"Golden Ratio" plug in for Aperture

I believe Delfina7 is looking to change the crop overlay grid from a "rule of thirds" display to a "golden ratio" display regarless of actual cropping dimensions. I've seen Lightroom's selection of overlay grids and admittedly it makes Aperture look very simple.

Aperture is very image-centered: almost everything is based on the image itself.

+1, Aperture is complicated enough as it is. Added features that do not fit into the design would make the learning curve even steeper.

But a predifined "Golden Ratio" crop would fit nicely into the design, and I am puzzled why it is not available.

BTW: I tried to add a custom "golden ratio" crop as a preset effect, but "save as effect" is greyed out for any crop I try. Do you see the same, or is my Aperture buggy? Lifting and stamping the crop work however. So it would be possible to define a "golden ratio" template to lift and stamp from.

Cheers

Léonie

Léonie,

Afaik, Crop and Straighten can not be assigned to an Adjustment Preset. (Crop makes some sense -- the Original would have to big enough for the offset as well as the actual crop; and one can input any custom aspect ratios in the Crop HUD.)

I have to agree with you and JasoninaJeep, additional crop guides could be a nice addition, and Phi would be an excellent one to start with.

Hello Delfina,

I don't know of a plug-in, but as a work-around:

since the golden ratio is 1.61803399, you can simply set Aperture's crop tool to the custom size of 1618 x 1000 for landsape and 1000 x 1618 for portrait images. This will ty the crop frame to the "Golden ratio", if you select "custom".

In comparison to a plug-in solution this will have the added bonus, that no additional quasi master will be created and you can revert the crop, if need be.

You could try to build your own crop tool using an Automator service - but the "crop" Automator action does not take parameters at runtime, you would have to set the dimensions manually, so this is not really an option.

Regards

Léonie

Aperture is very image-centered: almost everything is based on the image itself. I like to think that basing cropping decisions on the image -- and not basing them on an external order superimposed on the image -- fits this design philosophy like a custom glove.

Then why is the existing Aperture overlay in the Rule of Thirds or is that coincidence? This is an outside, superimosed order used by the program to aid in cropping and/or alignment as well. I guess I don't see a difference in design if Apple provided other overlays to use as guides.

Good point 🙂 .

I assume the R.O.T. is there for the same reason some fine restaurants leave salt available on the table even though patrons have paid a lot of money to have their meals prepared just right.

Things like the R.O.T., btw, originated as pedagogical aids to show beginners that changes in composition (the arrangement of objects in space) also made changes in design (the arrangement of shapes on the picture place). They were not understood as rules, and were meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive. A much better prescription of what has ossified into the R.O.T. is: Center objects in your pictures deliberately, or not at all.

Delfina7 wrote:

I just downloaded Aperture and altough it makes it easy to continue managing my two large iPhoto libraries, I find it clunky and basic in its editing features. When I tried to edit images as a batch with presets it just stalled. Raw files is a nightmare as Aperture is so slow. I run it on an updated 1 year old Macbook Pro. Is this normal function?

I suggest starting a separate thread with any performance questions you have -- you'll surely get some good advice. Aperture can (and often does) work very well -- if it is not for you, if it worth investigating why. If you do post, include CPU, GPU, RAM, HD, HD free space, # of Originals in Library, size in bytes of Library, location of Library, location of Originals if referenced, and any peculiarities to your set-up.

It's 10% off -- not "very close". Moreover, your example supports my contention that these superimposition schemes are so fuzzy as to be close to meaningless. Pleasing results are good. Imagine what you can do when you don't limit your aspect ratio to longish rectangles.

And, if you don't find a feature you need, make sure to send Aperture feedback!

" ... picture plane." 😊

in Aperture there is a crop of 16 - 9 HD this is very close and results in very pleasing results! Nothing to load or add or change 🙂

you can click the "show guides" button in the crop pop-up window and it gives you a rule of thirds grid, which helps.

An inspired solution here:

http://photoshopsecrets.tumblr.com/post/41450884060/golden-ratio-shapes