30 Days Using Aperture 2 (Days 10-12)

Days 10-12

I started looking for more detailed information for working with Aperture 2. The tutorials were just not cutting it. It seems when you buy Aperture 2 you get a booklet "Exploring Aperture 2" and sample projects to play with. With the 30 day demo you do not. I did find the the PDF file of "Exploring Aperture 2" here. It is a life saver.

I am now starting to understand the different view modes and the HUD's (Heads Up Displays). My favorite is hitting the "F" key for full screen display and then the "H" key to get the inspector HUD on screen. This gives you just the image you are working on and the inspector HUD that you can move to anywhere on your screen and size it to a good working size. If you move your mouse to the bottom of the screen your browser of your images comes up so you can change the image you are working on. You can also move your mouse to the top of the screen and the toolbar will drop down. By clicking the toggle switch on the right of the toolbar you can set it to stay in place or leave it so it will automatically hide when you move your mouse away from the top of the screen.

I just started using the "Stacks" feature. I like the idea of being able to stack similar images together by selecting the group of images by shift clicking on them and then clicking on Stacks > Stack. You can also Auto Stack images that have been shot in sequence. By clicking Stacks > Auto Stack you will get a HUD that will allow you to select a time interval between images up to 1 min. Once your images are stacked a number will appear on the main image, by clicking on that number you can open and close the stack to view all or just the main image.

More to come soon.