Screencasts
Related Content
Stay Connected
I've been having so much fun playing with the new organizing and editing tools in Aperture 2.1, I hadn't had a chance yet to investigate the improvements with the book-making tool. So, when I sat down with Joe Schorr recently to talk about it, I wasn't expecting any big revelations. Boy, was I surprised when he fired up Aperture and began to show me what's new.
This conversation has two basic aspects. The first covering the new templates and layout tools. After that, we talked about some of the great output options available once you design a page, or a series of pages. For example, I hadn't noticed that the "Save as PDF" button changed to a PDF pop-up menu in the Print dialog box for the Book tool. This is a direct link to the PDF Services directory on your hard drive containing some very useful Automator workflows. (In case you are wondering, the PDF Services folder is located in the Library at the root level.)
You can grab additional workflows from www.apple.com/ applescript/aperture, such as "Render PDF as Images to Keynote." And if that wasn't cool enough, you can open these workflows in Automator, adjust them to taste, then save as new workflows... and they will appear in your PDF pop-up menu with the others.
Once you put these pieces together, you can imagine the kind of things you can do with your Aperture library. This is not a chat just about book making... it is much more.
Right-click or 
Control-click to download this MP3 file.Derrick Story is the author of The Photoshop CS4 Companion for Photographers, The Digital Photography Companion, and Digital Photography Hacks, and coauthor of iPhoto: The Missing Manual, with David Pogue. You can follow him on Twitter or visit www.thedigitalstory.com.
Return to Inside Aperture
Showing messages 1 through 3 of 3.
©2009, O'Reilly Media, Inc. (707) 827-7000 / (800) 998-9938 All trademarks and registered trademarks appearing on oreilly.com are the property of their respective owners. |
About O'Reilly
Academic Solutions Authors Contacts Customer Service Jobs Newsletters O'Reilly Labs Press Room Privacy Policy RSS Feeds Terms of Service User Groups Writing for O'Reilly |
Content Archive Business Technology Computer Technology Microsoft Mobile Network Operating System Digital Photography Programming Software Web Web Design |
More O'Reilly Sites
O'Reilly Radar Ignite Tools of Change for Publishing Digital Media Inside iPhone O'Reilly FYI makezine.com craftzine.com hackszine.com perl.com xml.com Partner Sites InsideRIA java.net O'Reilly Insights on Forbes.com |
I enjoyed your podcast about the book possibilities in AP2.1 and ironically, I had only an hour or so earlier posted a comment on Apertureprofessionals about a problem with custom fonts selection. I thought it might be worth posting here too.
There is one aspect, when trying to customise a book layout, that is hugely frustrating. Custom font changes CANNOT be applied to Master pages, well ... they can but they don't 'stick' when you subsequently apply the Master to a child page
So yes you can change a font on a master page, for example, if you add a 'Metadata Box'. However, if you then apply that Master to a Child page, the font reverts to the default font in the Template. Very frustrating. I'd almost call it a bug. If you have the ear of Mr Schorr, please pass this one along.
I discovered this limitation a few weeks ago when I was printing 100 50x60 prints from a Z3100. Aperture prints really really well and the Book tools were a great way to handle the job (not least because the job now sits in my Aperture library and can be revisited at any time). These were fine art prints and Apple have perhaps not really considered the possibilities of using Aperture as a batch/archive tool for fine art printing, but it turns out that it's really good at it. But this 'bug' was really a pain. As I worked my layout and text, back and forth as is typical for me, I had to manually alter the font in 100 child pages because the default fonts replaced my custom choice.
Another thing that would be great, is to have the option to turn off the whole book metaphor thing and just see a load of prints. It would help too if images weren't always offset to allow for the gutter ... because it you're printing to an inkjet, you don't need a gutter.
Grant