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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Apple Aperture is one of the leading photo editing software packages available in today's market. It provides you with all the tools to organize, browse, and perfect your images, so you can make every shot your best shot.Mastering Apple Aperture aims to teach you the skills and knowledge necessary to become a master of the Apple Aperture software. It will build upon your existing core skills and show you new and advanced ways to get things done in Apple's powerful photography software.Mastering Apple Aperture starts by showing you the most simple and efficient ways to import and organize your images. It then takes you through the techniques for processing photos before moving on to cover advanced topics like working with tethered shooting, multiple libraries, curves, and metadata.You will discover how to edit images in Aperture and will gain complete mastery over processing images. You will also explore ways of extending Aperture through the use of plugins and third-party software. This book concludes with tips and tricks for the best ways to output images from Aperture, whether for print or for screen.
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Table of Contents
Mastering Apple Aperture
Mastering Apple Aperture
Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: August 2013
Production Reference: 1200813
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
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Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-84969-356-1
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Thomas Fitzgerald (<[email protected]>)
Credits
Author
Thomas Fitzgerald
Reviewers
Chris Jones
Daniel Schildt
Ryan Valle
Acquisition Editor
Kunal Parikh
Lead Technical Editor
Neeshma Ramakrishnan
Technical Editors
Kapil Hemnani
Akashdeep Kundu
Sonali S. Vernekar
Project Coordinator
Apeksha Chitnis
Proofreader
Joanna McMahon
Indexer
Tejal Soni
Graphics
Ronak Dhruv
Production Coordinator
Pooja Chiplunkar
Cover Work
Pooja Chiplunkar
About the Author
Thomas Fitzgerald has been trained in animation and graphic designing, and from there he became a motion graphics artist working in television and film, but he always pursued his love for photography. His work with the visual medium of motion pictures encouraged his skills as a photographer and his cross-disciplined approach led him to his passion for photography today. Currently, Thomas is a freelance motion graphics artist and animator, as well as a fine art photographer and a prolific blogger. He has been using Aperture since the very first version came out, and writes and produces a popular blog about Aperture, http://theapertureblog.com.
I wish to thank my wonderful wife Mary, without whom I doubt this book would have ever been written. She has encouraged and helped me at every step and without her support you would not be reading this book today. I also want to thank my Dad without whom I doubt I would have ever developed a love for photography. My father was a keen photographer, and cameras, enlargers, lenses, and darkroom chemicals always surrounded me growing up. One of the earliest memories I have from childhood is of the line of beautifully photographed black and white portraits of our family that hung in the long hallway of our first house. I believe this inspired my love of photography from an early age. I want to thank the rest of my family who have helped encourage my artistic tendencies over the years and especially my mother for all the love and support she has given me.
Finally, I want to thank my good friends Michael, Eugene, Ian, and Gergo for their friendship and support.
About the Reviewers
Chris Jones is a programmer by day, and became inspired to take up amateur photography by the arrival of his two children, who provide an almost endless supply of adorable moments that are nearly impossible to capture! His camera is an iPhone and he is trying very hard to work with its advantages and limitations, instead of getting sucked into the expensive world of DSLR cameras. Chris lives in London with Rike, Jasper, and Niklas.
Daniel Schildt has a background in visual communication, having studied photography, graphic design, video, and other types of tools at several schools. At the same time, his continuous interest in storytelling lead him to learning both art and technology. Recently he has worked on projects ranging from building 360 degree virtual tours to retouching photos for advertising. Currently he is learning data journalism. This is his first book project as a reviewer. He can be reached via Twitter @autiomaa and has a website at http://autiomaa.org.
Ryan Valle is a multimedia specialist with credited works in the areas of video, digital imaging, web development, and video games. Ryan earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Multimedia Production in 2011 and over the years, has worked professionally in the areas of television and video production, photography, web design and development, and most recently, video games.
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Preface
When Aperture first came out, there was nothing like it on the software front. There were tools for converting your raw photos and organizing your images, but none combined the two. I first started using Aperture almost immediately after it came out. It was not just a huge change in the way I went about managing my images, but the way I approached photography in general. It was a liberating experience and it meant that I spent less time managing folders and files, and more time enjoying the art.
Over the years, Apple has added more and more features to the software, and it has become more and more complex, yet it retains a high degree of approachability. But that ease of use hides a degree of complexity underneath the surface that makes it a powerful tool in the right hands.
It was the release of Aperture that led to a whole new class of photo management software and it is Aperture that is responsible for the phrase "photo workflow". Before Aperture, this concept didn't exist. Now, the model that Apple developed is pretty much the standard way to approach post production of digital photography, and while Aperture has attracted a number of competitors to the space, the software still has many unique features, especially if you dig beneath the surface. Digging beneath that surface is what I hope to achieve with this book.
The idea behind the book was simple; I wanted to approach it in a way that solves a problem that I personally have found with a lot of books written about software. You've probably run into this yourself. You know the basics of a piece of software and you want to increase your knowledge, but most training material is written with absolute beginners in mind. You end up going through a book and trying to sieve through the basic information that you already know, while searching for the nuggets of knowledge that are not just aimed at beginners. This can be so boring and tedious that one often gives up. On the other hand, you have books that are written for very advanced users that, while skipping out on the basics, also miss out much of the intermediate information that a person might want to know.
So, Mastering Apple Aperture, is aimed at the middle ground. It's for people who know the basics, but want to learn more. If you know how Aperture works, but you want to know more details and want to learn some of the not so obvious tips and tricks, then this book is for you. It is not a book for absolute beginners, as it was written with the assumption that you already know how to use Aperture a little bit. There are no boring explanations of how to install the software, how to use the menus, what each part of the interface is, and so on. Instead, this book will build on your existing knowledge of the software and help to turn you into a true master.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Advanced Importing and Organizing, teaches the reader some of the advanced functionality of Aperture's import functionality, as well as techniques for organizing and sorting your library.
Chapter 2, Advanced Adjustments, introduces the reader to the theory behind how the camera RAW format works, and how to make use of Aperture's advanced image editing functionality.
Chapter 3, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Curves, takes an in-depth look at Aperture's curves tool as well as the theory behind curves and the histogram. You will learn how powerful feature the curves tool is and some of the many things you can do with it.
Chapter 4, Aperture in Action, builds on the previous chapters, and provides a set of real-world examples of how to use Aperture to complete various tasks.
Chapter 5, Extending Aperture, takes an in-depth look at Aperture's plugin architecture as well as looking at workflows for working with third-party software.
Chapter 6, Exporting and Outputting to the Web, looks at the many ways you can get your images out of Aperture and share them on social networks, photo sharing services or your own websites.
Chapter 7, Making Metadata Work for You, looks at the subject of metadata information, how to enter it, and how valuable it can be.
Chapter 8, Getting Better Prints from Aperture, looks at the subject of printing from Aperture, and how to get better quality and more accurate prints.
What you need for this book
This book is designed for people who are already familiar with the basics of Aperture. It assumes you know how to use a computer, and more specifically a Mac. It also assumes you have a copy of Aperture. This book was written for Aperture 3.4 or later version. If you have any version of Aperture 3, 3.4 is a free upgrade, but 3.3 and 3.4 added some key features that are covered in various parts of this book. It also assumes you have a digital camera which can shoot in a RAW format and you have access to RAW files.
Who this book is for
This book is designed for those who have a basic understanding of Aperture and photography software in general. It is not designed for absolute beginners, and it will not teach you the basics of using the software. You need to have a beginner's level of experience with Aperture specifically, and photography software in general. This book occasionally discusses photographic terms and concepts, so the reader needs to have a basic understanding of photography and photographic theory.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Clicking on the Next button moves you to the next screen".
Note
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.
Tip
Tips and tricks appear like this.
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Chapter 1. Advanced Importing and Organizing
Importing and organizing your photographs are probably the two tasks that you perform most often in Aperture. Organizing your images within the software is a fundamental aspect of what Aperture does and a vital part of any photographer's workflow. Yet, surprisingly, this is an area that is often overlooked by many people who use this software. Novices and amateurs, in particular, are keen to learn how to process their images, but don't think how a few careful decisions at the import stage can make a huge difference to their workflow. The goal of this chapter is to look beyond the basics of importing and organizing. Even if you think you understand how to keep your photographs in order within Aperture, think again. There are lots of tricks and tools that are hidden or not immediately obvious. I have been using the software for years and I'm always finding new ways to do things.
You probably think that you already know everything there is to know about importing images? Then you might be surprised to learn that there are actually lots of options in the import dialog, including many of which people are unaware of. In the following pages you will learn to use these hidden features of the import dialog and you will learn some tricks to speed up your workflow by automating certain tasks during the import stage. You will be shown ways to think about tagging at the import stage and how to make use of tethered shooting. We will also take a good look at Aperture's library structure and some of the ways to make better use of projects and albums. By the end of this chapter, you will be an importing and organizing expert, and hopefully you will save yourself lots of time in future projects. So let's dive right in.
In this chapter you will learn:
A closer look at the import dialog
When you open Aperture and proceed to import some images, you will get the standard import dialog box. If you've been using Aperture for a while, you've probably seen it hundreds of times by now. If your typical approach is to just import your photos straight to a project then your dialog probably looks a little something like the following screenshot:
Before we get to the less obvious settings, there is one thing that every photographer should do straight away, and that is to set up the metadata for incoming images. On the right-hand panel of the import dialog box you will see a heading called Metadata Presets and a corresponding drop-down menu. If you have already created a metadata preset then you can skip this part. Metadata presets lets you set up a template for inserting metadata into your images. These templates are most useful for information that will be the same in all your photographs. So, for example, things such as copyright information, website links, and so on.
If you click on the Metadata drop-down menu and choose the Edit option, you will see the Metadata dialog box. In this window you can create new presets that will contain the set of metadata you insert. This has another useful function too. It controls the fields you see in the import window. To change the fields that are displayed by default in the import dialog box, choose the Basic Info preset that should already be visible and take a look at the right-hand column. This column contains a list of metadata fields that you can display. If you want you can enter information in here. The most important thing to know is that, if you check one of the boxes, even if you don't enter any data into the corresponding field in the preset dialog, that will show up in the import dialog box.
What fields you choose to display are up to you. If you are a professional you may need certain fields depending on what you do with your images. Your publisher or editor may require certain information to be embedded in your images. We'll discuss metadata fully in one of the following chapters. But for now, just remember that this is how you turn on and off which fields are displayed in the import dialog box.
Once you have set your preset and decided which fields you want to be displayed by default, click on the OK button to save and exit the presets dialog.
Back in the main import window take a look at the little drop-down menu in the top right-hand corner that says Import Settings. This is a menu that allows you to turn on and off options for the import. From here you can toggle the following options:
Managed versus Referenced
As you may already know, Aperture lets you store your files in two different ways. When you import images into Aperture, you have the option to either have Aperture manage your files in its library (referred to as Managed), or you can have it import your files to a location that you specify on a hard drive (commonly referred to as Referenced). When you choose the latter method, Aperture just imports a reference to your image file rather than the whole file. The merits of both approaches are the cause of much debate among Aperture users. Both options have advantages and disadvantages.
On the one hand, if you store your images within the Aperture library, everything is contained in one handy location. A single file is all you need to worry about when it comes to storing, backing up, or moving a library.
Note
The library file is actually a special kind of folder called a package that behaves like a single file.
When you export a project in Aperture, it exports it as a library file and that file contain, all the image files within the library if you tell it to. This is exactly the same kind of file as the main library file and you can even switch the current library that Aperture is using to an exported library. You can have both managed and referenced files within your library, and you can choose the method on a project-by-project basis.
If you want to be able to access your files in another piece of software, however, then it makes sense to have your images stored in a folder and imported as references. That way you can go to the folder under the Finder and directly access the RAW or JPEG files from there. Otherwise, to access the RAW files you have to Export Originals to another location and you end up with lots of duplicates. Personally, I tend to use referenced when I'm working on my main workstation more often than managed, and I use managed when working on my laptop.
Tip
On my workstation all my photos are stored on a large external hardware RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives), which is set up using the RAID 5 protocol, which means that the data is protected from a disk failure. When working on my laptop I prefer to have Aperture manage my images, because it means there are less files filling up my laptop's hard drive, and I can keep everything nice and neat in the Finder.
Which method you choose is up to you. If it's not something you've ever really thought about then you probably should stick with the managed method. However, if you're more comfortable managing files and folders by yourself, then there are some advantages to using referenced files, especially if you work with other software.
Converting between referenced and managed
Switching between managed and referenced files is actually pretty easy. If you have files in the Aperture library, for example, and you would prefer to have them referenced to a location somewhere on your hard drive, you can carry out the following steps:
Or control + click, for a contextual menu.
This will give you the option to move the original files to a folder on your drive.
To do the opposite, carry out the following steps:
This will give you the option of moving or copying the image files into the Aperture library, where they will then become managed rather than referenced. If you move the files, they will no longer be in their original location, so you need to be careful with this option if you have other software that is also referencing them.
Adding keywords while importing
One of the options in the Metadata section—Keywords (if you have enabled it)—is to set what keywords will be applied to the images while importing. This is something that you should think about carefully. First of all, it's a good idea to add some keywords at this stage, but it's also important to realize that the keywords you add here will be added to all the images. You can't add keywords here for specific images. So here are a few tips for thinking about what to add during import. You generally want to be as generic as possible with the keywords you choose at this stage. You can be more specific when you are sorting and organizing.
Importing images to an album
Normally, when you import images into Aperture, you import them directly into a project, whether it is a new project or an existing one. However, you can actually import directly to an album too. Here's how to do it in the following:
With the import dialog box open, you will see your library on the left-hand side with all your existing projects and albums. If you want to import into an existing album, simply select the album in this pane. You will notice that the Destination on the right changes to the name of the album. If your album is a project album, the images will be imported into the parent project, and will automatically be added to that album.
If you select a root-level album, then the images will be imported to a new project with the date of the first image as its name, as well as being added to the album. This is because all images must belong to a project.
If you don't have an album but want to import to one, you will notice that the New button on Aperture's toolbar is still accessible when the import dialog is open, even though other options are grayed out. From here you can create a new album, and again, it can be a project album or a root-level album. I recommend you only use this method for project-level albums, because otherwise you end up with a bunch of oddly named projects.
If you're wondering why you would want to do this in the first
