Archives / 2009 / April

6

Aperture – Importing Your Images

Sounds like a basic thing and it is. If you are using Aperture you know how to import images, hit the little down arrow import icon, choose import images… from the file menu, or use command-I. Pretty basic. I have received quite a few questions regarding importing so I thought I would share a couple of the finer points that can speed up your work-flow. Did you know that there are three different ways to import into Aperture that do three distinctly different things? I am not speaking of...

19

Photography – I Love Art, I Cannot Stand The Art ‘Culture’

So here is my latest creation. I just happened to be playing around with a couple of lights in the basement while getting blasted. One of my favorite weekend activities. I perfectly captured the way my girlfried acts when I tell her that I am absolutely not refinishing the basement and no I do not want to see the latest chick-flic with her friends tomorrow. I think this is an awesome shot considering I had 5 martinis

3

Great Portraits – Simple Lighting

A while back I published a short article about a portrait lighting technique that I use a lot to one degree or another when making a portrait. To make a long story short the technique uses a corner as a background. The surface facing the light source will be light and happens to be on the shadow side of the subject. The opposite surface will be darker and on the highlight side of the subject.

8

Photography – State of the Union

I must be getting old. I continue to be amazed and at the same time horrified by the state of affairs with photography in general. I guess what I am amazed with is the degree of progress in terms of the technology. When the Nikon D1 was released I used one, I didn’t own it but I had the opportunity to use an associate’s camera on a number of occasions. In and around that time I was shooting a Nikon F5.

6

Aperture Books – Hardcover Title Font

Just wanted to share a tidbit regarding Aperture hardcover book titles that another reader and I worked on via email last week. I took a couple of guesses about the strange and opaque process that happens after clicking “buy book” and my new online buddy Florian came up with a work-around for his issue that I thought was really cool.

12

Aperture News and Annoncements

As most of you probably know we all get a brand spanking not so new update to Aperture. The latest greatest version is now 2.1.3. I have read a couple of reports that this actually does fix some esoteric issues that some people have been searching for a solution to for quite some time. That is the good news, the bad news is holy crap Apple – can you possibly muster a 2.2 or something that has just a tidbit or two for the Aperture faithful. I want camera...

7

Alternatives To The Mainstream

I am a little punch drunk from spending far too much time on reinventing the site with a bunch of new features so I thought I would take a little break and discuss a couple of products that serve as partial alternatives to the heavy hitters in the image work-flow field. The two players that come to mind would be Photo Mechanic and ACDSee Pro. I don’t claim to be remotely proficient with either product in the way that I am with Aperture and Lightroom but I thought I...