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Instagram, Flickr and Aperture, Oh My!

PhotoJoseph's picture
June 18, 2011 - 10:29am

As anyone knows who followed my little cross-country journey (or any recent trip of mine!), I’m a huge fan of the iPhone app Instagram. I love its simplicity, and how easily it cross posts to just about anywhere. One of those “anywhere’s” is Flickr, and as you know, Flickr and Aperture have a wonderful two-way syncing relationship.

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The iTunes SD & HD Feed Are Back Up

PhotoJoseph's picture
June 1, 2011 - 6:48am

Good news for those needing the SD feed of the podcast; it’s back up and running. Thanks for the users that reported it being down in the first place. If you see it happen again, do let me know!

In case you need to re-subscribe, here’s the links:

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Understanding Brushes in Aperture 3

PhotoJoseph's picture
May 30, 2011 - 7:36am

Brushes in Aperture are handled quite differently than what you might be used to in any other application. Whenever you choose to brush in an effect, for example Dodge or Burn, you’re not actually dodging or burning the photo. You are in fact painting a layer mask between two versions (effectively two invisible layers) of the same picture—the original, and the dodged (lighter) or burned (darker) one.

This gives you two levels of control. First, while brushing, you can brush the effect in either more intensely or less intensely by adjusting the strength of the brush. What you’re really doing is choosing a black brush (0.0) or a white brush (1.0) or some level of grey in-between (0.2, 0.5, etc.). Second, you can adjust the intensity of the effect itself in the adjustment settings—at any time. For something like dodge or burn, this is one slider. For something like Curves, well, you have the entire Curves tool at your disposal. This lets you selectively brush the effect in and out of the photo, but then change the entire adjustment globally as well. Once you understand this, it makes brushes in Aperture arguably more powerful than any other software out there.

Here’s a detailed explanation, and something you can follow along with to really grok it yourself at home.

Applying an effect…

Let’s start with something without a brush at all, for example, Curves. I’ll make this really dramatic, so it’s easier to see.

Here’s the original photo:

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Discounted Aperture 101 Certification Course

PhotoJoseph's picture
May 30, 2011 - 4:57am

One of our readers posted a notification of an Aperture 101 course at the Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. It’s a significant discount, so if you’re interested in becoming certified, or just want to learn more about the app, it’s worth checking out. Here’s the post.

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Podcast Feed in HD in iTunes (SD Feed Down?)

PhotoJoseph's picture
May 27, 2011 - 2:26am

Some time ago we realized that the iTunes feed for the podcast wasn’t showing up in HD, and that’s since been fixed. However the SD feed appears to be no longer working (or even up-to-date), so we’re investigating that.

Definitely go for the HD feed anyway. Who wants to see the Mac screen at half-size? The HD feed is broadcast exactly as it’s recorded, at 1280x720 pixels. No scaling = a very clear picture!

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ProKit Update 7.0 & Camera Raw Update 3.7 on Software Update

PhotoJoseph's picture
May 19, 2011 - 1:33am

Good morning Aperture fans.

It looks like a couple of updates hit the Software Update that you’ll want to install. As always, just select (Apple menu) > Software Update… if it hasn’t popped up on your screen already.

Digital Camera Raw Compatibly Update 3.7

This one will be greatly welcomed by owners of some of the latest digital cameras. The updated supported camera list adds:

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Adjustment Presets Slowing You Down? Solution Found!

PhotoJoseph's picture
May 10, 2011 - 5:25am

For those who’ve added loads of 3rd party Adjustment Presets (like these) to Aperture and have noticed that it’s slowed things down, specifically when you first start working in adjustments or any time you open and close the preset window, it appears that something snuck into a recent Aperture update to address this.

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