There is one feature of Aperture that I rarely use: the light table. I'm usually showing pictures to people one at a time, either manually from the library or as a slide show, so I have no need to show a whole spread of pictures or to see how images look laid out next to each other. Professional photographers do have these needs, and I can see how the light table -- especially on a really big second screen -- is a big help when communicating with clients or mocking up a publication.

I find that the easiest way to create a light table is to select some images and use a control-click to get New from Selection > Light Table:

Then rename the light table by filling in the name:

At this point I try to make the light table as big as I can. I collapse the header with the small toggle button top right, and use Window > Layouts > Maximize Viewer (option command V). Using a small window so I can post the images here I get this:

There are my images at the bottom. Option W will put the thumbnails at the top, and shift W will put the thumbnails at the left or right. I like a black viewer background. This is set in the Aperture preferences:

To get images on the light table, I select and drag. They are automatically positioned if I select and drag more than one at once:

Now I can move them around and scale them with their handles. The thumbnails gain little 1 markers that tell me how many times they have been used. Since I can't use each image more than once on a light table, I never see 2 or 3 (there is a workaround for this, later).

Usually two things happen at this point that cause images to disappear. Either I lose images under other images or I drag one close to the edge of the window and it races off to one side as the light table is scaled, leaving the others far behind. To get an image out from behind others, as in this case:

there is the uncover (shift X) button top left:

Selecting a foreground image and clicking the button pulls those behind out. Clicking it again puts them back. Clicking one of the uncovered images cancels the uncover operation and leaves the clicked image on top:

The other problem, that of a dragged image leaving the others behind is fixed by using one of the controls top right:


The button second to left scales the display to fit the items. Or it should! Actually it scales to fit the light table. If the light table has been stretched, then it stays stretched and the button is not very useful. Because of this it is pretty much equivalent to dragging the scale slider on the right all the way to the left. The light table can be bigger than you think, so this can result in some small images in a big black space. I have yet to figure out how to reduce the size of the light table once it has been stretched out like this:


The leftmost control is the navigator. It can be hard to use. It scales the display and shows a very faint rectangle that represents the window. By dragging that rectangle I can select what part of the light table I want to view. I almost never use it. Unfortunately there is no working scale to selection button. That is really the only button I need for fitting content to the screen.

Having viewed the light table in this way I can drag the errant image back to the flock and then rescale it back to something sensible.

One puzzle is how to get two identical images onto the light table. Dragging an image on a second time just replaces the first image. The trick is to make new versions of the image and use those. By selecting one of my images and pressing option V twice I make two duplicates:

Then I can drag them out of the stack or use command shift K to unstack the stacked items all at once. Now each version can be dragged once to the light table:

The loupe works on the light table, as do all the other controls. T will bring up image data in a tooltip, F will make any image full-screen. Images can be adjusted in place by bringing up the adjustment HUD (H). Cropping will not work in place, but it is much easier to hit F and H and do all editing full-screen if needed, and crop works fine there.

Stacks can be viewed in-place and reordered. Most useful though is the ability to specify an album pick. By setting an album pick, a specific image from a stack can be chosen for use by this album (or light table). That lets the stack be kept in its original order while showing a particular preference just for this album:

The checkmark on the monochrome image shows the album pick. When the stack is closed, only that image will be visible. To get rid of the badges overlaying the images on the light table shown above, I can use shift G.

Two buttons lower left control how the browser and viewer are related. To use the regular viewer instead of the light table viewer to show the browser images, press the Show Viewer button on the left:

and select images as normal:

The lock button next to the Show Viewer button locks the browser to the light table viewer. With that selected, I can option click another project or album and have that display in a separate browser at the same time:

Selecting items in that new browser does not take over the viewer, so I can drag them into my light table browser and manipulate them in other ways. I have more information on using multiple browsers on the page entitled Multiple Browsers For Fun And Profit.

Control-clicking brings up a small contextual menu that includes options for aligning and distributing images. And of course light tables can be printed. All the selected images will be scaled to fit on one page, with the unselected images showing up as blank areas. That can be output to a PDF or printed on a printer.

I wish for a few more features: duplication of images without new version creation, the ability to add text blocks, rotated images, images with borders, layout templates, grid lines and/or alignment markers that images snap to, distribute to grid, randomize layout, scale images to the same size, and a scale display to selection that works.

This is actually one area where 3D effects would be useful: show a perspective view of the light table so it can be seen as a tablet top would. And add the ability to stand up photos and show them rendered into frames.