Aperture or...

I know this is an Aperture forum, but I'd like your advice (however biased it might be). I'm looking to convert from a PC to a Mac, and have been eyeing the new 13" Mac Book Pro. Upgraded to 4GB RAM, and 500GB HD.
As much as I am sold in my decision to dump my PC, I'm not sold on Aperture. I've been looking at Adobe LightRoom 2.0 instead. Aperture intrigues me as it's an Apple product, and cheaper by $100. But what should I do? I've played with both versions as trials (my wife has an iMac).
Is there a new version of Aperture coming out? My main goals are RAW conversion (Nikon and Canon) and library indexing, meaning I can tag my images and recall them. Also can you recommend a good book on Aperture?
Thanks in advance...

I've been using Lightroom since Beta. Even bought a book. But I just switched to Aperture. Here's why.
I'm frustrated with LR's lack of true fullscreen until you I hit a few buttons and click on the screen in several spots -- and then have the UI jump back in my face if my curser strays too close to the edge... I love Aperture's one click full screen with floating pallets.
LR's tabs drive me nuts -- what good are the dumbed down edit controls in the Library view? What a waste of space. I never use LR's last three tabs -- Slideshow, Print and Web. I WILL use Aperture's BOOK feature!
LR doesn't HAVE a loupe. Instead you single click on the photo to enlarge it by a predefined amount. I find myself clicking on the picture with no other tool selected so often, the picture zooms in and out uncontrollably, and LR is so sluggish I don't know I've clicked so often until the picture starts zooming in and out.
Speed! Aperture prebuilds the previews that you see, speeding up processing later. This takes more drive space, but speeds up the process -- important for me and my Mini...
LR does have some advantages over Lightroom, and this is what made me so leary
of Aperture -- In Lightroom you can edit photos even if your masters aren't online. Whatever you apply to the previews will get applied to the masters when you reconnect to them. That's great for editing on the road.
LR has a curves control.
LR has instant preview when you mouse over a preset name. Does Aperture have presets? I have a rather large investment in LR and PSCS3 presets.
Message was edited by: sawatzky

Similar Messages

TS2518 Help, I had aperture open and working on a image and did not have a battery in and bumped the power off. As a result it will not open my master, it is locked. when I try to open that Library it says There was an error opening the database for the

Help, I had aperture open and working on a image and did not have a battery in and bumped the power off. As a result it will not open my master, it is locked. when I try to open that Library it says There was an error opening the database for the library. I have tried every thing. I updated the other libr but now it will not open the main to update. What do I do?

Try starting Aperture with the command and option keys held down. You'll get 3 options.
Try each, starting at the top, in order, checking after each to see if it fixes the issue.

A single photo in Aperture smart album shows multiple times on Apple TV2.

Sometimes a random photo in my Aperture smart albums displays on my ATV2 multiple times..can I fix this? For example, currently a single picture shows up on the Apple TV in the photos taken "in the past week" smart album 124 times, and the same picture shows up in the "in the past month" smart album 15 times.
When I double check the picture in the original smart album on the computer, it appears correctly, i.e. only one time.
Suggestions?

I'm having the same problem. I deleted all the photos in the photostream then tried to drag a couple new ones in to see if they'd synch. Nothing is happening. I recently installed aperture (have about 125 gb in the library). If anyone has an idea what to do, i'm open to try something.

Iphoto calendar is a mess, can we get a pro calendar in aperture?

I am making a calendar using the aperture library in iphoto and having lots of troubles.
When i have added the photos to their positions, i find that i need to edit some photos to fit their neighbours, and then having to close iphoto, open aperture and edit them, yet those changes fail to show up in the applied photos, so have to edit outside the project and replace the photos...
Also while working on this project my library is locked so i cannot open aperture without closing iphoto, even if i want to work on entirely different things, interrupting a normal day workflow.
When i reopen iphoto it has forgotten my position and just shows the full calendar again, forcing me to search again for the place the photo i have edited in aperture or to replace with another i have found that fits better.
The calendar templates are quite limited, on a few pages i wanted to place more photos or have other orientations which is possible when making a book, and the size of calendar is relatively small, could be good with a possibility of making professional calendars one step bigger.
Is there any way to tell apple that there are many who would need a proper calendar inside aperture, to be able to make professional products or who have migrated from iphoto being used to making calendars and cards and wanting to continue that in what should be a better program?
Even having the exact same calendar available in aperture would be huge benefit, and ensure many more being made!
Aurin R
Denmark

Is there any way to tell apple that there are many who would need a proper calendar inside aperture, to be able to make professional products or who have migrated from iphoto being used to making calendars and cards and wanting to continue that in what should be a better program?
That is what the command "Provide Aperture Feedback" in the Aperture Application menu is for: http://www.apple.com/feedback/aperture.html
How are you switching between Aperture and iPhoto? When I use the commands "File > Open Library in Aperture" and "File > open library in iPhoto" to switch back and forth between the application, the iPhoto will open with the calendar selected, when I switch back from Aperture, albeit not on the calendar page, that I last viewed.

Aperture No Longer Working With Screen Saver?

For years I've been using my Aperture library (specifically, the "Flagged Photos") with the Screen Saver in OS X. Since I upgraded to Lion last night, I have discovered that my Aperture library no longer shows up as an option in Screen Saver -- only iPhoto does.
As I am remiss to ditch years of work and return to iPhoto -- I was hoping someone might have discovered a solution for this problem (perhaps something to do with the iLife browser in Lion?).
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Kluv32 wrote:
Then, I checked the new sharing preferences and closed out Aperture. I opened up the System Preferences for Screen Saver, and after waiting about 1-2 minutes, Aperture popped up in there as an option.
Can you please explain what you mean about "checked the new sharing preferences?" I see no way of setting any "sharing" preferences in Preferences or anywhere else in Aperture. Do you mean you just looked at the sharing preferences?
Since I've upgraded to the latest version, when I go to the System Preferences, Aperture is very slow in showing up on the ScreenSaver settings under System Preferences and the virtual Library folders no longer show up (they show up under the Desktop window though). However, after closing Aperture, the screensaver would display "looking for pictures" and would not display the photos.
The latest upgrade definitely broke something, although it greatly improved Aperture's response time, as it was getting pretty sluggish before the upgrade.

How do I get custom book themes to appear in Aperture?

I want to create two custom book themes in Aperture - A4 Landscape and A4 Portrait - so that I can print them on A4 photo paper. However, after creating the custom themes, they do not appear in the custom theme list which is preventing me from creating an A4 sized book. I closed and restarted Aperture and I have also closed and restarted my MacBook.
My Aperture version is 3.5.1 and I am running Mac OS X 10.9.1.
Folders for the two custom themes I have created do appear in Users/MacPro/Library/Application Support/Aperture/Book Themes.
Regards
Schof

Folders for the two custom themes I have created do appear in Users/MacPro/Library/Application Support/Aperture/Book Themes.
Schof,
I will try your suggestion of creating a new Aperture library and let you know what happens.
If a new library does not fix it, there is probably a permissions problem with your user library, or a problem with the "Books Theme" folder.
I'd try to trash the "Books Theme" folder:
Quit Aperture.
Delete your "Users/MacPro/Library/Application Support/Aperture/Book Themes".
Log off and on again.
Create a new Custom Book.
Can you now see it in the "Themes" drop-down menu?
If that does not help, trash the preferences as well:
Users/MacPro/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Aperture.plist
and log off and on again, or restart the system.

Updated my Aperture to 3.2 and now it won't open at all! I haven't backed my photos up and i'm worried i'm going to loose them all! Anyone else having problems or know how to fix this issue??? Cheers

Any idea's guys????

You can still backup your library without opening Aperture.
Your Library is typically in your Pictures folder while the application is in your Applications folder.
So you should backup your Library first (drag it to an external HD to copy it or use a Vault) and then try the procedures on the Troubleshooting Basics page.

I was editing photos and it was getting stuck or frozen and working really slow, so I attempting to close aperture and reopen it but it won't quit aperture and now it won't open up to my photos either. Any ideas?

I was editing photos and it was getting stuck or frozen and working very slowly. I attempted to restart the computer but it would not allow me to quit aperture. Now aperture appears in my toolbar but will not open up so I can work on any photos. Any ideas?

Did you try opening from the Applications folder?
Depending on how far that gets you, I would also take a look at the Troubleshooting Basics.

I have a 3 year old MacBook Pro with MAC OSX 10.6.8, iPhoto '09 version 8.1.2 and have downloaded two software programs: one is Aperture 3.2 and the other is Photoshop Elements 9 (which I got from a friend who didn't need it). I am totally happy with the

I have a 3 year old MacBook Pro with MAC OSX 10.6.8, iPhoto ’09 version 8.1.2 and have downloaded two software programs: one is Aperture 3.2 and the other is Photoshop Elements 9 (which I got from a friend who didn’t need it).
I am totally happy with the way iPhoto organizes my photos and how I can work with iMovie to create slide shows with music from iTunes, etc.
I have been shooting mostly high resolution jpegs and I continue to learn more and more about photography, post processing etc. I realize that the small adjustments I can make in iPhoto are good, and are adequate most of the time. However, a have started to experiment with shooting RAW images and would like to go the next step, ie. post processing.I am totally technically challenged and need SIMPLE, INTUITIVE programs and am certainly NOT anywhere ready for Photoshop CS whatever!
After having these programs sit on my computer, I decided to try to see if I could figure them out. When I opened Aperture, this is what first comes up.
“Welcome to Aperture 3.2
Your library needs to be upgraded to work with this version of Aperture. Once upgraded, you will not be able to use this library with previous versions of Aperture.
Upgrading a library from previous versions of Aperture 3 generally takes a few minutes or less, though larger libraries will take longer. After that, Aperture 3.2 will upgrade your library's thumbnails, but you can use the application during that time.
Tip: To open a different library, quit Aperture and hold the Option key down while starting Aperture
Current Library Location:
Jadzia (home) -----Pictures------Aperture Library
QUIT UPGRADE”
I have heard horror stories about moving your entire library to Aperture, ending up with 2 libraries, etc. etc. hence my previous reluctance in attempting Aperture. In addition, many of my photography friends are saying: Go with Lightroom 3.....you’ll love it!
So here is my dilemma. I don’t want to mess around with my iPhoto library. All I want to be able to do, is to isolate a few photos, export them to Aperture, Elements, and work on them there, then bring them back into iPhoto.
Can I do this? Should I forget about Aperture and Elements and look at purchasing yet another program like Lightroom?

Export those few photos via the File ➙ Export ➙ File Export menu option with Kind = Original to the Desktop. Then import them into the Aperture library. That would keep one copy in your iPhoto library and another in your Aperture library to edit, etc.
You can use Photoshop Elements 9 from within iPhoto as your editor of choice. However, if you edit a raw file in iPhoto with PSE9 the resulting edited version must be saved outside the iPhoto Library and imported back in as a new file. For editing jpegs just do a Save (not a Save As) and it all will be kept within iPhoto.
Using Photoshop or Photoshop Elements as Your Editor of Choice in iPhoto.
1 - select Photoshop or Photoshop Elememts as your editor of choice in iPhoto's General Preference Section's under the "Edit photo:" menu.
2 - double click on the thumbnail in iPhoto to open it in Photoshop. When you're finished editing click on the Save button. If you immediately get the JPEG Options window make your selection (Baseline standard seems to be the most compatible jpeg format) and click on the OK button. Your done.
3 - however, if you get the navigation window
that indicates that PS wants to save it as a PS formatted file. You'll need to either select JPEG from the menu and save (top image) or click on the desktop in the Navigation window (bottom image) and save it to the desktop for importing as a new photo.
This method will let iPhoto know that the photo has been editied and will update the thumbnail file to reflect the edit..
NOTE: With Photoshop Elements the Saving File preferences should be configured as shown:
I also suggest the Maximize PSD File Compatabilty be set to Always. In PSE’s General preference pane set the Color Picker to Apple as shown:
Note: to switch between iPhoto and PS or PSE as the editor of choice Control (right)-click on the thumbnail and select either Edit in iPhoto or Edit in External Editor from the contextual menu. If you use iPhoto to edit more than PSE re-select iPhoto in the iPhoto General preference pane. Then iPhoto will be the default editor and you can use the contextual menu to select PSE for your editor when desired.
OT

I have been storing my Aperture and IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive that recently died. Fortunately I've been using Time Machine to back up to a 2nd external drive. How do I restore my libraries to a new external hard drive?

I have been storing my Aperture and IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive that recently died. Fortunately I've been using Time Machine to back up to a 2nd external drive. How do I restore my libraries to a new external hard drive?

This is a tricky one.
Open up Time Machine and go back to a date using the timeline on the right side of the window when you know the drive was working and was backing up as part of Time Machine backups.
Click on the name of your Mac under the Devices heading on the left side of the window in Time Machine, and if things are working correctly you will see Macintosh HD (or whatever you have named it) and the name of the external hard drive that was backing up in the past.
Right-Click on the name of the external hard drive and then click on "Restore (name of drive) to....." You may be asked for your adminstrator password at this point.
It might be easier to restore the drive contents to your desktop if you have room on your Mac, and then copy things over to the new external drive where you want to store the Aperture and iMovie Libraries.
Once the libraries have been moved over the new external hard drive, you will likely need to "point" Aperture and iMovie to the location of the libraries on the new external hard drive.

How do I edit a sign on a truck out of my picture in Aperture?

Hello,
I'm new to Aperture and I've been reading the manuals, doing youtube videos, anything I can get my hands on. I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of the Budweiser sign on the truck in one of my pictures. I want to take it out because I'm putting this wedding picture on a canvas. I have tried the retouch option with repair and clone and I can't get it to work. I might be doing something wrong but everytime I try to do it, I go over the image and it doesn't go away all the way or it starts pasting part of the image that's around it. Ugh! I am so frustrated. Any help would be much appreciated! If need be, I can add the picture to here as well to show you what I'm talking about.

Does your truck look like above?
You can try to erase the white text with the Retouche brush, but is is a lot of work. You need to use short brush strokes from right to left. The brush strokes must mot be longer than the width of uniform background that you sample and clone.
Option click the brush to lift a sample to the far right, with plenty of uniform background to the left.
Then move the pointer to the letters in the same line and start to brush to the left, but only as far as the width of the uniform background. If the letters start reproducing, finish the stroke and start brushing again.
Instead of long strokes, you just could dab the cloned area on, if you cannot find areas with much free uniform space to the left.
You can brush the he cloned areas a second time by sampling your brushed image to repair any visible traces of the background peeping through.
It is probably easier to do this in an external editor like "Inpaint".
-- Léonie

Aperture - iWeb - MobileMe... WORKFLOWS WANTED!

I come seeking advice, and hoping this online essay will spark some discussion on the much-needed integration of Apple-apps online photo sharing and display capabilities -- and I promise to keep the rants to a minimum...
*What I'm trying to do:*
Create a series of Aperture-published (or at least Aperture-based, since that's where my pictures reside) photo pages, pages on which visitors can...
1) Quickly peruse the thumbs (with column&row arrangement, sizing, and framing options all determined by me), while also reading some descriptive text I've provided re the overall event being showcased;
2) View individual shots at a modest but adjustable display size in Slideshow mode (with transition options I've set), and simultaneously see the associated Caption, Date and whatever other Aperture-stored metadata I've chosen to be displayed for that set of images; and then, if they so desire...
3) Download selected images at their original, FULL-pixel dimensions (assuming I've set the page to allow that).
4) PLUS, I want to have each of these individual pages indexed on an iWeb "Album Page", which allows for the contents of each individual photo page to be mouse-skimmed before actually clicking and going to that page.
*An Impossible Dream?*
Not really. Everything I've just described is relatively easy to do -- but only in bits and pieces, it appears -- using Aperture, Aperture-published MobileMe Albums (aka Galleries) and Aperture-published Web Pages, iWeb '09, iWeb's Media Browser, and a MobileMe account. So now I find myself playing Dr. Frankenstein (that's "Fronkensteen"), and trying to stitch together a new form of photographic life online.
In other words, I'm just trying to create the kind of truly functional and flexible photo pages which SHOULD be a no-brainer by now, since all the features I'm imagining already exist! (Then again, I shouldn't ask for too much -- I mean it's not like Aperture, iWeb, and the MobileMe service are all from the same company, right?)
*In OTHER other words...*
I want to publish Gallery-esque pages from Aperture, but ones which automatically include and display whatever combination of Caption, Title, Date, or any other Metadata I select. And ones which can be INDIVIDUALLY indexed on an iWeb Album Page, as opposed to simply dragging in iWeb's MobileMe widget (which so far as I can tell just gives you a single link to ALL your Galleries in one quick but inelegant whack).
OR...
I want to publish Aperture Web Pages, but ones which aren't given a ludicrous "homepage.mac" URL (cripes, how old is THAT code?), and which can be easily seen by iWeb once published, so they can then be dragged into iWeb Album pages for convenient indexing and one-stop skimability by the user. (Also, pages for which Aperture has some sort of "Settings / Visit Page / Announce Site" pull-down button as it does for every MobileMe Gallery -- that's just being consistent.)
OR...
I want iWeb's Media Browser to let me select and drag into iWeb the contents of specific Aperture Projects and/or Albums, but with all Caption, Date, and other metadata for the selected images included, AND (if I so choose) at their FULL resolution -- rather than only at their currently-designated Preview size, which is now the case.
*Whichever way you describe it...*
I'm not really asking for anything all that new, just for some long-overdue integration between the already-existing photo-publishing abilities of Aperture, iWeb, and MobileMe. But before I start submitting more pages of "isn't this obvious?" input to their respective Feedback sites, I'd love to get anyone's thoughts, reactions, or best of all, suggestions as to how to at least partially achieve, the kind of Aperture-based photo publishing & sharing sites I'm still hoping to create.
Many thanks (if only for reading this far!),
John Bertram
Toronto

Many thanks to both David and Bob for the above posts -- it's just nice to know I'm not alone in this frustration.
Sometimes I desperately wish Apple would appoint a CAO (Cross-Application Ombudsman), a "Minister for Inter-Application Affairs", someone whose only job was to track the functions and features in different Apple apps, to correlate that understanding with relevant user input from a dedicated AppleWorkflows Feedback page, and whose mandate was to then:
a) make sure that the interface of each app behaved in a consistent and predictable manner (so that, for example, Option-clicking a disclosure triangle in a Viewer window list of video filters in FinalCut had the same functionality as Option-clicking a disclosure triangle in a Finder window list of folders and sub-folders -- which it currently DOES NOT);
and
b) - most importantly - make sure the individual apps talked to each fluently and interacted in logical, productive ways (the subject of this thread being a prime example of where that's NOT happening).
This person would have the authority to force the programmers working on different apps to actually talk to each other BEFORE new versions get released; to imagine intelligent, creative ways in which the different apps should interact-- and then require the programmers to implement those scenarios. Essentially, the CAO's only reason for coming to work each day would be to oversee the conception, development and implementation of cross-app workflows which benefit and free up (rather than block and frustrate) the multi-Apple-apps user.
The key is that this person (or persons) would have to be given some real power -- not just to recommend, but in many cases to actually require. (For instance, this person would long ago have required the Aperture team to release a free update which no longer published anything to a "homepage.mac" URL. All together now: "Duh".)
And, as mentioned above, they would have their own separate and well-publicized AppleWorkflows Feedback Page (plus a dedicated public discussion forum as well?), to which users would be actively encouraged to submit their ideas on Inter-App problems and possibilities.
Call me crazy -- but that's my dream, and I ain't givin' it up.
jb

More Aperture/iPad syncing issues

Each time I create a new project or album in Aperture, I have trouble getting the images to the iPad when I sync. I sometimes need to sync several times until the images are recognized and imported to iPad. I do have the albums designated manually, rather than all, which means I have to sync and then sync again after I check the checkbox for the new album. I understand that, but sometimes I have to go back into Aperture to make sure the previews are updated. If I choose to update the previews for a project, Aperture will usually tell me that they're already up to date, but often they will not show up on the iPad, even after I check the appropriate box for the album in iTunes. Sometimes I get good results if I delete the previews and regenerate them in Aperture.
The second problem is the sort order. Even if I have "sort by filename" selected in Aperture, they do not show up in this order on the iPad--despite what the support article says about this. They appear to only show up in Date order. I've tried repeatedly resetting the sort order, but it does not change on the iPad. Sometimes I have to delete the album from the iPad, (uncheck the album in iTunes and sync again), then recheck it and sync yet another time. This does not always work, however.
It is very frustrating. The interface between Aperture and the iPad is very wonky. I often have to sync repeatedly, just to get the photos on the iPad and even then they're usually in the wrong order.
Aperture appears to have two types of previews: "previews" and "sharing previews," but "sharing previews" don't seem to appear in the documentation. I've noticed that, even when Aperture says the previews are up to date, when I exit the program, it will sometimes (but, maddeningly, not always), give the message, "updating sharing previews" before quitting. I cannot figure out how to force this, however. Sometimes opening and closing Aperture several times will cause it to do this, but I can't be sure.
iTunes seems to have its own process in which it "optimizes" images for importing to the iPad. Like Aperture's mysterious "sharing previews," "optimizing" does not show up in the iTunes documentation or help files.
This process either needs to be improved, or at least documented so users can understand how to avoid these problems.

1. Some people have reported slow syncing with anything but the iPad's own USB cable (e.g. using a US cable from an iPhone/iPod). Try different cables
2. More work - disable iTunes syncing completely, then re-enable a bit at a time, e.g. one movie at a time, one playlist at a time, one photo album at a time. There are periodic reports of syncing issues caused by a bit of media that's been corrupted, and this (tedious) approach allows you to identify where the problem might be.
3. If that fails, do a clean restore back to factory settings, then progressively re-enable syncing as above.
Hope this helps

Using Adobe Bridge as Aperture 3 External Editor

I have a problem that I can't seem to solve and I'm hopeful that a post here can get me closer to some resolution. I recently started using Bridge for noise reduction and PS for high pass sharpening. The downside is my work flow is now shot full of holes! I have Bridge as my external editor; I make the edits in Bridge then do a high pass sharpen as well as any other edits I might choose to make in PS. If I need to, I flatten the image if I have layers. It is here that my problem begins.
Aperture creates the new tiff version within it's program as soon as I choose to edit in Bridge, but I don't know the exact process to save that image while in Bridge or Photoshop to reflect the changes in Aperture. Another question I have is which version of the image in Bridge I should be editing the jpeg or tiff? any help here would be greatly appreciated!

I use Bridge as editor because once there, I go into "camera raw" to process images.
So now you're bringing a third app into the equation. Bridge, ACR and Photoshop are all individual applications. If you're not using an app like Aperture then Bridge might be the front end for the other two, but in the case you describe it has no role.
Another thing to think about: ACR ("camera Raw") is for processing Raws - which job you are currently doing with Aperture. You're not sending Raws to Bridge/ACR... You're sending tiffs.
I think you need to rethink your workflow somewhat. I'm not sure you've grasped what the various tools actually do.
Regards
TD

Aperture 2.1 and Adobe Photoshop CS2

Hey.
I'm using Aperture as my bread and butter. I don't have any issues.
In my previous posts I mentioned that I don't use Photoshop, but now I'm using Photoshop a lot more...for retouching and localized corrections.
All of my tonal corrections and things are done in Aperture and I just export 16bit PSDs to do retouching on and then bring them back into Aperture. Pretty smooth workflow and still rely on Aperture, not Photoshop.
Anyone else enjoying the strengths of Aperture and getting the benefit of PS like that? I haven't used the spot and patch much in Aperture, but I will try it soon so that I can minimize my PS work even more.
Anyway, Aperture is still working great for me. Hope it does for you, too.
Scott

Yes. Aperture cut my PS CS, CS2 and now CS3 workload down from 100% to around 5%. A huge time-saver, plus of course the image management side that CS2 or 3 doesn't do (and I include Bridge in this).
The new spot/patch brush is night and day compared to the original. It is fabulous (better than CS3 for many tasks) at identifying edges and adjacent textures. Highly recommended.

Desktop can not see all images in aperture project

When trying to change the background picture desktop lists my aperture projects but only displays a subset (5 of 114) of the images in one project. Also have 2 of 8, 152 of 152, and 0 of 12 in different projects.

It's possible you don't have Previews for the "missing" images (Aperture shares the Preview, not the full image).
What happens if you update every image in the Project's Preview?
To update all the JPEG previews in a project
In the Library inspector, Control-click the project whose JPEG previews you want to update, then choose Update Previews from the shortcut menu.

Aperture or...

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for