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Aperture Loves Keynote
Further to Ellen’s post, in the past I've used Keynote for all my presentations, but as you may have read from previous posts, I’m really digging Aperture as a presentation tool.
I’m visiting a bunch of Photography Schools across the country on the Aperture Campus Education Tour, and I’m getting to show off my work and the program at the same time.
It’s Aperture’s secret weapon, and many of the faculty that see Aperture in action this way get excited, realizing there are great ways to use it for as a teaching tool for their students. It’s fast and fairly seamless jumping from project to project, from full screen to browser and adding music from iTunes for slideshows, which can really escalate a body of work with the right track of music.
When presenting In full screen mode with the filmstrip showing, your audience sees a big clean image with simple background, and you can see the filmstrip so you know what’s coming up, which gives you time to mentally prepare for your next thought and slide.
I guess I’m doing just the opposite of Ellen; I’m opening photos from my Aperture library in Keynote via the Inspector, and adding text and then exporting them back to Aperture as title slides.
I can include them as starters to new sections or use them to transition or change the pace or mood. It’s easy since my whole Aperture Library is available via the Inspector in Keynote. It literally takes seconds to add the text, choose the font and size, place them where I want within the frame and export.
You can choose an image from your Aperture Library and drag it into Keynote to add text for a title slide.
I then import them back into Aperture and put them into an order that works best; Aperture remembers the custom order I have chosen. So why leave Aperture when you want to show off your work? If you have a specific presentation coming up, you can select the projects or albums you want to show, “Add To Favorites” and then select “Favorite Projects” under the All Projects pull-down menu, and you’ve got an uncluttered interface ready to show the selected work.
If you’re a Keynote user, give Aperture a try. The more you use it, the better and faster you become leaving more time to make photographs.
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You don't even need to go into fullscreen mode - hide the Viewer pane and set your secondary viewer to either Mirror or Span. You get the same clean image(s) with black background for the audience, but as a presenter you get access to your regular Aperture interface, able to see thumbnails as normal. Makes for a very flexible way to do non-linear presentations.
Ian
I have not used the Aperture as presentation tool, but I have had the idea many times. I like the ability to have non-linear presentation possibility. Often questions makes it interesting to go back and forth between slides. To have all slides on in browser mode on the Macbook Pro would be great.
What made me hesitate is that I have to create the slides in Keynote or another application and import them to Aperture and therefore miss the ability to go backa and change spelling errors or move a box on a slide.
I requested this feature in Keynote more than a year ago, but Apple has not listen to it yet.
It would be great if Aperture team listen to this and add the feature from Keynote to add text and graphics objects on slides. Objects as are possible to edit and rearrange. The guiding lines that indicates when centered and so on is the strength of Keynote and I wish that to be transfered at the same time.
To make slides in Aperture would make it possible to add keywords to the slides and make them searchable. Imagine all slides in one library and have smart album to get those as you want in no time. It would be great way to pick out the slides and adjust them for each specific audience.
This would make Aperture worth the money even for those as are not photographers.
Ian, Wow, what a great tip thanks.
Having just put together a travelogue after having read this and other posts, I now have to agree with Steve. Keynote has some great features and I wanted to use them in my presentation. Although I tried to organize in Aperture, it wasn't until I brought the photos into Keynote and did a dry run which led to a minor reorganization which turned into a major reorganization. Two problems with this:1) a bit harder to move slides around in Keynote than photos in Aperture (although after discovering that cut and paste worked, not quite so bad, 2) the organization I have in Keynote doesn't exist in Aperture if I want to do another version in the future. Maybe Apple could get them talking to each other better; or put a more robust slide show feature in Aperture (mainly notes and seeing next slide--although viewer on second screen provides this, and I guess one could put notes in one of the fields.)
I also don't know what the resolution of the projector is going to be (won't give in for three days), and Keynote seems to require you lock in on a size, whereas the second screen in Aperture (secondary viewer) accepts whatever it there and scales accordingly. I edit on an iMac with a second screen, but will be presenting with a MacBook.
Other complaints, I couldn't get the Aperture captions to come over to Keynote as I wanted to use them in the notes.
But I miss notes in Aperture, which is one of the main reasons I wanted to use Keynote. I also like some of the effects. I used them on my title slides, but I could live without them.
My 2 cents. Posting before the presentation, because after it I may forget to post while off doing other things.