New Mac, Aperture tips, suggestions?

kini62

New to Mac. 2 weeks in and I'm having trouble find a photo workflow that I'm comfortable with.

I bought PSE 6 and thought I would use bridge. Don't like it. I liked the PSE 5 organizer (Windows) much better for my needs.

iPhoto- I like how it created events for all the imported hierarchy of folders I had. I don't like not having ready access to the originals though and the inability to have more than one edited image.

I'm probably going to demo Aperture this weekend and am looking for any tips or suggestions, such as; managed or referenced? Can I still store photos in my hierarchy folder structure seperately from a managed library easily? Does Aperture work with TM or would I be better off using "vault"?

If I did away with my seperate backup using my folder system and used vault, would I have easy access to individual images from the vault if needed?

I shoot 99% jpegs. Can I have multiple edited copies stacked with an unaltered original? This is important to me and the main reason for moving from iPhoto.

Any other suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Gene

dlplumer

kini62 wrote:

New to Mac. 2 weeks in and I'm having trouble find a photo workflow that I'm comfortable with.

I bought PSE 6 and thought I would use bridge. Don't like it. I liked the PSE 5 organizer (Windows) much better for my needs.

iPhoto- I like how it created events for all the imported hierarchy of folders I had. I don't like not having ready access to the originals though and the inability to have more than one edited image.

I'm probably going to demo Aperture this weekend and am looking for any tips or suggestions, such as; managed or referenced? Can I still store photos in my hierarchy folder structure seperately from a managed library easily? Does Aperture work with TM or would I be better off using "vault"?

If I did away with my seperate backup using my folder system and used vault, would I have easy access to individual images from the vault if needed?



I shoot 99% jpegs. Can I have multiple edited copies stacked with an unaltered original? This is important to me and the main reason for moving from iPhoto.

Any other suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Gene

Congrats. You will love it. I use Aperture, and I am very happy with it. No comparison between it, and iPhoto.

Yes you can stack unedited images and edited images.

Why are you not shooting RAW?

kini62

dlplumer wrote:

Congrats. You will love it. I use Aperture, and I am very happy with it. No comparison between it, and iPhoto.

Yes you can stack unedited images and edited images.

Why are you not shooting RAW?

Thanks.

I only shoot RAW when I'm going to take just a few shots or in poor light conditions, indoor theater type.

For the most part I don't need what RAW has to offer in comparison to its storage requirements and that I "have" to convert it in order to be able to use it for anything outside of the RAW editor.

I can have 5 differently edited jpegs if needed and still use less storage than one RAW file. I just don't need RAW at this point.

Do you know if Aperture "creates" edited copies of jpegs or just uses and instruction set like it does for every different RAW conversion?

Thanks
Gene

Robbug

kini62 wrote:

...
Do you know if Aperture "creates" edited copies of jpegs or just uses and instruction set like it does for every different RAW conversion?

Thanks
Gene

Aperture only utilizes instruction sets. It will not duplicate any picture unless you specifically tell it to do so...i.e. duplicate version or duplicate master. I utilize managed/referenced files. You can use both. Managed gives you the ability to quickly backup all of your photos in one neat package. Referenced files allow you to quickly access master photos. I found, for me, that I like the managed a bit better than referenced. If you use iPhoto in conjunction with Aperture then referenced files are the way to go. They are pretty seamless. Also plugins are great. I use the Nik software package for my post processing. I normally shoot in RAW but sometimes in JPEG when I know I am going to be shooting a lot of pics that day.
Aperture by itself is good. Aperture with plugins make the program shine. The management of your files are pretty nice imho. The biggest lesson I learned is to make sure you understand how you are importing your files. I made the mistake of assuming that all my files were imported into the Aperture Library and found out at a later date I was importing as referenced. I unfortunately cleaned house and killed a directory of masters without a thought. Lesson learned. Won't do that again.

Rob

Oh one caveat to creating new files if editing. All plugins are destructive so the plugin you are using will create a new version automatically. Aperture itself is non-destructive. Important if you use plugins.

dlplumer

I agree Nik is good. I also use Tiffen Dfx and Noise Ninja as plugins

Thesmaz

I like Aperture as well and in order to totally preserve and have easy access o all of the original photos I copy everything from my memory card to a folder and then import them into aperture. Yes it take up a lot of HD space but I'm willing to accept that so that I always have the unedited pics.