Creating an Auto Refreshing Slideshow from Eye-Fi Upload

Updated on Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 8:10 AM by Joseph Linaschke

I had an unusual request from a client. They wanted me to photograph a fund-raiser party and have the photos projected onto a screen throughout the event. After doing it, I realized this would be a fun thing to do at parties, workshops, weddings, and other events. 

This is the room where the images were projected.

My first thought was to hand off cards to an assistant and have them make a quick edit in Aperture and then start a simple slideshow. The downside is that the slideshow would be down while that happened.

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Setting up Photoshop Elements 10 as an External Editor

If you’re using Photoshop Elements 10 as an external editor for Aperture, there’s a couple of tricks to get it to behave as you might expect. Reader Iain Harley has posted a video tip on how to get this working properly: Setting up Photoshop Elements 10 as an External Editor.

VSCO Film Presets for Aperture 3 Getting Some User Love

Two readers almost simultaneously posted User Tips on a preset pack called the VSCO Film Pack for Aperture 3. At $79 these presets aren’t cheap, but they include actual high resolution scans of real negative stock for their textures. I have asked the company what resolution the scans are, because as many of you know who’ve used my textured presets, there are hard limits to every preset. They were cagey about the response, telling me only that they scanned them at 8,000 × 8,000 but also made the point that if I was using Nikon D800, to let them know and they’ll send a special version of the preset pack. So their actual embedded textures aren’t that high, but it’s available if you need it.

The user tips are here:

Marcus Adams writes VSCO Film Presets for Aperture 3

Jim Denham writes VSCO Film Presets for Aperture 3 (video) — his includes a video tour of the app.

Enjoy, and if you have any experience with these yourself, let us know in the comments (here or on their posts).

ApertureExpert Live Training Session 019 Books Available Now

This was the first official Live Training done over Google+. For those there live, the echo problem has been solved! Which also will hopefully solve the sync issue in the recording. Don’t worry, it’s only in the Q&A, but it’s annoying nonetheless.

This session on Aperture Books is 45 minutes before even getting to the Q&A, then another 20 minutes of questions.

And here’s the fun new thing… you can now watch the entire thing for free. What’s the catch? It’s the Google+ YouTube broadcast, which is only 480p. The $2 real deal is the same 720p 1:1 recording you’ve come to love. So, watch it all for free on YouTube but to really see the details, part with your $2. I think it’s worth it ;-)

Here’s the button to buy and the free video to watch…

Unified Photo Syncing to iDevices & More

Updated on Monday, May 14, 2012 at 12:18 PM by Joseph Linaschke

These days, most of us own or use multiple screens. Whether the screens are on one or more computers, iPhones, iPods, iPads, other smart phones or tablets, or an AppleTV, at some point you’re going to want to view your best photos at any time, anywhere.

If you use a single Mac, a single Aperture library, and possibly a host of iDevices, this is simple. Ensure your Aperture preferences of Previews > Share previews with iLife are enabled, select your library or albums in iTunes, and everything magically works (well, it’s supposed to… sadly there are years of legacy issues here that haven’t all been fixed yet). The point is, it’s supposed to be easy.

However my point is, not everyone’s digital life is so streamlined.

The multiplicity challenge

As soon as you add multiple Aperture libraries, multiple computers with Aperture libraries (yours and your spouses, your desktop and laptop), a really big Aperture library where iLife sharing becomes no longer practical, or any kind of slightly more complex workflow, the gloriously simple syncing falls apart pretty quickly.

Back in late 2010 I wrote an article titled “Current Aperture/iLife Sharing Nightmares, and How to Avoid It Entirely” which explained in detail my method of getting around the syncing issues that were incredibly pervasive at that time (and which, again, haven’t been resolved for everyone). The premise is simple, and it’s a lesson to learn when facing any challenge in Aperture (or any software… life… etc.). Sometimes it’s easier to work around a problem than to fix the problem itself. It’s easy to get caught up in the “this is how it’s supposed to work and I’m going to make it work!” mentality, when frankly, it may be less of a headache to just look for a different solution.

That’s what I wrote in 2010, and I’m going to repeat that here, while bringing it up to date and adding modern devices.

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