Aperture 2.0 layer feature??

I haven't had a chance to download the trial yet, but was wondering if layers are now in aperture 2.0. What I'm looking to do is take a color photo and make it b&w, leaving only a focal item (flower, bow, etc.) in color. Based on what I saw and asked in 1.5 it was not available and I would need to go the PS route.

You can actually achieve this by desaturating all the other colors on your picture using the color control panel...
Example done with Aperture 1.5
http://www.flickr.com/photos/frenchkheldar/2218575520/
It might not be as neat as PS but I think it gets the job done...

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Rotate canvis unintuitive, hot key limitations, new adjustment layer features? Brush size slider bad

I've been using photoshop for a while, as well as a number of 3D applications. Speed and efficiency have always been very important, and I usually customize my software a lot to make it work for me. These are some of the things photoshop could do better in comparison to the user interfaces in some 3D programs.
Rotate canvas unintuitive:
While having a center pivot seems more intuitive at first, it actually causes me nothing but trouble having to always figure out where the center is, and then deciding how close i am (which will change speed of rotation). I would like at least an option to simply drag left and drag right for clockwise and counterclockwise at a specific speed.
Hot Key Limitations:
alt R and control R and shift R cannot be assigned to different things. I would prefer it if i could customize all of these.
new adjustment layer features:
often when painting in photoshop, i create an adjustment layer over all the layers. If i like how it looks, and want to continue painting, i have to either turn it off while i work and switch it on at the end again, flatten the entire painting loosing the layer separations, or duplicate the adjustment layer and setting it next to each pre-existing layer and then merging each set of 2 layers(the original + the duplicated adjustment layer).
It would be really wonderful if the process of duplicating the adjustment layers and flattening each set of 2 could be automated. a sort of Flatten to all individually button.
Brush Size Slider:
Zbrush has a very wonderful brush size change. I never appreciated it until trying photoshops. (previously to this i used another piece of hardware with a scroll wheel to change brush size. and still do. why the heck is the first brush size jump 10 units!?! simply a linear brush size change would have been awesome. although including a brush size slider is already pretty awesome
These things have been bothering me for a long time, and i always assume these problems that are obvious to me are probably obvious to everybody else and therefore will be fixed without my small intervention, but i figure this cant hurt. Thanks for all the hard work and the wonderful product!

This is a poorly explained reason about why is so important having a loupe in Photoshop. I've not also, used the best example, but I will. This belongs to the ADDITIONAL FEATURES: Loupe/Magnificator View:. Also, I will try to make my english clrearer, but here it goes:

Love Aperture 3's new features, but finding it too slow to be usable.

About a year ago I took on photography as a serious hobby, and have been looking for a good photo management program. I have a Nikon D300s camera and started with the nView software, before upgrading to Photoshop CS4. Bridge was fast, but a bit too utilitarian for my liking so I began looking into alternatives like Lightroom 3 and Aperture 3. My goal is to find a program that is quick, responsive, and capable of performing the majority of my basic editing, while allowing me to maintain a nicely organized photo library. I shoot in the .RAW format and have about 7k photos in a referenced library. I have installed all system updates, including the prokit update.
So as the title suggest, I love almost everything about the new Aperture. Its interface is beautiful, photo organization is a snap, and it has some very powerful editing tools. That being said, it is unbearably slow. Brush edits can take up to 3-5 minutes to show, while the brush tool tip chunks around the screen. Even showing the color overlay can take a few minutes. Zooming into a photo can also take upwards to 2-3 minutes. If I have made more then a few adjustments, toggling them on and off can take a minute or longer.
During these delays, I don't get a beach balls, but my computer slows to a crawl. According to Apertures activity center it is "processing." Some times it is so many processes behind, that I wonder if it is processing adjustments that I have already changed. Bringing up the activity monitor usually shows that cpu usage is 40% or below, with Aperture rarely taking more than 2.5gb of RAM.
I have tried all the tricks I have read about online, faces off, places off, preview sized maxed out, preview size minimized, prokit update, deleting cache files, starting new libraries with fewer pictures, and creating Steve Jobs effigies to place around the office. It feels like I have tried it all. I am even willing to format my computer and start from scratch, even though everything but aperture runs great.
My trial is about to run out again and I am just so frustrated. I want to buy this program, but at the moment the lightroom 3 beta runs circles around it performance wise. Is there anything I haven't tried that might make Aperture useable?

I share your frustration.
I am in love with Aperture's features, its workflow, and its OS integration. But I can't live with its behavior. I postponed my final decision to put Aperture on the shelf until this week, when my new MacBook Pro arrived. I bought the latest model, Core i7, 8GB RAM, 1TB HD. I have 700MB of free space on my new HD, and there is no fragmentation. You could say that I have about as snappy a system as Apple makes these days.
Using A3 on this system is generally OK. But working with the retouching brush, while a lightyear better than my late 2008 MacBook Pro, is still dreadful. I want to use the retouching brush to remove blemishes and wrinkles from photos of women. This usually requires lots of small brush strokes. After the first few brush strokes, A3 slows down to the point of frustration. It takes about 20 seconds for the effects of the brush stroke to appear, which makes it not a productive use of my time.
I don't understand the constant need for Aperture to be "processing" something in the Activity window, but I've learned that when it's processing, you can't really get anything else done.
Exporting versions to disk is the final indignity. It's usually the last thing I do before quitting a session in Aperture. Yesterday, I wanted to export two retouched files to JPG for an email proof. This took several minutes for my MBP to complete. Lightroom's beta version completes the task in a few seconds.
Inexcusably bad performance on my high end hardware.
Sorry Aperture, but I'm back to Lightroom and Photoshop. I'll check back when Apple releases Aperture 3.1 and hope they figure this out.

Two significant aperture software failures (or features depending....)

I have been unable to determine any method allowing Aperture to import GPS data from nikon D1X,D2X directly... the only workaround seems to be to import the raw images into nikon view software, export as jpegs import the jpegs, seems a bit silly but there it is.
the next one is likely to be more important to more folks. When working with large arrays of large TIFF files (here the files are 65-250mb) a normal automated workflow for us is export to jpeg. Yep, you can do so with aperture, but if you do this and export selected versions it will hang with unsupported file format and fail the multiple file export. Interestingly if you then try the files it just exported those too are now unsupported format. The solution is to quit out of Aperture reopen the bloody thing and then reselect the files, walk away for coffee, return and export them, works just fine. Key is waiting (interminabley) for it to "load" all of the select images prior to export to jpeg. Interminable means 8-12 minutes for twenty 100mb images selected, this on a quad, 8gb ram, 500gb SATA drives, sigh.... Point isnt that once again Aperture has demonstrated some frustrating behavior for a pro product, those are my daily experience, but that there is a solution in case you encounter the issue.

I have been unable to determine any method allowing
Aperture to import GPS data from nikon D1X,D2X
directly... the only workaround seems to be to import
the raw images into nikon view software, export as
jpegs import the jpegs, seems a bit silly but there
it is.
Have you tried exporting the RAW files with GPS data from Aperture and then looking to see if the EXIF is in the export? Aperture seems to pass along any EXIF from the master file, even if you cannot see it inside Aperture.
the next one is likely to be more important to more
folks. When working with large arrays of large TIFF
files (here the files are 65-250mb) a normal
automated workflow for us is export to jpeg. Yep,
you can do so with aperture, but if you do this and
export selected versions it will hang with
unsupported file format and fail the multiple file
export. Interestingly if you then try the files it
just exported those too are now unsupported format.
The solution is to quit out of Aperture reopen the
bloody thing and then reselect the files, walk away
for coffee, return and export them, works just fine.
Key is waiting (interminabley) for it to "load" all
of the select images prior to export to jpeg.
Interminable means 8-12 minutes for twenty 100mb
images selected, this on a quad, 8gb ram, 500gb SATA
drives, sigh.... Point isnt that once again
Aperture has demonstrated some frustrating behavior
for a pro product, those are my daily experience,
but that there is a solution in case you encounter
the issue.
What video card do you have? I think it may effect thumbnail load times to some degree. Also, is your library on an external firewire disc? That could also slow it down.
I work regularily with TIFF files - mostly around 40MB or so, but I have seen no delays (or bugs like you describe) around loading them and I'm just on a DP 1.8Ghz with 1.5GB of RAM. I have a few 150MB panos but have not used them enough to say if they start to have the problems you describe around them, I don't think I have enough to repeat the kind of load you're putting Aperture under.

Display of PS files w/layer masks in Aperture

I frequently use the "open in external editor" command to edit images in PS. Mostly, this works very well and I'm able to view the edited image in Aperture without a problem. However, for some images with layer masks created in PS, when I save them and return to Aperture only the layer mask is visible (not the image as it should appear). Has anyone else had this problem? Is it a bug, or intentional? Any way around it?
Thanks,
Chris

Hi,
I've seen this too. I think it is the bug related to displaying PS-files in 10.4.6
see: http://www.completedigitalphotography.com/?p=422#more-422
We can just hope 10.4.7 deals with it.
cheers,
ceffe

LR DAM vs Aperture DAM

Everything I've read so far says that Aperture has better DAM features than LR. Now that LR v1.0 is set, is this still the case? What does Aperture have for DAM that LR doesn't?

A few comments about Aperture...
Count me as one of those that prefer managed libraries. I really don't see the disadvantage vis-a-vis managing pictures in the browser or finder, unless one has been doing that for many years and doesn't want to switch. And the option has been in Aperture for almost 6 months now. I think having the option is a wonderful thing, however.
Also, the folder structure in Aperture is incredibly straightforward. Blue folders sit at the top of your library hierarchy, and can contain projects (and more blue folders). So an example might be 3 blue folders that will contain all of your Family, Personal and Client projects. then you might have another layer of folders in your client folders for each client (Ford, BMW and Porsche). And every time you do a job for Ford, you create a new project in the Ford folder. If you want to see every photo you have ever done for Ford at once, just click on the Ford folder. If you just want photos from a specific assignment with Ford, just click on that project. In any event, the hierarchy is the same (to me) as if I was managing them in the browser or finder, except now I can access and sort them as I need them.
Brown folders only reside in projects - a way of grouping photos or versions of photos within a project. Very handy (think for publishing different web sites or making different books from the same project. Clients frequently want to see different things.
Honestly, its nothing to get confused about. If you prefer, ignore the color - it would not matter if Apple had used only one color or gave Aperture the ability to change the colors. It just supposed to be helpful, like assigning color labels to folders you managed in the finder or browser. I never really paid attention to it until someone mentioned it a few weeks ago, and I have been happily using folders for over a year.
In any event, count me as one who is happy these apps exist - DAM was a bear for photography before they arrived. Whichever one you choose, it is a monumental step forward in my view.

How do I use the "double-layer" function with my iMac?

Hi,
Just wondering who can help me. I want to burn a dvd using the double-layer feature. The thing is I don't know if my iMac comes with that application preinstalled. I don't even know if I need an application and which one. The only thing I have for the moment is the "LightScribe DVD+R".
Thank you

"Double-layer" is a property of the media (the disk itself). There are no options in software necessary to support writing to it, it just uses the second layer if the data won't fit on a single-layer and the disk in the drive has a second-layer.
As far as software is concerned, there's no notion of "layers" on the disk. The software simply sees the disk as 4.5G (a regular DVD+R) or 9G (DVD+R DL). Handling of writing multiple layers is handled by the drive itself.
You'll note that you can't treat single-layer discs as double-layered ones. The drive can tell what sort of disk was inserted.

Does Aperture support deletion of multiple "unnamed" face tags?

Faces is a great feature. I love it.
I have 40,000 pictures in iPhoto. iPhoto currently does not have a way to select all "unnamed" face tags in a photo and remove them. I have to click each separate "unnamed" face tag to delete it. Because of the volume I am working with, without a global delete feature, I am looking at a 100-hour project (approximately 60,000 mouse clicks) to accomplish the deletion of all these "unnamed" face tags.
I was hoping that Aperture would offer this feature, since it is a Pro app. I called Apple today and they told me that "No, Aperture does not have this feature, either."
Does anyone know if Aperture does have a way of doing this? I tried to get an Apple Aperture support rep on the phone to think "outside the box" today on this, but he couldn't think of anything.
It just kills me that because I can't select multiple face tags in a photo and mass delete them with a single keystroke or click that I'm facing 100-200 hours worth of work, literally about 60,000 mouse clicks, in order to get rid of all my "unnamed" face tags.
Thanks for any ideas anyone might have.

Why is it worth 100 hours of your time to remove them?
(While I think_if_ there is a way to do what you want.)

HDR layer locked

Hi everyone, I hope someone can help me. I'm working in CS3, trying to work on an HDR image composed of three auto-bracketed CR2 files. The result is a photoshop file which cannot be adjusted, at all. No basic level adjustment or hue/saturation, or anything! I tried to work with the brush tool and got an error code telling me 'could not use the brush tool because it does not work with 32 bit per channel images (convert image to 8 or 16 bit per channel to edit).
   Um, hello, I thought the whole point of HDR is the 32 bit per channel mode. Michael Rather in his Photoshop for Digital Photographers podcast instructs that "you don't want to change your bit depth (from 32) because that defeats the whole purpose of manipulating images in HDR."
   Is he right? And why was he able in his tutorial to do the manipulation in 32-bit mode?
   Thanks everyone!

Many of the 32 bit adjustments and layer features only work in Photoshop Extended.
It sounds like you do not have Extended.

Why is Aperture2iLife so fast on jpg export when compared to Aperture?

I shoot youth sports.
On most days I can shoot 1000+ images for 3-4 games. I shoot 70-200mm VR on a D2X in high-speed crop mode to get eight frames/sec so the shots add up fast. Occasionally I switch back to full res but for the most part I am shooting eight frames/sec every time a ball is in motion near kids.
I carry a D200 with a 12-24 for wide and close shots.
All jpg of course, and have found that it is good enough for even 16x20s.
Most games get culled down to 100-200 images. Those keepers are then cropped, white balanced, exposure adjusted, and sharpened. Lift and stamp make that work go very fast.
I then export preview images to post on my photo ecommerce site. This is a killer... sharpening, highlight and shadow adjustments can triple the output times. For a project of 200 images, it can take 30+ minutes for output. If I have 3 games per night I am looking at 1.5-2 hours just for outputting preview images! No I don't want to use automator running my DP G5 into the night...
HOWEVER, I have just tried added something new into my workflow. Aperture2iLife.
After I am done with culling, cropping, correcting a project, I exit Aperture and launch Aperture2iLife, select "create jpgs" which outputs images that are 1024 pixels on the long side, select the project I just finished in Aperture and two minutes later I launch iWeb.
In iWeb I pull up the media browser and select photos. I select all and drag them to a empty directory in finder.
30+ minutes versus 2 minutes. WHY?
Granted, Aperture2iLife is a quirky app, and does have some issues, but for what I need it to do, it SMOKES Aperture.
Why do I edit the preview images? Better preview images sell more.
15 1.5Ghz PB, G5 dual 2 Ghz/ 4 GB RAM / Radeon X 800XT / Mac OS X (10.4.6)

<...>
After I am done with culling, cropping, correcting a
project, I exit Aperture and launch Aperture2iLife,
select "create jpgs" which outputs images that are
1024 pixels on the long side, select the project I
just finished in Aperture and two minutes later I
launch iWeb.
In iWeb I pull up the media browser and select
photos. I select all and drag them to a empty
directory in finder.
30+ minutes versus 2 minutes. WHY?
<...>
That's because under teh covers, Aperture is making three different sizes of preview thumbnails - including images that are 1024 pixels on one side.
Aperture2iLife is cleverly just pulling out the JPG files Aperture has already made.
Aperture has a few features that make use of these larger thumbnails - in Slideshow you can elect to use these images for faster loading, and if you delete a master image it uses the thumbnails since it can no longer generate an image from the master file.
I agree it would be kind of handy to havea feature to let you simply export those largest thumbnails directly since for web use, that's generally large enough. But then again Aperture2iLife does that pretty well already.

Clone function in Aperture 2.0

I have used the Aperture 2.0 clone feature when the program was first release with no problem. However, tonight when I use the clone feature the cloned color seems to be "absorbed" in the new location. I identified what area to clone and selected a "white" area to place the clone item. When it first appears the cloned color is appears but the color appears to fade until it is gone. I have played with the settings but to no avail. Anyone else experience this effect? Let me know.

Are you talking about the Spot & Patch tool or the Retouch tool?
Sounds like the Retouch tool, which takes area you copied from and blends it into the colour and tone of the area you copy onto.
Ian

Faces Has More Power in Aperture vs. iPhoto

I came across this on Apple's site for Aperture:
The popular Faces feature in iPhoto comes to Aperture 3, where it has even more power.
What added power does Aperture bring that iPhoto does not?

Well ... does the Apple site say anything?
Aperture takes Faces further.
Aperture 3 expands on the power of Faces in iPhoto. Not only can you view the people you name across the entire library, you can now see them in individual projects. And the new Show Unnamed Faces pane displays all the detected-but-not-yet-named faces in a project to help you easily add names
I don't use iPhoto, so I can't comment on whether this has changed in the interim for iPhoto.

Watermarking for Aperture's web gallery

I really like Aperture's web gallery feature but would like to make use of the watermark feature for those images. That way, if images are 'borrowed' there is still a reference to my website.
Any ideas on how this could be done? I'm guessing the only way is to edit in PS and add the watermark there but is it possible to do without leaving Aperture?
Ross

Make a new Web Export preset with a watermark, just like you would a regular Image Export preset.
Ian

LR4 Video = Aperture Knockoff - Great --- But knock it off RIGHT !

Hi.....
I dont particularly like Aperture. But I have been using it for a while now to organize my video-rushes.
Particularly trimming the H264 prior to transcode is amazing.
So I saw that LR4 had gotten video capabilities and downloaded the beta.
Great work Adobe. Must say. Really like to be able to WB my clips in Lightroom prior to transcoding. Super.
However, what use is Lightroom really If I cant:
1) Export to a Real-World codec. (You offer H.264 or DPX - Latter is GREAT but a little overkill for an H264 source that doesn't need to go commercial)
2) Import the trimmed clip (with the trims) directly into Premiere Pro or other apps. (I can drag the clip from LR4 directly into PPRO but PPRO will NOT adapt the in and outpoints which is totally stupid ;-)))
The way LR4 implements Video capabilities is an exact knock-off of Aperture 3.
What I ask is that if you have the audacity to so clearly copy Apples features why dont you copy them 100%....
Aperture has the following feature " Export Version " This feature will save the trimmed version of the Movie WITHOUT re-compresing(Re-Encoding). It will save the trimmed version to WHATEVER codec the original file is.
So one can cut off start and ending and SAVE the H264 as an independent movie WITH NO RE-ENCODING. I have Tripple checked it.. Re-saved that timmed file 10 times (Meaning 10 Generations of re-saving).
Putting all 10 inside AE and comparing with difference Mattes yields a black background which means, if you composition background is black, that there is NO differences. IF Aperture would indeed re-encode the 10th generation
re-save of the H264 would look horrible, NOT SO.
Adobe, your Premiere Crew holds the opinioin that ABOVE (Saving an H264 without Re-Compressing) cannot be done without quality loss.) That is why the "Save Trimmed Version" in Premiere Pro does NOT save H264-Trimmed versions but the whole file.
They claim that the movie would loose quality as PPRO would to re-encode. That IS NOT SO. Aperture and Apple have been doing it for a while now.
I know that this is ADVANCED technology and it is difficult to figure out. But perhaps if your engineers cannot figure this one out, you could at least give LR4 Video Users the ability to export the trimmed movie to ProRes or other useful codecs.
Thanx for reading

99jon wrote:
Why not stick to Premiere Pro and set your in and out points there?
Using Lightroom simply adds to the workflow, with another stage of rendering.
I will always transcode.... Working with H264 is NOT an option for professional editing, Speedwise, it is TOOOOOO slow...
I need ProRes. If Lightroom could export to ProRes I could transcode ONLY the core´part of the clip and not the whole clip with extraneous beginnings and endings.
As of now, I'll just transcode everything coming off the FlashCard to prores. Then view it in the Finder. I would LOVE to copy the Flash card to the hard drive (Or import directly) then use LR4 as my Librarian GREAT FOR META DATA. Then transcode ONLY the part I need to ProRes...
Been doing this in Aperture, since V3 came out. And this is a VERY effiecient workflow. Premiere Pro iS NOT A LIBRARIAN where Lightroom is.
TO bad, adobes departments arent really communicatiung with each other. If LR4 developers would just have ONE meeting with the Premiere Pro department, adobe would gain ALL Premiere Pro users for Lightroom in the blink of an eye....
I could just export to DPX(LR4 does that) which I do every now and then, but ProRes is just as good and takes up 10x less HD space... So LR4 def. would benefit GREATLY from being able to export to ProRes.
Besides, LR4 USES Adobe Media Encoder and its presets to convert to DPX and etc... So WHY ON EARTH would adobe limit to DPX and H264... Lazyness ????

Users of iPhone photo sync, Aperture, and stacks

For those who use Aperture and the stack feature, do you have the same problem as me when syncing to your iPhone?
Here is the thing:
Stacks in Aperture are used to group related pictures (usually variants of the same picture). In a stack, you then choose the best picture of the stack and identify it as such. This picture is then the only one that is shown in an album once the stack is closed.
Now if you sync such an album, containing stacks, to your iPhone, the problem is that all pictures in the stack, and not only the best one, is displayed in your iPhone album.
(Note that I also posted this under the category "iPhone" in this forum.)

More info:
This problem exist not with sync of albums on iPhone/iPad, but when syncing SMART ALBUMS.
If you sync a smart album that contains a stack of pictures, all pictures are put on the iPhone (not only the best picture of the stack as it should).
Please let me know if you have this problem (or not...)

Aperture 2.0 layer feature??

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