I love Aperture books. I’ve been making books since Apple debuted the feature in iPhoto (and I used Keynote to do custom layouts). I make a book for every event and year- it really is a great way to show your photos off. Since Aperture, I haven’t had to resort to using Keynote to make my books and I love being able to use the metadata fields.

Here is a tip that I’d like to pass along about using your own Aperture books as themes.

Ap2-Book
Aperture 2 book layout

As you are doing your book layout, you will likely come up with new layouts- I know that I do. Maybe you want a page to show 3 tall, skinny images with caption metadata boxes below each or one that has 2 very wide panoramic images with shooting information between them. Once you create your new page layout that you like, be sure to save it into the book: hit the Action menu (the gear) and choose Save Page -> As New Document Master. Give you page a good and descriptive name (like “3 – Vert – Caption”). And considermaking pages that are mirror images of each other for a much more professional feel.

Ap2-Book-Save

Once you’re done with your book, duplicate it into your next Project (or a utility Project), remove the images from it and you’re ready to roll. I keep a utility Project handy to keep my current book templates which makes them very portable and sharable.

Now if only I could decide on that next lens purchase…