I have a sports photographer who I have been helping switch his workflow to Aperture. One thing he appreciated being able to do elsewhere, was to get a file size preview as he resized an image. For example, a client asks him for an image that is a 300dpi JPEG and is between 4 and 6mb.
As you resize an image in Preview or Photoshop, you get a little preview of how big your file will be. It's like it's changing the compression algorhythm or something.
Is there a way he can do this in Aperture, or is it best that he externally edit the file in photoshop or Preview first and then export a master? I couldn't find this in any export options.
THanks!!
BRet
Bret,
There isn’t in Aperture. The problem with this kind of preset, as I’m sure you know, is that it’s content dependent. A photo of a blue sky with one small cloud will compress infinitely smaller than a photo of of a calico cat on a bed of fall leaves. So making a preset that is set to a specific file size could result in radically varying dimensions.
In Photoshop or Preview you can get this kind of estimate on a per-image basis because the algorithm is calculating on the fly for that image in the preview window. But you’re doing this one at a time.
I would suggest that it’s time for the photographer to re-train their clients. Asking for a file that’s xx MB is totally irrelevant and, dare I say, useless. As is dictating “300dpi”. The only thing that matters is pixels-by-pixels dimension (and quality). A 1,000 x 1,000 pixel image is 10” x 10” @100dpi, or 3.33” x 3.33” @300dpi.
I prefer to deliver to my clients files that are sized exactly as needed, and not leave compression/resizing up to their (often incapable or inept) hands. For example, a couple of years ago I did a job where the client needed a series of sizes for web (thumbnail and large) as well as print (if memory serves). I delivered multiple files to them, so that I could ensure that the photography they put on their website looked as good as it possible could. I even wrote a workflow tip on the topic, here: “Cropping & Exporting Multiple Versions Workflow Tip”.
That’s my (somewhat opinionated, I suppose) input! ;-)
@PhotoJoseph
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Ha! That’s kind of exactly what I told him, and he totally got it - but he’s a photo journalist with a focus on sports, and the clients making these requests are some pretty big names in the news world. So that kind of surprised me. I suspect if they have any clue about what they are asking for, then when he delivers the photos within the dimensions they request, they will fall inside the specified file range. I don’t do any real professional work, so I am glad to have someone like you to run ideas by. Helps a lot. Thanks for the quick reply!