Aperture 3.5 Grey screen

Hi Ray,

Just downloaded the new Mavericks-compliant NIK software (dated 11/14/13). Uninstalled the old version and installed the new. Still doesn't work correctly. The workflow in my 11/11 post still works, though.

I sent a message back to NIK, awaiting a response.

Tom

Wow, Tom, I don't know how you found that work-around, but it's working for me, with Color Efex Pro 4, too!! Thank you so much for posting this. I have no hair left to pull out, and this is much easier than quitting and restarting Aperture after every edit. Not ideal, though, and hopefully Nik will get this fixed quickly.

Bob

That's really interesting Tom. It sounds a little familiar too. There was a long standing bug that finally got quashed in one of the big Aperture 3.x updates. If you created a new version for your edit (from viewer) and called the plugin, it would hang as the plugin was unable to find the new version.

To make it work, you had to go back to previous version (left arrow) then onto the new version again (right arrow) and then the call to the plugin would work correctly. It's like new versions don't get properly built until you exit the image and reload it.

As I say, that was eventually fixed, but this sounds like a similar issue has been re-incarnated. If so, it's more likely an Aperture issue than a Nik Plugin one (although it could be that Nik is using an unsupported technique for getting version info that no longer works).

Tom Lebsack wrote:

All,

I think I have found a work-around to the missing Viewer images (grey screen) when using NIK plug-ins:

Do the editing in the Viewer, then go back to Browser before going the NIK plug-in (in my case Color Efex and Define). Do the NIK processing. When the image is returned to Aperture, I can export it to my website application normally. Then for the next photo, I follow the same steps and haven't had any grey screens today.

The only time I have had a problem today is when I go from Viewer to NIK instead of Browser to NIK.

Maybe this will help 'til we get the fix from NIK.

Tom

I have experienced this issue with a variety of Nik products— Color Efex 4, Silver Efex, Dfine and I think, but I am not toally sure, that DxO Film Pack 4 is doing the same thing.

Have all of you who had issues tried the Nik Software update? It might be a release for Mavericks support, though it is not clearly stated in the release notes.

See: https://support.google.com/nikcollection/answer/4400822?hl=en&ref_topic=3001406

Release Notes

Updates to the Nik Collection are made on an ongoing basis. These updates may include bug fixes, performance enhancements, new features and additional hardware or software support. All updates will be installed to the computer automatically.

Version 1.109 - December 11, 2013

• Fixed crashes with Dfine 2 when launching on Mac OS 10.6

• Fixed compatibility issues with 64-bit Dfine 2, Sharpener Pro 3 and Viveza 2 on Windows 8

• Fixed Aperture UI issue that might have occurred after returning to Aperture from plug-ins on Mac OS

• Fixed black or white tile artifacts that might have occurred after returning to Photoshop from plug-ins

• Fixed large color tiles appearing in the plug-in preview on systems with Intel HD graphics cards

• Fixed GPU filtering artifacts occurring on Mac OS 10.9 with Intel HD 2000/3000 graphics cards

• Fixed a Photoshop crash that might have occurred in a specific situations using the brush functionality

• The preset preview will be shown at full retina resolution on supported systems

• Various small retina graphic optimizations

• Improved the click and drag experience when using a tablet

• Analog Efex Pro: Added the affect of the Vary button to the Levels and Curves strength slider

• Analog Efex Pro: Fixed the History comparison button for the initial state

• HDR Efex Pro 2: Fixed a crash that might have occurred during parallel metadata loading from images

• Silver Efex Pro 2: Fixed the functionality of the Toning sliders

• Silver Efex Pro 2: Fixed an issue with Grain Strength visibility that depended on the preview scaling

• Silver Efex Pro 2: Fixed GPU filtering artifacts, which also improved filtering speed

Great News. Thank you!

This must have been it:

• Fixed Aperture UI issue that might have occurred after returning to Aperture from plug-ins on Mac OS

The problem with the grey screen has gone away. Thanks for letting us know. Too bad there is not a better way for NIK to inform users of software updates (like using the normal Apple system). They just magically appear. But I'm still pleased with their improvements, and the NIK Collection is great software.

Tom

So there is no user action required - Nik just updates itself?

I have been using the work around so have not noticed...

That's right. Google uses an auto-updating scheme operating in the background when the host application (Aperture, etc,) is closed.

Checking the Finder, these are the version numbers I have as of today:

Analog Efex Pro: 1.0.0.9

Color Efex Pro: 4.3.0.9

Define2: 2.2.9

HDR Efex Pro: 2.2.0.9

Sharpener Pro 3 Output Sharpenring: 3.1.9

Sharpener Pro 3 RAW Sharpening: 3.1.9

Silver Efex Pro 2: 2.2.0.9

Viveza 2: 2.1.9

I didn't have time to check it out extensively, but the entire NIK collection of Aperture plug-ins now seems to be stable. That's great news, especially with HDR Pro that has been on the side for months. We are back on tracks again.

Happy Days. I should have realised something was up when analog efex suddenly appeared as an option.

Now I have to untrain myself away from the workaround!

Unfortunately I have the same issue. I have updated the Google NIK product, but the viewer still either displays nothing other than EXIF data after the load of the full size image, or a garbled image.

Editing the image works fine, just the base viewer window is hosed.

I have deleted all prefs, reinstalled Aperture etc.

The library in question is on an external FW disk, so I moved it to my MB Pro. Same version of OS X, Aperture and NIK. No problem in viewer.

Moving the library back to the iMac and Aperture viewer is still broken.

I matched Aperture settings across systems line by line. They are identical.

My guess is either a video driver difference incompatability or a hardware config issue.

Bad news. I have 8 years of images stored in multiple Aperture libraries.

I may be forced to migrate to LR. Ugh.

Alex