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Mastering Apple Aperture
Master the art of enhancing, organizing, exporting, and printing your photos using Apple Aperture Overview In Detail Apple Aperture is one of the leading photo editing software packages available in today’s market. It provides you with all the tools to organize, browse, and perfect your images, so you can make every shot your best shot. Mastering Apple Aperture aims to teach you the skills and knowledge necessary to become a master of the Apple Aperture software. It will build upon your existing core skills and show you new and advanced ways to get things done in Apple’s powerful photography software. Mastering Apple Aperture starts by showing you the most simple and efficient ways to import and organize your images. It then takes you through the techniques for processing photos before moving on to cover advanced topics like working with tethered shooting, multiple libraries, curves, and metadata. You will discover how to edit images in Aperture and will gain complete mastery over processing images. You will also explore ways of extending Aperture through the use of plugins and third-party software. This book concludes with tips and tricks for the best ways to output images from Aperture, whether for print or for screen. What you will learn from this book Approach This is a practical, step-by-step guide that aims at taking your understanding of Aperture from novice to master. Who this book is written for This book is written for photographers who have an understanding of digital photography and who have a basic level of familiarity with Apple’s Aperture software. It is assumed that you have used Aperture and are familiar with the basics of the software.
- GenresPhotography
264 pages, Paperback
First published July 7, 2013
5 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Fitzgerald
23 books12 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 22, 2013
I've not read a whole book electronically before, so I downloaded to eBook and he PDF version.
I found the PDF a better format because this is a technical book and not a novel so the layout and links to the screen shots were consistent. With the eBook the structure fell apart as the font size was changed and the initial layout had very few paragraphs per page.
The author makes a very important statement at the start of he book outlining the target audience should be comfortable with using a Mac, shooting in RAW and have already used Aperture. I fit in to this category and hoped that I would discover some of Apertures less obvious features and unlock them to enhance my experience.
I found the book very approachable, although the pace is quite quick this is because the writing style is succinct and does not waste time padding out the text with irrelevant or really basic information. It gets right into the product and explains what features it has and gives insight into what gives the products it's performance.
The structure of the book is well thought out and the first few chapters cover key theories about Aperture itself and the digital image processing.
I have done a lot of importing into Aperture and the first chapter revealed some features that I had not seen before. The default import process is very good but the author demonstrates what more can be done just by simply adding some of the extra functions into the import panel.
There is a good explanation of how the import process works, how to handle shooting RAW+JPEG, shooting with the camera tethered and filtering the import to only import RAW, JPEG or Video files. The guidance extends into the pros and cons of importing into Apertures Library or linking the files from your local storage. As in many of the other chapters in the book there are tips and recommendations on how to organise your photo imports and real world examples to aid the reader in applying the knowledge to their own processes.
After the images are imported the next obvious thing to do is to teak and edit them. The book reinforces the fact that Aperture is primarily a management application, however it does have some very good features making adjustments to images and more importantly that these are split between ones that work on the RAW data and others that work in the RGB colour space. There is a discussion on how these differences affect the changes to the images but most significantly that Aperture makes changes using 32-bit math, no matter what the source image is and as such these changes are much smoother than other applications. Equally significant is the reminder that some of the tools are only adequate and other programs do some of the adjustments better.
Building on the topic of adjustment tools there is a whole chapter devoted to the subject of using the curves function to archive various adjustments and how in some cases, with knowledge of how they work, they can do some types of adjustments better than the more obvious adjustments. The explanations of what curves can do and how to use them is not only discussed in detail, but practical examples are given to put this into context, aid the understanding of the principles and how to archive great results.
Once you have been guided as to what you can do the product the author brings all of the knowledge bought to you from the beginning of the book into further real world examples.
In spite of pointing our some of Apertures shortcomings, the author points out that there is a great number of plug-ins that can augment the process of enhancing the images in the library. He then guides the reader through some of the most useful add-ons, gives details of where they can be purchased from, as well as illustrating their use and scenarios where you may want to pop outside of the main program. In an unbiased way, which is visible thought the book, the author also points out the possible pitfalls of this side of the product.
Obviously it is all well and good taking a lot of images and organising them well, but unless you do something with them it dies not matter how good a program is. With this in mind two of the chapters explain, in good detail, how to export images for the web, social networking and photo sharing - this can be done from within Aperture. The author also goes into detail about how to watermark your images and the pros and cons of direct publishing or export and upload. The second chapter goes through, in detail, on how to print your images the way you want, the quality settings and how to set profiles for more accurate printing.
Finally the book examines, in much greater depth how to make Metadata work for you. He goes through the extra options you have in managing your library of photographs as well as how this can enhance the visibility of your images on the web. There is also mention of other areas where you might need to add special or custom data to your images, say for stock libraries or publishing houses.
All-in-all this is a great no frills guide to Aperture, but it is also a great tutorial in the essential understanding of digital imaging and management that I feel would help even if you we're not using Aperture. It is also apparent the author really understands the subject and is very capable at expressing his knowledge in a clear and understandable way.
I found the PDF a better format because this is a technical book and not a novel so the layout and links to the screen shots were consistent. With the eBook the structure fell apart as the font size was changed and the initial layout had very few paragraphs per page.
The author makes a very important statement at the start of he book outlining the target audience should be comfortable with using a Mac, shooting in RAW and have already used Aperture. I fit in to this category and hoped that I would discover some of Apertures less obvious features and unlock them to enhance my experience.
I found the book very approachable, although the pace is quite quick this is because the writing style is succinct and does not waste time padding out the text with irrelevant or really basic information. It gets right into the product and explains what features it has and gives insight into what gives the products it's performance.
The structure of the book is well thought out and the first few chapters cover key theories about Aperture itself and the digital image processing.
I have done a lot of importing into Aperture and the first chapter revealed some features that I had not seen before. The default import process is very good but the author demonstrates what more can be done just by simply adding some of the extra functions into the import panel.
There is a good explanation of how the import process works, how to handle shooting RAW+JPEG, shooting with the camera tethered and filtering the import to only import RAW, JPEG or Video files. The guidance extends into the pros and cons of importing into Apertures Library or linking the files from your local storage. As in many of the other chapters in the book there are tips and recommendations on how to organise your photo imports and real world examples to aid the reader in applying the knowledge to their own processes.
After the images are imported the next obvious thing to do is to teak and edit them. The book reinforces the fact that Aperture is primarily a management application, however it does have some very good features making adjustments to images and more importantly that these are split between ones that work on the RAW data and others that work in the RGB colour space. There is a discussion on how these differences affect the changes to the images but most significantly that Aperture makes changes using 32-bit math, no matter what the source image is and as such these changes are much smoother than other applications. Equally significant is the reminder that some of the tools are only adequate and other programs do some of the adjustments better.
Building on the topic of adjustment tools there is a whole chapter devoted to the subject of using the curves function to archive various adjustments and how in some cases, with knowledge of how they work, they can do some types of adjustments better than the more obvious adjustments. The explanations of what curves can do and how to use them is not only discussed in detail, but practical examples are given to put this into context, aid the understanding of the principles and how to archive great results.
Once you have been guided as to what you can do the product the author brings all of the knowledge bought to you from the beginning of the book into further real world examples.
In spite of pointing our some of Apertures shortcomings, the author points out that there is a great number of plug-ins that can augment the process of enhancing the images in the library. He then guides the reader through some of the most useful add-ons, gives details of where they can be purchased from, as well as illustrating their use and scenarios where you may want to pop outside of the main program. In an unbiased way, which is visible thought the book, the author also points out the possible pitfalls of this side of the product.
Obviously it is all well and good taking a lot of images and organising them well, but unless you do something with them it dies not matter how good a program is. With this in mind two of the chapters explain, in good detail, how to export images for the web, social networking and photo sharing - this can be done from within Aperture. The author also goes into detail about how to watermark your images and the pros and cons of direct publishing or export and upload. The second chapter goes through, in detail, on how to print your images the way you want, the quality settings and how to set profiles for more accurate printing.
Finally the book examines, in much greater depth how to make Metadata work for you. He goes through the extra options you have in managing your library of photographs as well as how this can enhance the visibility of your images on the web. There is also mention of other areas where you might need to add special or custom data to your images, say for stock libraries or publishing houses.
All-in-all this is a great no frills guide to Aperture, but it is also a great tutorial in the essential understanding of digital imaging and management that I feel would help even if you we're not using Aperture. It is also apparent the author really understands the subject and is very capable at expressing his knowledge in a clear and understandable way.
October 10, 2013
When I first got a glimpse of Thomas Fitzgerald’s new book, “Mastering Apple Aperture” I feared that it was just a collection of his blogposts at The Aperture Blog.
The cover states “Master the art of enhancing, organizing, exporting and printing your photos using Apple Aperture” and that is, in a nutshell what this book is about. The reader is assumed to have a basic knowledge and understanding of the software. Don’t expect a manual where every menu item and button is explained, for that you have to revert to the Apple manual included with the software (online manual). Also a basic understanding of photography terms is expected. For an absolute beginner in photography and/or Aperture, this book is not the one to start with.
So who is this book for? For the photographer looking to get the most out of his pictures and for the one looking to enhance his workflow.
The author guides us, following a logical workflow, through the various steps from getting your pictures into Aperture and getting the most out of your images using the power of this underestimated software.
The book starts with the importing and organising of your images. The author covers the various ways you can use to organise and import your files into Aperture. In this chapter the concept of libraties, albums and folders is explained, you wil also learn how to make Aperture’s library work for you. Tethered shooting, a feature built into Aperture, is also addressed.
Now that we have learned the best ways to import and organise your pictures, the author takes us through the power of the adjustment options Apple Aperture offers. I’ve found this chapter extremely informative and even though I consider myself an advanced Aperture user (since version 1), I learned quite a bit from this chapter. Thomas also explains why he does things the way he does them and why not the other, sometimes more logical, way.
Chapter 3 covers everything you ever wanted to know about curves. Thomas knows his curves, with real world examples the author shows not only the power, but once you understand it, the ease to get stunning pictures with the use of the curves adjustment.
This chapter is also usefull for non-Aperture users, together with the adjustments chapter these two chapters alone merit the purchase of this book.
The everyday issues the average photographer encounters is addressed and explained using examples, the settings are explained and you see the before and after for better understanding. The author gives valuable advise on how to handle common issues like: recovering highlights, fixing blown out skies, fixing chromatic aberration and cretaing duo toned images.
A chapter is also dedicated to the power of extending Aperture using Aperture’s plugin architecture. Thomas covers why you might need this external power tools that enhance Aperture and how to get the most out of them. You will learn about the essential plugins and other ones to make your photography workflow a breeze. Although I had heard of most of the suggested plugins, Thomas has surprised me once more with some valuable suggestions and tips.
Exporting your images and spreading them onto various social media sites is addressed in another chapter. Aperture offers an extensive option to export your images and publish them online. The various options, with their advantages and disadvantages are discussed, so you get to learn what is the best approach for your images depending on where you need them. Some tips on blogging, tweeting your pictures and even a guide on how to set up a portfolio that syncs with your ipad is covered in this chapter.
A lot of attention is also spent on the usage of metadata and the power of them when you combine these with smart albums for example. You will learn the various ways to enter this data into your pictures and how this can benefit you, especially useful if you do a lot of stock photography. You will also get some time-saving tips using the built-in tools from the operating system or some external utilities.
The book ends with a chapter on printing. Starting with the calibration of your screen, understanding the various print options and how to use the book tool for advanced print layouts.
I would certainly recommend this book to every photographer who has a basic understanding of photography. This step-by-step guide aims at taking your understanding of Aperture from novice to master. I consider this a must read for every Aperture user. Thomas has shared his knowledge in this book and the reader is sure to gain insight in the software and the workflow possibilities it offers.
Book Details
Language : English
Paperback : 264 pages [ 235mm x 191mm ]
ISBN : 1849693560
ISBN 13 : 9781849693561
Author(s) : Thomas Fitzgerald
Available at: http://www.packtpub.com/mastering-app...
The cover states “Master the art of enhancing, organizing, exporting and printing your photos using Apple Aperture” and that is, in a nutshell what this book is about. The reader is assumed to have a basic knowledge and understanding of the software. Don’t expect a manual where every menu item and button is explained, for that you have to revert to the Apple manual included with the software (online manual). Also a basic understanding of photography terms is expected. For an absolute beginner in photography and/or Aperture, this book is not the one to start with.
So who is this book for? For the photographer looking to get the most out of his pictures and for the one looking to enhance his workflow.
The author guides us, following a logical workflow, through the various steps from getting your pictures into Aperture and getting the most out of your images using the power of this underestimated software.
The book starts with the importing and organising of your images. The author covers the various ways you can use to organise and import your files into Aperture. In this chapter the concept of libraties, albums and folders is explained, you wil also learn how to make Aperture’s library work for you. Tethered shooting, a feature built into Aperture, is also addressed.
Now that we have learned the best ways to import and organise your pictures, the author takes us through the power of the adjustment options Apple Aperture offers. I’ve found this chapter extremely informative and even though I consider myself an advanced Aperture user (since version 1), I learned quite a bit from this chapter. Thomas also explains why he does things the way he does them and why not the other, sometimes more logical, way.
Chapter 3 covers everything you ever wanted to know about curves. Thomas knows his curves, with real world examples the author shows not only the power, but once you understand it, the ease to get stunning pictures with the use of the curves adjustment.
This chapter is also usefull for non-Aperture users, together with the adjustments chapter these two chapters alone merit the purchase of this book.
The everyday issues the average photographer encounters is addressed and explained using examples, the settings are explained and you see the before and after for better understanding. The author gives valuable advise on how to handle common issues like: recovering highlights, fixing blown out skies, fixing chromatic aberration and cretaing duo toned images.
A chapter is also dedicated to the power of extending Aperture using Aperture’s plugin architecture. Thomas covers why you might need this external power tools that enhance Aperture and how to get the most out of them. You will learn about the essential plugins and other ones to make your photography workflow a breeze. Although I had heard of most of the suggested plugins, Thomas has surprised me once more with some valuable suggestions and tips.
Exporting your images and spreading them onto various social media sites is addressed in another chapter. Aperture offers an extensive option to export your images and publish them online. The various options, with their advantages and disadvantages are discussed, so you get to learn what is the best approach for your images depending on where you need them. Some tips on blogging, tweeting your pictures and even a guide on how to set up a portfolio that syncs with your ipad is covered in this chapter.
A lot of attention is also spent on the usage of metadata and the power of them when you combine these with smart albums for example. You will learn the various ways to enter this data into your pictures and how this can benefit you, especially useful if you do a lot of stock photography. You will also get some time-saving tips using the built-in tools from the operating system or some external utilities.
The book ends with a chapter on printing. Starting with the calibration of your screen, understanding the various print options and how to use the book tool for advanced print layouts.
I would certainly recommend this book to every photographer who has a basic understanding of photography. This step-by-step guide aims at taking your understanding of Aperture from novice to master. I consider this a must read for every Aperture user. Thomas has shared his knowledge in this book and the reader is sure to gain insight in the software and the workflow possibilities it offers.
Book Details
Language : English
Paperback : 264 pages [ 235mm x 191mm ]
ISBN : 1849693560
ISBN 13 : 9781849693561
Author(s) : Thomas Fitzgerald
Available at: http://www.packtpub.com/mastering-app...
September 24, 2016
Voulant progresser un peu sous Aperture pour développer mes photos, je voulais trouver un bouquin m'aidant dans ce parcours.
Ne sachant pas trop ou aller, je suis tombé par hasard (merci Google) sur ce bouquin (Il y a d'ailleurs sur le site de l'éditeur la table des matières complète ainsi que l'intégralité du chaptire 1 sur l'import (avec les captures en N&B comparé à la couleur du PDF acheté mais bon, ça donne une bonne idée (en grande partie pourquoi j'ai franchi la pas d'ailleurs)))
En toute honnêteté, j'avais un peu peur de me lancer dans ce bouquin pour qu'Apple annonce Aperture 4.0 le lendemain… :)
Mais bon, pas trop de risques apparemment et quand bien même, je pense pas qu'il y ait une révolution complète dans la prochaine version et ce qu'on apprend là sera surement utile par la suite…
Petite retour donc sur ce livre.
J'ai testé la version eBook (il est fourni en version PDF, epub, mobi) sur mon Kindle Touch mais bon… premièrement c'est en noir & blanc (forcément) et c'est par défaut tellement petit que c'est pas vraiment utilisable.
Grossir les fontes change la mise en page drastiquement ce qui fait que ce n'est pas facile à suivre. Peut-être mieux sur un Kindle DX ou une tablette plus grande (mais dans ce cas-là, autant aller sur le PDF que sur le eBook).
Bref, j'ai donc lu le PDF.
Le livre est pour les personnes ayant déjà un minimum de connaissance avec Aperture. Si vous avez déjà lancé l'appli, importé quelques photos et fait un minimum d'ajustements, c'est suffisant. Il faut ensuite évidemment shooter en RAW et avoir un minimum de connaissance en photo.
La construction est classique mais complète avec tout d'abord une première partie sur l'import des photos, l'organisation de la librairie Aperture (multi-librairies, RAW+JPEG, Sessions tethered, …).
La deuxième partie se concentre sur les "ajustements avancés", à savoir déjà comment Aperture gère la pile des ajustements (intéressant), les ajustements via les brosses, Highlights/Shadows, Sharpening, Réduction de bruit.
La troisième partie se concentre exclusivement sur les courbes et pas seulement comment faire une S-curve.
La quatrième partie utilise des exemples concrets: récupérations des zones brûlées, rendre un ciel brûlé plus sympa, supprimer des objets, enlever les traces des poussières du capteur, corriger les aberration chromatiques, ...
La cinquième partie explore la partie plug-in avec la présentation de quelques plug-ins et comme Aperture gère les modifications faites par un plug-in.
La sixième partie gère l'export, vers Internet, Facebook, Flickr mais aussi des plug-ins d'export
La septième partie traite des métadonnées, vaste sujet s'il en est :)
La huitième partie est sur l'impression.
Et puis voilà !
C'est donc assez complet comme vous pouvez le voir.
Dès la partie sur l'import (et pourtant j'ai déjà importé des milliers de photos sur Aperture) on apprend quelques petits trucs qu'on n'utilise pas et qui peuvent pourtant faire gagner du temps ici et là en évitant des tâches répétitives.
De mon côté, j'ai particulièrement apprécié les parties deux et trois sur les ajustements et les courbes qui m'ont appris pas mal de choses. J'ai rajouté plusieurs ajustements dans mon workflow et gère maintenant beaucoup mieux les brosses et tout ce qu'elles peuvent apporter pour des ajustements localisés sur les photos.
J'ai aussi lu avec intérêt la partie sur les plug-ins. Je n'en utilise pas, plus par méconnaissance, mais ça a du coup titillé mon intérêt et il est fort probable que j'en teste quelques-uns sous peu pour voir ce que je peux en tirer.
Quelques manques pour moi avec un passage très rapide sur les gestion des stocks et le passage en Noir&Blanc qui n'est géré qu'au travers du plug-in Silver Efex Pro.
Mais de manière générale, un livre assez complet, qui se lit facilement et assez vite, et qui arrive à traiter pas mal de sujet en évitant digressions et bla-bla inutile pour aller droit au but.
A noter aussi que j'ai sauté les chapitres sur l'impression (qui vous expliquera comment calibrer et utiliser vos profils de couleur) ainsi que le Tethering.
Un bon achat pour moi en tout cas qui voulait avancer un peu côté Aperture.
En espérant que ça vous soit utile !
Ne sachant pas trop ou aller, je suis tombé par hasard (merci Google) sur ce bouquin (Il y a d'ailleurs sur le site de l'éditeur la table des matières complète ainsi que l'intégralité du chaptire 1 sur l'import (avec les captures en N&B comparé à la couleur du PDF acheté mais bon, ça donne une bonne idée (en grande partie pourquoi j'ai franchi la pas d'ailleurs)))
En toute honnêteté, j'avais un peu peur de me lancer dans ce bouquin pour qu'Apple annonce Aperture 4.0 le lendemain… :)
Mais bon, pas trop de risques apparemment et quand bien même, je pense pas qu'il y ait une révolution complète dans la prochaine version et ce qu'on apprend là sera surement utile par la suite…
Petite retour donc sur ce livre.
J'ai testé la version eBook (il est fourni en version PDF, epub, mobi) sur mon Kindle Touch mais bon… premièrement c'est en noir & blanc (forcément) et c'est par défaut tellement petit que c'est pas vraiment utilisable.
Grossir les fontes change la mise en page drastiquement ce qui fait que ce n'est pas facile à suivre. Peut-être mieux sur un Kindle DX ou une tablette plus grande (mais dans ce cas-là, autant aller sur le PDF que sur le eBook).
Bref, j'ai donc lu le PDF.
Le livre est pour les personnes ayant déjà un minimum de connaissance avec Aperture. Si vous avez déjà lancé l'appli, importé quelques photos et fait un minimum d'ajustements, c'est suffisant. Il faut ensuite évidemment shooter en RAW et avoir un minimum de connaissance en photo.
La construction est classique mais complète avec tout d'abord une première partie sur l'import des photos, l'organisation de la librairie Aperture (multi-librairies, RAW+JPEG, Sessions tethered, …).
La deuxième partie se concentre sur les "ajustements avancés", à savoir déjà comment Aperture gère la pile des ajustements (intéressant), les ajustements via les brosses, Highlights/Shadows, Sharpening, Réduction de bruit.
La troisième partie se concentre exclusivement sur les courbes et pas seulement comment faire une S-curve.
La quatrième partie utilise des exemples concrets: récupérations des zones brûlées, rendre un ciel brûlé plus sympa, supprimer des objets, enlever les traces des poussières du capteur, corriger les aberration chromatiques, ...
La cinquième partie explore la partie plug-in avec la présentation de quelques plug-ins et comme Aperture gère les modifications faites par un plug-in.
La sixième partie gère l'export, vers Internet, Facebook, Flickr mais aussi des plug-ins d'export
La septième partie traite des métadonnées, vaste sujet s'il en est :)
La huitième partie est sur l'impression.
Et puis voilà !
C'est donc assez complet comme vous pouvez le voir.
Dès la partie sur l'import (et pourtant j'ai déjà importé des milliers de photos sur Aperture) on apprend quelques petits trucs qu'on n'utilise pas et qui peuvent pourtant faire gagner du temps ici et là en évitant des tâches répétitives.
De mon côté, j'ai particulièrement apprécié les parties deux et trois sur les ajustements et les courbes qui m'ont appris pas mal de choses. J'ai rajouté plusieurs ajustements dans mon workflow et gère maintenant beaucoup mieux les brosses et tout ce qu'elles peuvent apporter pour des ajustements localisés sur les photos.
J'ai aussi lu avec intérêt la partie sur les plug-ins. Je n'en utilise pas, plus par méconnaissance, mais ça a du coup titillé mon intérêt et il est fort probable que j'en teste quelques-uns sous peu pour voir ce que je peux en tirer.
Quelques manques pour moi avec un passage très rapide sur les gestion des stocks et le passage en Noir&Blanc qui n'est géré qu'au travers du plug-in Silver Efex Pro.
Mais de manière générale, un livre assez complet, qui se lit facilement et assez vite, et qui arrive à traiter pas mal de sujet en évitant digressions et bla-bla inutile pour aller droit au but.
A noter aussi que j'ai sauté les chapitres sur l'impression (qui vous expliquera comment calibrer et utiliser vos profils de couleur) ainsi que le Tethering.
Un bon achat pour moi en tout cas qui voulait avancer un peu côté Aperture.
En espérant que ça vous soit utile !
October 18, 2013
As with all of Apple's pro grade software, Aperture's easy to use interface is built upon an abundance of complex and powerful features. The new book Mastering Apple Aperture by Thomas Fitzgerald has great insight into many of these hidden elements which can take your imaging workflow to the next level, although he does leave a few stones unturned.
Fitzgerald refrains from covering the very basics of the program in the understanding that you probably already have basic knowledge of working with Apple Macs and Aperture. As someone who generally skips the user manual and dives right in, I was very thankful for this. Instead he helps the reader find the right tools to increase their productivity while giving real world examples of how and when to use them.
For many first time Aperture users, skipping over it's abundant metadata and file management tools is the very first mis-step on the road to an unorganized and unwieldy photo library. Chapter 1 leads readers down the correct path by explaining the importance of one of Aperture's strongest qualities; importing and organizing images. From the hidden features of the Import Dialog to the value of organizing your projects in a meaningful way, Thomas takes his time to explain things like creating metadata presets, why to choose managed or referenced images, using project templates to replicate smart album structures and managing multiple libraries. He even has a brilliant tip on working with in-camera black and white images.
There are three separate chapters dedicated to image editing in Aperture which explain many features in great detail. He begins this section by successfully demystifying Aperture's 'adjustment tree', leaving the reader with a true understanding of what is happening behind the scenes and an appreciation for Aperture's outstanding 32bit image processing. The all powerful Curves adjustment receives it's very own chapter, and rightly so. With the ability to selectively recover highlights, increase or decrease contrast, change color casts, change the overall brightness and much more, Curves is the mack daddy of Aperture adjustments.
While it's obvious that Fitzgerald is trying to focus on Aperture's most powerful tools, some great editing features are skipped right over, which is a bit of a shame. One such example is the Quick Brush adjustments. Things like Skin Smoothing and the Blur brush can be great assets to a rapid workflow, but can result in dreadful effects when used incorrectly.
Another set of features I constantly use which seem to be absent in this book are the Hot & Cold clipping and color clipping viewer modes. These two modes are invaluable for determining if your shadows or highlights are clipping, or if you are loosing any information in a particular color channel. They can be toggled using the key command Shift + Alt + H (Hot & Cold Highlights) or by holding the Command key while adjusting the Exposure, Recovery or Black Point sliders, Curves In & Out sliders or the White and Black point on Levels (Color Channel Clipping).
The subsequent chapters cover in depth methods for using external image editors and plugins, exporting and sharing images, correctly applying Metadata and how to get better prints from Aperture. The information covered here is all key to taking your image editing, organization and delivery to a professional level. There are also some ingenious workarounds to help manage Aperture's shortcomings.
Of the few key features left out of this book, only one can not be forgiven, and that is the Command Editor. A commanding workflow warrants the sheer power of keyboard shortcuts, and Apple kept this in mind when they built the Command Editor's exceptionally elegant interface. From here you can quickly and easily see what key commands are mapped to what functions, complete with visual feedback from a virtual keyboard. You can even add key commands for your own custom effects.
All in all, Mastering Apple Aperture is a terrific read for photographers of any level who want to get a grip on their post-production workflow. It is very well written, concise and offers a deep insight into the true power of Aperture without getting too technical. Highly recommended.
Fitzgerald refrains from covering the very basics of the program in the understanding that you probably already have basic knowledge of working with Apple Macs and Aperture. As someone who generally skips the user manual and dives right in, I was very thankful for this. Instead he helps the reader find the right tools to increase their productivity while giving real world examples of how and when to use them.
For many first time Aperture users, skipping over it's abundant metadata and file management tools is the very first mis-step on the road to an unorganized and unwieldy photo library. Chapter 1 leads readers down the correct path by explaining the importance of one of Aperture's strongest qualities; importing and organizing images. From the hidden features of the Import Dialog to the value of organizing your projects in a meaningful way, Thomas takes his time to explain things like creating metadata presets, why to choose managed or referenced images, using project templates to replicate smart album structures and managing multiple libraries. He even has a brilliant tip on working with in-camera black and white images.
There are three separate chapters dedicated to image editing in Aperture which explain many features in great detail. He begins this section by successfully demystifying Aperture's 'adjustment tree', leaving the reader with a true understanding of what is happening behind the scenes and an appreciation for Aperture's outstanding 32bit image processing. The all powerful Curves adjustment receives it's very own chapter, and rightly so. With the ability to selectively recover highlights, increase or decrease contrast, change color casts, change the overall brightness and much more, Curves is the mack daddy of Aperture adjustments.
While it's obvious that Fitzgerald is trying to focus on Aperture's most powerful tools, some great editing features are skipped right over, which is a bit of a shame. One such example is the Quick Brush adjustments. Things like Skin Smoothing and the Blur brush can be great assets to a rapid workflow, but can result in dreadful effects when used incorrectly.
Another set of features I constantly use which seem to be absent in this book are the Hot & Cold clipping and color clipping viewer modes. These two modes are invaluable for determining if your shadows or highlights are clipping, or if you are loosing any information in a particular color channel. They can be toggled using the key command Shift + Alt + H (Hot & Cold Highlights) or by holding the Command key while adjusting the Exposure, Recovery or Black Point sliders, Curves In & Out sliders or the White and Black point on Levels (Color Channel Clipping).
The subsequent chapters cover in depth methods for using external image editors and plugins, exporting and sharing images, correctly applying Metadata and how to get better prints from Aperture. The information covered here is all key to taking your image editing, organization and delivery to a professional level. There are also some ingenious workarounds to help manage Aperture's shortcomings.
Of the few key features left out of this book, only one can not be forgiven, and that is the Command Editor. A commanding workflow warrants the sheer power of keyboard shortcuts, and Apple kept this in mind when they built the Command Editor's exceptionally elegant interface. From here you can quickly and easily see what key commands are mapped to what functions, complete with visual feedback from a virtual keyboard. You can even add key commands for your own custom effects.
All in all, Mastering Apple Aperture is a terrific read for photographers of any level who want to get a grip on their post-production workflow. It is very well written, concise and offers a deep insight into the true power of Aperture without getting too technical. Highly recommended.
January 27, 2014
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If you know how Aperture works, but you want to know more details and want to learn some of the not so obvious tips and tricks, then this book is for you. It is not a book for absolute beginners, as it was written with the assumption that you already know how to use Aperture a little bit.
If you know how Aperture works, but you want to know more details and want to learn some of the not so obvious tips and tricks, then this book is for you. It is not a book for absolute beginners, as it was written with the assumption that you already know how to use Aperture a little bit.
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