Bug: Aperture exporting JPEG masters incorrectly

I have a new Aperture library with 76 JPEGs in a project. The average size of each JPEG is ~500 KB. When I look at the list, I see all the file sizes I expect to see. When I peek in the Masters directory on the filesystem within the Aperture library, I see what I expect to see.
So, with Aperture 3.2.1 and Lion 10.7.2, I select all the JPEGs using Cmd-A, and then I type Cmd-Shift-S to export the masters. I expect this to be a file copy from what I see in the Masters directory to the target directory.
However, what actually happens is that between 1-4 of the JPEGs end up with a *ridiculous* size. Instead of the expected 534 KB for one image, what gets exported is 1.8 *gigabytes*. This happens to a different number of JPEGs each time, and to different images each time.
Essentially, I cannot trust "Export Masters..." at all. These gigantic files it outputs aren't even viewable as JPEGs.
What could be going on here?
Thanks,
John

I'm frustating about how Aperture give RAW+jpg pairs and once imported is not easy to select one of the two files depending on the case. I read recently a good solution, you can import Both as masters(RAW and JPG) and select AutoStack(⌥⌘A)
with a short time span (0:02) and Aperture will import the two masters of each photo, and later you'll be free to use one of them. And you can reject manually all the RAWs that you don't want to store.

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Aperture Exporting JPEG's from RAW: file size and quality questions?

Hey Everyone,
So, I'm using Aperture 2 and I've got some questions about exporting from RAW to JPEG. I shoot with a Nikon D70 so original RAW files are 5-6mb in size. After doing some basic post processing when I export the pics at "full size" with picture quality of 11 out of 12 then the resulting JPEG is about half the file size of the original RAW file. For example a 5.6mb RAW becomes a 2.6mb JPEG. The resolution in pixels per inch and and the overall image size remain unchanged. Have I lost picture quality due to the exporting JPEG being smaller in file size?
My friend who works with me prefers to edit in Photoshop and when he follows the same workflow his saved JPEG from the identical RAW file in Photoshop is minimally smaller in file size, say 5.6mb to 5.3mb. He's telling me that my Aperture edited photos are losing quality and resolution.
Is he right, are my pics of lesser quality due to being a smaller file size? I've always been told that the quality of a picture is not in the mbs, but the pixel density.
I've bee told that Aperture has a better compression engine and that the resulting files are of the exact same quality because the PPI and image size are the same. Is that what explains the much smaller file sizes in Aperture?
I tried changing the picture quality in the export menu to 12 out of 12, but the resulting JPEG then becomes larger than the original RAW at over 7mbs.
Can someone please help me understand this better? I don't want to lose picture quality if that is indeed what is happening.
Thanks in advance for your help.

mscriv wrote:
So, I'm using Aperture 2 and I've got some questions about exporting from RAW to JPEG. I shoot with a Nikon D70 so original RAW files are 5-6mb in size. After doing some basic post processing when I export the pics at "full size" with picture quality of 11 out of 12 then the resulting JPEG is about half the file size of the original RAW file. For example a 5.6mb RAW becomes a 2.6mb JPEG. The resolution in pixels per inch and and the overall image size remain unchanged. Have I lost picture quality due to the exporting JPEG being smaller in file size?
JPEG is a "lossy" file compression algorithm. Whether Aperture or PS, *every time a JPEG is saved some loss occurs*, albeit minimal at the 11 or 12 level of save, huge losses at low save levels. Some images (sky, straight diagonal lines, etc.) are more vulnerable to showing visible jpeg artifacts.
My friend who works with me prefers to edit in Photoshop and when he follows the same workflow his saved JPEG from the identical RAW file in Photoshop is minimally smaller in file size, say 5.6mb to 5.3mb. He's telling me that my Aperture edited photos are losing quality and resolution.
*Both of you are losing image data when you save to jpeg.* IMO the differences between the apps is probably just how the apps work rather than actually losing significantly more data. The real image data loss is in using JPEG at all!
Is he right, are my pics of lesser quality due to being a smaller file size?
I doubt it.
I've always been told that the quality of a picture is not in the mbs, but the pixel density.
The issue here is not how many pixels (because you are not varying that) but how much data each pixel contains. In this case once you avoid lossy JPEG the quality mostly has to do with different RAW conversion algorithms. Apple and Adobe both guess what Nikon is up to with the proprietary RAW NEF files and the results are different from ACR to Apple to Nikon. For my D2x pix I like Nikon's conversions the best (but Nikon software is hard to use), Aperture second and Adobe ACR (what Photoshop/Bridge uses) third. I 98% use Aperture.
I tried changing the picture quality in the export menu to 12 out of 12, but the resulting JPEG then becomes larger than the original RAW at over 7mbs. Can someone please help me understand this better? I don't want to lose picture quality if that is indeed what is happening.
JPEG is a useful format but lossy. Only use it as a _last step_ when you must save files size for some reason and are willing to accept the by-definition loss of image data to obtain smaller files (such as for web work or other on-screen viewing). Otherwise (especially for printing) save as TIFF or PSD which are non-lossy file types, but larger.
As to the Aperture vs. ACR argument, RAW-convert the same original both ways, save as TIFF and see if your eyes/brain significantly prefer one over the other. Nikon, Canon etc. keep proprietary original image capture data algorithms secret and each individual camera's RAW conversion is different.
HTH
-Allen

Aperture exports jpeg files larger than original RAW files

Can anyone tell me why a RAW file (10.6mb), when exported as a jpeg (10.8mb) from Aperture ends up larger than the original RAW file. The same RAW file when opened and then saved as a jpeg (6.4mb) in Photoshop is a lot smaller. The photo dimensions and resolution are the same in both saved files (34.5mb open file 300dpi 4256 x 2831 pix). I have tried this on several photos, all with similar results. For information I am saving the photos in both Photoshop and Aperture at 300dpi, original size and at a quality setting of 12. In these examples/tests I have done no work to the photos, obviously the file sizes increase after work has been carried out on the photos (in both Ps & Aperture)
Almost doubling the size of saved jpegs has a massive implication on my library and may be one reason to consider Adobe Lightroom as this gives similar jpeg file sizes as Photoshop, i.e. almost half the size of the original RAW file
Reducing the quality setting on saved jpegs is an obvious way to reduce file size, but not answering the question of the considerable discrepancy when saving to the same quality in different software
Is this a feature of Aperture and nothing can be done about it ? I would prefer to use Aperture but cannot cope with the large jpeg sizes !
Any comments would be much appreciated - thank you
Nick

Think you might be right Allen - The 12 quality saved jpegs seem to be pretty high quality, closer to the original than maybe the files saved in Ps at quality 12. I have just run an identical set of processing actions on all the files in Photoshop and the jpegs previously saved in Aperture at 12, 11 and even 8 quality settings seem to be better than the same files saved at 12 in Ps
Bizarrely the file size drops from 10.6mb at quality setting 12 in Aperture, to 3.2mb when saved just one notch down at quality setting 11 in Aperture. That is a massive drop, esp considering the next one down, saving at quality 10 results in a 2.8mb file
rw just ran some checks and tests on the file export settings and file sizes in Aperture, on a file I sent him, and we get the same results. So at least my version of Aperture is not up the wall !!
Would be useful to have the explanations from Apple as to the vast variance in settings and file sizes, but I guess we will just have to keep guessing - and buying more and more hard drives for all the large files
I am considering keeping the RAW originals in future, and I suppose in this case I need only save smaller jpegs, and issue at whatever size they are needed at the time - just needs a bit of planning to look after an ever increasing collection, which is about to have two sets of images added at a time now. Added to the already amassed 80 000 images at last count !)
Thanks
Nick

Exporting RAW masters of RAW-JPEG Pairs

Is there any way to export only the RAW master of a RAW-JPEG pair? I always shoot both RAW and JPEG. In my workflow, I first import into Aperture the JPEG's. I then group into stacks, choose my stack picks, and finally rate all my stack picks. I then will go back and only import those RAW files which match my stack picks. Occasionally, I would like to edit my RAW files outside of Aperture using Capture NX2 and would like to export only those RAW files. Exporting a "version" only allows to export a JPEG/TIFF or other file. Exporting "masters" exports both master files, the JPEG and the RAW. Is there a way to only export the RAW master?
Thanks for your advice.

I'm frustating about how Aperture give RAW+jpg pairs and once imported is not easy to select one of the two files depending on the case. I read recently a good solution, you can import Both as masters(RAW and JPG) and select AutoStack(⌥⌘A)
with a short time span (0:02) and Aperture will import the two masters of each photo, and later you'll be free to use one of them. And you can reject manually all the RAWs that you don't want to store.

Aperture and export JPEG profiling

I've heard on a photo forum I go to regularly that there's some issue (at least to me it sounds like one) when JPEGs are exported out of Aperture.
Apparently the only way Aperture knows to do that is to assign a profile to exported file. Meaning that if the file is viewed through a software (Safari) which understands profiles, all is well, but if a software has no clue what a profile is than the images look rather flat and way different than when viewed in Aperture prior to export.
I am not using Aperture myself yet, but hope to get clarification on this as it just doesn't sound right that as good app as Aperture is would omit such a functionality especially considering Safari being the only color managed browser right now (maybe there's some other I am not aware of, but IE6 and firefox are not to my knowledge).
I agree that this is rather a flaw of all the other companies who were not yet been able to make their application color managed therefore not a flaw of Aperture. But the reality is that most people are not able to guarantee that their pictures will be only viewed through Safari.
Thanks for your response.
Regards
Marek

Whenever Aperture exports a JPEG it doesn't just tag the output file with an ICC profile it also converts the RGB values accordingly. In other words, an image viewer can use the embedded ICC profile as a recipe for interpreting the RGB values in the file.
If you want to export for viewers that aren't colour space aware the best bet is using sRGB as your export profile. This (or something close) is what most "colour blind" web browsers assume when they render an image file.
Unfortunately, colour space aware browsers are few and far in between. This was the only reason for me to ditch my beloved Firefox and switch to Safari.
BTW, if you don't have Aperture but want to experiment with colour spaces and conversions, ColorSync Utility can be hours of fun. It presumably (most likely) uses the same routines for colour management that Aperture uses.
Cheers
Steffen.

Aperture Photo JPEG Export Size

I have a question regarding the file sizes of photos exported from Aperture. When exported the photos seem to be almost double the file size of the original photo imported to aperture and the size shown in Aperture. For example, I have a photo that is 2736x3648 sized at 3.51MB in Aperture. I export with JPEG set to original size, JPEG quality is set to 12. The resulting file size exported is 7.1MB. The resolution of the exported photo is also 2736x3648 so I don't think it's a DPI issue. I've done some experimentation with the JPEG quality and the results are still strange. 10 gives me a 2.2MB file, 11 gives me a 2.6MB file and 12 as mentioned previously is 7.1MB. Seems like a huge jump so I suspect I'm missing something. The other sizes being smaller than the original also seems strange.
I've looked at the exported photos at 10,11&12 and can clearly see the detail lost. The darker parts get darker and drop the detail in the photo. I'm very reluctant to lose quality so ideally would go with 12.
I know there are a few questions like this on here already but none of them seem to have a good answer. Just wondering if anyone has figured it out?
Thanks in advance.

Terence, you've helped me on a lot of things, so I guess I am going to further ask for clarification....
I have recently been trying to use Aperture solely (and pretty much abandon iPhoto.). But, when I say export a file to jpeg (whether it is currently a RAW or JPEG file, I am concerned about my settings-- by default, the setting "export jpeg in original size" has settings as 72 dpi. I have changed that to 300dpi. Is this why I have 15-20MB files? Is this the correct setting? I don't want any printer to have a false representation of how much data is there. Nor do I want to lose any data either.
I could theoretically take any photo and probably even say 4500dpi, and the file would be exaggerated that much more. I go to print, and the print center sees there is plenty of resolution there, but in reality, there is no more data there than the extent to which the file provided. You can't create resolution that is going to improve on what your camera or the minor adjustments you do to it to improve it. I say export it at whatever maximum dpi it has or multiply that dpi by 100, and no matter what, the image is going to print the same no matter how much data (or how large the box is).
Also, if I open my library in iPhoto and tell it to export the photo at original size, the file is smaller than the file exported via Aperture (thus my concern I am providing more detail than what is really there) and providing an exagerrated resolution. Your help is greatly appreciated. I am providing a disk to someone, and this is affecting whether I give them one or two disks due to the file sizes. (And, of course, as is, the file sizes are harder to work with if you want to email. So, if they don't have an email program that auto-condenses, they may be frustrated not having smaller files if they choose to email any.)
Thanks in advance!

What's the deal with large white blocks in exported jpegs

I just exported my first job I ran through Aperture. Out of 736 files, 9 were flawed. When opened, the exported jpeg had a missing section of the photo, that was all white. The white block appeared in random spots but always on the edges. The problem didn't occur the second time around with the same 9 files/ this time processed in a batch of 9.
I need to know how to export files reliably - in my workflow, I don't have time to double check file quality.
Has anyone seen this issue? I've seen it with 1.1.1 and 1.1.2.
I'm shooting with a 1ds mrkII.
MacBookPro Mac OS X (10.4.6)

i've seen this too, in other odd ways. it seems to affect the images that i've spotted (with the patch tool) and have other corrections/adjustment applied. its almost like the GPU gets too overloaded to accurately recreate all of the image mods. the image seems to be segmented into smaller rectangular sections that probably get loaded into the video card's memeory and the adjustments and corrections are applied on smaller, more managable sections. when the image is stitched back together something goes horribly wrong!
the sections tend to be mis-matched with some completely black, some that have black spots where the patch tool was applied, other sections have what looks like a white overlay that's 50% opaque. sometimes even my thumbnails come up with the same results as these malformed exports. i've been able to shake them back to normalcy by toggling one of the corrections (spot/patch, highligh/shadow, etc). after the thumbnail updates properly, the export usually works fine.
this is definitely a bug with aperture and i would report it as such. attach and send the image to the bug report if you can!
scott
ps: for what its worth, i'm usually shooting with my Nikon D200 these days.
PowerMac G5 2.5GHz Mac OS X (10.4.7) MacBook Pro 2.0GHz

The difference in sharpness and overall contrast between LR5 and LR4 low res. export JPEGs

Installed the evaluation copy of the LR yesterday and as always compared with the previous version (4.4) of the program. The first and not very pleasant difference was the sharpness of the exported JPEGs in low resolution. In full resolution exports it is not that much noticeable. As you may see on the below photo LR4 export is noticeably sharper than LR5. All the export settings were the same in both versions. I used my saved export preset for both JPEGs. The LR5 exported JPEG is slightly lighter than the one in LR4.4. Both photos look the same in develop mode screen, so the difference is in export processing.
Would be great to know hear the experience, thoughts and comments of others about it.

Rufat Abas wrote:
I also hope that it'll be fixed soon.
Yeah, all other bugs in Lr5 I've been able to find acceptable workarounds for, but I'm not sure what to do about this one for the mean time - any ideas?
If no acceptable workaround can be found, then +1 vote: 5.0.1 in a hurry.
Rob

Artifacts on exported JPEG

One of my exported JPEGs has three or four vertical lines across it, like scratches on old movies. Has anyone else seen this? Is it worth keeping the evidence, or should I just re-export and hope the problem never recurs?

Not sure what happened to my last attempt at posting, but anyway, this already came up on the forum yesterday - the thread can be found at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=672936&tstart=75 .
Apparently it only affects Intel macs and only when 'fit to dimensions' is used, and only with images from certain cameras. Still not good, though. I'd suggest submitting feedback and sample images via the Aperture feedback page at http://www.apple.com/feedback/aperture.html .
Ian
G5 2x2GHz, tiBook 1GHz 15", MBP 2GHz 15" Mac OS X (10.4.6)

PC based client cannot see keyword tags on my exported JPEGs, PC based client cannot see keyword tags on my exported JPEGs

Hey,
Im having a very wierd problem that I can't quite get my head around and would appreciate some help!
I am delivering exported JPEGs from Aperture to a client workning in a PC environment. These photos are all Keyworded, and these keywords show up when i click the "get info" button on the exported files. Also, I was asked to double check using Adobe bridge, and low and behold, all tags are there, I can see them, and so can anyone else with a mac. (and yes I did select the embed metadata in exported files button on export!)
The problem is that when they move to the PC environment, noone can see these tags. This is a huge problem, as I am delivering around 1,000 photos to be archived in a smart database that uses the tags to sort the photos.
HELP!

The Keyword, as with Captions (Description in Photoshop) is not found in file properties, but must be seen with true photo app. OSX does provide that in a Get Info window, but that will not necessarily be true in other operating systems. Knowing the apps they have used to search for the Keyword is important.
Ernie

How to export both masters and versions w/ metadata?

When traveling I import photo files into Aperture on my laptop and edit them. When I get home I would like to export "everything" - masters, versions, and metadata, so that I can then import all of this into Aperture on my desktop. Or, perhaps there is another way to transfer all of this information into Aperture on my desktop? The export menu seems to give only the option to export either masters or versions, but I want to basically duplicate on my desktop a particular project from my laptop. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

You get the option to either add the contents of the being-imported Library to the being-imported-into Library, or to merge the contents. In neither case is the being-imported-into Library replaced.
It is always a good idea to maintain a practice Library of a few hundred images, and to use it to try out any actions you fear might destroy your work.
There is an entire chapter in the User Manaul on using Library files. It is part of the general introduction to Aperture (viz.: the first seven chapters), all of which is recommended reading as it provides the foundation needed to achor your exploration of the rest of this complex, powerful program.
What you want to do is part of that power -- it is specifically provided as a feature of Aperture:
This is particularly useful if you use a portable computer when on location or away from your studio, and a workstation at your studio. Any work done in the field can be exported from your portable computer as a library file and then merged with the library file on the workstation at your studio.
In your case, either export everything ("Export→Project as New Library") from the "field" computer, or simply import the entire "field" Library. The details of the workflow are up to you to determine. They will likely depend on what Images you want to maintain on your "field" computer -- whether that Library is a one-time only collecting basket, or is used for processing or showing Images collected on previous excursions.
Message was edited by: Kirby Krieger, added a bit.

Exported Jpegs not readable by Powerpoint via finder

When I export from Indesign CC 2014 as JPEGs the files are greyed out when importing into other applications, i.e. PowerPoint 2011.
It seems indesign isn't creating a proper Jpeg with correct meta Creator & Type data so other programs know its a .jpg.

I've tried all RGB, CMYK & Grey, no luck.
Looks like a bug. There is something wrong with exported jpegs at least on OSX. If I get the file type with AplleScript an exported jpeg returns ????, while a PS jpeg returns JPEG.
tell application "Finder"
set myFile to choose file with prompt "Select a file"
display dialog file type of myFile as string
end tell

Issue exporting JPEGs

Hi there,
I'm having some major issues exporting JPEGs from inDesign. Where I've been successful before on another copy (a workmate's) my newly purchased copy of inDesign CS5.5 is being troublesome.
What I want to do is select a series of images in a small area, some of which are on top of one another, and export them as they appear onscreen.
Admittedly I could do a screengrab to do this but they won't necessarily be in the resolution I'd like and more annoyingly I would have to remove all the surrounding images and bits of text to create a clean image. This is far too time-consuming for a task I need to repeat.
Every time I attempt to export (via File>Export then "Selection") the resulting file has the overlaid images (in this case small labels on a map) incorrectly placed, not even on top of the main image itself and in fact thrown off massively in seemingly random directions.
Anybody any ideas as to how to resolve this?
Thanks

@ Peter, thanks for the help but I don't understand what you mean by 7.5.2. My InDesign is 5.5.
There's the slight prolem that the image in question is copyright and currently unreleased. I've edited it to show what the problem is though.
The two circles on the right should be overlaid on top of the image to the left, as I say, they're keys to the map. I'm trying to work out how they've moved so far away and made the resulting JPG so wide. The upper circle should also be on top of the lower one.

Lightroom 4.1 exported JPEG files are not recognized by Apple Preview App

I just started using Lightroom 4.1 Trial version (coming from Aperture). I exported JPEG versions of some images using an ICC profile. On my iMac running Lion 10.7.5 the pictures do not show a thumbnail, the file on the desktop just shows "JPEG". I could not open the file with the Preview App, but I am able to open it with DPP (Canon software)? Also the file shows that it has 0 x 0 dimentions when I click Get Info even though it is about 25 Megs in size?
The message I get is
"The file “Edit-739820120223Canon EOS 7D.jpg” could not be opened.
It may be damaged or use a file format that Preview doesn’t recognize."
Does anyone know why this is hapening?
Is it a know issue between Adobe and Apple?
Is there a fix for this?
Thanks for help in advance.

25MB is quite a large filesize for a JPG, and this might be either quite a lot of pixels saved at a very "high" quality (not very much compressed), or it may be an extremely large number of pixels saved with medium compression.
While the technical spec of the JPG format imposes an absolute limit on maximum width and height pixel dimensions, some software employs a lower limit above which it considers the file to be invalid. Different programs, different limits, sometimes.
I have encountered this (for example) with pano stitched images using the full resolution of a large number of component shots - where JPG output could not be made, or if made, could not even be viewed as a whole by my standard image viewer (though TIFF was still OK even at still larger sizes).
If Lightroom has been set to a large printed size AND to a high ppi resolution, it is easy to get into very high numbers and very large output files. One should IMO at least question the utility and benefit of using very high ratios of upsampling from a standard digital photo - which may happen in some cases as a result of using the same output settings regardless, when spreading the same data across both small and large scales. If the file that was imported into LR really does provide an unusually high number of pixels expressing lots of detail, then that will better deserve such a capacious output file. Otherwise, each part of the file may merely show a very highly detailed representation, of a very blurry nothing-much-in-particular.
If the JPG has exceeded the viewer's size limits, a reported width and height of 0 may represent an error message, in effect - not actual reality.
regards, RP

Afficher les traits de coupe dans l'export .jpeg d'indesign

Bonjour,
Savez-vous s'il est pssible d'afficher les traits de coupe lors d'un export.jpeg sous indesign ?
Merci pour votre aide.
Cordialement,

Salut,
Je souhaite exporter en .jpeg ou vectoriser la police avant conversion en PDF
Quand on exporte en PDF il est inutile de vectoriser le texte dans le fichier InDesign lui-même, il suffit de ne vectoriser que la sortie PDF :
- il faut d'abord créer un (nouveau) paramètre prédéfini d'aplatissement des transparences (menu Edition) qui utilise l'option "vectoriser texte" (et aussi les contours bien entendu).
- ensuite il faut utiliser ce paramètre prédéfini lors de l'exportation en PDF dans le panneau "Avancé" : il y a un menu déroulant qui liste tous les paramètres prédéfinis d'aplatissement des transparences disponibles.
>> il faut demander du PDF 1.3 pour que le menu déroulant ne soit pas grisé
>> la vectorisation ne s'effectue QUE sur les pages contenant des transparences : l'astuce indispensable consiste donc à insérer un petit bloc invisible (genre blanc/papier à 1%) dans toutes les pages des gabarits/maquettes/masters pour que toutes les pages du document utilisent au moins une fonction de transparence, et donc pour forcer (ou s'assurer de) la vectorisation sur toutes les pages.

Bug: Aperture exporting JPEG masters incorrectly

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