Mastering Apple Aperture

Thomas Fitzgerald

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781849693561
• Topic: Ciencias de la computación
• Subtopic: Medios digitales
• Edition: 1

In Detail

Apple Aperture is one of the leading photo editing software packages available in todays 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 Apples 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.

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 for

This book is written for photographers who have an understanding of digital photography and who have a basic level of familiarity with Apples Aperture software. It is assumed that you have used Aperture and are familiar with the basics of the software.

Mastering Apple Aperture

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Table of Contents

Mastering Apple Aperture

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more

Why Subscribe?

Free Access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Downloading the color images of this book

Reader feedback

Customer support

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Advanced Importing and Organizing

A closer look at the import dialog

Managed versus Referenced

Converting between referenced and managed

Adding keywords while importing

Importing images to an album

Creating presets for your camera

Real world examples

Making Aperture's library work for you

Projects, folders, and albums

Root level versus project level

Organizing your library

One-shoot-at-a-time approach

Casual shooting approach

Creating project templates

Merging and splitting projects

Managing multiple libraries

Switching libraries

Exporting a project as a library

Importing a library

Library troubleshooting

Managing RAW + JPEG

Working with in-camera black and white images

Shooting tethered

Requirements for tethered shooting

Starting a session

A tethered shoot

Summary

2. Advanced Adjustments

Understanding Aperture's adjustment tree

RAW versus RGB

Demosaicing

Linear gamma

RGB adjustments

Working on RAW data versus RGB data

Adding default adjustments

Multiple adjustments

Brushes-tips and tricks

Adding brushes to an adjustment

Painting with brushes

Editing brush masks outside of Aperture

Editing the brush masks

Cloning and healing

Using the retouch tool

Highlights and Shadows tool

Using the Highlights and Shadows tool

Saving, editing, and managing effect presets

Saving an adjustment recipe as an effect preset

Sharpening

Sharpening in the RAW Fine Tuning Brick

Edge sharpening

Understanding how it works

Be careful not to oversharpen

Noise reduction

Chroma versus luminance noise

Noise reduction options in RAW fine tuning

Getting the best noise reduction results in Aperture

Summary

3. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Curves

Curves basics

Referring to the tones in an image

Putting the Curves in the Curves adjustment

Controlling contrast and brightness with Curves

Controlling brightness with Curves

Contrast and the S-Curve

The difference between contrast with Curves and the contrast slider

Creating a high-key and low-key look

Warming up and cooling down

Adding warmth to an image

Cooling down an image

Tinting shadows and highlights with Curves

Tinting shadows

Tinting highlights

Faded Shadows and Highlights

Using the eyedropper and automatic modes

Using the eyedroppers

Using the automatic adjustments

Extended range Curves

Multiple Curves adjustments

Curves adjustment versus Levels adjustment

Real world examples

Real world example – darkening skies

Real world example – vignettes

Real world example – controlling highlights

Summary

4. Aperture in Action

Controlling clipped highlights

Step 1

Real world example

Step 2

Step 3

Real world example

Finishing touches

Fixing blown out skies

Real world example

Finishing touches

Removing objects from a scene

Fixing dust spots on multiple images

Tips for fixing chromatic aberration

Fixing purple fringing

Real world example

Finishing touches

Creating fake duotones

Fixing scanned negatives

Summary

5. Extending Aperture

When and why you need to go outside Aperture

What Aperture does when you use a plugin

Mountain Lion and Gatekeeper

Where to find plugins

Recommended plugins

PTLens

Silver Efex Pro

A quick tour of Silver Efex Pro

Dfine

Honorable mentions

Color Efex Pro

Photomatix

Working with external editors

Setting external editors preferences

Working with Photoshop

A quick way to create panoramas in Photoshop

Photoshop alternatives

Pixelmator

Key advantages

Disadvantages

Acorn

Key advantages

Disadvantages

Honourable mention – Photoshop Elements

Working with third-party RAW converters

Catapult

Using Catapult

Working with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

Setting up Lightroom and finder

Summary

6. Exporting and Outputting to the Web

Setting preview settings

Using OS X media browser

Exporting versions

Setting export presets

Filename and folder templates

Blogging from Aperture – the easy way

What is wrong with this method

Blogging from Aperture – the proper way

Export plugins

TwitExport

BorderFX

500-Wide

iStockPhoto Uploader

PhotoShelter Uploader

Exporting to Facebook and Flickr

Managing Facebook

Managing Flickr

A better option for Flickr

FlickrExport

Sharing with Photo Stream

Creating a quick iPad Portfolio with Photo Stream

Summary

7. Making Metadata Work for You

Why good metadata is important

Aperture's Info tab

Metadata View templates

Name Only

Caption Only

Large Caption

EXIF Info

IPTC Core

Creating your own templates

Create a preset to view all EXIF information

Creating metadata templates

Different ways of entering keywords

Entering keywords from the Info tab

Using the keyword HUD

The Keyword Control Bar

Lift and Stamp keywords

Entering captions and titles quickly

Using TextExpander to speed up data entry

TextExpander

Entering long strings of text for captions

Keyword sets

Using OS X's built-in autocomplete

Batch changing metadata

Adding custom metadata

Some examples of when to use custom metadata

Searching and smart folders

The search HUD

Smart albums

Summary

8. Getting Better Prints from Aperture

Calibrating your display

Choosing a display calibrator

Calibrating your screen

Calibrate often

The limitations of calibration

Onscreen Proofing

The print dialog

Show all the options

Print resolution

Print sharpening

Creating print presets

Issues to be aware of when creating print presets

Printing and saving to PDF

Creating a digital contact sheet to e-mail to clients

Printing to a JPEG file

Using the book tool for elaborate print layouts

Printing your page

Ordering prints using Apple's print service

Ordering prints from a third-party service

Summary

Index

Mastering Apple Aperture

Copyright © 2013 Packt Publ...