storing presentations in Aperture?

Aperture is _not_ a media manager. It's just not.

Aperture is for storing photos. It is a _photography_ application. It does videos, too, but it's bare-bones in that respect.

You cannot import Keynote presentations into Aperture. Nor can you import Word documents, Pages documents, Numbers documents, Excel spreadsheets, or anything else. Aperture won't do it, and it's not good at it.

Use Aperture for your photos (and, to a lesser extent, videos). And that's it. If you want to create presentations in Keynote, work on your photos in Aperture, and then export those photos and use them in the Keynote at the END of things. Forget about importing the presentation back into Aperture; that won't work, and it's not Aperture's intent. It is not a junk drawer.

Jon,

a list of supported file formats is here:

File Formats You Can Import into the Library

Aperture can import, adjust, and manage pictures.

Why would you want to import Keynote presentations into Aperture? They are not photos - they use and contain photos. Keynote would not be able to access and edit them, if they are in the Aperture library. Use the Media Browser to share your Aperture photos to Keynote and keep the presentations in a separate folder. MacOS is slowly changing to an Application centric operating system - like IOS, so in the long run it will help to keep your documents arranged by application.

Léonie

also, is there a list of supported video files?

Aperture 3: About Video and Audio formats in Aperture

I use iMovie to store videos, so I do not know much about supported video formats in Aperture. But Aperture supports quicktime movies - only Quicktime is a wrapper for a variety of codecs; it will only work, if the codec of the media fork of the movie is supported. You may need to install additional video codecs (for example perian), or use VLC instead of QuickTime as a movie editor.

can you explain what media browser is

Media Browser is the interface between your iLife and iWork applications. I am sure you have frequently used it. The MediaBrowser is a window that you can access in many apps and it will give you access to audio files, photos, and movies, like here in iWeb, for example:

In Aperture it is available from the Slideshows, in iTunes you can use it to sync your albums and projects to your mobile devices, in Mail you have the Photos Browser to send your pictures. In keynote you see it in the Inpector and can access your iPhoto and Aperture images.

Regards

Léonie

hotwheels 22 wrote:

1. can you explain what media browser is?

"Help" is, more often than not, helpful -- it should always be the first place you look for answers. If you have iWork installed, searching Help for "Media Browser" should bring up results that look like this:

HTH.

I've found the best way to store videos or files used in a project is to simply create a folder (park it on the dekstop, or in the Documents folder) with the name of the project. I just started a new one which will result in a movie playable in a DVD player.

I will be editing my videos in Final Cut Express (for layering videos for special effects in menus and transitions), assembling things in iMovie, creating slideshows in Photo to Movie (far superior to any OS native app in my opinion), and, when it's all done, assemble all of it in iDVD for authoring/burning.

If you put all the photos, videos, etc. needed for a project in one folder, then it is much easier to keep track of. I would not use Aperture because it simply isn't meant for that type of thing. It does an excellent job as a photo enhancing tool.

FWIW, I do not use either the iPhoto or Aperture libraries (that is my personal preference) - if I need to work on some photos, I will import them into Aperture, fix the photo, export the enhanced version, and delete whatever is in Aperture. I do not care for the OS filing system - I prefer my own.

if I need to work on some photos, I will import them into Aperture, fix the photo, export the enhanced version, and delete whatever is in Aperture. I do not care for the OS filing system - I prefer my own.

You realise, of course, that you can use any filing system you devise with Aperture (or iPhoto) right? There is no filing system forced on you in any way. And also, that you're using a photo manager designed expressly for a lossless workflow to create a lossy one? Wouldn't it just be easier to use an app designed for the work you do? Elements? Acorn? Pixelmator? Graphic Converter?

If you put all the photos, videos, etc. needed for a project in one folder, then it is much easier to keep track of. I would not use Aperture because it simply isn't meant for that type of thing. It does an excellent job as a photo enhancing tool.

Babowa, really interesting. I am doing the exact opposite.

I use Aperture as a database to retrieve photos - not only as photo editor and storage. And the smart retrieval aspect is much more important to me than the storage aspect. I know of no other tool that will let me index and find my photos based on a variety of tags and other criteria with a simply search rule, and my main Aperture library contains all my photos collected during several decades, beginning with the baby pictures of my parents to the pictures that I use for teaching.

If I want to create a screensaver with great pictures of sunsets at sea I can search in one rule for five-star rated pictures with the keywords sunset and sailing - this search will scan all pictures, independent of the location of the referenced files. I can search for camera type, resolution, place, subject, even my custom tags, like height of the sun over the horizon and define smart albums and web pages based on these rules.

And Aperture keeps track of the different versions of any image and stores them economically. I do not have to waste diskspace on different versions of the same image by creating duplicates.

Well, different strokes for different folks. I prefer to manage my photos; I don't care for the "inbuilt" management. I don't want (actually can't stand) "events", "projects", "dates", "faces", or whatever is the default. I don't need tags. I don't want "ratings" - my photos are either worth keeping or they're not. I can find my Columbia river gorge trip photos in a folder I created and appropriately named "Gorge 2012". So, as long as I can remember that I was in the gorge 😁 , I can find the pictures, LOL

I can search for camera type, resolution, place, subject, even my custom tags, like height of the sun over the horizon and define smart albums and web pages based on these rules.

Great for you if you need that - I have no need for it.

And Aperture keeps track of the different versions of any image and stores them economically. I do not have to waste diskspace on different versions of the same image by creating duplicates.

Again, I don't have a need for that because I don't keep more than one photo. It is either the original or a digitally enhanced version - whichever I like best is the one that is kept.

The only exception would be my artwork creations, but those are not photos - I will keep my original background for instance because I may use that again in another project (i.e. the birthday card I created for baltwo).

@ Terence:

Wouldn't it just be easier to use an app designed for the work you do? Elements? Acorn? Pixelmator? Graphic Converter?

I may use one or more/all of the following with one photo (depending on what I will be using the photo for): Graphic Converter, PS Elements, Image Tricks, Aperture, Digital Photo Professional, Swift Publisher and Photo to Movie. I will also use Photos while making a movie (as a background, for video layering, etc with FCE, LiveType, iMovie HD, the new iMovie and iDVD). I've experienced very little loss since I won't save as a .jpg until I'm done working on it.

FWIW, I believe we had a similar conversation some time ago; I simply want and use folders for my photos: "gorge 2012". I don't want it cross referenced, places, faces, dates, or whatever - just a container (folder) holding those particular photos. I find it much easier to deal with that than having to worry about a previous/future/incompatible library version. I control my Photos folder and can drag a copy of it anywhere I like.

I actually tried iPhoto some time ago and became completely frustrated at the flashing/moving dates "2010", "2011", etc while scrolling and trying to find a photo. I prefer a filing cabinet type filing system: alphabetically arranged folders containing appropriately named pics. I also use column view (never icon view). I never did find what I was looking for in iPhoto - until I went to my folder to find it.

As for keeping all materials in one folder while working on a movie project: since my sources are from half a dozen different people besides myself, I do not want any of those photos or video clips permanently - once I'm done with the movie, they will be deleted (there will be about 300 GB worth of files accumulated). It is therefore much easier for me to keep all of them in one folder (after I've catalogued them, weeded out what I don't want, enhanced others, etc - in other words, once they're the right size, look good, and ready to use). I'm dealing with photo sizes from 480 x 319 to 1920 x 1080 (and video in 720p and 1080p) and I have to find ways to incorporate them all and make the whole thing look good. And, when the movie is done and 20 - 40 copies burnt, the entire movie project folder is Toast (pun intended) 😉

As I said, different strokes for different folks - my system works for me whereas iPhoto's, Aperture's, et al does not.

I'm not questionning your system, as you say it works for you. But I notice this

I may use one or more/all of the following with one photo (depending on what I will be using the photo for): Graphic Converter, PS Elements, Image Tricks, Aperture, Digital Photo Professional, Swift Publisher and Photo to Movie.

Graphic Converter, Image Tricks, Elements and DPPro are not even the same kind of App as Aperture (and iPhoto.) They are editors, and as you specificlly do not want versions, they are certainly the apps for you. My query is why you would use Aperture at all, since it's designed to specifically to work in exactly the way you don't want?

As for the flashing dates in iPhoto - you know that's a setting in the Preferences, right? That simple. And you can do exactly your system in Aperture and iPhoto, and trash the whole lot at the end and - with the exception of FCE, but not with the exception of its successor, FCP X - all the other apps integrate with both iPhoto and Aperture.

Regards

TD

My query is why you would use Aperture at all, since it's designed to specifically to work in exactly the way you don't want?

Of all the applications I use, I find Aperture produces the best results using the Retouch tools, color enhancements, etc. That is all I use it for - I import a photo, "fix" it, export the fixed version to my desktop, and then delete everything in Aperture. I also delete my original at that point if I'm satisfied with the results, so I have one "version" only.

I don't use iPhoto because I haven't seen anything there that I need - it's as simple as that (aside from my dislike of the filing/library system). I'll occasionally move one photo in there temporarily if iMovie throws a fit and will only import from iPhoto, but other than that and considering what I do with photos, it simply does not have any features I need or would use. Maybe an illustration will help - this is a birthday card I created (the black rectangle hides some personal info) - it does have a photo in it (and it looks a lot better full size - I've scaled it down considerably):