Top 10 Things People Don’t Realize Aperture Can Do
I was a doing an assignment for a major corporation covering one their biggest events of year. Four other photographers were covering it as well. We all had digital technicians to handle our images. My digital tech was using Aperture, of course. The others were using a combination of Bridge, Photo Mechanic, Photoshop and Lightroom. One of the other digital techs, and they do this do this every day on very large budget shoots, was saying crazy things about Aperture. He would say something like, "I don’t like having Aperture store all my files," and we’d say, uh, you don’t. It was obvious he hadn’t touched it since version 1.0 and never went back to see what it would do now. It made me realize the reason there’s a so much misinformation out there about Aperture 3 is that people who are supposed to know what they are talking really don’t. But, that doesn’t stop them acting as if they do.
Interestingly, as they complained how slow it was, we were packing up and left an hour and half before they did.
So, this experience inspired to me write a new top ten list titled "Top 10 Things People Don’t Realize Aperture Can Do."
Like most Top Ten lists, this is just my opinion based on reading blog posts, forums, and serving as Aperture tech support for all my photographer friends.
1. Integrate with iLife and iWork
It’s true many users don’t understand the power of this feature. Photographers often present their work with Keynote. Building a presentation in Keynote couldn’t be easier.
2. Sync to iPhone and iPad
Plug your phone in and the import window window will appear.
3. Work with hundreds of Plugins
There’s seems to be another plugin introduced every other day for Aperture whether is super powerful imaging software or simple export plugins.
4. Create New Versions without taking up more disk space
For us Aperture power users this seems elemental to the application. But, many people still don’t get that creating another version will not take up your hard drive space.
5. Works Seamlessly with Photoshop
You can designate Photoshop as your external editor. When you hit the Shift+Command+O an image it will open in Photoshop. After you make changes and save it will stack the new TIFF or PSD with the original image.
6. Print Multiple Pages Complete with Watermarks
Watermarking is a powerful feature in Aperture.
7. Referenced images can be stored on external hard drives
People still believe Aperture works the same way as iPhoto and version 1.0 where Aperture stores files in it’s own database. It’s true it will do that. It’s called Managed images. However, it’s important to know a user can "Reference" the images in any file structure on separate hard drives.
8. Will write iptc to master image
This was not an option in older versions, but with version 3.0, Aperture can write iptc to master file images.
9. Will Make Local non-destructive adjustments
People still don’t understand that Aperture 3 can brush on adjustments.
10. Has a Light Table Feature that allows printing
There’ s a powerful and useful feature in Aperture 3 that even power users forget is there. The Light Table allows users to lay out photos on a "Light Table" that is a great sketchpad and also a good place to print from. I rarely see reviewers and bloggers mention it. Yet, I also seen photographers use it in surprising and creative ways.
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Author: Thomas Boyd
Thomas Boyd's work has been published in a broad range of publications such as National Geographic Traveler, Sports Illustrated, Washington Post, ESPN The Magazine, The Sporting News, and U.S. News and World Report. In 2006, he was a featured speaker and team leader at the Eddie Adams Workshop. He's now on Apple’s Aperture Advisory board where he lecture and submit feedback.
9 Comments
Nik Player (27 comments.)
July 28th, 2010
Good list. I think a of people who now realise Aperture can do referenced masters don’t realise that they can still use managed masters to easily transfer photos from a field laptop to their main computer. Then using the Relocate Masters utility align the files with their chosen referenced structure.
David Medina (11 comments.)
July 28th, 2010
I love the light tables. I use them to pre design my wedding albums.
Thomas, is there any advantage of using managed libraries over referenced ones? And vice versa? Or is just a matter of personal preference?
Fred
July 28th, 2010
Nik, you have read the RB-ebook ‘Aperture Filemanagement’ very well!
Reading this Top-10 list, are you still using LR3?
Nik Player (27 comments.)
July 28th, 2010
Fred, I’m sort of in the middle at the moment, I’m planning the move back to Aperture but we’ll see.
David, managed libraries are easier to use because there is one less thing to have to “manage”. They have some shortcomings though. When your libraries get bigger referenced masters allows you to move the files to external disks. This can also help performance if the library is stored on a separate disk to the masters and/or OS. Referenced masters also allow you to share the masters with other applications if required. Some people like to use applications like Bridge / Photomechanic as part of their workflow.
Remember though that you can use both at the same time, this can be very handy as my example above stated. You can also move files from the managed library out and make them referenced files and vice-versa.
Nik Player (27 comments.)
July 28th, 2010
David, this post http://aperture.maccreate.com/2010/01/12/tip-0-referenced-vs-managed-files has more details.
Kevin Von Qualen (1 comments.)
July 28th, 2010
I’d love a post on some of the “surprising & creative” ways to use the light table….I have not explored that feature yet.
David Medina (11 comments.)
July 29th, 2010
Thanks Nik.
I have been using the reference system but all my recent wedding have been imported as a Managed Library. I wasn’t sure it there was some space saving or performance improvement using the Managed vs the Referenced.
Christopher David (1 comments.)
July 29th, 2010
I use the light table for consistent color correction (skin tones) across a large series of images (i.e. a wedding). The light table is really great at this because you can place images from the start of the day and images from the end of the day right next to each other for a visual reference of consistency – and adjustments can be made to the image right there on the light table. Honestly, I think the light table is more valuable to me than the book making tool.
Franck S
July 30th, 2010
100% agree Thomas. I spend a lot of time trying to explain how powerful Aperture is now. To many people have their opinion and don’t even used once this software. Apologize for my poor english writing. Franck from France.