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What Don’t You use?
Being an application with a very varied user base, I though it would be interesting to see which features I don’t get much use out of...
Features I rarely use:
Light Tables
This was covered in a previous blog, it appears that a lot of you use them for quick layout stuff.
Import>Folders Into a Project...
I’ve only ever seen this as being useful when first importing files into Aperture, so it got used a few times at the beginning, but never again since then. On the other hand, it’s really hand when you do use it...
.Mac/MobileMe Integration
As someone who’s never got around to getting a .Mac subscription due to having all my own hosted sites etc. I’ve not had the chance to try out Aperture’s integration with .Mac. The new web gallery features would be fun to play with, though.
Tethering
As much as I thought this would get used, I’m so seldom in a studio situation that tethering never actually happens. :-(
Ordering Prints
Doing mostly large-scale panoramic prints, this one is simply irrelevant for me. I don’t even do much on my A3 printer as even that is a bit on the small side.
Image Compare Tools
Again, this is probably related to primarily shooting panoramics - I don’t tend to have multiple similar images to pick from.
Metadata in the Viewer pane
Probably a hold over from it being turned off by default, I rarely have any metadata views showing in the Viewer pane. Customised views everywhere else, on the other hand...
Key Photo/All Projects view
Another habit one, I’m so used to using the Project pane that it doesn’t even occur to me to use the All Projects view in Aperture 2. Also, my Projects tend to be quite big, making it less useful.
Rotate tool
‘[‘ and ‘]’ are so ingrained that I’d never think of using the ‘tool’ version when rotating images in 90 degree increments.
Previews
Yep. Out of 53,000+ images, I have about a hundred with Previews generated. I use them so seldom that I just export some temporary versions if I need to move images into Keynote or Pages. It probably helps that I’d worked out how to extract 1024px thumbnails from Aperture before Previews were introduced with Aperture 1.5.
Once I start building a bit more automation stuff around Preview Fingerprinting this will change quite a bit.
Auto Stack
Again, I’m not the target market for the feature, not shooting with a motordrive very often etc. I’m also a control freak when it comes to adding images to Stacks.
Edit Autofill List
It doesn’t include my dozens of custom tags. :-(
The Control Bar
As a keyboard shortcut fanatic, the only time the Control Bar is sowing is if I’m doing a big load of keywording.
That all sounds a bit negative, doesn’t it? One the other hand, that’s thirteen major and minor features out of the whole application - pretty well everything else, I use.
Smart Albums, Books, Web Pages and Journals, Stacks and Album Picks, custom keyboard shortcuts, folder naming presets, watermarks, scripting, custom metadata, different forms of the Loupe, different ways of searching, all the different ways of laying out the application etc. etc.
You name it, I use it. ;-)
Ian
Comments (7)
Hi Ian,
thanks a lot, you showed me some features that I've never used before but maybe should do :)
To be a little off topic: I'm missing one feature that does not seem to exist. I would like to add keywords to a lot of my images, that should NOT be added to the keyword library. The background is that I do a lot of shots that would need keywords but I only will use them once - for that special image. Do you have any idea how to solve this?
I'll agree with most of that list. Especially the [ and ] keys. However, editing the Autofill list for me has been awesome - yeah sometimes I shouldn't be importing photos in the middle of the night. ;-)
The only thing useful about the control bar is the keywords - it's actually a great feature and makes things go fast for specialized keywording. However most of my stuff is applying keyword to the entire shoot.
Oh and I use previews mainly because it's the only to get my entire library on my iPod (why else would I own a fat iPod?).
Also Jens what about using some IPTC metadata?
All keywords must be in AP's keyword database and thus will show up in the HUD. There's no way around that one.
I couldn't agree more with your list. Each one I read was "yeah, me too"
1. I've never used or needed the red eye tool.
2. The spot and patch tool was always trash and now just should be taken out altogether now that proper retouch tools are here.
3. Automation/Automator workflows would also be an addition to the unused list, thought not technically a built-in feature.
Start rant:
-And about that useless control bar, why can't we turn it off t make room for more keywords?
-Why can't I make an empty new album?
-Why can't I customize the HUD and reorder/remove bricks I don't want?
-Why can't create a look and stamp it onto all my images at once? At the time of import?
-Why is it if I change the date/time zone using batch change, the smart albums only respect the original date/time?
-Why does the import button take me to local files even if I have a card attached?
not related only to Aperture rants:
-Why can't I have the option to add a picture attached to an email to my Aperture library instead of just my iPhoto via Quicklook?
-Why can't I see Aperture's hierarchical folder in iTunes when managing photos to iPhone?
End rant.
@Jens
Do as Michael said (use IPTC) or make a new group in the keywords HUD, call it something like 'rest' or something that starts with a 'z' so it end up and the bottom of the list.. and simply put all the single keywords in there.
they should bother you to much, unless you always use keyword search on your entire library (if you use keyword search in an album/project/.. Aperture only shows the keywords that are used for the images that are then displayed, so if none of them contain a special keyword, they wont show up.
Jens, as Michael points out, the keyword has to be in the database. If it isn't, it won't be visible, couldn't be searched for and wouldn't be included in the exported file. :-(
Steven, due to the virtual nature of the images in Aperture, you're never going to see any adjustment tools removed, because that would potentially change people's existing images. So the spot & patch tool is here to stay.
Create a new empty Album - Command-Option/Alt-L.
You can add and remove bricks from the HUD via the cogwheel next to each one, but not change the order.
Aye on the rest, though.
Ian
For the kind of work that I do the compare tools especially stack mode are a god send. Full screen stack mode compare along with the Z key and the ability to pan both images simultaneously with shift-spacebar drag are essential. My post processing image selection is at least 500% faster with this combo compared with my old methodology.
If you shoot people (portraits, fashion, lifestyle, etc) and you need to get down to your selects fast there is nothing like auto-stack, fine tune manually -fullscreen- stack mode. I can go through a 1000-2000 shot full day fashion shoot and get down to my 10-20 selects in no time.
With all of my work I also love the light tables I love to play around with how various images work together without making a bunch of proof prints and littering up my living room floor.
I agree with a lot of your/everyones not that useful buttons and such. I personally never use "show one" or "three up" I think the whole all projects thing with the iPhoto looking events thing is useless, at least it is if you have any other organization scheme or metadata and have a clue how to use the browser search features.
just my 2ยข
RB
RB