My Aperture Workflow – June 2009 Edition

Workflow seems to be a hot topic for Aperture users. Everyone seems to have their own particular way of doing things and I think that it is a testament to the flexibility of Aperture that it can be made to suit so many peoples’ needs so well. Since I may have never blogged about my method before, here it is:

I always import my images into my Library. This allows me to keep them backed up via Vaults and keeps things neat and organized. On import I rename images by adding a prefix to the filename. I don’t like changing the filename beyond this as I don’t really see a point to it.

I use 2 styles of prefixes:

• Camera Model with a letter suffix followed by an underscore: 40Da_, G10a_, SD700a_
  I added the letter suffix after I ‘flipped’ the counter on a previous camera and ended up with 2 350D_IMG_0001 images. The letter suffix prevents this
• For other people’s pictures (I keep track of my mother’s photos) I use first initial followed by last name and an underscore: JDoe_, AAdams_

On import I also add copyright info using a metadata preset. If possible I also add as much of my ‘essential metadata’ as possible.

I consider the following metadata to be essential:

• Sub-Location, City, State, Country (it is rare that I can’t get most of these filled!)
• Event (where appropriate)
• Credit and copyright info
• Caption and headline for anything that will get posted or put into a book

I’m data-paranoid. I will not apologize. I don’t erase a memory card until its images have been verified in Aperture and backed up into a Vault.

For my first pass through newly imported images, I will bulk add keywords if possible. I find it easy to select a series of photos and add keywords for easily visible attributes like people, pets, animals, and geographic features. I try to ensure that every image has at least one keyword associated with it, but try to avoid going image-by-image.

Not every image needs white balance correction, but when they do it is usually easy to correct one and Lift & Stamp the adjustment on subsequent shots.

My second pass is where I will rate images, fine-tune corrections, and keywords. If I am in a hurry to get photos posted to Flickr or Zenfolio, I will do a quick pass and only perform ratings.

As Aperture hides images rated as Rejected by default, I use that rating sparingly. That said, any image that is obvious junk will get a -1 rating. I still won’t delete the master, though. As I do my detailed pass I leave any unremarkable image unrated and give any image that I want to share in any capacity (Flickr, Zenfolio, book, or print) at least 1 star. Most only get that one star, but anything that I find to be particularly striking may get up to 4 stars here. Rarely do I give 4 stars anymore and 5 stars is reserved for my very best.

Any image rated as 1 star or more is a candidate for printing, inclusion in a book, or online posting. I use the excellent FlickrExport plugin and have a pro Flickr account. If you use Flickr, I would suggest that you do so as well. I’ll leave the details of Flickr up to you, but I do recommend embedding a visible watermark in any image you post online.

I am trying to get photos sold and am starting to get content posted to Zenfolio. I don’t have much more to say about this yet except that I really like the service so far.

I usually produce a couple of photo books through Aperture each year. The books usually come in 2 varieties: annual book and event book. I like the annual book idea as it gives us a photographic remembrance of a year. Given how many pictures I take, it is easy to fill a book each year.

An event book is usually actually a trip book that records our travels. Depending on the year I can generate a few of these. I have a customized book theme that I use as a starting point. Sometimes I’ll also do a book’s layout in Keynote.

Once I am done with my edits, publishing, and sharing I will offline my master images. I store my offline masters on a portable hard drive (I live off of a MacBook Pro so disk space is sometimes at a premium). This hard drive is backed up to a drive at my desk as well. Both drives hold Vaults of my Library.

For day-to-day shooting I create a Project for each month. It lives in a folder for each year and is named in the YYYY-MM format (the current Project is 2009-06). If there is a special event that gets lots of photos I will give it at least 1 Project and keep the naming scheme adding a 2-digit day if appropriate as well as the event’s name. I’ll then store those Projects as well as the month’s general Project in a Blue Folder named in the YYYY-MM format. I strive to keep my Projects at under 4GB in size including master images. That allows me to export a Project and burn it to DVD for safekeeping.

To give an example of what I’m talking about, here is what my Library would look like with a hypothetical road trip to Voyageurs National park:

• 2009-01
• 2009-02
• 2009-03
• 2009-04
• 2009-05
• 2009-06
• 2009-07
• 2009-07
• 2009-07-10 Outbound
• 2009-07-13 Ely
• 2009-07-14 Voyageurs
• 2009-07-16 Homebound
• …

I’m sure that I’ll update this as my workflow changes, but until then, that’s it.