Paul Inskip Photography

My workflows: weddings to white backgrounds I Shoot using Lexar UDMA 300x 8GB cards and use the Lexar FW800 card reader to maximise import speed from the card, It makes a real difference when importing the large 5DmkII files :) (Approximately 53 seconds for 50 5DmkII files) Once I’ve imported the files into one specific project )in the case of the studio work) or multiple projects splitting up the day for the weddings, I lift a set of standard settings from a master project that I have in all of my libraries:

These settings do some of the basic work for me, adding sharpening, saturation, clarity, contrast and tweaking the colour channels. For my Original 5D alot of these settings were derived from a very good set of settings that were posted for use in ACR. I adapted them to suit Aperture and since adapted them again for the 5DmkII as the files do respond differently. This is always the first job I do to stamp all the files. (Approximately 2 minutes to apply the settings and re-create the thumbnails)
[At this point I need to mention that Aperture has slowed down for me in the last 6 weeks because my seconds X1900 graphics card is starting to dye, resulting in the same red flecks or pixels on the screen :( ]

Once this is done all my files have basic settings done and all have a 2 star rating, the 2 stars is very import to the way I use Aperture as each star rating means something different, the basic rule is:

Rejected = customer never sees these
1 Star = photos the customer has dismissed
2 Star = default rating means customer isn’t sure about them r hasn’t seen them yet
3 Star = customer likes them but they were discarded in favour of another photo
4 Star = Customers favourites from which final selections are made
5 Star = final selections for print etc These ratings allow me to filter the photos quickly and efficiently during viewings. Once they have made a final selection I create albums containing the photos that they want:

The fact that these albums just contain references to the photos is great because it means I can create lots of these with any combination of the photos without adding extra files, It also means then when I develop up a file it is then developed in each library only needing a crop change depending on what product they have ordered. But i’ve skipped a head slightly :)

Once these base settings are done I start sorting through the photos with the thumbnails at the bottom and a large version in the main window, I also have the HUD up as and the crop tool selected, this way I go through, hit ‘9’ for the rejects and crop and adjust the photos as I go through, the cropping and adjustments is just done to a basic level framing the photo up nicely and and making a few initial tweaks, I try and strike a balance between getting the files looking good for the customer and knowing that 80% of them will be discarded.

When I click on one of these new files the first time I get about 3 seconds of ‘loading’ at the top although it was quicker before my card started failing :( On subsequent views I get no loading. One of the things I here lots of people talk about with regards to Aperture is slow/unresponsive sliders when making adjustments, I have to admit that I’ve never experienced this other then when ‘attempting to use Aperture on a macbook :) If I have ever had it happen then its never been something that i’ve either noticed and affected me, certainly doesn’t mean its not happening but for me and my setups its never been an issue. One additional note on this is that two of the tools people most say they have problems with for slow downs are the highlights & shadows and the straighten tools, I have to admit that these are probably my two least used tools in Aperture but when I do very occasionally use them i’ve still never noticed any issues.

If there are some really standout files then I will take them into photoshop and just to a first run through making sure the background is a uniform 255, 255, 255, advanced sharpening and adding a mockup of a mount/frame. This will typically take upto 10 minutes depending on what needs doing, and average would be 5 minutes (but I’ fast in PS! :)) For weddings this process is the same although I will always process up at least 2 standout images from each section of the day.

Using Aperture in this way it allows me to simply and quickly jump into any Aperture library and flick through photos and edit as I go, moving the HUD and panels around as I wish to suit the photos, this is the same flexibility I enjoy in Photoshop (that’s very lacking in Lightroom) I use the book feature in Aperture to create guides for layout for wedding albums and for display framed collections for customers, both of these involve using custom books, particularly the frames as I have custom books saved for most of my main sizes/ratios of frames so I can show then how they will look.

The Aperture libraries take all the pressure of a file heirachy and organisation away and also make it very easy for me to transfer files between multiple computers as I only need to grab a specific Library and it’ll have everything I need in it. So for me overall Aperture offers the organisation and flexibility to allow me to quickly import, sort, adjust and rate files ready for the customer to see, integration with Photoshop is great for my studio work and seemless. I use very little plugins, I have the Noise Ninja one but ted to use it in PS rather than in Aperture and I have a couple of export plugins to various services.

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