A reader pointed out to me that the workflow described in Use Albums and Stacks To Manage Adjusted Images no longer works. Aperture 2.0 has changed the behavior of album picks so that creating a new album from non-pick images no longer automatically makes those images the album picks in the new album. Send feedback to Apple if you want the old behavior back.

Tags: Aperture, Bugs, Stacks, Album Picks, Workflow

[Update: Aperture 2.0 kills this workflow dead. Apple has changed the behavior of album picks so that creating a new album from non-pick images no longer automatically makes those images the album picks in the new album. Send feedback to Apple if you want the old behavior back]

This article shows a powerful technique for managing adjustments to large numbers of images. It brings together stacks and albums and shows how they can be used as part of an efficient workflow. It was prompted by a posting on the Apple message boards for Aperture:

Here's the conundrum: I have 800 event photos in an Aperture project. I stamp adjustments to all of them. So, now I have 800 stacks, each with a master RAW image and an adjusted version. In each stack, the unadjusted master is the default pick. If the stacks are closed and I Export Versions, I get 800 JPEGs rendered from the unadjusted masters. If I open all stacks, select all, and Export Versions, I get 1,600 JPEGs rendered from both the masters and the versions. How in **** do I select the 800 adjusted versions for export without having to command-click on each one? Is there no way to automatically export just the versions?

The only approach I've found is to select the versions and make them the picks in their stacks, one by one. Then I can close the stacks, select all, and Export Versions. This is painfully time-consuming. I can't even just select the versions one by one and then batch promote them to pick status. I not only have to select the versions one by one, but I also have to promote them one by one. Argh! Am I missing something here? Please help.

Here is a project with some images that I am going to adjust. There could be thousands: the workflow is the same.

Before I start adjusting I select the three images I want to work with and create new versions by pressing option V:

This creates duplicates of the three and puts each duplicate into a stack with the original as the pick. This is where the difficulty lies as the person with the problem found. Since those new versions are in stacks but are not the pick then Aperture will not use the adjusted version for exports.

To turn this to my advantage (without clicking anywhere else so that the duplicates are still selected) I control click one of the new versions and select New From Selection > Album:

Pressing command L has the same effect. The new album is created and displayed and I can rename it to something meaningful, such as Adjusted:

The new album shows the stacks just as the project did, but this time there are check marks on the duplicates showing that these are the album picks:

An album pick is the image that will be on the top of the stack for this album only. Look what happens when I close all the stacks with option semicolon:

Just the album picks are left showing. That's the preparation complete. I have an album which will show me all the new versions, so no changes to the original project are needed. Now I adjust the images. For this example the changes are rather radical, so the difference is obvious:

I could have adjusted just one image and used lift and stamp to process thousands.

Selecting the original project shows that the adjusted versions are still in the stacks, and are not the picks as they are in the album:

Closing the project stacks will show me the originals. Closing the album stacks will show me the adjusted images. So by selecting either the project images or the album images I can choose which I export, print, or continue to process.

This technique can be used any number of times with any number of selections and albums and should be part of your standard workflow.

Tags: Aperture, Stacks, Album Picks, Adjustments, Workflow

That's a stack, and on the left is the pick, the image that I actually want to use out of all the candidates. When the stack is closed, only the pick shows:

But there is another kind of pick supported by Aperture, an Album pick. Album picks are very handy because they let you have a different pick for each album (or gallery, etc.) that the image appears in.

If I open the stack again, duplicate the K twice (option V) and put those two K versions together in another stack, then put that stack in an Album by selecting the images and selecting New From Selection -> Album, I get this:

Working in the album and duplicating one of the versions I get this:

There is a check mark on the third image. That check mark shows the Album Pick. You can set and clear the Album pick from the Stacks menu (Stacks > Set Album Pick) or use command shift backslash. An Album pick allows you to have a different pick for each album that the stack appears in. This is useful because the context of each album may cause you to favor a different image for each one.

To illustrate this, I created a stack containing three versions in the Project called Stack. I made some adjustments to these three versions so that they are visually distinct; blue, yellow, and rotated:

Here is the same stack in an Album (note the check marked image):

And in another Album (note the different check marked image). I did this by selecting each Album making different images the album pick for the Albums:

If I close these stacks I get different results in each case. I get a stack in the Project with the blue image showing as the pick, as expected:

In the first Album I get the rotated image as the pick:

And in another Album I get the yellow image as the pick:

This shows the strength of stacks: they are a tool designed to defer choosing among interchangeable images to the point of use.

Tags: Aperture, Stacks, Album Picks