Stacks in Aperture

Just thought I'd do a quick pole or what others are doing with images after they've choosen a "pick" in a stack.

I generally shout several images in a row, all with slightly different exposure settings. Stacks are ideal for working with them, but my question is what do you do with the rest of them after I've picked my favorite in the stack? My knee jerk reaction is to purge them all as it seems unlikely that they'll ever be viewed again but when it comes time to "command+delete" I'm hesitating.

When it was film it was much easier.... the time and effort of scanning slides made the decision for me and anything that didn't make the cut went straight to the trash can. I'm not sure why it should be any different with digital but I'm sure having a tough time toasting all the secondaries.

Thanks

Mike

I'm a fan of the trash can, and I that's where most of my shots land up. If you're that paranoid burn a full copy to a CD of the card first.

I usually X the definite trash ones on import, then it's a process of repeated culling, till I'm left with those I'd definitely print or post.

After my initial sort through and I catagorise the ones I want to keep I archive the whole lot off to another disk on another PC and every few months backup to a DVD.

No stacks for me. I make the pick, then trash the rest. I figure just because I pressed the shutter button, doesn't make it a keeper.

No stacks for me. I make the pick, then trash the rest. I figure just because I pressed the shutter button, doesn't make it a keeper.

My workflow is similar....

Day of the shoot:

Copy the card onto a second drive.

Import into Aperture

Trash the "obvious" trash.

I rate shots I have looked at with 1 star (this way I on't look twice and I don't miss reviewing any either)

Shots worth tweaking get 2 stars

Really nice ones that only need a crop get 3 stars

Later I go back to the 3 stars and look closely to see if they are indeed so. I then rate the good ones 4 stars

Now I go back down the rankings. As I tweak/crop these get 4 stars

In the end anything under three stars gets thrown into the bit bucket.

The best ones end up at 4 stars and any exceptional one or two (yes that is all I get form a day) end up at 5.

Then I burn the project onto a DVD.

My goal is to keep no more form a single day than will fit on the DVD.

Stacks can be used in two ways: To keep a series of shots together, to then choose the best one of the series. This is done by either shooting a series within a certain time period and dragging the stacking time slider on import to stack accordingly, or physically dragging images into a stack for comparison. I do not use stacks much for this, this is probably the type of thing wedding photographers use a lot, or one uses when shooting multiple frames per second etc.

The other way I use stacks all the time, is keeping various versions of a single image together, Black & White, different crops, different versions for different output options etc. I then keep my favorite or most representative version of the image on top of the stack and collapse the stacks so that the top one is the only one I see in my browser unless I choos to open the stack.

Stacks can be used in two ways: To keep a series of shots together, to then choose the best one of the series. This is done by either shooting a series within a certain time period and dragging the stacking time slider on import to stack accordingly, or physically dragging images into a stack for comparison. I do not use stacks much for this, this is probably the type of thing wedding photographers use a lot, or one uses when shooting multiple frames per second etc.

The other way I use stacks all the time, is keeping various versions of a single image together, Black & White, different crops, different versions for different output options etc. I then keep my favorite or most representative version of the image on top of the stack and collapse the stacks so that the top one is the only one I see in my browser unless I choos to open the stack.

loftus,

I was wondering if you use a seperate Nikon program to transition from your camera to Aperture. I am learning Aperture and when I upload my images from the D300, I notice it doesn't seem read the nef/raw files. I dont think it imports those does it? I find myself having to go to Capture to save those...

Cheers,

Chuck

Aperture does support the D300 but you have to be using Version 2 and Leopard.

http://www.apple.com/aperture/specs/raw.html

Having said that, some of the photo gurus out there are strong believers that Capture NX is a superior RAW convertor to either Camera RAW or Lightroom, and probably better than Aperture. Even though I own Capture NX, I have not yet gone the route of importing first via NX and then transferring to Aperture for storing images. That is something I want to try sometime to see if I can tell the difference.

So, the trash can it is then. I guess I can keep everything till I'm finished organizing and editing my projects the way that I want them and do a batch rejection of anything that I haven't given a high enough rating.

loftus,

 

I was wondering if you use a seperate Nikon program to transition from your camera to Aperture. I am learning Aperture and when I upload my images from the D300, I notice it doesn't seem read the nef/raw files. I dont think it imports those does it? I find myself having to go to Capture to save those...

Cheers,

Chuck

The latest version of Aperture does support the Nikon D300 nef files but I can't answer for pre 2.0 versions. However, my understanding is that Aperture doesn't handle them directly, instead using libraries that are built into the operating system. So, as long as you system is complete and up to date, you should be able to open them with aperture as well as being able to view them in preview and finder. You need OSX 10.4.11 or 10.5.2 AFAIK.

Cheers and thanks for the input All!

Mike