Away to Me

Want to make a project that stays at the top of your Aperture projects list? Add an asterisk before the name of the project and it will move it to the highest level in your project hierarchy.

I keep my projects separated in folders by year. When I import new photos, I import them into a folder I call *Holding Pattern. It is a quick way to get images off my camera, into Aperture and backed up without having to spend time sorting them into projects, adding all the keywords, etc.

A friend stopped by a day or two ago to ask for help putting together a scrapbook.  She explained that all the photos had to be removable since they were the only copies in existence.  There had been a hard-disk failure, the photos hadn’t been backed-up, and the few that had been printed periodically were the only ones she still had that documented a boy’s journey into becoming an Eagle Scout.

Backing-up photos does not have to involve fancy software or great expense.  The images can be burned onto CDs or DVDs, copied onto external hard drives, or stored in one of the on-line storage options.  Do it now and update it often.

The reason I bought Aperture initially was due to it’s “Vault” system that backs up the existing library.  The initial backup may take some time depending on the size of your library, but subsequent vault updates only save the changes to your library, so update very quickly.

It is easy to see if your vaults are up-to-date:

The red, circular arrows mean that I have either added new images or deleted some out of the library.  Or, it can mean that I have moved some images from one project to another and have not backed up the new changes.

If the arrows were yellow, it would indicate that I might have changed some metadata or made an image adjustment, but that the basic library hadn’t changed.

The vault panel indicates which vaults are available to be updated and how much space there is left on that drive.  I have one vault on a hard drive that is connected to my computer, one that is sitting on my desk, but unconnected except when I need to back up, and the others in a safe or off-site.

Click the red arrows at the bottom and Aperture will update all connected vaults:

The arrows will turn black when the vaults reflect the current library.

What are your pictures worth to you?  Hard disks can fail.  Fires, tornadoes, etc. can happen.  Back up your pictures today.

With the 20% discount in hand, I made my first Aperture books. The process was fun and easy and the unlimited flexibility that Aperture 2 allows, gave me almost complete control over the look I wanted. Unlike iPhoto which has fixed templates, Aperture 2 gives the ability to layout your pages pretty much any way you want whether you start with a pre-set template or start from a blank page. Photo and text boxes can be re-sized, moved, set on an angle, have borders added, etc.

Right-clicking on a text box gives you access to controls for changing the font type and size.

There were no problems up-loading the books and I received immediate confirmation that they had been received by the printer. I uploaded them on Sunday and received email notification that they were shipped on Tuesday, so they will arrive in plenty of time to give as Mother’s Day gifts.

iGoogle is not only a convenient homepage where you can see your email, RSS feeds, weather, etc. in one easy place, but the choice of themes is expanding at a rapid rate.  I currently have the Dale Chihuly theme.

If you prefer to utilize your own photos in an iGoogle theme, I found igThemer is a quick and simple way to make your own iGoogle theme.  In just a few minutes, I took my Cinque Terre photo at the top of the blog and turned it into my own custom iGoogle theme.