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Emptying the Trash in Aperture 3—What Really Happens?

PhotoJoseph's picture
March 10, 2011 - 3:58am

UPDATE: Scroll to the end for a video version of this tip!

Aperture 3 added the Trash folder so deleted photos and projects are easily recoverable, but once you empty the trash, what really happens? How are managed vs referenced files handled on deletion? Can you accidentially delete a photo that’s still in use elsewhere in the application? And is there any hope after hitting “empty trash”?

These question and more, tackled below…

Let’s throw some stuff away!

The best way to find out what happens is to try it out, and check the results! So here we go. Here’s what’s going in the trash.

  • Project A which contains Photo A1 (managed) and Photo A2 (referenced) in it.
  • Album B1 from Project B, containing Photo B1. Note that Project B1 will not be thrown away (so that Photo B1 is still in use, in a Project B).
  • Project C containing Photo C1 will go in the trash. However Photo C1 is being used in a Book B1, which lives in Project B. This book will NOT be deleted.
  • Photo D1- Version 2 will go in the trash from Project D. Notice that the original, Photo D1, will not go in the trash.

Here’s some screen shots (click to view larger): 

Project A which contains Photo A1 (managed) and Photo A2 (referenced) in it will go in the trash. We want to know what happens to the master files (the .CR2s that were imported originally). Remember, one of those master files lives in the Aperture library (the managed one), and the referenced one is floating around in the Finder somewhere.

 

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What Problems Have You Had Migrating From iPhoto to Aperture?

PhotoJoseph's picture
March 7, 2011 - 4:28am

The next eBook/video training I’m working on is for migrating from iPhoto to Aperture. I’d love to hear from you what specific problems you’ve encountered so I can be sure to address them in this training.

Please comment below… don’t be shy, even if you know it was user error, let me know. If you think it’s a bug, let me know. Confusing? Complicated? Unexepcted results? Whatever your experience, if less than a 100% flawless transfer, I want to know about it.

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Open in Editor or Plug-in… Again

PhotoJoseph's picture
March 6, 2011 - 9:23am

Scroll to the end for a video version of this tip!

A conversation in the User Forum about a complication with 3rd party plug-ins inspired this post. The reader was having troubles opening a photo into a plug-in a second time, and after some back and forth we resolved the issue and it pointed out what could be argued as a bug or a feature in Aperture 3. Which of course makes it great “tip” fodder ;-)

Editing with a plug-in or external application

Aperture has a fantastic plug-in architecture, with loads of developers making some very cool plug-ins for the app. If you’re short on ideas, head on over to Apple’s Plug-ins page and see what’s on offer.

Since these 3rd party tools can’t make adjustments using Aperture’s own adjustment capabilities (and if they could, we wouldn’t need them!), when you want to edit a photo from Aperture in one of these plug-ins, Aperture has to first render any adjustments you may have already made into a new file, and send that over to the plug-in. The format of the new file is determined in your preferences; you can make it a TIF or PSD, at 8-bit or 16-bit. This new TIF or PSD becomes a new “Master” file (so you can still always, always go back to your original photo). Once you are done doing whatever you’re going to do to the photo and it’s sent back to Aperture, it will have a little “target” icon on it, denoting that it’s been opened in an external editor (this could be an actual application like Photoshop, or just a plug-in—they are the same thing as far as Aperture is concerned).

In the following screenshot, we see a photo that’s been opened in Photoshop. I added some horrible color treatment to it to make it obvious to differentiate here. Believe me, it gets harder and harder to figure out what to do with Photoshop with every release of Aperture!

The little “target” logo means the photo has been opened in an external editor

See the slider badge on the bottom right of the first thumbnail? That tells us that some adjustments have been added in Aperture. Then, see the target badge on the second thumbnail—and notice that the slider badge is missing? The target means it’s been externally edited, and the lack of the slider badge means that the adjustments applied in the image on the left were rendered into a new master before being sent to Photoshop.

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Watermarks in Aperture 3—Demystified (part 1)

PhotoJoseph's picture
March 3, 2011 - 12:03pm

Did you know that Aperture can watermark your photos on export? Don’t feel bad if you didn’t; a lot of people don’t know it’s there. It’s a feature that has remained essentially unchanged since v.1, and to be honest it’s not that straight forward. It appears simple enough, but can do strange and confusing things on export.

I’ve been using essentially the same watermark for years (I just kept changing the year on it) and probably just got lucky in making one that worked so long ago! So I decided that once and for all, I’d figure out what is and isn’t happening in Aperture when you choose to watermark your images.

Also, one of the frustrations for many is that you need to create the actual watermark file outside of Aperture—and frankly, not everyone owns Photoshop. So part of this adventure was to find a way to create a watermark file for cheap, or even better, for free.

I succeeded.

The Easy Part

To enable watermarking, all you have to do is open the Export presets, and turn on watermarking for one of the presets, and add a PNG or PSD file to it. That’s it. Of course, it’s not really that easy, but here’s where the work is done.

The Image Export settings in Aperture 3 reveal the Watermark options

So really, all you should need to do is choose an image, decide where to put it, and off you go. But notice that little Scale Watermark option? Bizarre behavior. What opacity works best? What kind of file works best? All of this and more is what we’re gonna cover here.

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A User Tip—Now a Podcast!

PhotoJoseph's picture
February 27, 2011 - 4:20pm

Reader Kenneth Lim wrote a great tip he called the “Reverse” Vibrancy Slider today, and I loved it so much I made a video of it. Don’t forget about the User Tips area, and be sure to post your favorite tips, too. Maybe I’ll make yours into a video as well!

Check it out here…

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The ApertureExpert Podcast—It’s Here!

PhotoJoseph's picture
February 25, 2011 - 8:00am

The ApertureExpert Podcast is not a traditional podcast; we’re not on a weekly schedule, nor is it an interview show. It’s simply a visual version of the tips that are posted on the main ApertureExpert Tips page (that’s this one).

These new podcasts allows you to read a tip, watch a tip, or do both—whatever suits your nature. And best of all, it’s all free!

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Aligning Zoomed Images in Aperture 3

PhotoJoseph's picture
February 19, 2011 - 4:19am

(Updated from the original Feb 9 post, as reader John Crosby found the solution to the “unreliability” problem I was having. “In quotes”, because it turned out to be user error!) 

By now most of you have discovered that if you zoom into multiple images simultaneously in Aperture, then hold the shift key while dragging them around, the images stay aligned. This is a perfect way to compare the same area of different photos of the same thing—for example to pan around several shots of a group portrait looking for the one where the fewest people are blinking or making a funny face.

If you hover the mouse over any part of one of the images when you tap the Z key, Aperture will zoom into that point—but only for that image. If you are careful to have the mouse not pointing at any part of any image when you tap the Z key, then all images will zoom to the center. Great.

Aperture 3, four images selected, normal view, before zooming…

Continue reading to see the rest—and watch a video on it!
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All Aperture 3 eBooks Now Just $9.97!

PhotoJoseph's picture
January 30, 2011 - 1:24am

As I hinted at when Aperture 3 dropped to just $79 in the App Store (discussed here and here), I felt that a matching price drop might be due for my eBooks, formerly priced at $19.97 and $24.97.

I’m thrilled to announce that it’s time.

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Locating Managed Files While Excluding Shared Files in Aperture 3

PhotoJoseph's picture
January 26, 2011 - 4:45am

I run a tight ship on my Aperture Library. I keep all the photos referenced in the main Library on my iMac, but when I’m on the road using the MacBook Air, I import photos into an empty Library as Managed, then merge that (managed) Air Library with my (referenced) iMac Library when I return home.

That means that I have to get the Managed files out of this iMac Library that I just imported.

The Problem

It used to be easy—all I had to do was search for Managed Files, and Relocate them. There’s a Smart Album already set up (actually… hmm, maybe I built that… I actually don’t recall, it’s been this way for so long) under my Library that shows Managed files, like this:

(click to view larger)

However now that Aperture has these great sharing features to Flickr and Facebook, any images previously existing on those services that have been pulled down to Aperture now show up in the Managed search. They look like this:

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