Go DSLR…bringing Digital Photography to the masses

Working with any Digital Asset Management Platform (DAMP) like Aperture 3, Lightroom 3 and others is, in my opinion, a one way street.  The problem is also as you fill your database with photos, it becomes more difficult to make changes retroactively. Because of this, it is best to set up your DAMP the way you want from the very beginning. Since I chose Aperture 3 I will go through the power of Aperture in any respect over a four part article. This is part 2: Importing. Essentially we will go through all the presets you can set in order to automate importing and organizing your Photo library in the best way.

This article is part of a series and will be available as a PDF download when completed.
The parts are:

• Part 1: The basics
• Part 2: Importing – Import presets
• Part 2.5: File Referencing – Master files
• Part 3: Key-wording, Metadata and Smart Albums
• Part 4: Advanced Topics for power users
• Part 4.5: Customizing Apple Keyboard shortcuts
• Part 5: Conclusion, reflection and review

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In part 1:Basics we created an Aperture library and a folder for your Master files. What we do now is open the Import dialog by clicking on IMPORT in the Aperture 3 menu.

1. Import presets

Of course you will be importing a lot and if you set Aperture 3 to start automatically  when a memory card or camera is connected, importing needs to be a quick and smooth process. Apple put some thought into this because you have near complete freedom in the import window as to how you want to import and it is fully adjustable to your way of working. The Import preset is your fist step when you add new photos. Fir that very reason you should invest a lot of time and thought into configuring and familiarizing yourself with this.

1.1 Which settings to configure?

When you see the import window, you can choose what settings you actually want to configure. Please note that once they are set, they will stay until you change the settings again.



You can add any of these menu items to configure your optimum settings. I noticed that over time the most common things I do is to add Metadata and Rename files. Everything else not so much. But you can choose what you want.

Bascially the menu items do the following:

1. File Info : Shows you the file information of the photo you will import (note: singular)
2. Rename Files: Allows you to rename files based on YOUR preference. No more DSCXXXX.NEF or whatever your Camera’s default is.
3. Time Zone: allows you to set the Time Zone
4. Metadata Presets: Allows you to add Metadata to all imported photos (keywords, copyright notice etc.)
5. Adjustment Presets: This lets you apply adjustments to all imported photos. Convenient if you have specific white balances or want to apply contrast boots based on what you have done before, automatically.
6. FileTypes: This allows you to exclude certain file types. Aperture 3 also adds Audio and Video support but you can omit importing these.
7. RAW+JPEG Pairs: This is the way how RAW and JPG are handled if you shoot both at the same time. You can choose to set the RAW as the master, the JPG as a master or import only one type or set separate masters.
8. Actions: If you have automator scripts you can execute them after you are done importing.
9. Backup Locations: You can automatically back the imported files up to another location. This way you REALLY only work with a copy of your masters and have the real masters still somewhere else. Unless you are a pro photographer with a huge workflow, I wouldn’t bother with this.. yet (coming in Part 4).

2. Importing into the Library

In our case we will select the Rename Files and the Metadata Presets. First you will notice on the left hand side of the import menu you wlll notice an Aperture Library section and then a Rename Files section and finally a Metadata Presets section.

The Aperture Library section is purely for file handling within Aperture 3. First the Destination. You can leave it as NEW PROJECT or you can select a project from the right hand side of the user interface.

NOTE: YOU CANNOT CHOOSE A FOLDER OR ALBUM TO IMPORT TO!

If you leave this as NEW Project, you can then enter a name for the project and if you tick the Automatically split projects, Aperture 3 will split based on the date stamp of the files. Also make sure you check the box next to Do not import duplicates. The next part is where our folder on the harddrive comes in. This is where you work with referencing files. You need to click on the drop down next to Store files: and select CHOOSE… This will open up a folder view.

Next you need to choose what subfolder and this is where the fun begins. You can click on the drop down menu next to Subfolder: and select EDIT... at the very bottom. The resulting screen is a bit confusing but basically it allows you to make presets on HOW you want to store your files so they are always properly organized.

If you click on the + sign you can add a new preset and edit the way the folders are organized and what subfolder structure Aperture 3 will create for this import.  in our case I created the Project name based on the Folder name. You can drag and drop the parts below into the folder naming. Anything you add wil form one part of the naming. the “/” part is the seperator and creates subfolders. In the example above “Folder Name / Project Name” becomes July/Demo_Project. So Aperture 3 will automatically import all photos into the Masters location that we chose above and then create a subfolder called July, as that is the folder in Aperture where my projects reside under, and then a folder called Demo_Project since that is the project name.

Should I choose later on to actually go into the actual folder structure in Finder on my hard-drive I can easily navigate the files and folders with no problems. This also makes it easy to look for files and photos when you are NOT in Aperture3 but on another computer.

I generally create folders based on the month in Aperture and within those folders I create projects based on the date. With this preset i reflect this structure in my harddrive folder structure. This way I will not get confused.

3. Renaming Files

This is the same approach as the subfolder editing above, you geerate your naming convention by yourslef and are free to choose however you want it. The only difference is that you cannot create “subfolders”. What we can do with renaming files is basically to change the name of the file based on what you want. This way the viewing and managing will be easier.

NOTE: THIS WILL ALSO AFFECT THE WORKING FILES, NOT JUST THE REFERENCE MASTERS!

To edit your own preset you can, again, click on the dropdown menu next to Version name: and choose EDIT...

As you can see, this part lets you ad a little bit more detail. In order to really push this tutorial I decided that I want to rename my files when imported based on the following criteria:

• The month of the photo should be there
• The Year the photo was taken should be present
• The camera model/name should be there
• An index counter should automatically be added

So first I drag the “Current Month” into the Format field and add a “_” after it. Next I drag the “Current Year” followed by the “Custom Name” and lastly the “Index #” (cannot be seen in the screenshot). The neat part is that you can see the file name forming up in the Example line above the Format fields. The custom name in my case contains the Camera name. This can also be used later to relocate your masters or import other photos as you can change it to reflect other, older cameras. ONce you are done, just click on OK and the preset will be selected.

4. Adding Metadata!

Again, as with the two sections above, the fields of metadata you add can actually be edited and customized by selecting the “Basic Info” drop down menu and clicking on EDIT...

The full extent is too long for this tutorial but essentially you can add contact information, classifications, source locations and many other things, if you choose to do so.

The key function here to remember is that keywords are seperated by commas. This means that things like summer,winter, spring are all seperate keywords but so are in the wild, out in the sun, another day.

Also once you entered these keywords and metadata once, the next time they will fill automatically as soon as you type the first word of the field. For example if I enter (c) F Rommel into the copyright field during my first import, the next time I import something I just have to enter (c) and it will fill the rest.

Using keywords when importing should be done only broadly to give the subject matter of the whole import. Once you have the photos imported, you can add metadata to the individual photos or a selection of photos based on more specific topics. An example would be: Macro, Insects, Summer and later you could add: Fly to the fly photos, Bumblebee to the bumble bee photo etc. More on this in Part 3.

5.Recap

After doing all this, which took me longer to write up than it will for you to actually accomplish it, you have a very smooth import automation:

• You are importing into your library and move the originals into a pre-defined folder structure on another location.
• You are keeping the Aperture library down while still having your files organized in the same way somewhere else.
• You are automatically naming the files as you want them so you can easily recognize and navigate them.
• You automatically add generic keywords and copyright notices as well as other metadata to all photos that you import without much hassle.
• Your import now takes a matter of seconds to set up and the organization is ALWAYS the same.

Well done, you can now move onward to the next Article, Part3: All about Metadata and Albums.