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Controlling the Aperture User Interface
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Refining the selects is next in my workflow.

I now want to see all my 5s, 4s and 3s so I can refine my selection and further trim it. This is when I bunch up my selects into Smart Albums. I right-click or control-click the Project name, and out comes a drop-down menu where I choose New Smart, and then Album. Once done, a new smart album is created under the project, and HUD appears where you can select the parameters.

For my purposes, I chose Rating, and slide the button to 5, so that all images with a rating of 5 or higher automatically populate this Smart Album. I also click the box that says "Ignore stack groupings" so that even if the images are within the stacks, it will be shown in the smart album. You can then rename the Smart Album. Repeat the above process to create smart albums for all those that you've rated 4s and 3s. From within the Smart Albums, you can now further refine your selections and final choices, changing the ratings as you wish.

Another tool that's useful in this stage of selection is the Loop. You can call up the loop easily and quickly by pressing the apostrophe key. Or, it's the key under the Esc key. Pressing this key toggles the loop in and out of view. Of course, you can use the Loop Tool at any stage of work you're in, whether you're in full-screen mode or not.

Once the selections and ratings have been refined, I create another album by pressing Right-Click or Control-Click on the Project name, and from the drop-down menu, selecting New, Album. After renaming this album with something appropriate such as "Top Picks" I go back to the Smart Album, and manually drag only the best of the best images into this New Album.

With my best selections in a single album, I can create a Web Gallery and present this to my client online. I can also begin to enhance the images and work on the images in earnest, confident in the fact that I'm spending time only on the best or the most appropriate images for use. With this workflow, gone is the nagging feeling that there might be a better image I've missed and should be working on instead. I am confident that my selections will stand, and that I don't have to waste time repeating the long hours of image enhancements and editing if in case I saw something better and want to work on it instead. Aperture saves me time and effort.

Image Adjustments

With a manageable number of images that I judged to be the best, probably about less than a dozen per shoot, I can now confidently and lavishly spend time on making the photos look better by enhancing them within Aperture and invest time by working on them with my choice of an external photo editor, Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Before I bring the image out into Adobe Photoshop CS3, I already subject the photo to a series of enhancements. I do what I can do within Aperture. I only call up and load the image into Adobe Photoshop CS3 if I need to do editing that can't be done within Aperture.

When enhancing an image, I always work in full screen mode (by pressing the F key). And from there, I call up the Adjustments Inspector through the HUD (heads-up display) by simply pressing the H key. From the Adjustments HUD, I can now do many of the most common steps that used to be time-consuming and were formerly a hit-and-miss process.

Image adjustments are easier in full-screen mode with the HUD displayed.

Aperture's Adjustment HUD offers a very refined way of working on the image in terms of Exposure, Levels, Highlights & Shadows, White Balance, Color, Red Eye Correction, Spot & Patch, Straighten, Crop, Monochrome Mixer, Color Monochrome, , Sepia Tone, Noise Reduction, Sharpen, Edge Sharpen, among others. These tools are incredibly sophisticated. And with each correction I make or new version I produce, I'm not bloating Aperture with a copy of the big files. The way Aperture works is that these are merely sending instructions to the original image. You can therefore create as many versions as necessary without having to worry about filling up the hard disk.

In each version that I create, one of the simplest methods that allows me to compare my adjustments I made to a version over the original image is to just press the M key. Pressing the M key shows me the master image, and pressing it again will show me the adjustments I made on a particular version of the same image. I just toggle between the version and the master, comparing and making assessments, and further tweaks, by repeatedly pressing the keyboard shortcut M.

When I'm satisfied with the work I've done, I now output or export the final images in any way (print, hi-res image file, book, web, PDF, email, etc.) based on client requirements or to whatever purpose I will be using the images. What I particularly appreciate are the 3rd-party plug-ins that can now be installed into Aperture. In particular, I use Flickr and iStockPhoto 3rd-party plug-ins. More and more 3rd-party plug-ins are being developed for Aperture. And, if I may add, more and more Automator plug-ins are also being developed that further extend the usability and enhance the functions of Aperture.

Final Thoughts

What I described to you above is my standard workflow in Aperture. That pretty much covers everything I need to do. But, as with all standards, there are bound to be variations. So, my workflow vary slightly from project to project. Different factors come into play so I adapt my post-production digital workflow to such variations. Some of them include client's output requirements, timetable, and levels of enhancements. What makes me love Aperture is the way it handles these variations. Using the same software, I can vary my post-production workflow. Aperture is incredibly flexible and responsive to the work that professional photographers need to do.

I'm a studio shooter, and I shoot almost every day. I average about 600 to 2,000 shots per session per day. Since I shoot exclusively RAW images with my Nikon D2Xs, and since I shoot a lot of pictures, I've come to trust and rely on Aperture to help me get the job done and the client requirements submitted on schedule. So far, with the workflow I described above, things are moving along just fine.

Summary of Favorite Keyboard Shortcuts

Here's a summary of the most essential Aperture keyboard shortcuts to easily speed up your workflow:

• To gain one-click access to the tools you most often use in Aperture, you can put the clickable icons of these tools in your toolbar. Right-Click or Control-Click on an empty gray area of the toolbar to customize it.
• If you want to select all images in a browser window, just press Apple-A or Command-A.
• Should you need to consult the Aperture manual, simply click Apple-? or Command-? -- this will open up the most up-to-date version of the Aperture manual.
• If you've been configuring and reconfiguring the interface and you want to quickly go to the Basic Layout, the standard interface layout when you first open Aperture, just click Option-Apple-S.
• When you want to quickly maximize your viewer pane and remove other elements, click Option-Apple-V.
• And when you want to quickly maximize your browser pane to see thumbnail images, click Option-Apple-B.
• To make the project pane appear or disappear, just click W.
• And, to make the inspectors and Metadata panes appear or disappear, click I.
• To hide or show the viewer,click V.
• To hide or show the control bar, click D.
• To reveal or hide the semi-transparent pop-up window of the image metadata of a selected or highlighted image, click on T.
• And then, you can press Shift-T to hide or show the toolbar.
• If you want to stack your images while in the process of reviewing them, just select and highlight the images you want to stack together, and press Apple-K.
• Rating an image is easy, fun and fast in Aperture. You can rate any selected image by simply pressing 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5. The higher the number, the better the image.
• If you've rated a particular image and you want to change it, just type in the new rating (number) while that image is selected.
• If you want to remove the rating, just press 0. If you want to consider an image a reject, press 9.
• To go quickly into full screen mode, just press the letter F. To get out, press F again. So, F easily takes you in and out of full screen mode.
• You can navigate quickly through your film strip in full screen mode by pressing J, K, L. The letter J scrolls it to the left. K stops it. And L scrolls it to the right.
• The left and right arrow keys move your selected image left and right.
• To zoom into a 100% view of the selected image, just press the Z key. To zoom out, press Z again.
• Anywhere you may happen to be in Aperture, pressing the apostrophe key (or the key under the Esc key) summons the loop tool.
• To enhance your image in full screen mode, you can summon the Adjustments HUD (heads-up display) by pressing H.
• To compare your adjustment versus the original image, just press M. The M key toggles between the original image and the enhanced version.

Dominique James is one of today’s finest professional portrait, fashion, advertising and commercial photographers. Originally from Manila, Philippines, he is now based in the New York City, US. He is a Nikon Pro Photographer and an Epson Stylus Pro Photographer. He is also an Apple Certified Professional and an Apple Certified Trainer for Aperture.

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