Aperture Full Screen
2006-07-31
The fastest way to see things big in Aperture is to go full screen. It's a lot quicker than trying to adjust all the various parts of the workspace to get the biggest viewer you can and then having to adjust it all back again once you are done looking. Just hit F and the screen will change to this layout:
Hit escape or F again to go back to where you were. This display needs some adjustment: there is wasted space at the bottom (taken by the filmstrip) and at the sides.
To improve things, first move the filmstrip to the left or right side by clicking on it and dragging:
The image scales to suit. Next reduce the size of the filmstrip. How? It is not obvious at all. You move the slider at the top (as shown above). As the thumbnails get smaller the filmstrip gets narrower. This is the opposite behavior to the thumbnail browser in that here the thumbnail size drives the window size. In the thumbnail browser the window size drives the thumbnail size. If you use a graphics tablet you will find that there are some odd visual interactions between the filmstrip and the pen position cause by the absolute coordinates coming from the tablet.
The filmstrip can also be longer or shorter. Click close to the ends and drag to stretch or compress it.
Next, change the way the filmstrip interacts with the big image. The way I have my display set up is so that the filmstrip fits into space not used by the large image. You can change this behavior in several ways:
The leftmost menu item selects the viewing mode. It has the five normal modes, plus the ability to control the filmstrip behavior. On makes it always visible if selected. Auto will make it appear if the mouse rolls over it. Avoid moves the large image out of the way of the filmstrip, but only if it is visible. So I normally set mine up as Auto, Don't Avoid. In that way the whole screen is available for the big image, but if I need the filmstrip I can mouse over and it will appear for me. The aspect ratio of my images and the screen is such that with a narrow filmstrip I lose almost nothing on the left edge, so Avoid is not helpful.
You can't use the projects pane (W) or display the adjustment pane (I). But that is not why you are here, so it does not matter. The adjustment HUD (H) is available, and so is the keywords HUD (shift H). All the normal display modes work too, so you can zoom (Z), open multiple images, etc. and it all works as expected.
I normally turn off metadata display, or have just the badges overlaying. Rating works as well; you just have to learn the key presses necessary to do what you want.
Navigation works the same way as in the normal display mode, but you cannot see where you are in the thumbnails. So I normally just use the left and right arrow keys to scroll back and forth. Another nice set of keys to use are J, K, and L. Mouse over to the film strip to make it visible and hit J to scroll one way and L to stroll the other. Hit those keys more than once to speed up the scrolling. K stops it dead. Home and End take you to the first and last respectively.
If you have stacks, then it is handy to know Option Page Up and Option Page Down. Those jump from stack to stack. If the stacks are open all the enclosed images will be shown in Multi mode or Stack mode. If the stacks are closed, they will be opened automatically (but not closed later). In Primary mode, only the pick will be shown. This means that you can either view every image (right arrow, right arrow, ...), or only stack picks, skipping all others (including images that are not in stacks) (option page down, option page down, ....).
With multiple images displayed and zoomed (Z) like this:
You can scroll them about using the space bar and click-dragging. If you modify that with Shift-Space, then clicking and dragging moves all the images around together. This is very useful for comparing many images in detail. The M key will show the master images at any time.
One thing to watch out for, or at least know about, is another way to "lose" images. If you have one image displayed on the screen in full screen mode and command-click the image the screen will go black. What happened?! All that you did was to deselect the current and only image. To get something back, hit Home and your first image in the filmstrip will appear.
If your cursor wanders to the top of the screen you will see the command bar appear as an overlay. It is normally auto-hiding, but you can change this with the third-from-left icon:
I usually just keep it out of the way. The loupe and all the adjustment tools are available too. And they have keyboard shortcuts, such as Control-S for sharpening, and Command O for Lift.
Hit escape or F again to go back to where you were. This display needs some adjustment: there is wasted space at the bottom (taken by the filmstrip) and at the sides.
To improve things, first move the filmstrip to the left or right side by clicking on it and dragging:
The image scales to suit. Next reduce the size of the filmstrip. How? It is not obvious at all. You move the slider at the top (as shown above). As the thumbnails get smaller the filmstrip gets narrower. This is the opposite behavior to the thumbnail browser in that here the thumbnail size drives the window size. In the thumbnail browser the window size drives the thumbnail size. If you use a graphics tablet you will find that there are some odd visual interactions between the filmstrip and the pen position cause by the absolute coordinates coming from the tablet.
The filmstrip can also be longer or shorter. Click close to the ends and drag to stretch or compress it.
Next, change the way the filmstrip interacts with the big image. The way I have my display set up is so that the filmstrip fits into space not used by the large image. You can change this behavior in several ways:
The leftmost menu item selects the viewing mode. It has the five normal modes, plus the ability to control the filmstrip behavior. On makes it always visible if selected. Auto will make it appear if the mouse rolls over it. Avoid moves the large image out of the way of the filmstrip, but only if it is visible. So I normally set mine up as Auto, Don't Avoid. In that way the whole screen is available for the big image, but if I need the filmstrip I can mouse over and it will appear for me. The aspect ratio of my images and the screen is such that with a narrow filmstrip I lose almost nothing on the left edge, so Avoid is not helpful.
You can't use the projects pane (W) or display the adjustment pane (I). But that is not why you are here, so it does not matter. The adjustment HUD (H) is available, and so is the keywords HUD (shift H). All the normal display modes work too, so you can zoom (Z), open multiple images, etc. and it all works as expected.
I normally turn off metadata display, or have just the badges overlaying. Rating works as well; you just have to learn the key presses necessary to do what you want.
Navigation works the same way as in the normal display mode, but you cannot see where you are in the thumbnails. So I normally just use the left and right arrow keys to scroll back and forth. Another nice set of keys to use are J, K, and L. Mouse over to the film strip to make it visible and hit J to scroll one way and L to stroll the other. Hit those keys more than once to speed up the scrolling. K stops it dead. Home and End take you to the first and last respectively.
If you have stacks, then it is handy to know Option Page Up and Option Page Down. Those jump from stack to stack. If the stacks are open all the enclosed images will be shown in Multi mode or Stack mode. If the stacks are closed, they will be opened automatically (but not closed later). In Primary mode, only the pick will be shown. This means that you can either view every image (right arrow, right arrow, ...), or only stack picks, skipping all others (including images that are not in stacks) (option page down, option page down, ....).
With multiple images displayed and zoomed (Z) like this:
You can scroll them about using the space bar and click-dragging. If you modify that with Shift-Space, then clicking and dragging moves all the images around together. This is very useful for comparing many images in detail. The M key will show the master images at any time.
One thing to watch out for, or at least know about, is another way to "lose" images. If you have one image displayed on the screen in full screen mode and command-click the image the screen will go black. What happened?! All that you did was to deselect the current and only image. To get something back, hit Home and your first image in the filmstrip will appear.
If your cursor wanders to the top of the screen you will see the command bar appear as an overlay. It is normally auto-hiding, but you can change this with the third-from-left icon:
I usually just keep it out of the way. The loupe and all the adjustment tools are available too. And they have keyboard shortcuts, such as Control-S for sharpening, and Command O for Lift.
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