Apple Aperture 3 Work Flow

I am a user of apple aperture. I have a 13" macbook pro with a 250 gb hard drive. I'm getting to the point where I am filling my hard drive and have to move my master files about every 4 months to an external hard drive. I've been using a network hard drive in my house to move them to. It's not the most ideal way to do things, and I'm not doing very good at backing things up. I just upgraded from a XSI to a 6D. My files are growing exponentially now. I shoot in raw so I already have huge files. Does anyone else use Aperture on a macbook pro? I was curious what your work flow is.

I use Aperture, but not exclusively - I prefer DxO for RAW conversions. After conversion, I import the RAW files into Aperture as referenced files in one library (stored in year/month folders) and the jpgs directly into the Aperture library. The RAWs are backed up on multiple external drives.

I'm not yet at the point where I need to save space - the 500 GB drive helps there. But when I do, I'll just delete a year at a time of the RAWs from the internal HDD.

No clue on Aperture, never even tried it. Amazing since my whole system at home is Apple.

External hard drives are fairly cheap now. 2-3 tb can be had well under $200. I think this is the easiest solution for you just starting.

My system is a bit more elaborate because I have a Mac Pro with four hard drives. I use Apples Airport Extreme for wifi, it syncs the apple tv, my Iphone, the wife's macbook pro and two other computers. I have a 2tb hard drive that they all share off of Airport. I have all my Raw files on the network hard drive so I can access them any where in the house. I also have them duplicated on the Mac Pro's hard drives. I have a few external hard drives I bought. Occasionally I will back all the new files up to them then store them somewhere else just for safety.

What size hard drive do you keep in your MacBook Pro?

Mac Pro, has 4 hard drives 1tb each, I have been thinking of upgrading them to 2tb. They have gotten less expensive lately. With the Mac Pro I really don't need externals, changing a hard drive is very simple just pull out and insert a new.
Wifes MacBook Pro has a small one, I think 250gb.

So far everything still fits on my MacBook Pro (500GB hard drive). I delete a lot of shots I take and haven't been out to shoot much recently.
I have a synology NAS with 3TB (2x 3 TB Raid 1) for backup only with TimeMachine and occasional rsync backups just in case TimeMachine blows up.
Once my library grows, I might add additional storage, either a second NAS or external drive and move the master files in Aperture.

One more thing about Apple Aperture: There is a setting in the preferences for the size of the previews that Aperture creates for each file. This is used for quick viewing. It defaults to half the size of the original I believe, which is more than the resolution of most monitors (for most DSLRs). If you change that to your monitor resolution and re-create the previews, you might be able to regain some disk space.

I recently bought Lightroom 4 because the RAW engine in it is so much better than Aperture 3. I hope Apple will release a 4.0 version with a proper RAW converter. I love everything about Aperture but the RAW converter. Work flow, tools, interface, the ability to paint in or "localized" adjustments on color adjustments, are just so much better than LR. Besides the RAW conversion, the only other thing I like about LR over Aperture, is the orange channel in the color adjustment. But, with better color localized adjustments in In Aperture I don't really need an orange channel.

I know it's a little off topic, but this thread made me want to vent.

No worries on venting Keith. Since I'm learning still about raw conversion, what does LR do better than Aperture? Can you process raw with LR and then move them directly to Aperture?

At the moment I'm frustrated that Apple hasn't released raw compatability for the new canon 6D. I had a weekend of playing with the new rig, and I can't get them imported directly to Aperture. I have to go to DPP.

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Originally Posted by jfindley

No worries on venting Keith. Since I'm learning still about raw conversion, what does LR do better than Aperture? Can you process raw with LR and then move them directly to Aperture?

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I'm pretty sure even if you reprocess the RAW Aperture will still do it's mutilation upon import and besides that I can't increase the time on my workflow. I'm full-timer and just can't have the bottle neck.

My observation is, Apple has sold the pros out and are catering to consumers so they have turned Aperture into iPhoto Pro/Plus. Therefore they have made Aperture do a lot of "destructive" stuff upon import so that they look more contrasty and poppy. The worst part is, Aperture hates hot spots and tries to fill them in with surrounding colors. Granted it is only destructive inside Aperture but...Some of the issues I'm having can be undone but it is quite time consuming and it never really looks quite right.

Keith,
what would be the destructive stuff? Could it be avoided with different camera defaults in the RAW fine tuning Boost, Hue Boost, and also the Black point compensation? Or is there more?

thanks,

btw I just noticed that Apple updated the raw engine with one of the past updates. I had a saved setting that says v3.0, a new saved setting says v4.0. The out-of-the-box defaults are now different at least for the Moire now being all the way to the left, I believe. Not sure if for the better, so far I cannot see a significant difference when I reprocess one of the older images

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Originally Posted by ahab1372

Keith,
what would be the destructive stuff? Could it be avoided with different camera defaults in the RAW fine tuning Boost, Hue Boost, and also the Black point compensation? Or is there more?

thanks,

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I have taken those all the way down they don't really help. The problem I'm having with photos of LED lights with hot spots takes a bunch of contrast, black point, highlight and shadow manipulation.

The aggravating thing is, the images look normal while Aperture is 'processing" them and when it's done all the colors fill in in the hot spots. This is is really exaggerated with the color purple. Aperture really can't handle purple.

Just one question from one that spends little time on "pixel-peeking". How does bad raw-conversion manifest itself? What should I look for? I usually use DPP, but use Aperture for selected nature shots, like birds, landscape and macro (I like the work-flow, and the album and labelling / tagging of pictures).

Lars

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Originally Posted by Lars

Just one question from one that spends little time on "pixel-peeking". How does bad raw-conversion manifest itself? What should I look for? I usually use DPP, but use Aperture for selected nature shots, like birds, landscape and macro (I like the work-flow, and the album and labelling / tagging of pictures).

Lars

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I wouldn't even say pixel peeping is necessary. Import a bunch of RAWs into Aperture. Click on one and you will see it up come up on the main edit window. You will see it one way, fairly flat and higher dynamic range, then it drastically change to a higher contrast and saturated version. That is Apples interpretation of what they think the starting point should be. Unfortunately Steve Jobs wanted to simplify photography for everyone and he must have thought RAWs were a ridiculous thought that complicated things. So they essentially are giving you a processed RAW so that you have a good looking photo to start with.

Also, I think, since they aren't gearing this to pros anymore, they think that if the photo looks better upon import in Aperture consumers will think Aperture does a better job processing RAWs.

Sadly, the behind the scenes work Aperture does is very difficult to undo. I can come close but the images get noisier than I think is acceptable. On top that it is very time consuming and it is variable so it is difficult to make a preset.

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Originally Posted by Keith B

You will see it one way, fairly flat and higher dynamic range, then it drastically change to a higher contrast and saturated version. That is Apples interpretation of what they think the starting point should be.

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I'm sure it's not a coincidence that I see the same sort of shift when toggling my Macs' display calibration between the properly calibrated (X-Rite i1) profile and Apple's default Color LCD profile.

Aperture is great for library management, but there's a reason I do my RAW conversions with DxO...

Bummer. Now you guys got me thinking, and there goes the blessing of ignorance.
I knew I can get better results if I move all the sliders to the left in the Raw Fine Tuning, especially with problematic shots, and I have yet to look for some examples that Keith described, and also re-process some of my images.
A quick comparison showed DPP < Aperture < GraphicConverter, but the latter was not as flat as Aperture, so with a little tweaking Aperture might be on par. I would hate to give up the convenience of using only one tool, but I will do some more comparisons with selected shots.

My problem (I guess) is that I work on an Apple laptop, and the screen is excellent for viewing pictures. However, when I print pictures, I am usually disappointed by lack of contrast and definition. So I understand now that apple has made a good tool for processing pictures so they look great on their own screens.
Would you recommend that I do the raw-conversion in photoshop instead, and then transfer to Aperture?
Maybe I should just shoot black/white, then this would not be a problem :p.

Lars