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I want to start over to organize properly #1
Robert Sfeir's picture
by Robert Sfeir
February 26, 2011 - 12:31pm

Hello again.

I got the 2 books on this site and I found them incredibly useful, I learned a few things I didn't know before, and that's a bonus.

I've looked around the web and this site and I didn't see something that was really answering my question: I want to start over to organize properly but only with my masters.

Yes I'm crazy :) But what I'm trying to do is start a whole new Aperture library that contains every master I have, no versions, so I can organize them like I want (and I like I learned from reading the 2 books) and to have a chance to move some versions into the new library if I want to, or start my work over if I think I can do better (and with the new plugins I got, I'm sure I can).

I tried consolidation but clearly that's not what it's meant for. The only option that seems to do what I'd like it to do is Export -> Masters.

Before I do that, is there another more effective way of doing it? I don't mind the export masters I just want to make sure that really means it's the original files. I can do it one project at a time, and use custom export settings to name the files properly.

Any guidance on how to best approach this change would be great.

Much appreciated.

R

Robert Sfeir's picture
by Robert Sfeir
March 4, 2011 - 11:59am

Hey Joseph.

So I finally migrated all my images to a new aperture library and organized them in a pretty good way. It’s amazing how much faster I can cruise when I know the type of image I’m looking for. heh. I’d be happy to share aperture structure if you think it’s useful.

After the import I did some tests. First thing is that Silver eFX pro 2 seems to choke at opening an image if it’s not a TIF image. I tried a PSD 16bit and it told me cannot open file. Switched to TIF 16 and it opened it just fine.

I can’t otherwise replicate the previous behavior, so something was funky with the lib or something else was going on. I can properly crop my images now and not end up with funky results.

I’m finally cruising in Aperture and really enjoying the workflow. For black and white it consists of: DFine, Silver eFx Pro 2, Sharpener Pro (or Color eFex before Sharpener if I want do to something funky).

This is an image I worked on this evening, and enjoyed every moment of working in it: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/276907/Streets%20%20648_5650_2009-07-03_10-59-43…

Enjoy.

R

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
March 4, 2011 - 1:41pm

Robert,

So glad to hear you’re back up and running! It’s always nice to hear when a problem is solved :)

You’re running SEfx2? I was on the beta but unfortunately I never got into it. I wonder if the PSD vs TIF problem you’re seeing is a bug. Are you on the brand new release version, or were you on a beta (and still on that)?

Good to hear everything else is sorted out now. And nice image! I love doing that kind of treatment on a close-up face of older gentlemen. Fantastic!

cheers
-Joseph @ApertureExpert

@PhotoJoseph
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Robert Sfeir's picture
by Robert Sfeir
March 5, 2011 - 5:12am

Joseph,

You’re too kind thank you for the nice comments. The funny thing is that I didn’t have to push the fine structure up much. I had those details in the shot from the Canon 5D. Lens used is 24-105 f4. Didn’t even aim the shot, did it while walking by, it’s cropped pretty tight though.

I am suing the recently released version of Silver Efex Pro 2.0, so no beta there. I opened a ticket with support to see if they knew of the issue, if there was a workaround, and asked to see if there was a beta I could help test. Being a software engineer I love betas hahaha. Will see what they say and how they resolve. I find that the SEP 2.0 has some quirks, so for example if you set a control point and adjust, you can see the image distorting while it adjusts, and that doesn’t happen with other effects. It’s first release of new version, it’s totally expected.

R

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
March 5, 2011 - 7:21am

Robert,

Sounds like SE2 wasn’t quite ready for release. I’m really wishing I’d spent some time on the beta now, I’d have found these things for sure!

Do let us know what they say, thanks.

-Joseph @ApertureExpert

@PhotoJoseph
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Robert Sfeir's picture
by Robert Sfeir
March 6, 2011 - 1:11am

OK I’ve replicated the original cropping problem, and maybe you can explain why that happens.

Here are the steps to test and reproduce.

- start with master image
- Crop image
- Send to DFine and adjust
- Save
- RIght click on saved image and send to silver efex
Result: you see the cropped image to edit, all is good

Now try this:

- start with master image uncropped, default size
- Send to DFine and adjust
- Save
- Now crop that image to your liking
- Send to Silver Efex Pro for processing
Result, you see the FULL uncropped image to edit! Not good. The problem here is that if I apply any border or vignette effects, they get applied to the whole uncropped image, not the cropped image, which means when you hit save you see the cropped image and the vignette and borders are all screwed up.

Before I submit this to NikSoftware and look silly because I’m doing something that doesn’t match a proper workflow in Aperture.

I have a preference to first treat my images, then crop and throw in the vignette or frame border. With what I’m running against here, I have to drop first, which requires me to first visualize the image as it may be in the end before I move forward, and I find that awkward.

Thoughts?

Here is a video of what happens in the second case

R

ps. You can also see my new Aperture structure there :)

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
March 6, 2011 - 3:19am

Robert,

Thanks for the video, that always helps tremendously.

Turns out, I get the same behavior here. And now I have to think about if this is working by design or not. I’m going to put some though into this this weekend and probably write a tip for the solution, and also share this with Apple.

Notice the badges on the file. You start with a clean file, no badges (other than referenced badge or keywords; ignore those). You open in dfine or anything else and come back, and you have a copy that has the “target” circle on it, meaning it’s been edited externally. Crop the image in Aperture now, and it gains the “adjusted in Aperture badge”. Now, if you open it in SEP2 or anything else, Photoshop included, you will see the non-cropped image. You can do your B&W effect, apply it and come back to Aperture, and you’ll see the cropped image with your B&W on it (not what you wanted). You can turn OFF the crop at this point because Aperture still sees it as a new master (the dfine’d image) with your crop applied.

Here’s the trick… if you want to open the cropped image in SEP2 or anything else, make a new version of it first. Just hit option-V, and that will make a new version and you’ll notice that it will no longer have the target icon on it. NOW when you open it in SEP2 or anything else, Aperture will create a new master, and that cropped master will open into SEP2.

At that point you cold delete that in-between version if you needed to.

There’s a shortcut for doing this if you’re opening in the external editor, but it doesn’t appear to work for plug-ins. If you hold down the option key when you select “edit in [photoshop or whatever]”, you’ll see the line change to “edit copy in…”, and Aperture will create a new master then open that in your editor. Unfortunately this doesn’t work with plugins.

-Joseph @ApertureExpert

@PhotoJoseph
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Robert Sfeir's picture
by Robert Sfeir
March 6, 2011 - 3:59am

AHA! I’m not crazy indeed then. Yes I’ve been making a new version before doing edits so that it doesn’t mess with me. On one hand that’s fine since it’s probably best to work on new versions so you can see them all together, on the other it sure makes it hard to work in a natural way where cropping often happens AFTER you’ve made your changes to see what works best. But… What can we do.

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
March 6, 2011 - 6:42am

Robert,

remember… option-v is your friend :)

cheers
-Joseph @ApertureExpert

@PhotoJoseph
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PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
February 27, 2011 - 5:47am

Robert,

Welcome to the site, and thanks for purchasing the books!

If you truly want to start from scratch, you need to get to your Master files. You can export your masters from the menu File > Export > Master… and put them wherever you like. You can choose to include metadata, or not, if you really really want to start from scratch! [screenshot]

Select the photos you want to export, and choose that menu command. If you want to choose all photos at once, go to the Photos view in the Library tab [screenshot] and select all the images, and export.

You’ll be presented with choices on where to export them; if you’re doing ALL your photos at once, I’d recommend you export them in a yyyy/mm/dd folder format, but of course that’s up to you. [screenshot]

As you’ve noted, you can also do it one project at a time, and do the rename on export. Regardless of when you rename (on export or import) you’ll have the same options.

good luck!
-Joseph @ApertureExpert

@PhotoJoseph
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Robert Sfeir's picture
by Robert Sfeir
February 27, 2011 - 10:04am

Hi Joseph,

Thanks again for the quick response. In checking out the steps and suggestions you gave, which seemed to match my basic understanding, when I tried to export 1 file, the end result was a .tif file. I thought the original files that were created by the Canon 5D were .cr2 files. Are those completely gone on import because Aperture had to run them through the raw camera engine, or are those still available? Does the .tif still maintain all the raw data? It feels like something’s not quite right because I really want to also keep the raw format file.

Perhaps I’m not completely understanding what’s happening under the hood. So I took a look at the Aperture library on the file system itself by viewing contents of the library package inside the masters directory and it seems like there are some RW2 files which are RAW files as far as I know, there are tif files, and certainly the .CR2 files as well (RAW). So with that in mind, is the easiest way to start fresh to just look for the .CR2 and .RW2 files in the Master directory in Aperture and just copy them to another directory and import or is there a way to ask Aperture to organize that for me?

Thanks again.

Thanks
R

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
February 27, 2011 - 10:24am

Robert,

The camera will shoot .CR2 if it’s set to shoot RAW. It can also shoot JPG. Some cameras actually do shoot .TIF, but the 5D isn’t one of them.

What you’re more likely seeing is the export of a photo that’s been opened in an external editor. Whenever you choose the “open in editor” command (i.e. open in Photoshop, or even a plug-in), the file is saved back into Aperture as a TIF or PSD, depending on your preference settings [screenshot]. I’d guess that’s what you’re seeing.

Try another photo—one you haven’t done any work to. Or look for a matching file to that .TIF you exported that hasn’t been to externally edited.

The original .CR2 (RAW) file is absolutely still there; Aperture processes the RAW file in real-time as you view it; there is no conversion. The original file in Aperture is never touched; it’s the sacred cow.

-Joseph @ApertureExpert

@PhotoJoseph
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Robert Sfeir's picture
by Robert Sfeir
February 27, 2011 - 10:29am

Quick update, it seems CR2 is from my Canon 5D, and RW2 is all from the Panasonic Lumix GF1. If I do a search on file name containing .CR2, I get 2854 images, and I get 158 RW2 images. I don’t see a reason why if I wanted to start clean, and yes I realize that those are a lot of images to reorg and tag, but I can do it properly now on import, and it’s not like I’m getting rid of the old lib anyway.

Robert Sfeir's picture
by Robert Sfeir
February 27, 2011 - 10:55am

OK I get what you mean now and why my original thought to just copy the .CR2 etc… is just dumb. Indeed I seem to get the .CR2 and .tif files. The .tif were modified in one of the plugins, but I don’t understand why they’d be considered image masters since the master is a .CR2. Sorry I’m starting to feeling like the questions are just stupid. Once I have the images exported, then I can easily remove the .tif if I want and then I have them by project which is much more organized than just a bunch of .CR2 in a folder I need to sort through.

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
February 27, 2011 - 12:52pm

Robert,

Don’t worry, some of the terminology in Aperture can be confusing.

When you import a photo (in any format), that is the Master. The beauty of Aperture is that all work you do inside of Aperture is never actually written to the file—it’s simply a stored set of instructions, and whenever you view the file, those instructions are read and the image is drawn to your screen following the instructions (i.e. crop, adjust exposure, etc.). The original file is never touched.

The confusion enters when you add a third party application to the mix. Only Aperture can read the instructions created by Aperture. If you want to make a photo black and white using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro, for example, you have to open the file in Nik, and save it back to Aperture. Since Nik can’t understand Aperture’s image adjustment instructions, Aperture renders those instructions into a NEW master file, creating a new TIF (or PSD, depending again on your preference settings), and sends THAT file to Nik to adjust. Then Nik saves it, and it’s back in Aperture. Now you have TWO master files—the original CR2, and also a new TIF.

Does that make sense?

-Joseph @ApertureExpert

@PhotoJoseph
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James Stevens's picture
by James Stevens
February 27, 2011 - 10:17pm

Robert,

I also get very confused about the different file formats and how things change when we export to an external editor and then back into Aperture. One reason I’m glad I stubbled onto this site. I hope to get some understanding of the different formats and how they work. I noticed that when I export a version I have worked on to Flickr, I often get questions from my contacts who want to view my EXIF data and all they see is the special instructions assigned to the file. I’m a big believer in sharing EXIF info because I think it makes us all better shooters, so that can be a little frustrating. Thanks for bringing this up. Jim

Robert Sfeir's picture
by Robert Sfeir
February 28, 2011 - 1:52am

Joseph,

After making various tests as you suggested and doing a full export and analyzing it, looking into the contents of the aperture library and understanding it’s structure, and your full explanation, it completely clicked and I get it.

What also made sense is why there were Tif files and why they were suddenly considered masters, and how I need to think about my workflow going forward when working with 3rd party plugs. It shed a light on why I was getting unexpected behavior when working with Silver Efex pro 2 recently, specifically:

If you take an image and crop it, open it in silver Efex and work with it, you’ll see the full image, not the cropped image. Apply the changes and add the new image border effect to it and save the image, what you end up with is the cropped image with some missing borders from the image border effect. From your explanation, and the digging around, that seems to make sense - aperture sends the image to the third party, the third party is not aware of the crop or other changes aperture made because aperture makes a non destructive edits, the third party plug applies the changes based on what it knows and you end up with an unexpected result.

That’s led me to think that I need to understand how I might want to adjust my workflow with the various plugins to end up with consistent expected results. That also means that I need to think about how I want to organize my work in aperture, particularly as it pertains to maintaining many versions / renditions of one master.

So yes I get it, and I also now can see how all the time I took to refine my large format black and white work with the zone system and btzs, will need to happen again when working with digital/aperture/plugins. It all takes thought and workflow / process to be successful in attaining consistent results.

It really is unfortunate that Apple is not exposing Aperture’s API so 3rd party plugs can behave in a similar manner that Aperture itself behaves with changes :-)

I very much appreciate you enlightening me / us. Once I have some thoughts on workflow as I experiment, I’m happy to post them for comment and others to hopefully benefit from the conversations.

Best
R

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
March 1, 2011 - 2:38am

Robert,

I’m glad to hear you understand the process better now. However there’s one thing that’s now confusing me—you said when you open a cropped image in Silver Efex that it’s bringing in the full image, and that’s not right—at least it’s not supposed to be. When you open in editor, Aperture creates a PSD/TIF new master from the current image with all of its Aperture adjustments applied. So if you crop the photo, Aperture will create a PSD/TIF that’s cropped, retouched, adjusted, etc., and send THAT file to the plug-in.

If you’re really seeing something different, then something else is very wrong!

-Joseph @ApertureExpert

@PhotoJoseph
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Robert Sfeir's picture
by Robert Sfeir
March 2, 2011 - 2:04am

I am indeed seeing that, and can reproduce the steps too consistently. I am in the process of contacting NikSoftware to let them know of the issue and see if it can be resolved. That seems to happen to me for all the NikSoftware tools, and I thought it odd to behave that way.

I’ll let you know what comes out of it.

R

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
March 2, 2011 - 2:14am

Robert,

Have you tried switching formats in the preferences (TIF to PSD or vice-versa)? Also, create a brand new Library, import one RAW photo in it, and try again. See if it’s Library specific or something deeper.

-Joseph @ApertureExpert

@PhotoJoseph
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