Philip Freedman Posted July 3, 2011 Share #1 Posted July 3, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) I have just started using Aperture on my new iMac instead of my usual Lightroom to process my M9 raw DNGs. I was using a couple of pre-set settings for sharpening, clarity, vibrance etc in Lightroom based on some helpful postings on the Forum, but have not found many on Aperture (apart from the usual Lightroom v Aperture debate on which I intend to form my own view). Any tips about default settings would be most appreciated. Thanks Philip _________________________________________________________________________ My Blurb Book : Random Couplets - Black and White Humour Random Couplets | By Philip Freedman | Category: Arts & Photography | Blurb Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted July 3, 2011 Posted July 3, 2011 Hi Philip Freedman, Take a look here Any tips for M9 and Apple Aperture?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
Mike Rawcs Posted July 3, 2011 Share #2 Posted July 3, 2011 Hi Philip, Aperture tutorials can be found here Apple - Aperture - How To and are a good starting place. I like the fact that the adjustments can be made in increments by clicking on the plus or minus arrows rather than using sliders. I like the Aperture workflow and interface but prefer the (Flash) web journal pages (Paper White) of Lightroom. Mike. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ldhrads Posted July 5, 2011 Share #3 Posted July 5, 2011 Philip, I agree with Mike, try some of the Tutorials, it really is a great and easy program to work with, IMHO. As far as the RAW presets, it has a good built in M9 profile. There are plenty of other presets out there, preset pond for example has many, but they are all post RAW Good luck! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manicouagan1 Posted July 10, 2011 Share #4 Posted July 10, 2011 This post is a minor revision of a post I submitted to a earlier similar request. Aperture uses Preferences to control quite a bit of automatic image processing. Here are my non-default Preference settings: 1) under Previews be sure that you use the full resolution of your display; 2) under Advanced set hot area threshold to 100%, Cold Area threshold to 0%, Auto adjust White clip 0%, Auto adjust Black Clip 0%. I go in and set these after each major software upgrade of Aperture. I have a set of standard corrections in a pseudo batch mode at the end of the shooting day. The key to this pseudo batch scheme is to use of the Presets pull down menu on the Adjustments Inspector. You can create a custom Preset by picking any image made with the correct camera in the format you is interested in working with. Here are my standard M8/M9 adjustments. Apply only the following adjustments to a selected image: Exposure Recovery 0.3 Black Point 0.7 Enhance Definition 0.05 Saturation 1.05 Vibrancy 0.05 Curves Use the little Gear pull down set Type Gamma Corrected Greyscale RGB Click the Black and White (Luminance) Auto button Highlights and Shadows Highlights 30 Shadows 1 Under the Advanced triangle set High tonal width 60 Low Tonal Width 60 Levels Set the Channel to RGB Click the Black and White Auto button Once you have made these adjustments click the Presets tab, then click Save as Preset, give the Preset a name and click OK . These corrections expand the luminance gamut to span the entire histogram, tone down highlights and bring up shadows. The Auto Curves and Auto Levels functions seem to use the Auto Adjust White and Black clips from the Preferences menu. That is why you need to reset them from the Preference defaults. My preferred set of corrections evolves as Aperture gets upgraded and as I learn more about the interaction of all the steps in the process. This scheme will not capture slightly blown highlights. Aperture does that quite well but I have not been able to find a batch process that consistently does the job across a broad range of images. My approach to recovering highlights in a later cycle of processing is to use a combination of the following selected by trial and error: a. Increasing Recovery under the exposure block b. Slightly decreasing Exposure under the Exposure block while watching the Curves display to see that I have some room to work on the dark (left end of the curve). c. Clicking Extended on the Curves tab and sliding out the maximum value d. Increasing the value of Highlights under the Highlights and Shadows tab e. Increasing High Tonal Width under the Advanced Highlights and Shadows tab. My workflow for the M8 or M9 but at the end of a day is: 1) Download image (all are uncompressed dng) to working folder on my laptop 2) Use Adobe DNG converter to compress files and make calculated aperture visible) and store in a second working folder. 3) Load the lossless compressed dng files to predefined Project in Aperture. 4) Apply the standard set of corrections to the images via the preset. a. To do this click on any image with the Adjustment Inspector open. b. Click on the Presets Pull down menu and click on you preferred adjustments preset. c. Go to the Lift and Stand Icon and click on the Lift d. Select all the images you want to adjust e. Click on the Stamp Selected Images icon on the Lift and Stamp Menu f. Wait, your computer is going to be busy making all the adjustments 5) Quickly scan the images for any technical issues to be resolved before next days shooting including if the M9 sensor needs to be dusted off. 6) Back up the Aperture project on a separate portable hard drive and delete the temporary files used as input and output of Adobe DNG converter. Note that at this point I have three copies of every image (one on the SD card, one on the hard drive of my computer in Aperture) and a third in a separate hard drive. At a later time, I go through the images one-by-one make to crop, correct color, adjust the luminance range, remove dust spots, apply keywords and rank each image. For the subjects I shoot, I find no need for noise reduction for ISO <800. Generally my approach when I start my second pass though my images to sort the file by ISO and apply the default noise reduction to everything with ISO >=800. After each major processing session I resave the Aperture Project as a Library on the portable hard drive. When it comes time to reuse the SD card with the original image, I back up the Aperture Project/Library on my long term back up drive on a desktop. This way I preserve the three copies of each image. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Freedman Posted July 11, 2011 Author Share #5 Posted July 11, 2011 That is exactly the sort of advice I was hoping to get - very many thanks. Philip Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
nobbylon Posted February 24, 2016 Share #6 Posted February 24, 2016 Manicouagan1, This is the most helpful set of instructions I've had for M9 post process and transforms the files with very little time expense. thank you john Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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