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<div>We talked about Aperture last night and I took the outline I
handed out and expanded it. It's a discussion of Aperture
workflow = not all correct, not all detailed = there is so much to
learn! But maybe helpful.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><font face="Palatino" size="-1" color="#000000"><b>Digital
Workflow: Adding Order to the Chaos of your Life in
Photography; <br>
© Victoria L. Herring/JourneyZing - January 22, 2007<br>
<br>
[I will be doing an article and uploading it at some point and will
let people know where to find it, later]<br>
</b><br>
Planning: plan ahead and use checklists, both for your
photography and to set up Aperture before you import. If at all
possible shoot in RAW, to have as much control over working with the
image as possible. Be sure to set your Aperture preferences, set
up import metadata and customize the interface as much as you would
like. You can correct things after imports through batch
processing and other methods, but try to limit that.<br>
<br>
Off-Loading: I am extremely sensitive to data loss so frequently
end up with 3-4 or more copies of images after taking them: on
card, in iPods, on harddrives and on laptop. Generally, this is
better than taking, offloading and deleting quickly. No rush to
do that. Be sure to only format the cards in the camera;
digital image cards are not meant to be formatted in computer or
elsewhere. I don't clean off the external repositories of
images until I'm certain I have at least one or two sets of the
originals, just in case. This is no doubt overkill but I'm
still working out the workflow I use.<br>
<br>
Import into Computer [Aperture]: Open your library, create
a project and import into it. While you don't need to maintain
separate libraries, it might not be a bad idea to have one for each
year or major topic. But Aperture will hold virtually everything
quite well. I just like separation and redundency. But
think I will do only separate libraries for each calendar year and
then within each use folders and projects to organize [see<i>
Bagelturf</i>, cited below, for more information]. Set up your
metadata for import, although you can batch process later it's
easier to get it right with importing. Remember that the image
imported can either be totally brought into the Library or else kept
somewhere and merely a 'Referenced File' [ in ver. 1.5]. I
like to import to the Library, as I get confused at times trying to
locate the referenced files, but that is maybe my own workflow issue
and there are plenty of photographers who do both fine.<br>
<br>
Master: Remember that the imported image is a Master and is an
original duplicate; the actual image ends up still residing on
the card or other place you imported from and also is totally
duplicated inside Aperture, where you applied metadata to it.
You then in preferences set it up to create new versions with each
adjustment and those are data versions, not duplicate images.
Thus, they don't take up much room but when you want to export or
work with them they 'feel' like the original. Don't forget
to apply keywords and captions and other metadata, as that will help
with finding things. Unfortunately, Aperture can't be searched
via Spotlight, but you can put keywords or other notes in the
Spotlight Comments window [Get Info keystroke] and that is easily
searchable. Aperture, because it is a package is only searchable
from within the program, but the search and smart album functions are
powerful.<br>
<br>
After importing, 'triage' the images: rate the images, again
see<i> Bagelturn's </i> discussion of how to do so; apply
white balance [so much easier than in Photoshop, as far as I can tell,
do other adjustments you want. I then open in the external
editor [Photoshop Elements for me] and do the final work on the image
[resize, levels, contrast, saturation, cropping, usually in that
order]. <br>
<br>
Backing Up: Remember that you have duplicates of your thousands
of originals on DVDs, harddrives, etc. But what you want to do
is cull from Aperture Library those that are truly terrible
['rejects'] and then maybe keep the rest, but have them rated.
You can then perhaps just save the top 4* or 5* images onto a DVD and
those would be the ones you would want to work with in the future.
Back up Aperture using its Vault feature. I now backup to
harddrives, for the most part.</font></div>
<div><font face="Palatino" size="-1" color="#000000"><br>
Good luck. I like using Aperture = but know that Adobe has
Lightroom. I have not tried it and don't have the time/energy
to learn yet another program that in many ways duplicates Aperture [or
vice versa]. I'm sticking with Aperture - it provides the
image management I want and need and the image adjustment as well.<br>
<br>
References of value:<br>
<br>
Aperture users: There's an Aperture listserve at
YahooGroups.com that is helpful and doesn't [yet] have all that much
traffic. There are several books out now on Aperture 1.5;
I have and use the Luna book.<br>
<br>
Best Resource:<br>
<br>
<b>[</b>Steve Weller's blog, Bagelturf: <i>
http://homepage.mac.com/bagelturf <br>
</i>[particularly his discussions about the use of Aperture and
workflow, especially "From 229 to 6 images"]<br>
<br>
Thanks. ©Victoria L. Herring, www.JourneyZing.com;
http://victoriajz.smugmug.com, and others.<br>
01.23.07</font></div>
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<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#000000">Victoria L.
Herring, Attorney, Travel research & Photography site and blog,
<http://www.JourneyZing.com/blog> ; Gallery at
http://victoriajz.smugmug.com. The latest 3Women News:
http://web.mac.com/victoriaherring/iWeb/ThreeWomen/ [ShowSale
2/10!]</font></div>
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