The course you listed as being required for Aperture certification is incorrect.

You liked to the T3 course, "Train the Trainer." That's the course you take if you want to train *others* on Aperture. If you're not interested in being a trainer, and thus want to learn the product itself, you'd take one of the other courses you noted.

It looks like the head of a puffster (puffin + rooster) :)

John, I linked to the Train The Trainer Course because that is the course that gives you certification at the end of the process. Best, Steve

It is a rose with the wind blowing on it...

Eyeball-tracking results of a typical viewer looking at a landscape.

wind turbines.

You see thew three poles in the drawing, and the shading is an artistic interpretation of the movement of the arms.

It's obviously a graphical representation of the concept of "workflow", with the process eddying off in different directions, until you return back to an optimized image.

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.

It's a puppet theatre with dancing fairies. Can't you see?

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.

It kinda looks like my old high school math teacher.

They look like windmills from Don Quijote book

So you can't just take the test without taking the course, as you can with the Adobe Certified Training series?

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.

Brett has too much free time :-)

Bakari: Yes you can take the test w/o the course. It's done online you can follow the links at training.apple.com

Now for my entry: If you look veeery close at the image you will find that the 'dot' is in-fact the icon for the future Aperture 3.0 The spirals coming off it with the changing light and contrast show how the app will focus on the image. You'll use the best tools ever to fix your light and contrast. In addition they show a free flowing workspace and workflow that keeps evolving. The grey 'fans' in the back is one example of the many enhancements to the image you will be able to make. The focus will be creativity not metadata and key wording. Yes it will be done, but it'll be done in such a way you don't even think about it.

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.

The book is shorter for two reasons.

1. We revised it to match a photographer's workflow (hence eliminating some of the repetition of previous editions).

2. The certified course went from three days to two.

With that said... we worked all of the new features in, and worked on streamlining the educational focus. I have never been a fan of thicker books...

RIchard Harrington

Richard, on the site they say the training is three days, has it been changed to two recently? My comment about the book having less pages then the previous edition is really a "less is more" comment. Congrats on the book. Care to get in on our what the cover illustration means to you contest? Best, Steve S.

Some great and mildly disturbing entries here! Keep it up.

The book cover shows a stylised view of an iris diaphragm in pieces; the golden items are springs and the others are the leaves.

The fluid motion workflow and actions of Aperture 2. in all its nuances.

A certified Aperture instructor wearing a hat, sporting a handle-bar moustache and a duck's bill for a nose.

The end user classes offered by training centers are going to be one or two days.

The Instructor certification classes are more.

It is a Daliesque representation of the interaction between the mind and digital photography, made possible by Aperture 2

With some minor adjustments (see: http://flickr.com/photos/rspence/2498060329/ )
Two words: Cock Fight

Ribbons blowing in the wind outside the Sydney Opera House (one of the most photographed locations in the world)

They look like aperture blades and swirls of light....

The cover has a very natural autumnal feel to it - A windy autumn day with leaves and dead flowers being swirled around

What the cover means to me

A wise sage - or heroic figure in their field - surrounded by a beauty and richness of colour. The sage is flowing out towards others following on behind. The followers are trying to be like their leader, but they are still without the colour, richness and beauty shown by their leader.

The original Aperture came with sample images of Tibetans in traditional garb (long flowing sleeves). The cover is reminiscent of these sleeves during their traditional dance during the horse festivals with the background shades pointing you to, of course, the Lotus flower.

This image is a great representation of a folded Plain photograph being folded..wrapped...twisted...etc.. into a great image. The very core of what aperture does for us digitally. But we are able to unwrap and get the original back because the photograph is uncut..just twisted about.

The illustration is clearly Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau's fake mustache collection, dressed up to receive an Oscar.