Photography Workflow Using Apple Aperture

In one of my previous posts, I mentioned the importance to creating and using a workflow for managing images.  There isn’t a right or wrong workflow.  All of us think differently and tend to organize our work habits based on how we think.  So a workflow that works for me might not work for another photographer.  That said, I am convinced that we all need some type or workflow especially when shooting a large number of images.  I have spoken to many professional photographers and they all agree on a couple of habits that separate casual photographers from serious amateur or pro shooters: shooting RAW and using a workflow.  There is also the kind of gear and tools they use, but I’ll leave that for another post.
Having a workflow will help in many aspects:

• More efficient way to quickly discard bad images
  
• A consistent backup routine to make sure that you don’t lose any images by accident
  
• A more organized way of managing your images through the various stages of your routine: import, review, edit, publish, etc
  
• Overall, significantly less time spent on your photo related tasks

The rest of this post describes tasks and steps that I use in my workflow based on Apple’s Aperture version 3 software which is my tool of choice for everything except advanced editing for which I use Photoshop.  In the vast majority of situations, I can do all I need to do in Aperture and don’t need another tool.  If you are not an Aperture user, substitute as needed to accommodate your tool.  The general workflow should still work regardless of the tool used.  Two things that your tools must be able to do are: use keywords, and support smart albums.  Smart albums are an Aperture feature that allows an album to be dynamically populated with images based on certain criteria you set.  Smart albums or their equivalent is what makes the workflow work.  I suppose you can do without them but you won’t be nearly as efficient.

1. Preparation:
   Depending on what I am shooting, I usually create a new project in Aperture where all my images will be kept.  I also have a keyword called “For Review” in my keyword list which plays a key role in my workflow.  You many add other keywords and tags along the way but this is the only must have.  In my project, I create four smart albums titled: “1. For Review”, “2. Reviewed”, “3. Selected”, “4. Rejected”.  For each smart album I set the following criteria:
   
   
   
   1. For Review: rating=unrated and keywords=For Review.  Make sure that both criteria are required.  If you select “or”, the workflow won’t work.  To do this make sure you have “All” selected in the drop down window in the top left of the Smart Settings pop-up window.  Example below:
   
   
   Note: in order to the keyword “For Review” to show up in the pop-up window, there need to be at least 1 image in the project with that keyword otherwise it won’t be listed.  So make sure to tag an image with the keyword before you set the Smart Settings.
   
   2. Reviewed: rating=4 stars (this could be any rating besides an “unrated”, “x”, or “5 star” rating)
   
   
   3. Selected: rating=5 stars
   
   
   4. Rejected: rating=x (in Aperture, the rating scale is 1 to 5 stars and a rating of “x” means the images is rejected.  You can use some other rating if your tool does not support a similar rating scale)
   
   
2. Import:
   At this point you are ready to import the images from your media card.  I usually set some data elements during the import e.g. adjust time zone if needed, add any copyright info, add additional keywords as needed, and specifically add the the “For Review” keyword to the imported images.  Once the import is complete, all the images should end up automatically to the smart album titled “1. For Review”.
   
   
   
3. Backup:
   This is the first backup point.  Once you have this backup completed, and only then, you can delete the images from your media card. This backup simply stores a copy of everything, good, bad, and indifferent.  This is helpful especially if you don’t sort through your images before you next batch is ready, like on a multi-day shoot, you at least have the original and backups of all your images and you can reuse you media cards.  It is highly recommended that you backup at least one copy of the images to an external drive.  This way, if your computer’s hard drive crashes, you won’t lose the images.
   
   Note: I usually perform 2 backups each time I backup my images: first I do an Aperture Vault backup and then I perform a normal file backup.  The Vault backup serves 2 objectives: create copies of all image files (if I am using Aperture managed files) as well as a backup of all the edits and adjustments I’ve made (regardless of whether I am using  managed or referenced files).  The file backup simply creates a copy of all the image files which in the case of referenced files is the only back up copy you will have.  For more information on managed vs referenced files in Aperture, look here.
   
4. Identify Rejects:
   At this point, you have a bunch of images sitting in your “1. For Review” smart album.  This when I usually quickly go through the images and indentify the obvious rejects and tag them with a “x” rating.   I do this relatively quickly: one finger in the next image key (in my case it’s the right arrow key) and another on the reject tag key (in my case the “9” key applies the “x” tag to the selected image and makes it a rejected image).  Using this technique I can go through a couple of hundred pictures in 5 to 10 minutes and tag the obvious rejects.  Keep in mind this step is not meant to be a detailed critique of each image but rather a quick clean up step to target the obvious rejects e.g. out of focus, too much over or under exposure that can’t be corrected in post processing, composition problems, etc.  After this step all the of rejected images should have moved from the “1. For Review” smart album to the “4. Rejected” album.
   
5. Rate Images:
   At this point, you should be left with all the images that you may want to keep in the “1. For Review” folder.  We need to get those images into the “2. Reviewed” folder.  To do that, you need to perform 2 steps: first select all the images and give them the rating that you’ve specified in your criteria for “2. Reviewed” smart album, in my case 4-stars.  Doing so will automatically moves them from the first smart album to the second.  Second, remove the “For Review” tag from the images in the second smart album.  To do this in Aperture, make sure the Keyword Control Bar is shown in your browser (shift+D to toggle it on and off), and the “For Review” keyword is included in it. 
   
   
   At this point select all images and hold down (shift+option) while clicking the “For Review” keyword in the Keyword Control Bar.  This will remove the keyword from all the images at once.  By doing so you will ensure that the images will never end up back in the “1. For Review” smart album no matter what rating you eventually give them even if you decide to unrate them (that’s why the AND vs OR makes a difference when you setup the criteria for this smart album).
   
   You are now ready to apply the art and creativity component to this exercise.  Take the time to go through all the images and rate them on the full scale if you wish.  I usually use only 2 ratings: 4 and 5 stars but you can use any two ratings.  The reason I do this is that I think of my non-rejected images in only 2 categories: general all-purpose images which may vary quite a bit in terms of quality both technical and artistic, and the top quality images that I will spend most of of my time post processing and eventually publishing to the web site or printing.  Besides identification and rating I don’t spend hardly anytime on the 4-star images.  I do however back them up and keep them in my archive indefinitely just in case I need to go back to them.
   
6. Apply edits and adjustments:
   This is where you will spend the majority of your time: hours or days.  By now you should have the majority of your images sitting in the “2. Reviewed” smart album.  A selected few, the ones with a 5-star rating, should be in the “3. Selected” smart album.  You should now take the time to apply any edits and adjustments to the images to get them ready for publishing or print
   
7. Final clean up:
   Once you are done editing or at least know for sure which images you want to keep and in which category, you can go ahead and delete the rejected images as well at the “1. For Review” and “4. Rejected” smart albums.  In Aperture, when you delete the images, make sure to delete the master and all versions.  Otherwise, you’ll be just deleting the versions which are made up of metadata that is applied to the masters until they have been exported.  The majority of the disk space is used up by the masters.  To delete a master in Aperture, select the master or masters you want to delete, from the Aperture menu select “File”>”Delete Mater Image and All Versions”.  The images will now be in the Aperture trash can, but still taking space.  Right click on the trash can in the project explorer and select “Empty Aperture Trash…”
   
8. Backup:
   At this point you should refresh you backup set to capture all the deletions as well as your edits and adjustments.

I use this workflow consistently whether I am going through 50 or 500 images.  It keeps me organized and ensures that I don’t miss any steps.  Regardless of which workflow you end up using, take the time to get comfortable and consistent and over time, you’ll be glad you did.
Happy Shooting!