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52 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Possibly useful to new Aperture users (2.5 stars), July 21, 2010
This review is from: Apple Aperture 3: A Workflow Guide for Digital Photographers (Paperback)
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Having gotten this book, from Vine, for my husband, here is his thoughts as detailed in an email to me. From this point on, the words are his.
First, I disagree with the authors who consider Aperture to primarily be a RAW processing program. Aperture is first and foremost a DAM, aka Digital Asset Management. This is readily visible when starting Aperture.
Next, there is the organization of the book. In chapter 2, page 66, is a section called "Using Aperture for the First Time". Really? Page 66? This needs to be more upfront. It does not get much better in regards to the organization.
On page 252, there are 2 paragraphs on trying to use Aperture with Adobe Lightroom. Come on! These are competing products. Why would someone want to go from Aperture to Lightroom? It makes no sense to me. iPhoto yes. I do that now so I can sync photos from Aperture to my iPhone via iPhoto.
Important things, like adjusting images is a single chapter called "Adjusting Images." Levels, while standard to most editing programs, can do so many things and yet in this book, it receives 2 paragraphs. Very light handling for something that can make such a difference to an image.
Plug-ins, the really neat stuff of Aperture, is barely covered. There are so many cool and wonderful plug-ins that the few mentioned might leave a reader wondering what all the fuss is about. All I can tell you is to do a web search on Aperture and plug-ins and open a whole new world to your workflow.
If it had been me, here is how the book would be organized. The numbers to the right of the chapter titles are the real chapter numbers.
Introduction
1) How Aperture Works (2)
2) Managing Your Images (3)
3) Working with Metadata (4)
4) Aperture Workflow (6)
5) Camera Raw (1)
6) Adjusting Images (5)
7) Working with Other Applications (7)
8) Output (8)
If you've made it this far, you would think I'm pretty down on this book. Pretty fair statement. Yet this book has some good points, especially for people new to Macs and Aperture. The chapter on managing your files is good as is the detailed discussion Apple's Camera RAW. And there are some good parts in Adjusting Images.
So if you are brand new to Aperture, this book could be helpful. Just remember, don't read it in the original chapter order. It will make more sense in the modified chapter arrangement shown above.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perfect Book for Me - A Novice to many of the topics in the book, August 18, 2010
This review is from: Apple Aperture 3: A Workflow Guide for Digital Photographers (Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I was very fortunate to receive a copy of this book. I am a intermediate amateur photographer (ie, I use the histogram to check exposure, often consider aperture and shutterspeed, and understand there is something called digital image workflow,) but I am looking to take my photography to the next looking at upgrading to Aperture. So basically the author could have painted a target on my forehead.
But a big reason this book is perfect for me is that I am a beginner in many of the topics in the book. I think a more advanced photographer, especially someone who does a lot of post production already, may find large sections a little tedious. But it was spot on for me on.
Most of my shooting has been low res Jpeg's for web so I have never worried about shooting RAW before. After reading the first chapter on why you should shooting RAW images, I was sold, I immediately set both my Canon 10D and 40D to shoot RAW. I had known I was losing a little quality and functionality, but never realized how much I was losing by shooting jpegs. The author did a fantastic job of setting this foundation for working with Aperture.
After the first foundational chapter, the author does a great job of providing an overview of Aperture. I appreciated the time spent explaining how the editing tools worked. There were several things that seemed a little redundant, but the author made the subtleties clear. I appreciated the in depth look at how filters like sharpen worked. Also the sections on how to correct common issues was also very helpful. They did a nice job of walking through the processes to correct these and I loved how it demonstrated how the histograms could be used to verify what your eye is seeing.
Since I was unclear on what it entailed, I was looking forward to the chapter on workflow. I guess it proved to less intense than I was expecting, but I am impressed how Aperture works on each step of the process, and the retouching options sound great.
I guess the biggest praise I can give the book is that I just ordered my copy of Aperture 3.0. After reading this book, I feel fully confident that it will be worth the price and help me take my photography to the next level.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Reasonable Aperture Introduction, September 19, 2010
This review is from: Apple Aperture 3: A Workflow Guide for Digital Photographers (Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Photography texts are useful only to the extent that they address the needs of the given reader. As a photographer who still misses Tri-X and Kodachrome, and who thinks "ASA" each time he sees the "ISO" number, I've pegged myself as living in the 1970s. On the other hand, I'm using a Canon 50D with L-series lenses, shooting RAW format, and am easily able to modify and adjust my images using iPhoto. I've had Aperture for a while but haven't moved my library over nor have I started using the software beyond experimentation.
As other reviewers have noted, your experience may dictate that you start with Chapter 7, which includes moving your existing library over from iPhoto. Or you might find the basics unnecessary and start in with Chapter 5, which covers the logistics of adjusting your images using Aperture. Either way, the chapters stand alone sufficiently to allow you to find your way without much difficulty. One downside of the book production process is the lack of differentiation among the many color images that are incorporated. For example, page 16 shows three identical images, each with slight modifications to noise reduction and auto noise compensation. The three images should look different - that's the point of each of them being there. Yet in print the three images look essentially identical. Other than that rather minor issue, the text itself is quite explanatory and thorough.
This book, overall, is a reasonable user's guide for Aperture: an instruction manual that you can use to walk your way through understanding of each of Aperture's commands and capabilities while gaining an understanding as to how Aperture stores your photographic data. Pages are a matte gloss and there is extensive use of illustrations, both of photographs and of Aperture's interface. I found the book easy to maneuver and work with as I learned how to use Aperture.
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