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aperture workflow

2023-02-11 来源:伴沃教育
Aperture Workflow - Stuart Herbert

Open ApertureBefore you can download your photosfrom your camera's memory card, youneed somewhere to download them to.Fire up Aperture, Apple's premier photomanagement application.

Create AlbumAll photos in Aperture have to be

imported into an album. Select whereyou want your new album to live, andselect \"New Album\" from the right-clickmenu.

I used to create a separate album pertopic, but over time I found that I

preferred to import all photos taken onthe same day into the one album, andthen use Aperture's Smart Albumsfeature to help me find photos bykeyword.

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Import ImagesNow that the photos have a home, theycan be imported :)

Insert your memory card into yourmemory card reader (I use the cardreader built into my external monitor). The import panel will appear. Selectthe photos you want to import, andclick on the arrow pointing at youralbum.

Aperture will now download yourphotos from your memory card.

Erase Images from CF CardWhen Aperture has finished

downloading the photos from your

memory card, it will ask you what to donext.

I always select \"Erase imported imagesand Eject Card\my memory card and then safelyunmount it from Mac OS X.

Confirm Your ChoiceIf you choose to erase the downloadedimages from your memory card,

Aperture will ask you to confirm yourchoice, just in case you selected thisoption by accident!

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Rate The Imported Images FirstI don't want to waste time on imagesthat don't cut the mustard, so once theimages have been imported into

Aperture, I go through all of them andassign them ratings. Everyone seemsto have their own rating systems; andthat's one of the beauties of Aperture -it gives you the tools to work the wayyou want.

My rating system goes something likethis:

5 ***** == perfect first time4 **** == worth adjusting

3 *** == worth looking at another dayX (reject) == omg, did I really takethat? :(

The more critical you are of your workat this particular step, the more timeyou'll save yourself going forward. Thisis especially true if you're someone likeme who publishes whole photo shootsrather than single images at a time.At this point, I would also use the rotatetool to adjust any 3 or 4 star imagesthat weren't quite right. I have atendency to shoot images with thehorizon lower on the right; I guess Ihave a heavy trigger action!

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Add KeywordsBefore I make any modifications to thephotos, I keyword them. It's importantto do it now, before you create anyadditional versions of the photos. Newversions inherit the keywords assignedto the master image at the time that theversion is created. If the master image(the original imported photo) has nokeywords, neither will the version.Keywording is one of those chores thatwe all begrudge spending time on, butits a lot worse when you keyword afteryou've created lots of versions of thephotos!

For my regular photo series calledMerthyr Road, I have a mature

keyword tree that I've worked out andadjusted over time. For a one-off set ofphotos like this, I just type the

keywords into the metadata inspectoron the right hand side of the Aperturescreen.

This is one area of Aperture that I'd liketo see Apple improve in the next

release. I prefer keywording using theKeyword HUD myself, and it would bemuch quicker to use if there was a tickbox beside each keyword in thekeyword tree. All that dragging anddropping may be cool in demos, butwhen I'm tagging a hundred photos orso for an article, it's a real time waster!

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Use Lift Stamp to Keyword All PhotosUnfortunately, you can't just select agroup of photos, and then use theMetadata Inspector or the KeywordHUD to apply keywords to all of themin one go. (This is another thing I'dlove to see Apple address in the nextversion). Instead, you need to keywordone of the photos first, and then usethe Lift and Stamp tool to copy thekeywords to other images.

Select the image that has the keywordsyou want to copy, and click on the Lifttool in the toolbar. The Lift & StampHUD will appear, along with a list ofsettings that will be copied. Untickeverything except \"Keywords\".Move the mouse over each of theimages that you want to \"stamp\" thekeywords with. The mouse cursorshould change to a downward-pointingarrow. Click on each image in turn,and Aperture will add the keywords tothat image.

The Lift & Stamp tool is great when youhave a set of shots that all share thesame keywords, but it's too crude atool to help much when you have aseries of shots that are much morevaried. This is an area where Aperturecould be improved in future.

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Select the 4**** Photos For AdjustmentIt helps to stay focused when editingphotos, and in Aperture that meansfiltering out all but the very best photosfor adjustment. Use the search field'sdrop down list to only show photos thatare rated 4 **** or better.

Your other photos will disappear, butdon't worry, they are still there withinAperture. You can see all of yourphotos by going back to the searchfield, and telling Aperture to show allphotos.

Switch To Full Screen ModeFinally, we get to the one place whereevery photographer loves spendingtheir time - adjusting photos in fullscreen mode in Aperture. The 'F' keyswitches into Full Screen Mode andback again.

Full Screen Mode is the reason thatApple and Dell make those lovely largescreen monitors. If you can afford one,get one. If you can't afford one, find away to do so. As good as the screen ison my MacBook Pro, I do a much

better job of adjusting my photos on myDell 24\" monitor. It's just easier toreally *see* the photo, warts and all,when it is in front of you as a largerimage.

A word of warning. Switching into andout of Full Screen Mode is one of thoseplaces where Aperture sometimesstops working. I've gotten into thehabit of not touching either mouse orkeyboard until the transition is

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complete, and that seems to reducehow often Aperture stops responding.

Open The Adjustments HUDPress the 'H' key to bring up Aperture'sAdjustments HUD.

The Adjustments HUD is a palette oftools for changing how your photo

looks. Every time that you start editinga photo for the first time, the

Adjustments HUD includes a defaultset of tools. I haven't found a way tochange this default; if you know, pleaseleave a message on my blog telling me!With the exception of the rotation tool(which, frankly, is where I waste evenmore time than when keywording,because it is *painfully* slow on my2.33GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro),all the tools provided here work quickly,and they work well. However, you'recurrently limited to the tools that shipwith Aperture. There are no third-partytools available for Aperture at this timethat I can find.

It's worth keeping an eye on AdobeLightroom as it matures through 2007and 2008. This is the one area thatAdobe really \"gets\" and Apple doesn'tseem to. Once the third-party editingtools market for Lightroom is

established, I'm expecting Lightroom towin the majority of the market share.And that would be a shame, becauseAperture's not just for professionalphotographers; it's also a superb toolfor keen amateurs like myself.

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Auto-adjust The ImageThe first adjustment I make is to letAperture auto-adjust the image. Youmight not like what it does, but most ofthe time the adjustments make for agood base to do the rest of the editingon.

At this point, I would normally adjustthe white balance too, but this

particular photo doesn't contain anysuitable reference to make thatpossible.

Add The Monochrome MixerI've personally never seen a colourphoto that I like that didn't also lookgood when converted to monochrome.There's just something about black andwhite that really brings out definitionand texture.

The advantage of Aperture, and it's100% non-destructive editing, is that Ican convert any photo to monochrome,make the necessary adjustments there,and then easily switch the photo backto full colour for the finishing touches.To convert the photo to monochrome inAperture, add the Monochrome Mixerto the list of tools in the AdjustmentsHUD. When you add the MonochromeMixer, Aperture switches it on bydefault.

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Adjust Exposure And Contrast To SuitWith the image now in black and white,I adjust the exposure and contrast tosuit my tastes.

At this point, I'll focus all of my attentiononto the one area of the photo that Ibelieve is the main focal point of theimage, and I change the exposure andcontrast to bring the best out of thisone area of the image. I'll keep an eyeon how the rest of the image is looking,but the needs of this one area alwaystakes precidence when I'm making mychoices.

Adjust Highlights And Shadows To Bring Out DetailAdjusting the exposure and contrastinevitably causes detail to disappearinto new highlight and shadow areasthat weren't there before I began. I usethe highlights and shadows tool tobring back some of that detail.It's important to be subtle with the

shadows tool. Even small adjustmentscan remove the contrast created in theprevious editing step!

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Add Edge SharpeningAt this point, I reach for the Edge

Sharpening Tool to clean the image upa bit. Edge Sharpening is another toolthat isn't in the Adjustments HUD bydefault.

Zoom To 100% To Check SharpnessPress the 'Z' key to toggle between100% and 'Fit to screen' modes in fullscreen mode.

100% mode is something I've only

started using recently, since getting the24\" Dell monitor. The smaller screenof the MacBook Pro never showedenough of the image for my taste.If I'm not happy with the sharpness ofthe photo at this point, I'll add the

'Sharpen' tool to the Adjustments HUDand get to work. For me, it's a tool oflast resort, and if possible I'd rather goback and take another photo of thesubject rather than resort to the'Sharpen' tool.

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Switch Monochrome Mixer OffWith the basic adjustments done, Iswitch off the Monochrome Mixer byunticking the box next to the tool's title. From here on in, I prefer to finishediting the photo in full colour.

Adjust Colours To SuiteThere are times when the Nikon D200captures perfect colours, but it's

exceedingly rare for me (maybe one ina thousand photos or so). On

individual images, I spend a lot of timein the Color tool tweaking the individualcolours to taste.

For my Merthyr Road series, I'vecreated several Color tool presets,which I use to quickly adjust photos foran article. Some of my articles cancontain 50 or more photos, and usingthe presets saves me a lot of time.

Select Crop ToolWith the image looking as good as Ican get it, it's time to chop out all theparts I don't want. The Crop Tool livesin the toolbar at the top of the screen. When selected, a Crop HUD appears.When I first started using Aperture, Iused to crop images before adjustingthem, but lately I've found myselfpreferring to crop an image once it isotherwise complete.

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Crop The ImageTo perform the crop, use the mousecursor to draw a border around the partthat you want to keep. Make anynecessary adjustments, and whenyou've finished, simply close the CropHUD by clicking on the X in the top lefthand corner of the HUD.

One of the beautiful things about

Aperture is that you don't have to stickwith just the one crop. Thanks topowerful features like non-destructiveediting, versions and stacks, you caneasily create a new version of an

image and try a different crop to see ifyou prefer it or not. The only thing ittakes is a tiny bit of disk space, and alittle bit of your time.

Rate The Image As 5*****Images that have been edited get a 5star rating. The main reason I do thisis that I'm normally picking anywherebetween 20 and 60 photos for anarticle in my Merthyr Road series. Byrating the photos I want to use in thefinal article as 5 star, it's easier to pickup just those photos in my Smart

Album sets, and when I want to exportthe photos to Flickr.

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Export To FlickrThe finished photo gets exported up toFlickr.

There are quite a few online photogallery websites, and the one that Iprefer to use is Flickr. The price isright, the presentation is good, and thecommunity aspects are nice too.If you don't have an account on Flickryet, it's worth taking a look at the otherplaces that Aperture can export to first. The folks behind Flickr have madesome seriously bad calls recentlyregarding censorship, and whilst

they're only human, imagine how you'dfeel to find that your photo and its

description and feedback gone just likethat.

You'll need to search the web for

Aperture plugins to export your photosto Flickr and alternatives.

Fill In The DetailsThe Flickr exporter saves me time byallowing me to fill in the details aboutthe photo before it is uploaded to Flickr.The title comes from the name of theversion of the photo that you areexporting; you can set this in the

Metadata Inspector. The description ...I haven't yet worked out where in

Aperture it takes this from. For now, Ienter this by hand in this screen.The tags are the keywords assigned tothe photo earlier on.

I'm approaching 1,000 photos

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published on Flickr, and to help me findmy way around them, I have them

organised into different photosets. Youcan assign your photo to an existingphotoset, or you can create a new

photoset right inside the Flickr Exporter.

Enjoy Your Photo On FlickrOnce uploaded, the final photo

appears on Flickr and is available foranyone to go and look at.

When I'm uploading a series of photosfor an article, I'm in the habit of markingthem as 'private' at first. Once I'vefinished the corresponding blog articleand the (sometimes) detailed

description for each photo, I'll thenswitch all the photos to 'public' as agroup.

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Add Your Photo To Appropriate GroupsSpeaking of groups ... the final step isto share my photo with the differentcommunities on Flickr that I havejoined. Other members of eachcommunity then have a chance of

seeing the photo, and hopefully leavingfeedback on what they do and don'tlike.

It's also a good way of hooking up withnew people on Flickr. If someone likesyour photography, they can add you asa contact, which makes it much easierfor them to keep track of any newphotos that you upload. You can addthem as a contact too if you wish.Unfortunately, one of the weaknessesof Flickr at the moment is that it's quitedifficult to keep on top of all of thephotos published in all of the

communities that you join. I've workedaround this by using an external RSSreader to subscribe to each

community's RSS feed, but that hasthe detrimental effect that my views ofother people's photos are views thatFlickr doesn't keep count of. This isone area of Flickr that hopefully will besorted out in the future.

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