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Working With External Editors

April 9, 2008 5:00 AM | Comments: 10
By Josh Anon

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Although the concept of editing an image stored in Aperture with an external editor has been around since version 1, I've received a few questions lately on the topic and want to take some time to review working with your files in other editing tools.

First, Aperture is a RAW converter (among many other things). Apple's been improving Aperture's raw conversion engine with each release, and it's gotten quite good. As such, there is no one-step way to send your RAW file to another RAW converter (like Adobe RAW or DXO) _and_ keep the file managed in Aperture. However, if you do want to send your RAW file to another converter, the way to do it is:

Select the image in Aperture
Choose File > Export > Master
Work with the RAW file in another program, and once you're done, save a converted TIF or PSD file
Import that TIF or PNG file back into Aperture
Stack it with the original file that you exported

Keep in mind that if you do this, you will not be exporting any of the adjustments you made within Aperture; you're getting the original RAW file. If you want a version of your image with your adjustments to edit in Photoshop, for example, then you should use Aperture's Edit With External Editor command. This will create a new TIF or PSD master with all of your adjustments (set the format, options, and external editor in Aperture's preferences panel under Export). Aperture will also stack this new version with the original master, and it'll automatically open the image in your editor of choice. To do this:

Select your image in Aperture
Choose Images > Edit With > External Editor (again, make sure you've setup an external editor in Aperture's preferences first) and notice that Aperture creates a new version of your image
Work with your file in your editor, such as Photoshop
Each time you hit save, notice that Aperture automatically updates the image's thumbnail
In Aperture, the new version has a badge icon that looks like a bullseye. That indicates that this image has been opened in an external editor, and there is a converted TIF or PSD master file.

If you delete the second master, you'll delete the converted TIF or PSD file. If you delete the original version, you'll be removing the RAW file--you probably don't want to do that.

If you edit an image in Photoshop, hit save, adjust that modified image more within Aperture, and try to edit the image again in Photoshop, you will not see the second round of Aperture adjustments within Photoshop.

Hopefully that clears up any confusion!

Comments (10)

10 Comments

Scott Hampton said:

I really don't like to, but I do use PS now, albeit for retouching. I export a version as a 16-bit PSD, remove the blemishes and things, and then import it back into Aperture 2.

How's that workflow? Does it sound stable?

Scott

April 9, 2008 8:28 AM

Michael Riedel said:

The only think I don't like with the edit with external editor is that the raw files end up in Adobe RGB and not in my preferred editing space of Prophoto RGB which I have to convert to.

April 9, 2008 8:50 AM

Josh Anon said:

Michael, good point about watching the color space!

Scott, Aperture 2's retouch tool is quite good--you should give that a try some! But why export and then import? Why not just set Aperture to create 16-bit PSD files for your external editor, set PS as the editor, and then use open with external editor? That'll remove 2 steps for you, exporting and importing.

April 9, 2008 9:12 AM

Francois Couderc said:

Hi Josh,

the best about roundtrip to photoshop in Aperture 2 is when you work with referenced files. Aperture will now reference and store the new photoshop file in the folder where the original comes from and not as a managed file in Aperture Library. Great for file management and backup!

Francois

April 9, 2008 4:27 PM

Josh Anon said:

Good tidbit to point out, Francois. Merci!

April 10, 2008 8:24 AM

Scott Hampton said:

Hey, I'm going to try your approach. I set the 16-bit and CS2 setup and will put it into practice. I resisted it before because I didn't want to go to PS lol

What with the amount of artificial skin softening and all, the clients [expect] some retouching, so I've been going to PS. I tried Ap's retouching and it takes a little getting used to but is quite good. I need something a little more robust, though, for closely spaced blemishes and under-eye-bags.

Thx!

April 11, 2008 1:21 PM

Charles Bush said:

Josh,

The only downside to round tripping is that you're limited to either sRGB or Adobe RGB as you working space. I prefer to use a wider space such as ProPhoto and there's no way to do that. If there was a way to do that I would certainly change to that workflow. Your other technique of making the changes reimporting and then stacking is the best work around.

April 11, 2008 5:40 PM

Josh Anon said:

Yeah, Aperture's retouch tool is really impressive in v2! And Charles, very good point about color space. I don't think you can set the profile for the automatic exports (like using an external editor), but (as you probably know) you can set it for exporting images by looking under Aperture > Presets > Image Export.

April 12, 2008 2:43 PM

Joe said:

What dpi should I use in my presets for "Edit with an External Editor" ?

Thanks

December 15, 2008 9:20 PM

Josh Anon said:

Hi Joe, it really doesn't matter. 300dpi tends to be pretty common, though.

December 15, 2008 9:43 PM