Updated With Eleven New Articles

I have updated Get Your Head Around Aperture 1.5 with eleven new Aperture articles that were published on the blog between the second edition and the release of Aperture 2.0. For full details of the changes see the Publication History page.

If you have purchased the book, you will have received an email with a download link that is good for 5 downloads or one year, whichever comes first. Just use that link and it will download this new release.

If you have not purchased the book, then I'm afraid it is no longer available. Aperture 2.0 changed so much of the interface and features (and fixed so many problems!) that much of the material in the book is now unnecessary, incorrect, or misleading, especially to beginners. All the material in the book remains freely available on this site. If you really want a copy, then let me know. If there is enough demand I will reintroduce it for sale at a reduced price.

I am also interested to know what kind of information you would want to see in a future Bagelturf publication about Aperture or anything else.

Tags: Get Your Head Around Aperture, Aperture, Books, PDF, Updates

While publishing my book Get Your Head Around Aperture 1.5 I figured out how to create high-quality page thumbnails like the one above. It is almost possible to read the body text, and the small blue title is certainly readable: Importing Images From A Single Folder, even though the characters are tiny. The word Images is only 5 by 19 pixels.

I first tried taking screen shots and reducing the images in Photoshop, but that resulted in a horrible loss of detail and a very fuzzy look. The page size reduction was being carried out as though it were a photograph, not a page of text. I needed a way of maintaining the character information through the size reduction.

To create the high quality page thumbnails I printed the pages I needed to a PDF file:

Then viewing the generated page in Preview, reduced the page size until it was what I needed:

Since the PDF was being rendered at the reduced size, the detail was still present. Last, I took a screenshot with SnapzPro2 and added a thin border and drop shadow with the media inspector in RapidWeaver:

This also gives me an image with the drop shadow rendered in: I just click and drag the image from the published web page to my desktop.

Tags: Thumbnails, PDF, Get Your Head Around Aperture, Books, Documentation, RapidWeaver, Screen Shots, Photoshop

Im getting reports of attempts to buy Get Your head Around Aperture 1.5 thwarted, at least temporarily, by a bug in WebKit introduced by Security Update 2007-009.

From what I can tell, if you are running 10.4.11 or Leopard and are on an Intel machine, and have installed the security update then clicking the Buy Now button will crash the browser. PowerPC machines are not affected. [Update: yes they are]. [Update2: Apple has now released version 1.1 of this update that fixes the problem].

Tags: Security, Updates, Get Your Head Around Aperture

Updated With Fourteen New Articles

I have updated Get Your Head Around Aperture 1.5 with fourteen new Aperture articles that were published on the blog between the first edition and today. For full details of the changes see the Publication History page.

If you have already purchased the book, you will have received an email with a download link that is good for 5 downloads or one year, whichever comes first. Just use that link and it will download this new release. Or skip this update and get the next.

Tags: Aperture, Books, Updates, Get Your Head Around Aperture

Pro members of the Aperture Users Professional Network get 50% off my ebook Get Your Head Around Aperture. Visit the AUPN pro info page for more information.

Tags: Aperture, AUPN, Get Your Head Around Aperture, Books

"Steve Weller's insights go far beyond that of a typical photographer. Get Your Head Around Aperture is filled with tips and tricks, a must read for first time users and Aperture masters alike" -- Micah Walter, photojournalist and contributor to Inside Aperture

It's done! I've taken more than a year's worth of Aperture articles and compiled them into a living PDF e-book. Many people suggested that I do this, so thanks are owed to them and to everyone who reviewed the book and made comments and corrections.

A PDF version of the Aperture articles on the site is convenient and useful. It's portable since you don't need to be on-line. You can put it on your laptop to read in the field. It's searchable by Spotlight and Preview. And it's printable. You get three editions: one 490-page edition optimized for screen viewing at 100%, so you can stash it to one side and have Aperture next to it, and two 160-page editions optimized for printing -- one for A4 paper and one for US Letter paper.

It's available only from this site. More information on the Get Your Head Around Aperture product page.

Tags: Aperture, Books, Anticipation, Get Your Head Around Aperture