Aperture Question

This concerns the Customization option for Metadata. I am after a particular bit of information and want a field that will indicate this info. Looking at Metadata List, which field indicates whether an image was adjusted with a plug-in? In my case NIK.

I need to know this info at a glance. Is the field called 'Aperture' which is the first field under the EXIF category? A workaround would be a search for any file with a TIFF extension name. But I want to just glance at that table of Metadata for all my images and spot those that have been altered with a plug in.

bravozulu said:

bravozulu wrote:

This concerns the Customization option for Metadata. I am after a particular bit of information and want a field that will indicate this info. Looking at Metadata List, which field indicates whether an image was adjusted with a plug-in? In my case NIK.

I need to know this info at a glance. Is the field called 'Aperture' which is the first field under the EXIF category? A workaround would be a search for any file with a TIFF extension name. But I want to just glance at that table of Metadata for all my images and spot those that have been altered with a plug in.

Click to expand...

Every image that was created by a plugin, gets a special badge (you can create a column in the table view for it and then sort by it). Strangely enough, if you create additional versions of that new master that the plugin output is, there is no badge anymore. And since you might then delete the first version, this badge can easily disappear.

What works more reliably is the file name, outputs from plugins are all TIFF files, if you don't import TIFF files from other sources, that should be unique. What often might also work is the file size, a tiff is by definition three times the size of the raw file, going from 12 bit raw to 16 bit tiff increases that further and since raw files often can compression whereas the plugin/external editor tiffs in Aperture don't have it, another ratcheting up of the file size.

Understood. I come from working with LightRoom, so I misunderstood badges for flags.

My reason for pursuing this is to pare down the insane number of columns in the MetaData List View. I'll start noting extraordinarily large files as a signal that NIK processed them. I have no use for TIFF otherwise, so it will be unique.

On the Info panel, you can click the gear button, then Manage Custom Fields, then create a custom field for any info you want to record. I've created a "burned" field that I use to indicate which images have been burned to DVD backups.

I add a keyword corresponding to the treatment, once the image has been processed by a plugin, so I have keywords of "hdr" "Cfx" "Sfx", "Tiffen" etc

(ETA - I have the full Nik suite but only really use the 3 listed above, and Tiffen DFX as plugins)

--
Calxoddity
'Turning up in the oddest places...'

Jacques, the Create Custom Field lets you name the field, but how do you configure the field to reveal the right data?

I was frustrated working the MetaData>Create Custom View because I didn't see the cookie cutter field options dealing with data I want. Not being a pro, there were a whole lot of fields irrelevant to my normal shooting routine.

bravozulu said:

bravozulu wrote:

Jacques, the Create Custom Field lets you name the field, but how do you configure the field to reveal the right data?

I was frustrated working the MetaData>Create Custom View because I didn't see the cookie cutter field options dealing with data I want. Not being a pro, there were a whole lot of fields irrelevant to my normal shooting routine.

Click to expand...

Plugins can create their own custom fields, SmuginProForAperture does this, as does Catapult, but that is something the plugin maker has to implement. While Nik was an independent company one could have had a chance of asking them to implement this, now that they are part of Google, it's questionable if they will any updates at all anymore.

bravozulu said:

bravozulu wrote:

Jacques, the Create Custom Field lets you name the field, but how do you configure the field to reveal the right data?

I was frustrated working the MetaData>Create Custom View because I didn't see the cookie cutter field options dealing with data I want. Not being a pro, there were a whole lot of fields irrelevant to my normal shooting routine.

Click to expand...

You can put any info you want into the custom field. For example, you could create a "Nik" custom field, and then type in "HDR", "Dfine", "Sharpener" etc. for each image to which you've applied these tools. Later, you can search for all images for which the "Nik" custom field is not empty or contains one of these keywords.

When I burn images to DVD, I type the name of the DVD into the "burned" custom field.

Does that help?