First of all, you have a great website! It really has helped me get more out of Aperture! Question for you – is there a way to create a filter that EXCLUDES images with a certain keyword. Example, on import, I marked everything with “Wedding,” but I tag the ones that need some PS work also with “Retouch.” I would like to have a way to do a filter (or smart album/web gallery) that excludes that keyword.

This can be done with keywords, but with some caveats. And there are other ways to work that will let do what you are trying to achieve -- perform negative filtering.

In short the answer is to use IPTC metadata fields, or use custom fields and exploit the features of those. The full solution, together with a technique for using this metadata in your workflow requires a whole article on negative filtering (posted just below this Q&A on the blog and archived in the Metadata section of the Aperture Articles).

Tags: Aperture, Q&A, Filtering, Negative, Keywords