Ian Wood, a prolific poster on Apple's Aperture discussion forum (how does he get anything else done?) has posted a quick how to on sharing Aperture image adjustment presets.

Tags: Aperture, Tips And Tricks, Presets

If you want to see how a crop will look in the final image but still play with it, set your workspace up like this:

After starting the crop with the C key, adjustments of the crop rectangle in the viewer are accompanied by thumbnail regeneration in the browser. Once it looks right, press A to finish. The same trick works in full screen mode:

Just make sure that the thumbnails are set to be visible all the time by setting the viewer mode to On:

Tags: Tips And Tricks, Aperture, Cropping, Workflow, Workspace, Thumbnails

Greg Newman has cheat sheets for Aperture and Lightroom on his site. His screen shots take you to Flickr, so don't go there.

What you really need is to look for the links under the images and download the ZIP files, two for Lightroom (Mac and Windows) and one for Aperture. After unzipping you'll find a large PNG image for on-screen use and a PDF for printing.

Tags: Aperture, Lightroom, Cheat Sheets, Tips And Tricks

Jellyfish: 1/20s f/2.8 ISO1250 @55mm, Canon 30D, Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8, adjusted, cropped

I've put together what I think is a comprehensive list of ways to speed up Aperture. Some are quick, some are cheap, some are neither.

Get A Faster CPU Or More CPUs
Up to a point more GHz and particularly more CPUs will speed up Aperture. I say up to a point because there are diminishing returns as processors are added. And because CPU speed is secondary to GPU speed. Which brings me to...

Get A Faster Graphics Card
Aperture is very GPU-intensive. If you are buying an iMac, get the fastest graphics option you can, and get the most VRAM you can. If you have a Mac Pro, then configure it with fastest graphics card option find with the most VRAM. When you have your card...

Plug The Graphics Card Into The Fastest Slot
That's going to be a 16x PCIe slot on most machines. Second best is an 8x slot. If you have two graphics cards then put the fastest one in the fastest slot. And to run two screens with Aperture...

Connect Both Screens To One Video Card
It's much faster to drive both screens from one card because the CPU only has to transfer the data once to the card to have it available on both screens. And also because that one card will be in the fastest slot. But even if you have two screens you can make things faster ...

Use The Smallest Screens That Are Useful
Yes a 30" Cinema display is very nice, but you will get more speed out of 23" simply because there will be fewer pixels to process. Another reason for smaller screens is that the larger the screen, the more VRAM is used, and so the less that is available for cached images and the slower the overall performance. Or if you don't need the second screen...

Use Just One Screen
One screen will be faster than two for all the reasons that apply to using a smaller screen.

Add More RAM To Your Mac
Running Aperture on a machine with less than 2G of DRAM is asking for slow. Consider 3G a minimum, particularly if using RAW.

Get A Faster Hard Drive Or Use Striped Hardware RAID
A faster hard drive will have some impact on the speed of Aperture, but not as much as you might expect. The fastest set-up will have internal or eSATA drives running in a striped arrangement so that data can be read from both drives simultaneously. Hardware RAID will ensure that writing is fast as well.

Make Sure You Have The Latest Version Of Aperture
Each release has run faster than the previous one, so be sure you are up to date. While you are at it...

Install Leopard
While Leopard does appear to have some odd problems for some Aperture users, it also runs faster and smoother. At some point Aperture will be optimized for Leopard, not just compatible with it and we'll see a big speed bump.

Set Processor Performance On Fastest
Older PPC machines and some laptops have a setting in the Energy Saver preferences to run the processor at different speeds. Select the Fastest setting.

Plug Your Laptop Into The Mains Power
I'm guessing here (since I don't have a laptop), but it is normal for laptops to run faster when plugged into mains power since they have no need to conserve power drain. Speed throttling when used on battery includes the GPU these days, so will have an impact on Aperture.

Turn Off Spotlight
If you have images on a drive or partition separate from your boot disk, disable Spotlight for that drive. This will prevent the OS from attempting to index and reindex the library and its images and will make things a little faster.

Reindex The Aperture Database
Each library has an SQLite database that exists to speed up access to all the images and metadata. Over time the index for this database gets fragmented and so is slower. So about every month or so, it is worth forcing that index to get rebuilt (see Applescript here). It takes a few minutes and can have dramatic results. It's much faster than if you...

Rebuild The Aperture Database
By starting Aperture with Option and Command held down, the database will be rebuilt. This can take a few hours because Aperture has to read all the files in the library to collect all the data and store it in a new database. But it can work miracles.

Turn Off Previews
Generation of high resolution previews can eat up a lot of processing capacity as well as disk space. If you don't need them, then turn them off and delete them. Thumbnails up to 1024 pixels are always generated, so there is nothing you can do about that.

Turn Off Sharing With iLife
Sharing previews with iLife uses an XML file that is regenerated when Aperture quits. This can take a long while if there are a lot of previews, so by turning off iLife sharing quitting can go faster. You will find the setting in Aperture's preferences.

Turn Off Anti-Virus
Anti-virus software is invasive and very resource-hungry. Turn it off for a dramatic improvement in speed.

Make Changes To The Keyword List With No Thumbnails Showing
In some circumstances changing the keyword list -- things like renaming or rearranging the keywords -- can go extremely slowly. These delays can be almost completely eliminated by ensuring that the browser is not showing any images when the keyword list is changed.

Use A Small Viewer
Since thumbnails are generated at 1024 pixels size, using a viewer that is equal to or smaller than that can give some speed up. The thumbnail is almost identical to the processed RAW image, so many decisions can be made immediately without having to wait for the full image to load.

Turn Off Automatic Version Generation For Adjustments
Aperture has a peculiar option in its preferences that make it generate a new version every time a slider is moved or a button clicked on the adjustments HUD. This makes things very slow since Aperture generates thumbnails for each of these versions. Turn that option off.

Use A Firewire Card Reader
Most card readers are USB and USB is not particularly fast. Firewire card readers can run at more than twice the speed, especially if using several of them at once.

When Adjusting, Crop First
That might seem like odd advice, but cropping first results in fewer pixels that must be calculated and displayed and hence faster operation. Since this is Aperture and the workflow is non-linear the crop can be adjusted at any time if you are not happy with it.

Turn Off All The RAW Fine Tuning Settings
The RAW Fine Tuning settings are all turned on by default. You may not actually need them, and if you turn them off you will find that RAW processing is quite a lot faster. You can do this by changing the settings on one image and then using lift and stamp on the others.

Don't Display The Histograms
Calculating the histograms takes time and computing resources. Turn them off if you don't need them, or hide the whole adjustments panel or HUD if they are not in use. The cog menu on the HUD gives control of the histograms.

Use Slow Adjustments Last
The Highlights, Shadows, Straighten, and Spot tools are notoriously slow. So after cropping first, do everything else except those next and finish up with the slow tools.

Don't Use Full Text Search
Aperture's full text search will do a linear search of all the text available, including captions. This makes it very slow for large libraries. Instead use a limited text search if you can. A limited text search only searches text that is indexed by the database, so is much faster. Change the setting by clicking the magnifying glass in the search box.

Don't Fill Disks To Capacity
A consequence of the constant rotational velocity of hard drives is that data close to the edge of the disk can be read and written at twice the speed of that close to the spindle. Disks are filled from the outside inwards because this gives the highest data rates for the first data written to the disk. As disks are filled to capacity, the data rate slows, so fill disks only to 50% to 75% capacity for best performance.

Keep Projects Small
Small projects are faster to work with in Aperture, probably because the opportunity for caching images and database information is greater. Less than 1000 images is a good rule of thumb. Use blue folders to combine small projects into larger groups for easier management.

Use JPEG Images
JPEG images are much faster to work with in Aperture than RAW or TIFF. Rather than use RAW for everything, use JPEG where you can get away with it. Either shoot JPEG or RAW+JPEG, or just get the levels right with RAW, export as JPEG and reimport for all the remaining operations.

Use Smaller Images
Smaller images are processed faster than larger images. So unless you need the pixels, don't put them into Aperture in the first place. Shoot at less than the camera's maximum resolution, or export and reimport JPEGs at a smaller size.

Delete Aperture's Preferences File
Some weird slow-downs and delays are cause by corrupted application preferences. you can rid yourself of these by removing the preferences file and restarting Aperture.

Did I miss any?

Tags: Aperture, Speed, Tips And Tricks

Thorne sent me a great tip for creating stacks: the order in which the images are selected is reflected in their order in a stack.

For example, I select these three images in the order right, top, bottom:

I hit command K to make a stack from them:

This can save time, since if you want to create a stack with the images sorted into rating order, there is no need to create the stack and the reorganize it. Just click on the images in the order they are rated and create the ordered stack immediately.

Tags: Aperture, Tips And Tricks, Stacks, Order

The undo/redo feature of Aperture can be used to quickly compare a set of different adjustments without creating new versions. I show it here using the crop tool, but it works with any of the adjustment tools.

Here is an image I selected and displayed in the viewer:

I press C to bring up the crop tool and then make a crop, but I don't press A to end the crop yet:

Now by making several alternate crops either with a new rectangle or by dragging the one that is already there:

I get Aperture to remember this series of adjustments in its undo buffer.
Finally I press A to accept the last crop and show it:

Now by pressing command Z to undo and shift command Z to redo I can go back and forth through the crops. This works best in full screen mode, and I can press F at any time to go into or out of full screen.

When I find the one I like, I just stop and go do something else. The alternatives are forgotten automatically. If I don't like any of then, I press C again and adjust or replace the currently displayed crop.

Tags: Aperture, Adjustments, Tips And Tricks, Undo, Cropping

Bakari Chavanu is a wedding photographer who posts Aperture tips as short Quicktime movies on his site. The items covered include organizing folders for wedding photography, using full screen mode, and using the tooltips. There is also an iTunes podcast link and an RSS link.

Tags: Aperture, Tips And Tricks, Photography, Podcast

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.

Tags: Aperture, Light Table, Lost Images, Tips And Tricks, Muliple Browsers

Here is a problem that I ran into a while back. Exporting anamorphic (16:9) movies from Final Cut Express HD to iDVD does not work: iDVD does not know that they are anamorphic and so displays them as 4:3 movies, stretching them vertically. This problem does not occur with the Canon S3 video AVI format because the pixels are square -- nothing is stretched for display.

However for DV shot in anamorphic mode, as I do for all my movies shot with a regular DV video camera, this is a problem. The solution is to export the video as a reference Quicktime move from Final Cut Express HD with all the markers exactly as you would normally do, and then run Anamorphicizer on it. This utility sets a flag in the exported movie that is recognized by iDVD. iDVD then does the right thing and the move is burned to DVD with the correct aspect ratio settings. [Update: as was pointed out by a reader, you need Quicktime Pro to do this].

The movie exported from Final Cut Express HD will usually be a reference movie. Here is mine:

It shows up in the Finder with this information:

To get Anamorphiciser to process it, I drag and drop the icon onto the Anamorphicizer icon. Anamorphicizer will open the movie and display color bars for a short time, then display a dialog:

The movie will be opened at the first frame and the name changed to Shell.mov. I click OK to dismiss the dialog box and then from the menu bar, select File > Save As... The dialog displayed is a little odd:

The folder it shows is called Resources and it already contains some items don't look like anything I have created. This happens because the utility is actually showing me the Resources folder inside the application. I don't want to save my movie here! So I change the folder to a more sensible location, give the movie a name that indicates that it is wide now, and set the selection to save as a reference movie:

Hit Save and I am done. The icon has changed to a Quicktime icon:

But that makes no difference to iDVD. Drag that onto iDVD.

You can download Anamorphicizer from this page. There are two versions: one for Quicktime previous to 7 and one for Quicktime 7.

Tags: Final Cut, Anamorphic, 16:9, iDVD, Quicktime, Importing, Tips And Tricks

It is possible to create new Aperture projects quickly and without taking your hands off the keyboard:

• Select an existing project that is inside the library or blue folder where you want the new projects to be
• Press command N
• Type the name of the new project
• Don't hit return or click anywhere: just hit command N again and repeat for the next project

Tags: Aperture, Tips And Tricks, Projects

I just discovered that the ISO button on the Canon S3 allows me to change the brightness of movies while they are being shot. It appears to add a bias to the automatic exposure. The MF button is also a handy one for shooting movies: it locks the focus and prevents hunting in low light.

Tags: Canon, S3, Movies, Tips And Tricks

Dragging image files onto Aperture normally just copies them into the library. If you hold down the command and option keys as you drag, then the image is added as a referenced master instead of a managed master.

Tags: Tips And Tricks, Aperture, Referenced

The levels adjustment control has a nice row of draggable knobs along the bottom and Aperture users are familiar with these. What is not so obvious is that the four points across the top that just look like markers are draggable too. It's an odd interface design that gives otherwise identical controls a different appearance.

Here is the levels adjustment control with the quarter points shown (click the button below the cog to switch between one and three control points):

And after moving the output (top) points, still leaving the source (bottom) points alone:

Unfortunately there is no numerical display or input on the output points, and that reinforces the idea that these points are fixed. How do I communicate the values that I have chosen to someone else?

There is more than simple dragging. Option-dragging will keep the lines at the same angle and move both end points. That is how I got this:

Command-clicking an end point will straighten the line keeping the clicked point stationary, like this:

And this gives a way of figuring out the numerical value of the output points. Command click on one of them to straighten the line, then read off the value from the box at the bottom. Use command Z to undo that, and then repeat with the other two points.

To set the output points given a set of values, type the values into the boxes at the bottom, straighten the lines by command-clicking on the bottom (source) points, then adjust the source points to their correct values.

Tags: Aperture, Tips And Tricks, Adjustments

I often use each of several slightly different variations of an image for different purposes. I may use one as an original for my Canon S3 gallery, one as a quickly adjusted image for my desktop wallpaper, and one as a "made better" image for showing off.

How do I manage these variations? If I keep these versions in different places that are related to the way the image is to be used (such as in projects or albums), then how will I ever find all the variations of one image? If I keep them all together, then how will I know what purpose each is to be used for?

I solve the dilemma by putting all of the variations into a stack so they are grouped together and then using keywords to reveal their purpose. Here is an example:

The leftmost image has a caption, keywords, and ratings and it has been adjusted. That is my show-off image, so it is the pick. The center image is a copy of the leftmost image, but has different adjustments, including cropping. This one has an extra keyword attached: Actions > Wallpaper. The rightmost image is completely unadjusted and unrated. The only keyword attached is Actions > Bagelturf Gallery.

With my images all collected together into a stack, if find one, I find them all. To use them for different purposes I create smart albums, one per purpose. One of them looks for recent wallpaper images. As well as filtering on the Wallpaper keyword, it also has the following settings:

The date condition defines recent as shot in the last three months. The checkbox at the bottom is important because it allows this filter to look inside stacks. Without that the stack that I used above would hide the non-pick variations I want to find. I have a similar filter for Bagelturf Gallery that collects all the images that I post in the Canon S3 gallery.

To use one of the smart albums I just select it, let the images load, and then export the result, or use the associated previews.

As an alternative I could have not used a stack, but instead have tagged all the related images with a common keyword. But this quickly runs into trouble. I have to make all of my tags different, and when I have many images and just a few purposes, it is easier to tag for purpose than for image. Using versions names could work, but it is easily broken because version names are often modified.

Tags: Aperture, Stacks, Tips And Tricks

If you import keywords from a text file be aware of a couple of things.

1. The file must have a .txt extension, or Aperture will not let you open it. Easy to fix.

2. Make sure that the text file has Unix line endings (line feeds -- hex 0A). Not quite so easy to fix.

DOS line endings (line feed, carriage return -- hex 0D 0A) will seem to work, but will actually create keywords with carriage returns on the end and confuse you like crazy later on.

MacOS 9 line endings (carriage return -- hex 0D) will import only the first word in the file. But repeated imports of the same list will keep adding more and more copies of the same first keyword to the HUD.

You can easily check and clean your file if you suspect a problem. Get a copy of TextWrangler and open the file containing the keywords. Click on the document icon at the top of the window:

And if Unix is not selected, select it and save the file. That's it. You can also use TextWrangler to view invisible characters, indent whole blocks of text, clean up bad characters, and dump the file in hex.

Tags: Aperture, Keywords, Importing, TextWrangler, Tips And Tricks

When I installed Aperture I also included the Tibet installation so I would have something to play around with. Not only did Aperture create an 800MB library for me, it also added a file called Tibet.approject in Application Support which is also 800MB in size. I had since trashed the library I was playing with, but only recently discovered the extra 800MB project sitting there.

An easy way to find this and other unseen Aperture project files is to open the boot disk and type "approject" in the search box.

A handy tool for finding where gigabytes have been consumed is a Java tool called JDiskReport. Let it run on your disk and it will graphically show you what the big hits are.

Tags: Aperture, Tips And Tricks

With a screen full of thumbnails (hit V to make the viewer go away) for captioning or keywording, you can often find yourself wanting to view one or more images for a better look:

There is a very easy way to do this: hit F to go into full-screen mode:

If you have multiple images selected and are not in Primary Only mode, you'll see all of them displayed. To return to the thumbnails, just hit F again.

Tags: Aperture, Full Screen, Tips And Tricks

You can easily find out which vaults Aperture has archived individual images into. Select an image and then show the inspector (I). Then look at the metadata section at the bottom. Click on the Archive button bottom right:

That shows the name of the vault (Local250 in my case) and the date and time that this image was updated in the vault. Really the button should say Vault instead of Archive. If you enable the Include In Summary checkbox then the vault information is added to the metadata set selected above, in this case the General set. That lets you display the vault information on screen with the image.

Tags: Aperture, Tips And Tricks, Vaults

That's the bag I keep my Canon S3 IS in. It's 7 inches (18 cm) high, 4.5 inches (11.5) wide, and 4 inches (10 cm) deep with the camera inside. Also inside is a pack of four batteries (flat across the bottom) and in the pocket are spare cards. The camera goes in with the grip at the top and the lens pointing away from me. That's it. There is nothing else to carry. That set up is good for more than 1100 pictures. I could fit a second pack of batteries in there too if I tried.

The two zippers go all the way to the bottom and there are pieces of fabric that prevent it from opening too far. So access is really easy. It has a velcro strap that hangs it on my belt (I never use the shoulder strap). It's a TRAX TCP 03 and cost about $10 at Best Buy.

Tags: Canon, S3, Tips And Tricks

I discovered that it is possible to change the image stabilization mode from Shoot Only to Continuous and back again without going to the menu. You can do it quickly between shots. This might be useful in some circumstances, since while Shoot Only gives better results than Continuous, the viewfinder image is more jumpy.

Here is how to do it. Set the camera into Shoot Only IS mode by going to the menu and selecting it under IS Mode. Look through the viewfinder, zoom to 12x or more, and take a picture in Shoot Only mode -- but don't let the shutter button come all the way up. This will stop the camera from forgetting its current focus (you still have a green rectangle) and will also keep the IS turned on, running continuously. Now the viewfinder image is steady and you can take more pictures, either letting the button come all the way up to go back to Shoot Only mode, or letting it come part-way up to stay in Continuous mode.

Tags: Canon, S3, Image Stabilization, Tips And Tricks

How do you stop the Canon S3 from refocussing between shots? You can use manual focus, but that is a pain to set up. Auto Focus Lock doesn't help because it's not remembered between shots.

It's actually very easy, and works with Continuous shooting mode too: simply keep the shutter partially depressed instead of releasing it between shots. In other words, press all the way to take a bunch of shots, then ease off the shutter button until the camera stops shooting. The green focus rectangle is still there. Depress the shutter to take more shots at the same focus. Repeat as needed.

Tags: Canon, S3, Focus, Tips And Tricks