It’s often the little things that can make a big difference in your workflow, and a bunch of little changes can make a profound change in the way you process your images. The “customizability” of A2.1 can really increase your “enjoyability” when using it, which should not be underestimated when having to process big jobs.

The ability to customize everything from keyboard shortcuts to the way you view your images is amazing, but a little change that I really like is to include or remove certain adjustment bricks depending on their use.

It’s simple to add ones that don’t appear by default, and collapse others or remove them completely from the default set, and it’s just as quick to change your mind and bring them back.

For example, if I know I will be doing much black and white work, it makes sense to have the Monochrome Mixer as part of the default set. Select it from the pop down menu as you normally would. Notice that the grayed out bricks are the ones that appear by default.

After choosing it, click on the cog-wheel on the right of the brick and scroll to “Add to Default Set”. That’s it; the Monochrome Mixer is now part of the default set in the adjustments panel and will be there for every image you call upon. Next time you open Aperture, you will see it there by default.

The other brick I often add to the default set is Edge Sharpen, especially when preparing images for export.

You can collapse the adjustment bricks you don't use often to save space in the adjustments panel, but you can always remove or add any of the bricks from the default set in the same manner.

We have winners…

I asked for your interpretation of the Aperture 2.0 Book cover and found that many Inside Aperture viewers had plenty of free time to come up with creative and funny answers, or like me, are expert procrastinators and this was a perfect way to do so.

Co-Author Ben Long couldn’t choose just one winner so here are the three winning entries who will each get the book. I liked Katie’s entry as well, so I’m sending her a copy of my book, “The Republicans”. There were some clever, imaginative and weird interpretations if you want to check them out here.

Thanks to Ben Long for donating the books from his private stock, and to all those who posted. All kidding aside, the book is a great way to learn Aperture 2.1 and is the vehicle for Aperture Certification. By post time, I had yet to speak to illustrator Kent Oberheu who did the cover, but when I find out his inspiration for it, I’ll pass it on.

Mark said:

The image represents the dynamic nature of a professional's image workflow. As you can tell the "ribbon" is the creative process which twists and folds with a number of different characteristics (folds) and "layers" (the darkened slices) which combine into the small "circle" at the middle which represents a finished (indicated by the vertical stick) image. The image also includes the depiction of this process reoccuring for several images (3 sticks with circles), represented (in a time continuum, and subject continuum) by their three dimensional location in relation to each other.
Or maybe I'm reading too much into it.

Kit Cheves said:

The image melds elements of nature with photographic and computational symbols, illustrating the ability of modern imaging hardware and software to capture and enhance the world around us. Depending on the viewer's perspective, the image may be seen as the petals of a flower, the iris of a lens, or a more abstrat grapic design element.

Brett said:

Rotate the cover 90degrees clockwise (or tilt your head left!) to better see the following interpretation of the book cover art: At the macro level, the 5 or so overlapping semi-transparent ovoid-ish shapes now in the "lower" half of the picture form a caraciture of a person's head, facing left
- i.e. nose pointing 45deg to upper left, chin at lower left, one ear pointing to lower right, and hair represented by the short, darker lobes pointing to upper right.
- the smaller ribbon at lower left is the mouth
- the small circle in the middle of the largest "ribbon" is the person's eye
- this represents you, the Photographer, and your eye toward creativity.
At the micro level, the various elements also symbolize the following:
- the overlapping shaded shapes are reminiscent of the cross section of an airfoil or wing. A wing provides flight and the freedom to explore - just as a photographer's tools provide the freedom to explore his vision.
- these overlapping shapes are also like a Venn diagram, representing various intersecting creative spaces or directions a photographer may explore
- the 3 outward spiraling ribbons suggest several distinct efforts at exploring some of those spaces, and the artistic output flowing from each. The smaller one, seemingly off in the distance may have been unfruitful and abandoned. The central one exhibits some bold twists and turns and thus evokes a sense of excitement and promise. The other two by comparison seem lifeless and unsatisfying.
- there's a line leading from the "eye" in the middle of the most prominent ribbon directly to the words "Apple Pro" - this is the Photographer's current focus, and of course the subliminal reason for buying the book :-)
if you rotate the picture back to normal orientation, you can now see the Photographer gazing down at his target.

Katie said:

Although his mother always told him to avoid such a dangerous tree (leaflets three, let it be...), a young snake started slithering up. He yearned for the view from the top. His smooth mustard skin glided easily at first up the narrow trunk, but near the leafy oasis, he felt something snag. His copper blood trickled down the tree, swirling in its own iron rich pattern. His life flashed before him in an instant. He saw the light and the ritual dancing of leafless trees waving dead snake skins like ribbons in the sunset. He knew his mortality was over with the setting sun.