Comparing
Aperture: How To Adjust And Compare Two Images
2008-02-02
Sometimes I have an image that I want to adjust to look like another in some way -- maybe the same brightness or color. This is easy to do because Aperture can display both at the same time and I can adjust one while using the other as a reference.
The first thing I do is press the S key to select Primary Only. This has no effect on adjustments (adjustments can be applied to only one image at time), but it does very conveniently make the currently selected image very obvious. Only the selected image has a white selection ring in this mode.
Here I have the upper image displayed as a reference and am adjusting the lower image:
This also works in full screen mode (F key) and with zoom on (Z key):
If I need to adjust two images at the same time, this is possible too. Clicking on an image changes the selection to that image and I make adjustments. This technique can be applied to as many images as I can cram on the screen.
The first thing I do is press the S key to select Primary Only. This has no effect on adjustments (adjustments can be applied to only one image at time), but it does very conveniently make the currently selected image very obvious. Only the selected image has a white selection ring in this mode.
Here I have the upper image displayed as a reference and am adjusting the lower image:
This also works in full screen mode (F key) and with zoom on (Z key):
If I need to adjust two images at the same time, this is possible too. Clicking on an image changes the selection to that image and I make adjustments. This technique can be applied to as many images as I can cram on the screen.
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Aperture: Compare Many Images Quickly
2007-11-02
There are times when I have a large number of images to process, and I need to do it quickly (or at least efficiently). I am at that point right now, having shot almost 3000 photos with my new Canon 30D and just thrown all of them into one project. Going through so many images in a reasonable amount of time boils down to locating chunks of similar images and comparing them against each other to pick the good ones. So how to compare as many images as possible at once?
First I make the workspace as big as possible. I go to Window > Layouts > Maximize Browser (option command B), press W to get rid of the project browser pane if it is still present, and press shift T to remove the toolbar at the top. Now the screen is full of thumbnails.
With hundreds of thumbnails on the screen it can make sense to arrange them into groups. If I'm going to compare pictures of a cat against each other then the job can be made much easier if they are all together, so either I drag them so they are adjacent, or even better select all the cat images and press command L to make a new album out of them.
But however I have these thumbnails arranged, if I have hundreds then they are too small for proper comparison. So I move the slider on the lower right all the way to the right to make the thumbnails as large as possible:
The large thumbnails are of a lower quality than the original, but it is possible to make judgements on them at this reasonable size. I can reject many right away by selecting them and hitting the 9 key.
To compare the images that remain I need more detail, and there are a couple of ways of doing this: Multi mode and Three-Up mode.
First I make sure I am in Multi mode:
Multi mode allows the viewer (and full screen view) to show multiple images at once. Primary mode shows just the currently selected image.
Then I select four adjacent images thumbnails that I want to initially compare:
By going to full screen with the F key I can make each fill almost a quarter of the screen:
To display more images I hit command left arrow or command right arrow twice, quickly. This scrolls the images up and down two at a time:
For a bigger view of one image, I can switch into Primary mode temporarily. Pressing option R fills the screen with the selected image. Pressing option U puts it back in Multi mode. To repeat with another on-screen image I click it and use option R, option U again.
Of course the loupe is always at hand, but can only look at one part of one image. No use for comparisons.
For even larger views, I use the zoom function. The disadvantage with using zoom is that with the limited VRAM on my machine (24" iMac with better graphics), going into zoom mode arbitrarily reduces the number of images from four to two or three, so losing my selection.
If four images is too many, how about three? There is another display mode called Three Up that I can use for comparisons:
To use Three Up mode, I select one image:
And then go full screen with F:
The selected image is in the center and the adjacent images are shown to either side. It's wasteful of screen space, but does the job. As I hit left or right arrow keys, the images scroll left and right. I can also click on the left or right images to make them scroll to the center.
To narrow down to just the center image and one other, I command click on the image I want. That adds that image to the selection and prevents Three Up mode from doing its magic. Command click on it again to restore the Three-Up display.
Pressing Z to zoom from Three Up mode gives me three full-size images that I can freely scroll around for comparison. Command space drag moves single images and shift command drag moves all of them together.
I've gone from roughly comparing hundreds of tiny thumbnails to comparing just three images in great detail. By rating or keywording I can pick the ones that I think are the best and then move onto another group of images.
First I make the workspace as big as possible. I go to Window > Layouts > Maximize Browser (option command B), press W to get rid of the project browser pane if it is still present, and press shift T to remove the toolbar at the top. Now the screen is full of thumbnails.
With hundreds of thumbnails on the screen it can make sense to arrange them into groups. If I'm going to compare pictures of a cat against each other then the job can be made much easier if they are all together, so either I drag them so they are adjacent, or even better select all the cat images and press command L to make a new album out of them.
But however I have these thumbnails arranged, if I have hundreds then they are too small for proper comparison. So I move the slider on the lower right all the way to the right to make the thumbnails as large as possible:
The large thumbnails are of a lower quality than the original, but it is possible to make judgements on them at this reasonable size. I can reject many right away by selecting them and hitting the 9 key.
To compare the images that remain I need more detail, and there are a couple of ways of doing this: Multi mode and Three-Up mode.
First I make sure I am in Multi mode:
Multi mode allows the viewer (and full screen view) to show multiple images at once. Primary mode shows just the currently selected image.
Then I select four adjacent images thumbnails that I want to initially compare:
By going to full screen with the F key I can make each fill almost a quarter of the screen:
To display more images I hit command left arrow or command right arrow twice, quickly. This scrolls the images up and down two at a time:
For a bigger view of one image, I can switch into Primary mode temporarily. Pressing option R fills the screen with the selected image. Pressing option U puts it back in Multi mode. To repeat with another on-screen image I click it and use option R, option U again.
Of course the loupe is always at hand, but can only look at one part of one image. No use for comparisons.
For even larger views, I use the zoom function. The disadvantage with using zoom is that with the limited VRAM on my machine (24" iMac with better graphics), going into zoom mode arbitrarily reduces the number of images from four to two or three, so losing my selection.
If four images is too many, how about three? There is another display mode called Three Up that I can use for comparisons:
To use Three Up mode, I select one image:
And then go full screen with F:
The selected image is in the center and the adjacent images are shown to either side. It's wasteful of screen space, but does the job. As I hit left or right arrow keys, the images scroll left and right. I can also click on the left or right images to make them scroll to the center.
To narrow down to just the center image and one other, I command click on the image I want. That adds that image to the selection and prevents Three Up mode from doing its magic. Command click on it again to restore the Three-Up display.
Pressing Z to zoom from Three Up mode gives me three full-size images that I can freely scroll around for comparison. Command space drag moves single images and shift command drag moves all of them together.
I've gone from roughly comparing hundreds of tiny thumbnails to comparing just three images in great detail. By rating or keywording I can pick the ones that I think are the best and then move onto another group of images.
Aperture: Compare Images Between Two Albums Or Projects
2006-11-18
A little-known feature of Aperture is that it will let you compare images side-by-side in the viewer even if they are in different projects or albums. For example, if I have an album of highly-rated images against which I want to compare candidates for five stars, I can open the candidates project alongside the album of highly-rated images and pick one image from each to view simultaneously.
Here is how to do it. Click on one project or album, then Option-click the second one. That will display two grids of thumbnails:
Use Shift W and Option W to get the grid views and the viewer arranged the way you want them. Shift W "rotates" the viewer and the grid and Option W swaps them left/right/top/bottom.
Now select the Compare image by clicking on it and hitting Return, or just option-command click if you want to save a key press. In the picture above the Compare image is the one with the orange border.
As long as the viewer is not in Primary Only mode (put it in multi mode with option U if it is) clicking on another image in the other project will show it as the compared image. Here are the two images displayed together in my viewer:
Clicking on another image or using the arrow keys will change the compared image (white border). Option command clicking on an image or using option with the arrow keys will move the Compare image.
This all works in full-screen mode too, but the Compare image is static and cannot be changed.
Here is how to do it. Click on one project or album, then Option-click the second one. That will display two grids of thumbnails:
Use Shift W and Option W to get the grid views and the viewer arranged the way you want them. Shift W "rotates" the viewer and the grid and Option W swaps them left/right/top/bottom.
Now select the Compare image by clicking on it and hitting Return, or just option-command click if you want to save a key press. In the picture above the Compare image is the one with the orange border.
As long as the viewer is not in Primary Only mode (put it in multi mode with option U if it is) clicking on another image in the other project will show it as the compared image. Here are the two images displayed together in my viewer:
Clicking on another image or using the arrow keys will change the compared image (white border). Option command clicking on an image or using option with the arrow keys will move the Compare image.
This all works in full-screen mode too, but the Compare image is static and cannot be changed.
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