library popup menu in the Projects panel and choose New Book from Selection, click on the New Book from Selection button on the Toolbar, or press Control and click anywhere on the Aperture workspace and choose New from Selection>Book from the contextual menu. If you click in the Browser and select no images, Aperture will create a book with all the images in that Browser. If you click on a project in the Projects panel, you’ll get the dialog box warning shown in Figure 15.1. Generally, when you select a project, Aperture automatically selects the first image in the Browser when it opens the project. The dialog box will ask you if you want to create a Web gallery or a journal from just that one image, or if you want to use all the images. You’ll get this same dialog box any time you have only one image selected.

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To create a book album based on a search, open the Browser Query HUD and specify your criteria; then click the Query HUD Action pop-up menu and choose Book. If you don’t specify any criteria, Aperture will create a book with all the images in that Browser. You can create a book from the full contents of any album, smart album, smart Web gallery, or any other collection in this way.

Figure 15.1 A one-image book wouldn’t be very thick.

The second step is the book theme and size selection. After you perform any one of the first step operations, Aperture will open the Choose Theme dialog box shown in Figure 15.2. You can see a preview of each theme by clicking it in this dialog box. Choose one of these available themes if you’re creating a full-sized book. If you’re creating a mini book, you need to click the Book Size pop-up menu. Aperture only offers one mini book theme, as you can see in Figure 15.3.

Chapter 15 ■ Creating Picture Books in Aperture

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Figure 15.2 The available themes in the Choose Theme dialog box.

Figure 15.3 You only have one theme option for mini books.

When you’ve made your theme choice, click the Choose Theme button, and Aperture will create and open your new book album.

Note Although you can change the theme applied to your book later, you should take care at the very beginning to pick the theme that you’ll want to stick with through the completion of the book. As you add text boxes to your book, you customize the theme you’re using. If you later change themes, your book will be flowed into the new theme—without the customized text boxes you have added. They’ll just be gone.

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You can duplicate a book album just as you would duplicate an album or project. Just select the book album in the Projects panel and choose File>Duplicate Book. Or press Control and click the book album in the Projects panel and choose Duplicate Book. You can delete a book album by selecting it in the Projects panel and choosing File>Delete Book, by pressing Command+Delete, or by Control+clicking the book album in the Projects panel and choosing Delete Book.

Working in the Book Layout Editor When you create your new book album, or when you select any existing book album, Aperture will open the book album in the Book Layout Editor, shown in Figure 15.4 (see pages 332 and 333). You’ll perform all of the book design and build operations from here in this editor. Add Metadata Box button Send Backward button Bring Forward button Add Text Box button Add Photo Box button

Theme button Pages panel Edit Content button Edit Layout button Text Style pop-up menu Metadata Format pop-up menu Photo Filter pop-up menu

Figure 15.4 The Book Layout Editor.


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Figure 15.4

Continued.

Large Hardcover button Book Action pop-up menu

Large Softcover button Next Page button Previous Page button

Set Master Page pop-up menu Delete Pages button Add Pages pop-up menu

Navigating Between Book Pages When a book opens in the Book Layout Editor, the pages of the book will be displayed up and down through the Pages panel. As you can see in Figure 15.4, they are displayed in the Pages panel as spreads, although you’ll always have one single page for the cover and usually a single page at the beginning of the book. You can jump to any page in the book by clicking it in the Pages panel. If the page you want to move to isn’t visible in the Pages panel, scroll the panel to see the hidden pages. You can move sequentially through the book pages by clicking the Previous Page or Next Page button or by pressing the left arrow or right arrow key on your keyboard.

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You can move up and down one row at a time in the Pages panel by clicking up arrow and down arrow keys on your keyboard.

Viewing Book Pages While in the Book Layout Editor, you have quite a few options for changing how you view the book you’re working on. The preview panel of the Book Layout Editor displays the single page or full spread that you have selected in the Pages panel. You have a choice to view the book in the preview panel as either a two-page spread of facing pages, as shown in Figure 15.5, or as one single page at a time, as shown in Figure 15.6. Click the respective buttons shown in Figures 15.5 and 15.6 to select one or the other option. Figure 15.5 Click the Show Full Spreads button to see two facing pages.

Show Single Pages button Show Full Spreads button


Set Master Page pop-up menu

Actual Size button Display Size slider Scale to Fit button

Figure 15.6 Click the Show Single Pages button to see one page at a time.

You can enlarge and reduce the size of the page or pages displayed in the preview panel by dragging the Display Size slider, shown in Figure 15.6. You can quickly zoom the page or pages in or out to show the full page or spread by clicking the Scale to Fit button, shown in Figure 15.6. You can see the page at 100% of its size by clicking the Actual Size button, shown in Figure 15.6.

Note Just what is 100% of a book’s size? Full-sized books are 8.5 inches by 11 inches, and mini books are 2.625 inches by 3.5 inches. Clicking that 100% button will display books at whatever display resolution is necessary for them to appear at those sizes on your screen.

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Designing Books After you create a book album, even if you have created a book album filled with images from a selection, you’ll need to place images onto the pages of the book, size those images, add some type, and otherwise design your book. When you first created the book album, you had to choose a design theme for the book. That design theme is made up of master pages that provide a basic layout of images and text and that have styles for the text on the pages. The master pages are templates, and you can rely on them completely for your book design, but you can also modify those pages and end up with pages that are completely different. You can see in Figure 15.4 that Aperture created a new book with empty pages already added. As you configure your book, you may use up all those pages or complete the book and have extra pages, so you’ll also need to know how to add and remove pages.

Changing Editing Modes The Book Layout Editor has two different editing modes. The Edit Content mode allows you to edit images inside photo boxes and text inside text boxes. But if you want to change the size, shape, and position of those photo and text boxes, you have to switch to the Edit Layout mode. You switch between the two modes by clicking either the Edit Content button or the Edit Layout button (see Figure 15.4).

Note Be careful with the editing modes. Although you can undo mistakes you might make, you can slow yourself down and cause confusion if, for instance, you accidentally delete a photo box instead of just the image inside it. That’s what will happen if you are in the Edit Layout mode and you select a photo box and then delete the image. You’ll actually be deleting the image and the photo box. If all you want to do is delete the photo from inside the photo box, make sure you’re in the Edit Content mode. That same caution applies to when you’re working with text.

The Basics of Master Pages Before you start to design a book, you need to understand the role of master pages in the design process. While you can create an entire book by starting with an empty page and laying out photo boxes and text boxes, you can save yourself a lot of time by relying on master pages, choosing those master pages that best fit what you want to do with a particular page.


What a master page does is provide a template for a page. It might have one photo box by itself on the page, and all you have to do is add a photo to it. Or the master page might have three photo boxes and a text box on it. You can fill the photo boxes with images, type into the text box, and be done. Master pages save you time in building pages—and they might also give you ideas about how to layout your book. Look at the Pages panel in the Book Layout Editor shown in Figure 15.6. See that little disclosure triangle in the box around the selected page? That’s the Set Master Page pop-up menu. Clicking that disclosure triangle will open up the menu of all the master pages available for the theme you have applied to your book. Choosing one of those master pages will apply its theme to the selected page. Compare the master page menus shown in Figures 15.7 and 15.8. They’re from two different themes. You can see how different the selection of master pages is. Each theme will have a different selection of master pages.

Figure 15.7 The master pages for one theme…

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Figure 15.8 …are different than the master pages for another theme.

If you look closely at those two menus, you can see what master pages are all about. Notice how they’re named and what you can see in them. Each of those master pages is going to provide you with a different prebuilt template for an individual page.

Understanding the Differences Between Master Page Types Look at the master page menus in Figures 15.7 and 15.8. The menus have been opened from pages on opposite sides of the book. The menu in Figure 15.7 is from a right-hand page, and the menu in Figure 15.8 is from a left-hand page. Notice that some of the master pages available in Figure 15.8 are two-page spreads, while none of the master pages available in Figure 15.7 are two-page spreads. That’s the way it works; you can only apply a two-page spread master from a left-hand page. There’s something else you need to know about those two-page spreads. They’re a two-page spread of one photo box. And some single pages can be one page of a two-page spread of a layout. In other words, a two-page spread can be made up of one photo box spread across two pages, or it can be made up of two pages that have separate photo boxes, but the pages are designed to go on opposite sides of the book. Figure 15.9 shows an example. The page selected in the Pages panel, indicated by the bounding box around it, is one of a pair of matched pages. They’re designed to always have one layout when they’re on the left side of the book and another


design when they’re on the right side of the book. In this particular example, if you were to take that selected page and move it to the left side of the binding, the layout of the page would change and become a mirror image of what it was when it was on the right side of the binding. You can see which pages are which by looking at the Master Pages panel, which you can toggle on and off by clicking the Book Action pop-up menu and choosing Show/Hide Master Pages. You’ll learn more about this panel and how to split and unify master pages later in this chapter.

Applying a Master Page Layout to a Page All you have to do to apply a master page layout to a page or change the master page layout applied to a page is click the Set Master Page pop-up menu, choose one of the available master pages from that pop-up menu, and apply that master page to the page you’ve selected. After you first learn to manipulate images and text on pages, you can learn to create your own master pages and modify existing master pages.

Basic Manipulation of Images on Book Pages Aperture provides a set of empty pages when you first create a book album. So you can dive right into putting images on the pages and adding text to them. As you might expect after having read the previous section on master pages, you can start by just filling in the empty photo and text boxes provided by the master pages that have been applied to the supplied pages. You can also delete all those empty photo and text boxes and add your own, if you want. Or you can string together a set of empty master pages, go into the Browser of the book album and rearrange the images into an order you want, and then have Aperture automatically place the images into the photo boxes on the pages in that order.

Note You can’t use the Straighten, Crop, Spot & Patch, or Red Eye tools from the Toolbar while you’re in the Book Layout Editor. If you need to adjust an image with one of those tools, click the Show Viewer button, shown in Figure 15.9, to access a Viewer without leaving the book album. Then you can click the Show Viewer button again to go back to the Book Layout Editor.

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Manually Adding Images to Pages To add images to the photo boxes already on a page, all you have to do is drag an image from the Browser to the photo box where you want to place it, as shown in Figure 15.9. Show Unplaced Images button Show Viewer button Show All Images button

Figure 15.9 Drag an image and place it into a photo box.

If you have, in some way, cut or copied an image to the Clipboard, you can add that image to a selected photo box by choosing Edit>Paste, by pressing Command+V, or by pressing Control and clicking the photo box and choosing Paste Content from the contextual menu.


Tip As you add images to the book, you’ll see the red tab with a number in the upperright corner of each image that you have used, as shown in Figure 15.10. After you have added a bunch of images, you may want to see only the unused images in the Browser. You can click the Show Unplaced Images button, shown in Figure 15.9, to limit the view of images in the Browser to those you haven’t yet used. When you want to return to seeing all of them, click the Show All Images button next to it, as shown in Figure 15.9.

Removing Images from Pages To delete an image from within a photo box on a page, select that image and press the Delete key, choose Edit>Delete Content, or press Control and click the image and choose Delete Content from the contextual menu.

Note Make sure you’re in the Edit Content mode by clicking the Edit Content button when you perform this deletion, or you’ll wind up deleting the image and the photo box. You’ll get a clue that you’re not in the Edit Content mode if you use the menu bar or the contextual menu, because it won’t say Delete Content, it will say Delete.

You can also remove images from photo boxes by cutting the image, which will load it into the Clipboard for pasting. You just select the image and choose Edit>Cut Content, press Command+X, or press Control and click the image and choose Cut Content from the contextual menu.

Creating and Deleting Photo Boxes If you need to add a photo to a selected page and there is not a photo box for it, you can create a new photo box by clicking the Edit Layout button, shown in Figure 15.4, and then clicking the Add Photo Box button, shown in Figure 15.4. A new, empty photo box will be added to the selected page. If you want to remove an image and the photo box containing it or just remove an empty photo box, select the image or photo box and click the Edit Layout button to make sure you’re in the Edit Layout mode. Then press Delete or press Control and click the photo box and choose Delete from the contextual menu. If you want to cut the photo box and add it to the Clipboard rather than delete it, select the photo box and press Command+X, choose Edit>Cut, or press Control and click the photo box and choose Cut from the contextual menu.

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Adjusting Images on Pages When you have added an image to a photo box, you can then change the size it prints within its photo box, you can change the size of the photo box, and you can move the image around in the photo box. Manipulating Image Size and Placement Within Photo Boxes

To edit an image that has been added to the page, double-click the image, which will activate the image for editing and open the little Image Scale HUD, as shown in Figure 15.10.

Figure 15.10 Double-clicking an image on a page allows you to edit that image.

Now you can increase the size of the image by dragging the Image Scale slider. If you increase the size of the image up beyond what can be printed without losing resolution, you’ll see a warning triangle in the upper-right corner, shown in Figure 15.11.


Note The Image Scale slider doesn’t seem to represent any sort of absolute in terms of the possible minimum and maximum scale of the image. It seems to have more to do with the size the image was when it was first placed in the photo box. You can demonstrate this for yourself by dragging an image to a photo box, which will place the image in that box and fill the box with the image, scaling the image to fill the box on all four sides, even if that means cropping some of the image. Now double-click the image. You’ll see that the Image Scale slider is at the position representing the minimum size. Next, follow the instructions for adjusting the size of the photo box, detailed in the next section. You’ll see that you can reduce or enlarge the image in that way, too. After you have enlarged or reduced the photo box and the image inside, double-click the image again, and you’ll see that the Image Scale slider is still at the position for the smallest size, even if you’ve drastically increased or decreased the size of the image. This also demonstrates how to override the Image Scale slider. Back when you first placed the image and then double-clicked the image, you were stuck with the range of sizes then represented by the Image Scale slider. You couldn’t go any smaller or large than that slider would allow. But if you enlarge or reduce the image while enlarging or reducing the photo box, you can get the image larger or smaller than what the Image Scale slider would allow.

While you have activated the image, and if the image is larger than the photo box containing it, you can drag the image around in the photo box to reposition it, as shown in Figure 15.11.

Note You can adjust the size and position of images in these ways regardless of whether you’re in the Edit Content or Edit Layout mode.

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Figure 15.11 After you activate an image, you can drag it around inside its photo box. Manipulating Photo Boxes

Notice that the procedure described previously only increased the size of the image within the photo box. If, on the other hand, you want to enlarge the image and see more of the enlarged image, you have to also enlarge the photo box. You may have also noticed that dragging the image has no effect on the photo box. To edit the size of the photo box or move it around on the page, you have to switch to the Edit Layout mode by clicking the Edit Layout button, shown in Figures 15.4 and 15.12. Then you can click and drag it to another position on the page, and you click the photo box handles to adjust its size. When you drag one of those handles, the photo box and its contents will change size and shape.

Note You may get a slight sense of vertigo as you drag the handles of a photo box because the image inside it will move around and change size. The way it works is that if you drag diagonally, the image will increase or decrease in size with the photo box. But if you drag horizontally or vertically, the image will stop changing size, and the box will start to crop portions of the image. It doesn’t really matter what you do to this box, because you can always adjust the image inside it later anyway.


Edit Layout button

Figure 15.12 Drag the handles of the photo box to resize it.

While you’re in the Edit Layout mode, you can also automatically align the image inside the box. Select the photo box you want to adjust and press Control and click in the photo box, or click the Book Action pop-up menu and choose Photo Box Alignment. You’ll see the following four options offered in the submenu that pops open: ■

Scale to Fill will scale the image to fill the photo box, so that there are no empty spaces in the photo box.

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Scale to Fit Centered will scale the image to get the complete image within the photo box, but it may leave empty space in the photo box at the top or bottom.

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Scale to Fit Left-Aligned will scale the image to get the complete image within the photo box, but it may leave empty space in the photo box at the top and right side.

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Scale to Fit Right-Aligned will scale the image to get the complete image within the photo box, but it may leave empty space in the photo box at the top and left side.

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Note For some reason, you can’t rely on these alignment options to work reliably unless the Image Scale slider for the selected image is at the smallest setting.

Layering Photo Boxes

You can layer images on your pages to create a special design effect. All you have to do is reposition a photo box so that it overlaps another, as shown in Figure 15.12. In some cases, the wrong photo box will be on top. You can select one of the photo boxes and then click either the Send Backward or Bring Forward button, shown in Figure 15.4, or click the Book Action pop-up menu and choose Arrange>Send Forward or Arrange>Send Backward to move the photo box up or down one layer at a time. Alternatively, you can select one of the photo boxes, click the Book Action pop-up menu, and choose Arrange>Send to Back or Arrange>Send to Front, and the box will move however many layers necessary for it to be on the very bottom or very top. Changing the Aspect Ratio of a Photo Box

You can also automatically change the shape of a photo box to conform to one of the aspect ratio options offered in the Photo Box Aspect Ratio menu. Select a photo box and click the Book Action pop-up menu, or press Control and click the photo box and choose Photo Box Aspect Ratio. Another submenu will appear, offering the following options: ■

Landscape 4:3

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Landscape 4:2

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Portrait 2:3

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Portrait 3:4

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Square

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Photo Aspect Ratio

Choose one of the options in the submenu to reshape the photo box.

Tip If you have adjusted the size or shape of an image or photo box to where you can’t get the image to fill the photo box without cropping some of the photo or leaving empty areas in the photo box, you can use the Photo Aspect Ratio option to quickly reshape the photo box to match the aspect ratio of the image inside it.


Adding Background Images to Pages For some page designs, you might find that having a background image improves the design. This is the same effect you can get if you make a full-page photo box and send it to the back. Most master pages already have a background photo box, though, so you can save yourself a step by just using that photo box. To add a photo as a background image, select a page in the Pages panel and then in the preview panel, click on the page somewhere where there isn’t another photo box or text box. The photo box’s handles and the crosshair icon in the middle of the page will appear. Drag any image from the Browser into the photo box. You can delete an image from this box by selecting the photo and pressing the Delete key.

Copying and Duplicating Photos and Photo Boxes You can copy and paste photos that are on pages, and you can copy, paste, and duplicate the photo boxes on pages. If you want to copy a photo from a photo box to paste it into another photo box, make sure you’re in the Edit Content mode and then select the image and press Command+C, choose Edit>Copy Content, or press Control and click the photo and choose Copy Content from the contextual menu. You can then paste that image from the Clipboard by clicking another photo box and pressing Command+V, choosing Edit>Paste Content, or pressing Control and clicking the photo and choosing Paste Content from the contextual menu. If you want to copy, paste, or duplicate a photo box, make sure you’re in the Edit Layout mode and then select the photo box and press Command+C, choose Edit>Copy, or press Control and click the photo and choose Copy from the contextual menu. You can then paste that photo box from the Clipboard by pressing Command+V, choosing Edit>Paste, or pressing Control and clicking the page and choosing Paste from the contextual menu. When you’re in the Edit Layout mode, you can select a photo box and then choose Edit>Duplicate, press Command+D, or press Control and click the photo box and choose Duplicate from the contextual menu. A copy of the selected photo box and its contents will be created and offset from the original.

Automatically Adding Images to Pages Aperture will add images to pages for you in two different ways. You can have Aperture add all images that have not yet been placed in the book, or you can select images and have Aperture add all of them. Aperture will place the images into the empty pages in the order of the Pages panel and the Browser, with the first image going onto the first empty page, and then the remaining images going

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onto the following empty pages. If you don’t have enough pages to accommodate all the remaining or selected images, Aperture will automatically add new master pages for them. The first step in using this feature is to put the master pages that you want in the Pages panel and arrange the images in the order you want them to flow into the book. Then you can click the Book Action pop-up menu and choose either Autoflow Unplaced Images or Autoflow Selected Images. Aperture will do the rest.

Tip Don’t think of this automatic image flowing feature only as a mass-production tool. You can use it effectively for adding even just a couple of images at a time. However many images you select will be added when you use the Autoflow Selected Images option.

Designing with Text on Book Pages You have a lot more design flexibility with text in Aperture’s books than you do on Aperture’s Web pages. In books, you can actually change the typeface, the size, the style, and the color of text on pages. You can add as many text boxes as you need, and you can move them around where you want, size them as you want, and shape them as you want.

Note When working with text, just as when working with images, the selection of the correct editing mode is important. It’s pretty easy to decide which one you need to be in; if you want to edit the text in a text box, you need to click the Edit Content button, shown in Figure 15.4; if you need to manipulate a text box, you need to click the Edit Layout button, also shown in Figure 15.4.

Adding Text to a Page The easiest way to add text to a page is to type into one of the presupplied text boxes that come with various master page layouts. All you have to do is make sure that you’re in the Edit Content mode and then click a text box. You can then select and replace any text that is there or type in new text.


Adding Text Boxes

If you need to add text to a page, and you don’t have a corresponding text box for that text, you can easily add one. Make sure you’re in the Edit Layout mode and then click the Add Text Box button, shown in Figure 15.13. New text boxes are added in the center of the page. Manipulating Text Boxes on a Page

You can move text boxes around on the page and change their sizes and shapes to fit your design. Make sure you’re in the Edit Layout mode and then click and drag inside a text box to move it. Click and drag any of the text box’s handles to resize or reshape it.

Add Text Box button

Figure 15.13 Drag inside metadata a text box to move it and drag its handles to reshape it.

Regardless of what text might be in a text box, you can make the text box any size and shape you want. Automatically Labeling Images with Metadata

You can also have Aperture automatically display the metadata information of an image. You can do this for all the images or just a few.

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To display metadata for an image, make sure you’re in the Edit Layout mode, select the image in the preview pane, and then click the Add Metadata Box button, shown in Figure 15.14.

Add Metadata Box button

Figure 15.14 Drag inside metadata text box to move it and drag its handles to reshape it..

As you can see in Figure 15.14, Aperture creates a different type of text box that has a tab on the left side. That tab indicates whether the metadata box is linked to its image and what metadata is being displayed in it. The tab shown in Figure 15.14 indicates that the metadata box is linked, while the tab shown in Figure 15.15 indicates that the metadata box is unlinked. They both show that the Caption metadata is selected for that metadata box.

Tip You can use this automatic metadata labeling feature to add captions to your images without having to retype the captions that may already be applied to the images in their metadata.


To select which metadata to display in the metadata box, click the Metadata View button and choose an option, as shown in Figure 15.15. You have a limited selection of metadata sets available for use here in the book, and you can’t edit that selection. You’re stuck with what Aperture offers.

Figure 15.15 Choose the metadata set to display in the metadata box.

Once the metadata box has been added, you can reposition it any way you like. You can also edit the typeface, size, style, and color of the text inside it, just as you would any text, as described later in this chapter.

Note Although you can edit the type in the metadata box, doing so will unlink the metadata box from the image. If you want to edit the text that shows up in the metadata box without unlinking it from its image, edit the metadata for the image in the Metadata Inspector, as described in Chapter 5.

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The tab on the left side of the metadata box will show the title of the metadata that you’ve selected. The little chain icon shows whether the metadata box is linked to its image. To link and unlink a metadata box, select it and then click the Book Action pop-up menu, or press Control and click the metadata box and choose Link/Unlink Metadata box. Deleting Text Boxes and Metadata Boxes

You can easily delete a text box or metadata text box by selecting it while you’re in the Edit Layout mode and then pressing the Delete key, or by pressing Control and clicking the box and choosing Delete. If you want to cut the box for pasting somewhere else, you can select it and choose Edit>Cut or press Command+X to cut it to the Clipboard.

Manipulating Text After you enter text in a text box, you can change its size, style, typeface, and color. The different themes offer different type styles that you can quickly apply, or you can customize the text. You can also split a text box into columns. Selecting a Text Style

If you want to apply one of the predetermined styles to text in a box, select that text and click the Text Style pop-up menu, shown in Figure 15.16. Choose one of the offered styles, and it will be automatically applied to all the selected text.

Figure 15.16 Choose a text style to apply to the text.


Changing the Typeface, Size, Color, and Style of Text

To take more control over the appearance of text, select the text you want to change and press Command+T to open the Font dialog box, as shown in Figure 15.17. Click here to open the Background Color selector. Click here to open the Text Color selector.

Drop Shadow button.

Figure 15.17 In the Font dialog box, you have a lot more control over the appearance of text.

In the Font dialog box, you can change the typeface (Family), the style (Typeface), the size, and the color of the text. You can also change the background color of the text box itself. If you want to add a drop shadow to the text, click the Drop Shadow button and adjust the drop shadow with the controls along the top of the box. From the Font dialog box, you can also access the Font Book application by choosing the Font Action pop-up menu and choosing Manage Fonts.

Tip You can get a preview of the font changes you’re making in the Font dialog box by dragging the divider between the controls area and the preview pane, as shown in Figure 15.18. You can then enlarge the entire Font dialog box if you want to see both the controls and the preview, as shown in Figure 15.19.

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Figure 15.18 Drag the divider to see the preview.

Figure 15.19 Resize the Font dialog box to see both the controls and the preview.

Setting Up Columns of Text and Text Alignment

If you’re entering blocks of text, you may want to separate your text boxes into columns. You can do that quickly by selecting a text box and then clicking the Book Action pop-up menu, choosing Text Box Columns, and then choosing a number


of columns from 1 to 4. You can also access this option from the contextual menu by pressing Control as you click in the text box. If you divide your text blocks into columns and then want to define the text alignment, select the text, click the Book Action pop-up menu, choose Text Box Alignment, and then choose one of the alignment options. You can also access this option from the contextual menu by pressing Control as you click in the text box.

Adding and Removing Pages If you run out of pages, you’ll need to know how to add them. You can add them one at a time or have Aperture create them automatically. Of course, you may also need to delete pages from time to time.

Deleting Pages Removing pages is easy. You just select a page or pages and click the Delete Page (-) button or press the Delete key. You’ll be asked to confirm the deletion. All of the pages you select and all of the content on those pages will be deleted. If the pages you delete are at the beginning or in the middle of the book, the pages coming after will be moved to fill the gap.

Note If you delete a single page that is immediately before a two-page spread in the Pages panel, you’ll get a new blank page in that spot. And if you try to delete a blank single page that is immediately before a two-page spread in the Pages panel, you’ll just keep getting a new blank page in that spot. Aperture won’t allow you to upset the balance of the two-page spread.

Manually Adding Pages When manually adding pages, you can add one empty page at a time. If you duplicate pages, you can add one page or multiple pages. To manually add an individual page, first click an existing page in the Pages panel. Then click the Add Pages pop-up menu in the lower-left corner of the Book Layout Editor and choose Add Page, as shown in Figure 15.20. The new page will be added after the existing page you had selected. To duplicate one or more existing pages, select the page or pages in the Pages panel. Then click the Add Pages pop-up menu in the lower-left corner of the Book Layout Editor, as shown in Figure 15.20, and choose Duplicate Page. The existing pages will be duplicated and added after the last of the existing pages you had selected.

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Figure 15.20 Add a new page after the page selected in the Pages panel.

Tip You aren’t limited to selecting and duplicating consecutive pages. You can Control+ click multiple nonconsecutive pages for duplication. When you duplicate them, they’ll be added after the last of the selected pages in consecutive order.

Automatically Generating Pages with Images Just as you can automatically add images to existing pages, as described earlier in this chapter, you can automatically add new pages and have Aperture automatically add images to them. As with adding images to existing pages, you can choose to add all the unplaced images remaining in the book album or select images and have them added to new pages. To automatically add new pages with all the remaining unplaced images placed on them, select a page in the Pages panel where you want the new pages to begin. Then click the Add Pages pop-up menu and choose Add New Pages>With Unplaced Images. Aperture will create however many new pages are necessary to hold all the remaining unplaced images.


To automatically add pages based on a selection of images, first go to the Browser of the book album and arrange the images in the order you want them added to the book pages. Then select the images, click the Add Pages pop-up menu, and choose Add New Pages>With Selected Images.

Note Getting the page layouts you want when adding pages automatically can be a real challenge. When you create pages automatically, Aperture will use the master pages for the book theme you have applied to your book, meaning that Aperture will create new pages based on a sequence of master pages, some with one image perhaps, and others with multiple images. This is not to say you shouldn’t use this feature—it’s just a warning that you may have to work at it to get exactly what you want.

Adding Pages Based on a Master Page You can add single new pages based on an existing master page, and you can automatically add one or more pages based on a master page with images added. First, you need to open the Master Pages window of the Pages panel, as shown in Figure 15.21, by clicking the Book Action pop-up menu and choosing Show Master Pages. Alternatively, you can drag the divider at the top of the Pages panel, as shown in Figure 15.21, to reveal the Master Pages window.

Figure 15.21 The Pages panel can be split to show both the master pages and the book pages.

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When you’re done with the Master Pages window, you can close it by dragging the divider back to the top or by choosing Hide Master Pages from the Book Action pop-up menu. Adding a New Page Based on a Master Page

To add a single empty page based on a master page, first select the book page in the Pages panel after which you want the new page to be created. Next, in the Master Pages panel, select the master page upon which you want to base the new empty page. Then click the Add Page pop-up menu and choose Add New Page from Master.

Note Apple’s Aperture user manual says you should select a master page, then select a page in the Pages panel, and then choose a New Page from Master option. But this doesn’t work, and it’s not hard to understand why: Selecting a page in the Pages panel deselects the master page you selected in the Master Pages panel. The way to make it work is to select the page in the Pages panel after which you want a new page to be added and then select a master page in the Master Pages panel before choosing your New Page from Master option. If you create a new empty page based on a master, that page will be added immediately after the page last selected in the Pages panel. However, if you choose one of the options for automatically adding images to new pages based on master pages, the new pages will always be added at the end of the book.

Automatically Adding New Pages Based on a Master Page and Filled with Images

When you want to add new pages that are based on master pages and filled with images, you have the same two options as when you automatically create new pages filled with images: You can use all the remaining unplaced images, or you can use a selection of images. To automatically create the necessary number of pages to place the remaining unplaced images and base the new pages on master pages, select a page in the Master Pages panel, click the Add Pages pop-up menu, and choose Add New Pages from Master>With Unplaced Images. To automatically create the necessary number of pages to place a selection of images and base the new pages on master pages, select a page in the Master Pages panel, click the Add Pages pop-up menu, and choose Add New Pages from Master>With Selected Images.


Note When you ask Aperture to create these pages automatically and fill them with the images from the Browser, Aperture will start with the master page you have selected in the Master Pages panel and then will start applying the master pages that come after that in the Master Pages panel. This adds to the challenge of getting these features to do what you want them to do.

Changing the Order of Pages You can rearrange the order of pages in a book by dragging a page or multiple pages in the Pages panel until you see the by-now-familiar green bar that indicates where you’ll be placing the page or pages.

Note If you try to place a single left-hand page immediately prior to a two-page spread, Aperture will automatically add an empty page on the right. If you try to delete that new empty page, you’ll just keep getting a new blank page there, because of the following two-page spread. You can either put an image or images on that page or change the previous page to a right-hand page.

Numbering Pages Automatically Aperture will automatically place a number in the lower outside corner of the pages of your books if you turn on the Page Numbers feature. You access this feature in the Book Action pop-up menu, where you can turn it on and off. You have the following two options when you turn on page numbering: ■

Always On will print page numbers on every page, even if you have a fullpage image or some other image in that corner of the page.

■

Automatic will honor your image placement and won’t print a page number over the top of an image.

Advanced Book Techniques With the skills you’ve learned in the previous sections of this chapter, you can effectively build and complete a book in Aperture. If you want to take your books to another level or if you want to create and save your own master pages, you can learn about those advanced skills in this section.

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Creating and Editing Master Pages You’re not limited to using only those master pages provided with Aperture’s themes. You can modify those master pages, and you can create your own. You can also split the Pages panel to show the available master pages and the pages of your book at the same time, as shown in Figure 15.21. To reveal that Master Pages window in the Projects panel, click the Book Actions pop-up menu (see Figure 15.4) and choose Show Master Pages. Hide them by doing the same thing and choosing Hide Master Pages.

Creating New Master Pages To add a new master page to the Master Pages panel, which will add it to the available master pages in that theme, select a master page in the Master Pages panel and then choose Add New Page from the Add Pages pop-up menu. The new master page will be added immediately after the master page you had selected, as shown in Figure 15.22. You can then double-click the name of the new master page and type in a new name for it.

Figure 15.22 You can rename master pages by double-clicking their names.


Duplicating Master Pages If you want to create a new master page that is based on an existing master page, you can select a master page in the Master Pages panel and then choose Duplicate Page from the Add Pages pop-up menu. The copied page will appear immediately after its original. You can rename it by double-clicking its name.

Creating Master Pages from Book Pages After you have edited a page in your book, you can turn that page into a master page by selecting it and clicking the Book Action pop-up menu and choosing Save Page>As New Document Master. This action results in a new page in the master pages file, which you can then access by opening the Master Pages panel by choosing Show Master Pages from the Book Action pop-up menu. You can also make changes to any book page and then save those changes to the master page upon which the book page was originally based. Select any page in the Pages panel, make changes to it, and then click the Book Action pop-up menu and choose Save Page>To Document Master. The changes you have made to the book page will be applied to the original master page. This action will not create a new master page, but it will change the existing master page.

Editing Master Pages You can edit master pages by selecting them in the Master Pages panel to open them in the preview panel. Then you can add, delete, or rearrange any existing text boxes, photo boxes, or metadata boxes on the master page. All the changes you make to that master will automatically be saved to that master page.

Editing Two-Page Master Page Spreads As explained earlier, some master pages are two-page spreads of one photo box, and some are two-page spreads of multiple photo boxes. While editing master pages, you can split a two-page spread or turn two single pages into one two-page spread. Look at the Master Pages panel shown in Figure 15.23. The master named “3-up w/Title” is a two-page spread, just like the master named “1-up Spread w/Caption.”

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When you apply one of these two-page spreads to a page in the Pages panel, the layout of the page will conform to the layout of the master page on the respective side of the two-page spread. If you want to create one of these two-page spreads, click a single page like the one shown in Figure 15.23, titled “3-up Half,” and then click the Book Action pop-up menu or Control+click the master page and choose Split Master Page. Aperture will create two pages that are exactly alike. You can then rearrange the layout of each to be what you want. If you have a two-page spread that you want to turn into a single page layout, select the two-page spread in the Master Pages panel, click the Book Action pop-up menu, or Control+click the master page and choose Unify Master Page.

Updating Pages Based on Master Pages After you have made changes to a master page, any new pages that you base on that master will reflect those changes, but the changes won’t automatically be applied to the existing pages in the book that are based on that master. You can update one page at a time with those changes or update all of the pages in the book that are based on that master page.

Figure 15.23 The two-page spreads are the side-by-side pages in the Master Pages panel.

To apply master page changes to one page at a time, select a page in the Pages panel, click the Book Action pop-up menu, and choose Reapply Master. To apply master page changes to all of the pages in the book that are based on a master, all at the same time, select the master page in the Master Pages panel. Then click the Book Action pop-up menu and choose Reapply Master.

Reverting Books Back to the Default Master Pages If you have made changes to pages—but not to the master pages—you can revert all the pages in the book back to the layouts that the master pages first applied. This operation is dangerous, not only because you’ll lose any text boxes, metadata boxes, or photo boxes you may have added, but also because you’ll be flowing in images from the Browser. In other words, if you do this operation, you’re going to replace everything on the pages with the default master page layouts and the images from the Browser—whether or not that results in the same order of images and pages you started out with. If you want to do this, click the Book Action pop-up menu and choose either Rebuild Book with All Images or Rebuild Book with Selected Images.


Note If you have made changes to the master pages, the changed master pages will be applied when you choose to rebuild.

Using Filters You can apply special effects to images by using filters. Figure 15.24 shows an image that has had the Sepia filter applied to it. To apply a filter, select an image on a page and then click the Set Photo Filter pop-up menu, as shown in Figure 15.24, and choose one of the filter options. To remove a filter from an image, select the image, click the Set Photo Filter popup menu, and choose No Filter.

Figure 15.24 Click the Set Photo Filter pop-up menu to apply a special-effects photo filter.

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Printing Books You can publish your book either by sending it out to a book printing service or by printing it on your own printer. To send your book to a book printing service, click the Buy Book button. By default, you’ll be taken to Apple’s .Mac book printing service. For more information about using other book printing services, refer to Apple’s support pages for Aperture. To print the book on your own printer, click the Print button. You’ll see the Print dialog that you should be familiar with after reading Chapter 13, but it will offer you two book printing presets, as shown in Figure 15.25, instead of image printing presets. Figure 15.25 The Print dialog box for books.

You can select a book printing preset or adjust the printing parameters to meet your needs. For more information about how to create, edit, and copy printing presets, see Chapter 13.

Index 4-Up Fast preset, 275–276 4-Up Slow preset, 275–276

A Accent Grave (`) key, 23, 24 Action pop-up menu, 193 actions, undoing and redoing, 195 Add Adjustments pop-up menu, 197–198, 255, 258–259 Add Filters pop-up menu, 186 Add Metadata From pop-up menu, 144–145 Add New Page command, 360 Add New Page from Master command, 358 Add New Page from Master>With Selected Images command, 358 Add New Page from Master>With Unplaced Images command, 358 Add New Pages>With Selected Images command, 357 Add New Pages>With Unplaced Images command, 356 Add Page command, 355 Add Pages pop-up menu, 355–358 Add to Library pop-up menu, 281, 309–310, 312, 330 Add Vault command, 113 Add Vault dialog, 113 Adjustment Action pop-up menu, 226–227, 232 Adjustment Presets, 219–221 adjustment tools, 195, 199 Crop tool, 202–204 Light Table, 283 Red Eye Correction, 214–216

Rotate tools, 200 Spot & Patch tools, 205–214 Straighten tool, 200–202 Adjustments HUD, 196, 245 adding adjustments, 197 adjusting cropping, 204 adjustment area, 197 Adjustment Preset, 219 Color adjustment area, 252 color and exposure correction, 223 Color Monochrome adjustment, 259–260 color values, 225 crop box, 204 crop values, 204 default adjustments, 198 Edge Sharpen adjustment, 255 Eyedropper button, 249 manual color correction, 232–253 Monochrome Mixer, 258 Noise Reduction control area, 255 removing adjustments, 198 resetting adjustments, 198 showing and hiding adjustment controls, 198–199 sliders, 199 Spot & Patch area, 210, 212 turning adjustments on and off, 198 Value Fields, 199 viewing color information and histograms, 225–227 Adjustments Inspector, 138, 196, 238, 245 adding adjustments, 197

adjusting cropping, 204 adjustment area, 197 Adjustment Preset, 219 Color adjustment area, 252 color and exposure correction, 223 Color Monochrome adjustment, 259–260 color values, 225 crop box, 204 crop values, 204 default adjustments, 198 Edge Sharpen adjustment, 255 Exposure Area, 220 Eyedropper button, 249 histogram, 226 manual color correction, 232–253 Monochrome Mixer, 258 Noise Reduction control area, 255 opening, 36 RAW Fine Tuning area, 234 removing adjustments, 198 resetting adjustments, 198 showing and hiding, 137, 292 showing and hiding adjustment controls, 198–199 sliders, 199 Spot & Patch area, 208, 210–212 Straighten area, 201 turning adjustments on and off, 198 Value Fields, 199 viewing color information and histograms, 225–227

366


Adjustments Presets window, 220 album pick, 173 albums, 191–192 See also book albums creation from search, 80 creation with search results, 193 displaying list, 8 filling with selected images from Browser, 79–80 moving, 80–81 from multiple projects or folders, 79 new empty creation, 77–78 viewing photos, 10–18 All Images smart album, 79 All IPTC metadata set, 130 alternate image, 172 Aperture, 2 automatically opening, 1 database, 181 default window layout, 3 desktop, 3 images, 67 integrating with Photoshop, 261–265 interface, 3–37 launching, 1–2 layers from Photoshop, 264 never overwriting original file, 68 opening to desktop, 1 printer information, 300–301 Welcome screen, 1 Aperture Preferences window, 264 Aperture vaults backing up to multiple, 117–118 creation, 113–114 disconnecting, 117 opening, 118 reconnecting moved, 118 updating, 115–116 Aperture window, 137 ApertureData.xml file, 58 Aperture>Preferences command, 10, 47, 264, 316

Aperture>Presets>Web Exports command, 326 .apimportgroup file extension, 65 .aplibrary file extension, 48, 64 Append with Preset command, 147 Apple RAW Fine Tuning preset, 233 applications dragging and dropping images into, 265–266 opening when connecting camera, 1–2, 49–50 .approject file extension, 65, 109 Archive metadata type, 140 Arrange command, 289 Arrange>Send Backward command, 346 Arrange>Send Forward command, 346 Arrange>Send to Back command, 346 Arrange>Send to Front command, 346 ARW RAW format, 85 aspect ratio, 302–303 limits, 202 photo boxes, 346 rectangular, 201 auto contrast adjustment, 230 Auto Exposure adjustment, 227 Auto Levels adjustment, 227–232 Auto Levels Combined adjustment, 230 Auto Levels Options, setting, 231–232 Auto Levels Separate adjustment, 230 Auto Noise Compensation adjustment, 235 AutoFill feature, 141 AutoFill List, 142 AutoFill List Editor, 142–143 Autoflow Selected Images command, 348 Autoflow Unplaced Images command, 348

automatic adjustments applying, 227–232 Auto Exposure adjustment, 227 Auto Levels adjustment, 227–232 automatically stacking images, 165–166 Auto-Stack Images HUD, 166

B badges, 20, 126 Light Table, 282 problems and, 135 stacking images, 164 turning on and off, 135–136 types, 136 Basic layout, 3–4, 10 Basic Layout (Option+Cmd+S) keyboard shortcut, 3–4, 38 Basic window layout, 37–38, 292 Batch Change feature, 143–145 Batch Change window, 144–145 Black Clip level, 231 Black level slider, 240–241 black point compensation, 300 blemishes patch repair, 206–210 Spot & Patch target overlay, 208 spot repair, 205–206 blurring patches, 214 Book Action pop-up menu, 345, 346, 348, 352, 354–355 Book Actions pop-up menu, 360 book albums, 191, 192–193 adjusting images, 342–346 advanced techniques, 359–363 automatically adding images to pages, 347–348 automatically generating pages with images, 356–357 automatically labeling images with metadata, 349–352 automatically numbering pages, 359 background images for pages, 347 based on search, 330

Index

based on selection of images, 330 copying photos and photo boxes, 347 creation of, 329–332 deleting, 332 deleting pages, 355 design and build operations, 332–335 designing, 335–359 displaying list, 8 duplicating, 332 filters, 363 manipulating images on pages, 339–348 manually adding images, 340–341 manually adding pages, 355 master pages, 335–339, 360–362 metadata sets, 351 navigating between pages, 333–334 new empty, 330 pages based on master page, 357–358 photo boxes, 341 printing, 364 rearranging pages, 359 removing images from pages, 341 reverting to default master pages, 362 single pages, 334 sizing, 330 text, 348–355 text boxes, 349 themes, 330–331 two-page spread, 334 two-page spreads, 337–338 viewing pages, 334–335 Book command, 330 Book Layout Editor, 332–335 Edit Content mode, 335 Edit Layout mode, 335 editing modes, 335 navigating between book pages, 333–334

Pages panel, 336 preview panel, 334–335 unavailable tools, 339 viewing book pages, 334–335 Book Size pop-up menu, 330 Boost adjustment, 233 borders and printed images, 302 bright dot, 224 brightness, 224 independently adjusting ranges, 244–248 manually adjusting, 236 Brightness adjustment, 236 brightness levels, 240 Brightness levels sliders, 242–243 color, 253 color channels, 243–244 dragging levels sliders, 240–242 effects of adjustments, 244 manually adjusting, 238–244 numeric values for, 240 Quarter-Tone Levels slider, 242 Shadows and Highlights sliders, 243 Brightness levels sliders, 242–243 Browser, 4, 10–18 abbreviating metadata, 128 badges, 135 changing metadata set, 128–131 changing view options, 20–22 choosing where metadata will display, 133 controls, 11–13 defining columns displayed in List View, 134 deselecting images, 18 dragging images to Light Table, 284 file names of images, 126 filling album with images from, 79–80 Grid View, 11 horizontal space for images, 10 identifying referenced masters, 72

367

List View, 11 metadata displays, 20 moving, 42 moving stacks to different locations in, 169 navigating images, 36 opening multiple projects, 39 proportional spacing, 10 Query HUD, 12, 183–185 quickly changing metadata displays, 133 rearranging images, 18 red tabs on, 283 resizing images, 13 scrolling, 13 Search field, 12, 182–184 search results, 182 selecting multiple images, 14–18 selecting single image, 14 Show Unplaced Images button, 285, 341 Shuttle Control, 13 shuttling through images, 13 Sort Direction button, 12 splitting into two windows, 41 Thumbnail resize slider, 11, 13 thumbnails, 50–51, 128 turning off metadata display, 132 vertical images, 52 viewing closed stack, 167 viewing metadata, 126–134 viewing unused images only, 285 visual groups to sort criterion, 52 Browser Query HUD, 330 browsing collections, 13 built-in Smart Albums, 9 built-in themes Galleries, 315 button sets, 160 buttons and ratings, 175–177

C Calendar search filter, 188 Camera Window, 50

368


cameras applications opening when connecting, 1–2, 49–50 demosaic filter, 256 noise characteristics, 235 Caption & Keyword metadata set, 130 Caption Only metadata set, 130 Centered Loupe, 23 activating, 25 default mode, 25 determining pixel level color with, 28 magnification settings, 28 more precise guide, 25, 27 parking on-screen, 27 setting size and magnifying power, 27–28 Centered Loupe (Cmd+tilde) keyboard shortcut, 25 Centered Loupe pop-up menu, 27–28 Channel pop-up menu, 240, 243 Choose Theme dialog box, 330 Choose Web Theme window, 315 Chroma Blur, 234–235 classic Loupe, 23–24 clip levels, 232 collections automatically generated, 8 browsing, 13 creation options, 8 displaying all images, 183 displaying list, 8 from light table albums, 283 search results creation, 191–194 smart, 191 sorting, 12 static, 191–192 color, 224 adjusting primary colors, 252–253 appearing different, 251–253 brightness levels, 253 determining value, 225–226 hue, 253

intensity, 253 manually adjusting, 238–244 range of possible change, 253 Color adjustments, 251–253 color cast repairing, 248–251 unnatural, 237 color channel histogram, 240 color channels adjusting, 230 adjusting levels, 238–244 brightness levels, 243–244 effects of adjustments, 244 color correction adjustment, 230 Color Correction control, 248 color corrections, 196 features, 195 manual, 232–253 color effects Color Monochrome adjustment, 259–260 Monochrome Mixer, 257–259 Sepia Tone adjustment, 260 color images, removing color information, 257–259 color meter, 225–226, 237 Color Monochrome adjustment, 259–260 Color Monochrome command, 259 color point, 237 color space, selecting, 226 color wheels, adjusting tint, 238 ColorSync profile, 300 commands, 4–5 Compare mode, 32 comparing images, 14 similar images, 178–179 “Constrain cropping tool to” popup menu, 202 Contact Sheet preset, 298, 303–304 contact sheets, 304 containers, moving, 80–81 contextual menu, 172

contrast manually adjusting, 236–237 middle tones, 248 contrast adjustment, 230 Contrast control, 236–237 Control Bar, 4 Full Screen button, 35 Keyword Controls, 32, 157 Navigation buttons, 36 Next Image button, 14 Previous Image button, 14 Primary Only button, 35–36, 178 Rating buttons, 36 Rotate buttons, 36 Select (+) button, 175 Show Master Image button, 34–35 showing and hiding, 31, 292 Viewer Mode pop-up menu, 32 Zoom View button, 24 Zoom Viewer button, 33 Copy command, 347 Copy Content command, 347 copying project files to DVDs, 121 CR2 RAW format, 85 creation dates, searching, 189 criteria adding, 186 matching any or all, 186 Crop HUD, 202 crop marks, 302 Crop tool, 202–204 cropping adjusting, 204 automatically, 201 images, 202–204 CRW RAW format, 85 Custom command, 18 custom slideshows, 277–278 Customize Toolbar command, 5 Customize Toolbar window, 5–6, 37 customizing Smart Web Galleries, 313–319 Toolbar, 5

Index

D dark dot, 224 Date search filter, 188–189 dates, searching, 187–188 decoding, 233 Decrease Diameter (Shift+Option+hyphen (-)) keyboard shortcut, 27 default window layout, 3 demosaic filter, 256 Deselect All (Shift+Cmd+A) keyboard shortcut, 18 desktop, 3–4 Detach Cursor from Loupe (Shift+Accent Grave) keyboard shortcut, 24 Detail Page preview, 319 dialog boxes, 4–5 digital colors, 223–224 digital image sharpening, 233 digital sensors and noise, 234–235 directory dialog, 118 Directory structure levels, 80 directory tree and disclosure triangle, 8 display gamma, 301 options for, 32 Dissolve preset, 275 DNG RAW format, 85 dots, 223–234 DPI (dots-per-inch), 54, 301 dragging and dropping images into applications, 265–266 dual monitors, 33 duotones, 259–260 Duplicate command, 299 Duplicate Page command, 355, 361 DVDs, copying project files to, 121

E edge pixels, 256 Edge Sharpen adjustment, 255–257 Edges control, 257

Edit Button Sets window, 159–160 Edit command, 274 Edit Content mode, 335, 348 Edit General command, 138 Edit Layout mode, 335, 349–350 Edit>Copy command, 347 Edit>Copy Content command, 347 Edit>Cut command, 341 Edit>Deselect All command, 18 Edit>Duplicate command, 299, 347 Edit>Find command, 12 Edit>Grow Selection command, 15, 17 Edit>Invert Selection command, 15, 17 Edit>Paste command, 340, 347 Edit>Paste Content command, 347 Edit>Primary Only command, 16, 178 Edit>Redo command, 195 Edit>Reduce Selection command, 16 Edit>Select All command, 15, 17 Edit>Select Compare Item command, 178 Edit>Select to Beginning command, 15, 17 Edit>Select to End command, 15, 17 Edit>Set Compare Image command, 179 Edit>Set Compare Item command, 178–179 Edit>Undo command, 195, 230 email application, 55–57 Email Export Preset pop-up menu, 55 Email Export Presets, 55 Email Images Using pop-up menu, 55 emailing images, 273–274 Enable Plate Metadata command, 316

369

EXIF - Expanded metadata set, 128 EXIF metadata, 127, 188 EXIF (Exchangeable Image File) metadata set, 132 EXIF search filter, 189 EXIF values, searching, 189 EXIF-Expanded metadata set, 131 Export As dialog box, 326 Export Masters dialog box, 270 Export preset, 56, 271 Export Presets dialog box, 55–56, 272 Export Project command, 121 export projects, 9 Export Versions dialog box, 271 exporting folders, 270–271 images, 269–273 IPTC4XMP sidecar file, 271 masters, 270–271 metadata, 273 Metadata Presets, 148 project files, 121 subfolders, 270–271 versions, 271–272 exposure, manually adjusting, 235–238 Exposure Adjustments Presets window, 220 external editor, 53–54 external folders, importing, 106–108 eyedroppers adjusting tint, 237–238 White Balance adjustment, 249

F Fade through Black preset, 275 Falloff control, 257 favorites, defining projects as, 9 File drop-down menu, 8 file formats, 83–86 File status search filter, 191

370


File>Delete Book command, 332 File>Delete command, 282 File>Delete Versions command, 105 File>Duplicate Book command, 332 File>Email command, 273 File>Export Project command, 121 File>Export>Export Masters command, 270 File>Export>Export Metadata command, 273 File>Export>Export Versions command, 271 File>Find command, 185 File>Import>Cancel Import command, 92 File>Import>Folders as Projects command, 107 File>Import>Folders into a Project command, 107 File>Import>Images command, 86 File>Import>iPhoto Library command, 104 File>Import>Projects command, 109 File>New Folder command, 76 File>New from Selection>Album command, 79 File>New from Selection>Book command, 330 File>New from Selection>Light Table command, 281 File>New from Selection>Web Gallery command, 310 File>New from Selection>Web Journal command, 310 File>New Project command, 76 File>New Smart>Web Gallery command, 312 File>New>Album command, 78 File>New>Book command, 330 File>New>Light Table command, 281

File>New>Web Gallery command, 309 File>New>Web Journal command, 310 File>Print Images command, 303–304 File>Print Light Table command, 295 File>Relocate Masters command, 72 files, naming while importing, 100–104 File>Show Aperture Library in iPhoto command, 268 File>Slideshow command, 274 Files>Manage Referenced Files command, 74 File>Vault>Add Vault command, 113 File>Vault>Restore Library command, 119 File>Vault>Update All Vaults command, 115 filmstrip, 42, 45–47, 170–172 Filter HUD, 185 filters and book albums, 363 Finder dragging external files and folders to Projects panel, 108 renaming library, 120 fine-tuning RAW images, 233–235 “Fit images within” pop-up menu, 317 Focus on Cursor command, 27–28 Focus on Loupe command, 25, 27–28 Folder Naming Presets dialog box, 96–97 folders, 75, 77 creation of, 76 exporting, 270–271 moving, 80–81 saving to for uploading, 325–326 viewing, 76 Font dialog box, 353

fonts, 353 Full Screen editing mode, 35 Full Screen mode, 42 contextual menu, 172 making adjustments and edits while in, 43 Toolbar, 44–45 viewing and working with stacks, 170–172 Full text search, 183

G gamma, 301 General metadata set, 130 General Metadata View, 138 General view, 138 GIF files, 84 gray, 224 Gray level slider, 240–241 Grid View, 11 brightness of background, 52 displays of metadata, 20–21 information about images, 12 proportional spacing, 10 Grid View (Ctrl+G) keyboard shortcut, 11 Grid View-Basic metadata set, 131 grouping similar images, 165 Grow Selection (Cmd+E) keyboard shortcut, 15, 17

H Hand cursor, 212 Header with Image command, 321 Hide Master Pages command, 360 High and Low Tonal Width controls, 248 Highlight Hot Areas feature, 30 Highlight Hot Areas (Shift+Option+H) keyboard shortcut, 30 Highlights & Shadows adjustment, 244–248

Index

HighRoad green cast preset, 219 histograms, 226–227, 240 Hot Area, 52 HUDs, 43–44 hue, 253 Hue control, 253

I icons, 5 Ignore stack groupings criteria, 186 iLife, accessing Aperture Library, 267–268 Image Capture, 2, 49–50 Image Management preferences, 47–51 Image Scale HUD, 342 Image Tooltips HUD, 28, 302 changing displayed metadata set, 128–131 viewing metadata, 134 images adding and removing from stacks, 168 adjustments, 196 amount of color, 236 applying metadata to, 141–149 arrangement on printed page, 301 aspect ratio and selected print dimensions, 302–303 associating with metadata, 124 automatically cropping, 201 automatically saving changes from Photoshop, 262 automatically stacking, 165–166 brightness, 236 changing order on index pages, 314 color corrections, 196 color effects, 257–260 comparing, 14, 178–179 contrast, 236–237 creation dates, 189 cropping, 202–204 defining criteria for displaying, 12

directory listing, 11 displaying, 8 dragging and dropping into applications, 265–266 emailing, 273–274 exporting, 269–273 filenames of, 126 full resolution, 33–34 group metadata while importing, 99 grouping similar, 165 higher pixel resolution, 302 Image Tooltips, 302 importing, 86–92 index pages, 321 information about, 12 inspecting at 100% resolution, 23–28 leveling or straightening, 200–202 lifting adjustments from, 216 lifting metadata and adjustment information from, 149 Light Table, 284–287, 287 loading, 3, 34–35 magnifying area of, 25 manipulating on book pages, 339–348 manipulating on Light Table, 283–291 manually stacking, 166 metadata and adjustment information, 152 metadata displays for, 20 metadata presets, 147 more information about, 135–136 navigating, 36 noise, 234–235 nondestructive method of editing, 66 numerical ratings, 163–164 organizing, 75–76 overexposing, 235–236 patching, 205–214 printing, 297–303 protecting, 111 ratings, 168, 174–178

371

rearranging in stack, 168–169, 171 red eye correction, 214–216 removing adjustments, 198 removing Auto Levels adjustments, 230 repositioning on Light Table, 286 resizing, 13 resizing on Light Table, 285 revealing hidden on Light Table, 289, 291 rotating, 36, 200–202 search criteria, 12 searching, 12, 182–184 selecting on Light Table, 287 sending to Photoshop, 264–265 sharpening, 255–257 shuttling through, 13 slideshows, 274–278 spotting, 205–214 stacking, 164–174 stamping metadata and adjustment information onto, 151 storing, 62–63 technical interpretation of exposure level, 226–227 thumbnails, 11 underexposing, 235–236 viewing, 18–30 viewing without Spot & Patch overlays, 211 Web journals, 321 zooming, 23–24 Images>Delete Previews command, 71 Images>Generate Previews command, 70–71 Images>Open with External Editor command, 264 Images>Update Previews command, 70 Import dialog, 90–91, 93, 99–100 Open Stack and Close Stack buttons, 167 resizing thumbnails, 88 Store Files pop-up menu, 95 Subfolder pop-up menu, 97

372


Import Panel, 86–90 imported images EXIF metadata, 127 metadata, 125 naming, 125 searching, 188 storage location for masters, 95–98 Import>Images command, 86 importing Aperture projects, 109 automatically generating stacks, 92 automatically stacking images, 165–166 canceling, 92 choosing source of images, 87–90 external folders, 106–108 from hard drives, 88 images, 86–92 inputting group metadata during, 99 iPhoto libraries, 104–106 manually creating stacks, 93 masters, 62 metadata, 125 Metadata Presets, 148 naming files while, 100–104 rules, 89–90 sample projects, 2 selecting images for, 90–91 stacking images while, 92–93 storing files, 87–90 thumbnails, 90 Increase Diameter (Shift+Option+equal sign (=)) keyboard shortcut, 27 Incrementally Decrease Magnification (Shift+Cmd+hyphen (-)) keyboard shortcut, 28 Incrementally Increase Magnification (Shift+Cmd+equal sign (=)) keyboard shortcut, 28 index page, 317

Inspectors, 32, 36–37 Inspectors panel, 36 Intensity control, 257 interface, 3–37 Basic layout, 3–4 Browser, 10–18 Control Bar, 31–36 Full Screen mode, 42 Inspectors, 36–37 Menu Bar, 4–5 preferences, 51–53 Projects panel, 6–10 Toolbar, 5–6 Viewer, 18–30 Invert Selection (Cmd+R) keyboard shortcut, 15, 17 IPC values, 189 iPhoto, 2, 49–50, 63, 104–106 iPhoto Library folder, 105 IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council) metadata set, 132 IPTC search filter, 189 IPTC4XMP Sidecar File, 271 IPTC-Basic metadata set, 131 IPTC-Expanded metadata set, 131 iWork, accessing Aperture Library, 267–268

J Journal pages adding and rearranging, 324 building, 319–324 header style, 321 text boxes, 322 JPEG files, 84, 266 JPEG -Original Size preset, 55 JPEG2000 files, 84

K keyboard shortcuts, 4 HUDs, 44 increasing or decreasing ratings, 176–177 keywords, 159 ratings, 175–176, 184

keyword changes for multiple images, 35–36 Keyword Controls, 124–125, 160 applying keywords, 157–158 Control Bar, 32 managing, 158–161 removing keyword, 158 Keyword Controls (Shift+D) keyboard shortcuts, 32 keyword groups, 153–154 keyword preset group, 159 Keyword Preset Group pop-up menu, 158–159 keyword preset groups, 159–161 Keyword Preset Groups pop-up menu, 160 keywords adding, 155 additional tools for working with, 152–161 applying, 156–157 automatically entering, 141 default set, 153 deleting, 155 editing, 155 higher-level, 154 keyboard shortcuts, 159 Keyword Control, 157–158 Keywords HUD, 153–154 Lift & Stamp tools, 149–152 locking, 156 managing, 155 versus metadata, 124 multiple, 156–157 searching, 155–156, 188 sorting, 163 subordinate, 153 subordinate keyword, 155 subordinate keywords, 154 Keywords HUD, 124–125, 152–157 applying multiple keywords, 156–157 Keywords Library list, 159–160

Index

L labels and metadata, 22, 134 launching Aperture, 1–2 layouts, 4 Levels adjustments, 238–244 Levels Adjustments Presets window, 220 Levels histogram, 241–243 libraries, 6–7 Library, 120 associating with light table album, 280 backup, 111–119 directory structure, 7 iLife and iWork accessing, 267–268 new folder or project at highest level, 76 Query HUD, 9, 182, 184–185 repositioning containers, 81 restoring, 119–120 Smart Albums, 9 “smart” collections, 8 Library file, 7, 63–67 default location, 47 different names for, 121 moving, 49 multiple, 49 protecting, 111 renaming, 47–48 storing images, 62 Library listing, 6–7 Library-wide search criteria, 9 Lift & Stamp HUD, 125, 149, 151–152, 216, 217–218 Lift & Stamp tools, 143 applying adjustments, 216–218 applying metadata and keywords with, 149–152 Lift cursor, 149 Lift tool, 149, 216 lifting adjustments from images, 216

Light Table, 192, 279 adding and removing images, 284–285 adjustment tools, 283 album of images, 280–282 aligning images, 286–287 badges, 282 Basic window layout, 292 creation, 193 distributing images, 287 grid, 279 grouping images, 287, 289 images used in layout, 283 layout area, 280–291 manipulating images on, 283–291 Maximize Browser window layout, 291 Maximize Viewer window layout, 292 Put Back button, 284 repositioning images, 286 resizing images, 285 revealing hidden images, 289, 291 selecting images, 287 turning badges on and off, 136 undoing actions, 283 views, 291–294 light table albums, 280–283 Light Table layout, 295 Light Table work area, 292–294 Light Table Zoom slider, 292 Limited text search, 183 Link/Unlink Metadata box command, 352 List View, 11 displays of metadata, 20–21 viewing and working with stacks, 170 List View (Ctrl+L) keyboard shortcut, 11 List-Basic metadata set, 131 List-Expanded metadata set, 131 loading images, 3

373

locking keywords, 156 print presets, 299 Loupe activating, 23 automatically activating, 249 automatically opening, 237 criticisms of, 24 deactivating, 24 detaching cursor from, 24 determining pixel level color with, 28 displaying color values, 225 pixel grid, 28 setting size and magnifying power, 27–28 luminance, 224, 238–244 Luminance command, 240 Luminance control, 253 luminance histogram, 240 luminance levels, 230

M .Mac account, uploading Web pages to, 325 .Mac dialog box, 326 Mac OS X, 2, 64 magnifying area of images, 25 Manage Presets command, 148, 220 Manage Views command, 141 Manage Views window, 141 managed images, 72–73, 191 managed masters, 68 manual color correction brightness levels, 238–244 Color adjustments, 251–253 fine-tuning RAW images, 233–235 Highlights & Shadows adjustment, 244–248 White Balance adjustment, 248–251 Manual preset, 275

374


manually adjusting exposure, 235–238 manually stacking images, 166 master files based on altered master, 264 edited in external editor, 262 linked to original image, 263 referencing, 62 renaming while exporting, 270, 272 warning before deleting, 50–51 Master Image, 34–35 master pages, 335–339, 360–362 pages based on, 357–358 Master Pages panel, 360 masters backup possibilities, 63 exporting, 270–271 importing, 62 storage location for imported images, 95–98 Match pop-up menu, 186 Maximize Browser layout (Option+Cmd+B) keyboard shortcut, 39 Maximize Browser window layout, 37–40, 291 Maximize Viewer layout, 41–42 Maximize Viewer window layout, 37, 292 Menu Bar, 4–5 menus, 4, 175–176 metadata abbreviating, 128 adding to or replacing, 152 applying to images, 141–149 associating with image, 124 automatically filling out text fields, 141–143 automatically labeling images with, 349–352 below image, 21 choosing display location, 133 columns displayed in List View, 134

complete sets, 21 defining, 123 displaying for image, 20 displaying labels with information, 134 exporting, 273 importing, 125 inputting during importing, 99 inputting or editing, 143–145 keywords and, 124 labels, 22 Lift & Stamp tools, 149–152 lifting from image, 149 mini-sets, 21 modifying with, 147 pick image, 173 quickly changing display, 133 reducing number of tags, 140 revealing in Viewer, 28 searching, 191 sorting, 163 stamping, 151–152 tags with custom entries, 142 on top of image, 21 turning off display, 132 viewing, 126–136, 138 Web Galleries, 316 Metadata Actions pop-up menu, 138, 141, 146–148 metadata boxes, 350–352 Metadata Inspector, 124–125, 127, 138–139, 143 Keywords editing section, 154 Metadata View pop-up menu, 130 opening, 37, 137–135 showing or hiding, 137 metadata presets, 145–148 Metadata View, 138 Metadata View menu, 138 Metadata View pop-up menu, 140, 144, 316 Metadata Views, 138–141, 146 Metadata>Add Keyword command, 158–159

Metadata>Batch Change command, 144 Metadata>Edit AutoFill List command, 142 Metadata>New Keyword command, 158 Metadata>Reject command, 176 Metadata>Remove Keyword command, 158–159 Metadata>Select command, 175 Metadata>Unrated command, 176 midtones, 224, 248 Mighty Mouse, 28 Mild Contrast control, 248 mini book theme, 330 Minimize Size command, 294 monitors, 32–33 monochrome images, 259–260 Monochrome Mixer, 257–259 Monochrome Mixer command, 258 Monochrome Mixer Presets, 258–259 Monochrome preset, 259 Monochrome with Blue Filter preset, 259 Monochrome with Custom Filter preset, 258 Monochrome with Green Filter preset, 259 Monochrome with Orange Filter preset, 259 Monochrome with Red Filter preset, 259 Monochrome with Yellow Filter preset, 259 Move Current Page Down command, 324 Move Current Page Up command, 324 Multi mode, 32 multiple images contact sheets, 304 inputting or editing metadata, 143–145 keyword changes, 35–36 keywords from Keywords HUD, 156

Index

metadata, 144–145 metadata presets, 147 primary selection, 16–17 printing, 303–305 ratings, 35–36, 177–178 selecting, 14–18 stamping adjustments onto, 218 stamping metadata and adjustment information onto, 152 time zone, 144 version name, 144 music and slideshows, 278

N Name & Caption metadata set, 130 Name & Rating metadata set, 130 Name Only metadata set, 130 naming files while importing, 100–104 Naming Presets dialog box, 103–104 Navigator, 292, 294 NEF RAW format, 85 New Album from Selection command, 79 New Book from Selection command, 330 New Contact Sheet Preset command, 299 New Empty Album command, 78 New Empty Book command, 330 New Empty Light Table command, 281 New Empty Web Gallery command, 309 New Empty Web Journal command, 310 New from Selection>Light Table command, 281 New from Selection>Web Gallery command, 310 New from Selection>Web Journal command, 310 New Light Table from Selection command, 281

New Page for Each Day command, 324 New Single Image Preset command, 299 New Smart Web Gallery command, 312 New Smart>Web Gallery command, 312 New View command, 140 New Web Gallery from Selection command, 310 New Web Journal from Selection command, 310 New>Album command, 78 New>Book command, 330 New>Light Table command, 281 New>Web Gallery command, 309 New>Web Journal command, 310 noise, 234–235 noise reduction, 253–255 Noise Reduction adjustment, 255 Noise Reduction command, 255 number ratings, 176 numerical rating, 175

O OLY RAW format, 85 opacity and target overlays, 214 operations controls, 36–37 original image, loading, 34–35 Other Metadata search filter, 191 output preferences, 53–57 overexposed areas, 30 overexposing images, 235–236

P package files, 64–65 Page Action pop-up menu, 324 Page Template pop-up menu, 321 Pages panel, 333, 336 paper, 300 Paste command, 347 Paste Content command, 347 Patch repair, 205–210

375

patches, 205–214 adjusting, 211–214 blurring, 214 selecting, 211–212 PDF documents, 303 performance, 69 Photo Box Alignment command, 345 Photo Box Aspect Ratio command, 346 Photo Box Aspect Ratio menu, 346 photo boxes, 341 aligning images within, 345 aspect ratio, 346 copying, 347 image size and placement within, 342–343 layering, 346 manipulating, 344–345 resizing, 344 Photo Info-EXIF metadata set, 130 photos copying, 347 information about, 124 viewing, 10–18 wrong color temperature setting, 248–251 Photoshop, 49–50, 67, 261–265 pick images, 167, 172–174 pixel grid, 28 pixels, 223 amount of color, 236 color and luminance values, 28 displaying color values, 225 distribution of levels of brightness, 226 dots, 223 increasing contrast between adjacent, 256 increasing or decreasing saturation, 248 overadjusting brightness range, 231

376


radius around, 245 range of brightness, 226 setting sample size, 226 values as color point, 237 Placement pop-up menu, 21 PNG files, 84 Position pop-up dialog, 272 preferences, 47 Image Capture application, 50 Image Management, 47–51 interface, 51–53 output, 53–57 previews, 57 Preferences (Cmd+comma) keyboard shortcut, 10 preferences panel, 10 Preset Action pop-up menu, 219, 235 Preset Name Formats, 101–102 Preset Name panel, 298–299 presets, 56–57, 97, 145 Presets Action pop-up menu, 220 previews, 62, 68 defining size, 59 deleting, 71 dragging and dropping into applications, 265–266 generating, 57, 68 generating in background, 70 iLife and iWork accessing, 267–268 manually generating, 70 performance, 69 sharing, 58 sharing with iLife and iWork, 69 turning on and off, 70 updating, 70, 71 Previews folder, 67 previews preferences, 57 primary colors, 252–253 Primary (Option+R) keyboard shortcut, 16 Primary mode, 32 Primary Only option, 177 Primary Selection, 216

primary selection Metadata Inspection, 143 multiple images, 16–17 Primary Selection Backwards (Option+Cmd+Left Arrow) keyboard shortcut, 16 Primary Selection Forward (Option+Cmd+Right Arrow) keyboard shortcut, 17 Print dialog box, 295, 297–303 Print Preset Action pop-up menu, 299 print presets, 298–299 print settings dialog box, 300 printed images borders, 302 printed page, arrangement of images on, 301 printer drivers, 300 printers, 300–301 printing book albums, 364 contact sheets, 304 crop marks, 302 dimensions and aspect ratio, 302–303 DPI (dots-per-inch) setting, 301 gamma, 301 images, 297–303 images on separate pages, 304 Light Table layout, 295 multiple images, 303–305 number of copies, 299–300 orientation, 300 paper size, 300 PDF documents, 303 range of pages, 299–300 resolution, 301 saved sets of parameters, 298–299 scaling, 301 Project Action pop-up menu, 9 project files, 121–122 Project panel (W) keyboard shortcut, 7

projects, 6–9, 75, 77 associating Light Table album with, 280 creation of, 76 importing, 109 importing external folders as, 106–108 moving, 80–81 moving stacks into, 169 opening multiple in Browser, 39 turning on and off previews, 70 viewing, 76 viewing photos, 10–18 Projects panel, 4, 6–10, 76, 107 dragging external files and folders from Finder to, 108 number of versions in collections, 52 showing and hiding, 292 untitled Light Table, 281 Update All Vaults button, 115 Vaults panel controls, 112 Projects pop-up menu, 8 PSD (Photoshop) file, 54, 84

Q Quarter-Tone Levels slider, 242 Query HUD, 12, 77, 105, 182–185, 313 adding search criteria, 186 controls, 186 referenced masters, 73–74 search criteria, 187–191 searching, 184–191 Smart Albums, 193 smart collections, 185, 193–194 Smart Web Galleries, 193 static collections, 192–193 Query HUD Action pop-up menu, 330 Query HUD (Cmd+F) keyboard shortcut, 12 Quick Search field, 187 Quick Search pop-up menu, 187 quick text search, 187

Index

R Radius control, 245 RAF RAW format, 85 Range control, 253 ratings, 126, 163–164 buttons, 175–176 five stars, 175 images, 174–178 increasing or decreasing, 176–177 keyboard shortcuts, 175–176 menus, 175–176 multiple images, 35–36, 177–178 number, 176 numerical, 175 removing, 176 searching, 184, 187 single image, 177–178 stacks, 168, 171 Ratings metadata set, 130 RAW files, 84 RAW Fine Tuning controls, 235 RAW Fine Tuning preset, 235 RAW format, 69, 85–86, 227 RAW images, 233–235 incompatible, 86 sharpening effects, 256 Reapply Master command, 362 Rearrange Viewer and Browser (Shift+W) keyboard shortcut, 19 rearranging images in stacks, 168–169, 171 Rebuild Book with All Images command, 362 Rebuild Book with Selected Images command, 362 Rectangle selection, 317 rectangular aspect ratio, 201 Red Eye Correction, 214–216 Red Eye HUD, 214–215 Red Eye target overlay, 215–216 Red Eye tool, 215

redoing actions, 195 Reduce Selection (Shift+E) keyboard shortcut, 16 Referenced Files window, 74 referenced images, searching, 191 referenced masters, 35, 68, 71–74 Reject rating, 175–176 Remove from Light Table command, 284 Remove Vault command, 118 Replace with Preset feature, 147 resolution and printing, 301 Restore Library dialog, 119 restoring Aperture Library, 119–120 RGB Readout (Shift+Control+Accent Grave (`)) keyboard shortcut, 28 Rotate tools, 200 rotating images, 36, 200–202 Run Slideshow dialog box, 274, 277

S sample projects, importing, 2 saturation, 236, 248 Saturation adjustment, 236 Saturation control, 253 Save as Camera Default command, 235 Save as Preset command, 146–148, 219 Save Page>As New Document Master command, 361 Save Page>To Document Master command, 361 scaling and printing, 301 scrolling mouse, 206 search criteria, 9, 77 adding, 186 images, 12 matching, 186 Query HUD, 187–191 Search field pop-up menu, 184

377

Search Scope preference, 53 searching album creation from, 80 basics, 182–191 creation dates, 189 criteria, 164 dates, 187–188 displaying results, 182 EXIF values, 189 Full text search, 183 for images, 124, 182–184 images, 12 for images for Smart Web Gallery, 312 imported images, 188 IPC values, 189 keywords, 155–156, 188 Limited text search, 183 managed images, 191 metadata types, 191 Query HUD, 184–191 quick text search, 187 ratings, 164, 184, 187 referenced images, 191 scope of, 53 by text string, 183 through stacks, 186 Select All (Cmd+A) keyboard shortcut, 15, 17 Select to Beginning (Shift+Home) keyboard shortcut, 15, 17 Select to End (Shift+End) keyboard shortcut, 15, 17 selecting images, 14–18 Selection tool, 201 Selection>Album command, 80 selections, moving, 16 Sepia filter, 363 Sepia Tone adjustment, 260 Set Master Page pop-up menu, 336, 338 Set Photo Filter pop-up menu, 363 shadows, 237, 248 Shadows and Highlights sliders, 243

378


sharing previews, 58 Sharpen adjustments, 255–257 Sharpening adjustment, 233 sharpening images, 255–257 Show: pop-up menu, 6 Show Adjustments (Ctrl+A) keyboard shortcut, 36 Show Auto Adjust Options command, 232 Show Color Value, 226 Show Master Pages command, 360 Show Metadata (Control+D) keyboard shortcut, 37 Show Package Contents command, 65 Show/Hide Histogram command, 227 shuttling through images, 13 sidecar file, 271 similar images, comparing, 178–179 single image applying ratings, 177–178 inputting or editing metadata, 143 selecting, 14 stamping adjustments onto, 218 Single Images presets, 298, 303–304 Single Images Print dialog box, 304 Slideshow Preset pop-up menu, 274, 277 slideshow presets, 275 Slideshow Presets dialog box, 277–278 slideshows, 274–278 Slow Dissolve preset, 275 smart albums, 8–9, 77, 191, 193–194 smart collections, 181, 185, 191, 193–194 Smart Settings HUD, 185 Smart Web Galleries, 8, 191, 193 creation of, 311–313 customizing, 313–319 new empty, 312 searching for images for, 312

Smart Web Gallery command, 311 Sort pop-up menu, 18 sorting collections, 12 keywords, 163 metadata, 163 projects, 8 reversing order, 12 Sorting pop-up menu, 12 Split Master Page command, 362 splitting stacks, 169 Spot & Patch HUD, 205 Spot & Patch target overlay, 208 Spot repair, 205–206 spotting, 205–214 Square command, 317 SRW RAW format, 85 Stack badge, 167 Stack mode, 32 stacked images, 14, 171 stacking images automatically, 165–166 while importing, 92–93 stacks adding and removing images to and from, 168 album pick, 173 alternate image, 172 Full Screen mode, 170–172 List View, 170 manipulating, 166–172 manually creating, 92–93 moving to different location, 169 opening and closing, 167, 171 pick images, 167, 172–174 pick position, 168 ratings, 168, 171 rearranging images, 168–169, 171 searching through, 186 splitting, 169 unstacking, 169 viewing, 166–172 Stacks feature, 164–174 Stacks>AutoStack command, 166

Stacks>Close All Stacks command, 167 Stacks>Demote command, 169 Stacks>Demote Item command, 172 Stacks>Extract Item command, 168 Stacks>Open All Stacks command, 167 Stacks>Open/Close Stack command, 167 Stacks>Pick command, 172 Stacks>Promote command, 169 Stacks>Promote Item command, 172 Stacks>Set Album Pick command, 173 Stacks>Split Stack command, 169 Stacks>Stack command, 166, 168 Stacks>Unstack command, 169 Stamp cursor, 151 Stamp tool, 149, 151, 218 stamping, 217–218 Standard View, 4 static collections, 191–193 Stock Black theme, 321 storage devices, 73 Store Files pop-up menu, 95 storing images, 62–63 Straighten tool, 200–202 Subfolder pop-up menu, 96, 97 subfolders, 98, 270–271 subordinate keywords, 153–155 Swap Browser and Viewer (Option+W) keyboard shortcut, 38 Swap Viewer and Browser (Option+W) keyboard shortcut, 19 switching window layouts, 37–42

T target badges, 262 target overlays, 205, 211–212, 214 Temp control, 249, 251

Index

text aligning, 354–355 book albums, 348–355 columns, 354–355 fonts, 353 manipulating, 352–355 styles, 352 Text Box Alignment command, 355 Text Box Columns command, 354 text boxes, 349 deleting, 352 Journal pages, 322 manipulating, 349 text string, 12, 183 Text Style pop-up menu, 352 themes book albums, 330–331 master pages available, 336 Web Journals, 321 Three Up mode, 32 thumbnails, 11, 90, 128 Thumbnails folder, 67 Tibet.approject file, 65 TIF RAW format, 85 TIFF files, 54, 84 tint, 237–238 Tint adjustment, 237–238 Toolbar, 5–6 adjustment tools, 199–218 Adjustments Inspector button, 36, 196 Always Show Toolbar button, 44 converting to new format, 37 Full Screen mode, 44–45 Lift tool button, 216 Loupe button, 23–24 manipulating stacked images in Full Screen mode, 172 Metadata Inspector button, 37 New Book from Selection button, 330 New Light Table from Selection button, 281 New Web Gallery option, 310 older format, 37

Primary Only button, 16 Red Eye tool, 214 Selection button, 310 Spot & Patch button, 211 Spot & Patch tool button, 205 Stack button, 166, 168 Stamp tool button, 151, 218 switching window layouts, 37–38 text labels for tools and operations, 6 window layout buttons, 37 Toolbar (Shift+T) keyboard shortcut, 5 tools, controls for, 36–37 tooltips, 52 Tooltips metadata set, 131 transferring project files between computers, 122 two-page spreads, 337–338, 361–362

U underexposing images, 235–236 Undo command, 195, 230 undoing actions, 195, 283 unnatural color cast, 237 unstacking stacks, 169 Update Vault Path command, 118 uploading to .Mac account, 325 saving to folder for, 325–326 Web Export Presets, 326–327 Web pages, 325–327 Use Centered Loupe command, 25

V Vault Actions pop-up menu, 113, 118 vaults, 114, 118 Vaults backup system, 111 Vaults panel, 112, 114, 117–118 Vaults system controls, 112 Version Name Format pop-up menu, 144

379

versions, 271–272 View> Grid command, 11 View Options dialog box, 20, 282 View Options (Cmd+J) keyboard shortcut, 20 View>Customize Toolbar command, 5, 37–38 View>Decrease Diameter command, 27 Viewer, 4, 18–30 Alternate option, 33 badges, 135 Blank option, 33 brightness of background, 52 changing metadata set, 128–131 changing view options, 20–22 Desktop option, 33 identifying referenced masters, 72 Loupe, 23–28 maximizing viewing area, 19 metadata displays, 20, 133 Mirror option, 33 modes, 22, 32 number of images displayed in, 14, 22 options for displaying images, 23 overexposed areas, 30 previews, 62 resizing, 19 revealing metadata, 28 showing and hiding, 19 Span option, 33 turning off metadata display, 132 viewing images at full resolution, 33–34 viewing metadata, 126–134 Viewer Basic metadata set, 128 Viewer Mode pop-up menu, 22, 33 Viewer-Basic metadata set, 131 Viewer-Expanded metadata set, 131 View>Full Screen command, 42 View>Hide Toolbar/Show Toolbar command, 5

380


View>Highlight Hot Areas command, 30 View>Image Tooltips command, 28, 134 View>Increase Diameter command, 27 viewing images, 18–30 View>List command, 11, 170 View>Metadata Overlays>Browser command, 132, 135 View>Metadata Overlays>Light Table command, 132, 135–136 View>Metadata Overlays>Viewer command, 132, 135 View>Options command, 282 views and Light Table, 291–294 View>Show Loupe command, 23 View>Show Pixel Grid in Loupe command, 28 View>Show/Hide Adjustments command, 292 View>Show/Hide Inspectors command, 292 View>Show/Hide Media Browser command, 268 View>Show/Hide Metadata command, 292 View>Use Centered Loupe command, 25 View>View Options command, 20, 128, 136 View>Zoom to Actual Size command, 33, 205

W watermarks, 271–272, 327 Web Export Presets, 326–327 Web Export Presets dialog box, 326 Web galleries, 192, 307 adding and removing images, 311 Browser or Projects Panel project, 310 built-in themes, 315

changing order of images on index pages, 314 choosing metadata to display, 316 copyright information, 316 creation, 193 creation of, 309–310 customizing, 313–319 defining grid, 317 detail images sizes, 319 editing, 313 filling in gallery page, 316 index page, 314, 317 naming, 310 new empty, 309 thumbnail size, 317 Web journals and, 309 Web journals, 192, 307 adding and rearranging pages, 324 Browser or Projects Panel project, 310 building pages, 319–324 creation, 193, 309–310 defining grid, 321 images, 321 index pages, 321 naming, 310 new empty, 310 removing Journal pages, 324 themes, 321 Web galleries and, 309 Web pages, 325–327 Web sites, creation of, 309–310 Webpage Editor, 313–314, 319, 324 Welcome screen, 1 white, defining, 248–251 White Balance adjustment, 248–251 White Clip level, 231 White level slider, 240–241 window layouts, 4 Maximize Browser window layout, 38–40 Maximize Viewer layout, 41–42 switching, 37–42

Window>Hide Inspectors command, 32 Window>Layouts command, 4, 38 Window>Layouts>Basic command, 3, 292 Window>Layouts>Maximize Browser command, 291 Window>Layouts>Maximize Viewer command, 292 Window>Rotate Workspace command, 292 Window>Show Adjustments command, 36 Window>Show Inspectors command, 36, 137–138 Window>Show Keywords HUD command, 153 Window>Show Metadata command, 37, 137–138 Window>Show/Hide Adjustments command, 196 Window>Show/Hide Adjustments HUD command, 196 Window>Show/Hide Control Bar command, 31, 292 Window>Show/Hide Inspectors command, 196 Window>Swap Workspace command, 292

X XML files, 58

Z Zoom to Actual Size (Z) keyboard shortcut, 33 Zoom to Fit command, 294 zooming, 23–24


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