Table Of ContentDigital Photography Workflow
Apple Aperture 2
The Digital Workfl ow Series from Focal Press
The digital workfl ow series off ers clear, highly-illustrated, in-depth, practical guides to each part of the
digital workfl ow process. They help photographers and digital image makers to work faster, work smarter
and create great images. The focus is on what the working photographer and digital image maker actually
need to know to get the job done.
This series is answering readers’ calls to create books that off er clear, no-nonsense advice, with lots of
explanatory images, but don’t stint on explaining why a certain approach is suggested. The authors in this
series – all professional photographers and image makers – look at the context in which you are working,
whether you are a wedding photographer shooting 1000s of jpegs a week or a fi ne artist working on a
single Raw fi le.
The huge explosion in the amount of tools available to photographers and digital image makers – as new
cameras and software arrives on the market – has made choosing and using equipment an exciting, but
risk-fi lled venture. The Digital Workfl ow series helps you fi nd a path through digital workfl ow, tailored just
for you.
Series Editor: Richard Earney
Richard Earney is an award-winning Graphic Designer for Print and Web Design and Coding. He is a beta
tester for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Photoshop, and is an expert on digital workfl ow. He has been
a keen photographer for over 30 years and is a Licentiate of the Royal Photographic Society. He can be
found at http://www.method-photo.co.uk
Other titles in the series
Canon DSLR: The Ultimate Photographer’s Guide
Mac OSX for Photographers
Nikon DSLR: The Ultimate Photographer’s Guide
Digital Photography Workflow
Apple Aperture 2
A Workfl ow Guide for
Digital Photographers
Ken McMahon
Nik Rawlinson
Amsterdam • Boston • Heidelberg • London • New York
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Sydney • Tokyo
Focal Press is an imprint of Elsevier
This book is dedicated to Rich from Nik
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
McMahon, Ken
Apple Aperture 2 : a workflow guide for digital
photographers. – (Digital workfl ow)
1. Aperture (Computer file) 2. Photography – Digital
techniques
I. Title II. Rawlinson, Nik
775
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008934963
ISBN: 978-0-240-52039-1
For information on all Focal Press publications
visit our website at www.focalpress.com
Printed and bound in Canada
09 10 11 12 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CHAPTER 1
R aw Files
Introduction
One of Aperture’s biggest assets is that it gives you the ability to work with Raw images without
converting them to other formats. At the end of this process, if you want to use the output images in other
applications, on the Web, or in commercially printed publications for example, Aperture’s Raw decoder can
convert the Raw fi les into TIFF, JPEG and other image fi le formats.
Y ou can, of course, use Aperture in a non-Raw workfl ow to organize and edit TIFF or JPEG fi les from your
camera, but you’d be missing out on the opportunity to obtain the highest quality images that your
camera is capable of producing with Aperture’s help.
Aperture’s Raw decoder is designed to help you squeeze the last ounce of quality from your digital images,
from the Raw Fine Tuning controls that allow you to infl uence the way Aperture’s decoder interprets the
data in your camera Raw fi les to the tonal adjustments that allow you to recover apparently lost highlight
and shadow detail. Aperture’s tools are designed primarily to work with camera Raw fi les.
Knowing what camera Raw fi les are, how they diff er from RGB fi le formats like TIFF, JPEG and PSD, and
how camera Raw data are produced and stored will infl uence every aspect of your digital imaging
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APPLE APERTURE 2
workfl ow, from your choice of exposure to how and when you
apply sharpening to your images.
In this chapter we begin by taking a look at what camera Raw is
and what are the advantages and disadvantages of adopting a
Raw digital imaging workfl ow. If you’re not currently shooting
Raw, and aren’t sure if this is for you, this information may help
you come to a decision.
Following that, we take a fairly technical look at how imaging
sensors record the data in a scene and how that information is
stored in a camera Raw fi le. It’s not essential to know this, but it
will help you make shooting and editing decisions that produce
the fi nal image of best possible quality.
T he second half of the chapter deals specifi cally with the
Adjustment controls found in the Raw Fine Tuning brick of
Aperture’s Adjustments Inspector ( Fig. 1.1 ) . These are available
only when working with camera Raw fi les and determine how
Aperture’s Raw decoder interprets Raw data to produce an RGB
image ready for further editing. If you’re new to Aperture, you
might want to fast forward to Chapter 2 to familiarize yourself
with the workspace and how Aperture works with images and
Versions before returning to this section.
T he chapter ends with an explanation of Adobe’s DNG Raw
format and the advantages it off ers in an Aperture-based Raw
workfl ow.
W hat is Camera Raw?
T he fi rst thing to understand about camera Raw is that it is not
Fig. 1.1 The Raw Fine Tuning brick on Aperture’s one fi le format, but many. Camera Raw formats are proprietary,
Adjustments Inspector. developed by camera manufacturers to best handle the data
produced by individual models. Hence, the Raw fi le format
produced by Canon’s EOS 5D will diff er from that produced by
the Nikon D3 and even from other Canon dSLRs.
T hough there are some important diff erences, Raw is just another
fi le format like JPEG or TIFF. The major diff erence is that Raw fi les
contain unprocessed data from the camera sensor. Before Raw
data can be viewed as an RGB image, they have to undergo a
number of processes. If you shoot in an RGB format, such as TIFF or
JPEG, this processing is done in the camera. If you shoot Raw, the
same is done by Raw decoder software like that used in Aperture.
4
RAW FILES
Raw Support
T he proprietary nature of camera Raw formats has a number of
important implications for the photographer whose livelihood
may depend on the integrity of and future access to a Library of
images.
In practical terms, your ability to view and manipulate Raw fi les
from your camera depends upon the availability of software
which is able to read those fi les. Camera manufacturers usually
supply a software utility for this purpose and, as well as MacOs
10.5 Leopard and Aperture, an increasing number of applications
developed by third party vendors now support a wide range of
proprietary Raw formats . Apple maintains a list of Camera Raw
formats supported by Aperture 2 on its website at http://www.
apple.com/aperture/specs/raw.html ( Fig. 1.2 ).
R aw fi le formats tend to adapt and change to keep pace with
hardware development. Thus, when a camera manufacturer
Fig. 1.2 You will fi nd a list of all the Raw formats supported by Aperture at http://www.apple.com/aperture/specs/raw.html.
5
APPLE APERTURE 2
releases a new model it’s possible that the Raw fi le format will diff er
in some respect or other from the one used in previous models.
T he practical consequences of this are two-fold. First, it means
that if you buy a newly released camera model and shoot Raw
with it, you may not be able to import those fi les to Aperture, or
any other third party application until they are able to provide
support for it. Given the proprietary nature of Raw formats, this
process can take time. In the meantime, you may be forced to
rely on the manufacturer’s software to read and convert Raw fi les
into a format that your software can handle.
A second, more long-term issue concerns image archiving.
Given the pace of change of digital hardware, it’s not unlikely
that in the course of, say, the next decade, you’ll own and use a
variety of cameras, each with its own fl avor of camera Raw fi le
format. At the end of this period and for the foreseeable future
beyond, it would be reassuring to know that you could rely on
the availability of software to allow you to open and manipulate
those images the way you do today.
Regrettably, if past history is anything to go by, this is by no
means a certainty. Camera manufacturers, software companies,
hardware platforms and operating systems come and go. Even
assuming they are still around for 20 years, how likely is it that
they would be willing to support a format for a camera that
nobody has used for decades?
T here are, however, ways in which you can future-proof your
images from this risk. Simply by importing your photos to
Aperture you are providing one means of defense. It’s fair to
assume that Aperture’s Library and Vault backup fi les will continue
to be readable by future Versions of the program. Another means
of ensuring future readability of your Raw fi les is to convert them
to Adobe’s published ‘ digital negative ’ DNG format. This option is
discussed in greater detail later in this chapter.
T he Pros and Cons of a Raw Workfl ow
More and more professional photographers are realizing the
benefi ts of shooting Raw as opposed to TIFF or JPEG. The fact
that many dSLRs now provide the option of saving both types
of fi le from a single shot gives you the option of producing a
‘ just in case ’ Raw fi le. It may be that your usual workfl ow involves
6
RAW FILES
Fig. 1.3 Support for new camera Raw formats is provided in the MacOs operating system.
Owners of newer digital cameras like the Canon EOS-1DS Mark III, which was launched in
August 2007, had to wait for the MacOs 10.5.2 update in February 2008 before they could
work with Raw fi les from the camera in Aperture. Baseline DNG support in Aperture 2
provides a stop-gap solution for this kind of issue in the future.
very little image processing, subjects aren’t problematic from
an exposure point of view, and that 8-bit JPEGs provide good-
quality images.
In such situations you might think of Raw fi les as an insurance
policy to fall back on should the lighting turn out to be
problematic, or the White Balance off . You can correct RGB fi les
in these circumstances, but Raw fi les will provide you with more
options and generate a better quality end result.
T here is, of course, a downside to shooting Raw. The fi les are
bigger than JPEGs, they take longer to write and, if you’re not
using Aperture, you may have to introduce at least one extra
processing stage to your workfl ow. On balance though, we’d
argue that advantages heavily outweigh the disadvantages.
7
APPLE APERTURE 2
Fig. 1.4 These three fi les are all from the same image shot in Raw with JPEG mode on a
Canon EOS 20D. The Raw fi le comes in at 8 Mb with the JPEG occupying only 1.2MB. The third
fi le was produced from the .CR2 fi le using Adobe DNG converter with lossless compression
selected.
If you’re still undecided, the following might convince you in one
way or the other ( Fig. 1.4 ).
Benefi ts
Overall Quality
In a well-exposed image with a full range of tones that do not
require processing, the diff erences between, say, a TIFF fi le
produced from your camera and one produced using Aperture’s
Raw converter would probably be marginal. This is probably the
only situation in which there is little advantage to be gained from
shooting Raw, but probably not one that occurs all that regularly
for most photographers.
Bit Depth
Camera Raw fi les use the full number of bits (usually 12) available
in the image data. If you shoot JPEGs, this is downsampled
to 8 and the camera, not you, makes the decision about how
eff ectively it uses those bits to represent the tonal levels in the
image. For some images this can result in the irretrievable loss of
highlight and/or shadow detail.
No Compression
C amera Raw fi les are not usually compressed, if they are, a lossless
algorithm is employed. JPEG compression, even at the highest
quality settings, removes a lot of data from your images which can
severely limit what your are able to achieve in post-processing.
Increased Latitude
L atitude describes the exposure characteristics of fi lm emulsions or
digital sensors in terms of their ability to cope with a range of light
8
