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.

Just in time to put together some treasured Mother’s Day gifts, there is a 20% discount available on iPhoto or Aperture books.  Enter the code LoveMom to receive the discount.

It’s picture-perfect weather in the TN Valley right now, so no time to fiddle with computers and software. Instead, I went bicycling with our daughter. We drove over to the Natchez Trace to see what the road and traffic where like on it (it will be one of the next places we ride).

After parking at the Lauderdale Picnic area right by the TN River, we rode from there to Florence on CR-2. It was a relatively flat to slightly rolling hills ride with minimal traffic until we got into Florence. There are no amenities on the ride, so take lots of water. The ride goes by cotton field and cattle farms.  It was about 17 miles one-way.

Once in Florence, we stopped for a sandwich and ice cream at Trowbridges old-fashioned ice cream parlor and then went on a tour of the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Rosenbaum House.

Today, it will be a quick ride to Ditto Landing on the Aldrige Creek bike path.

Who can resist getting away from the computer and  going out to play with these do-it-yourself pinhole  cameras from Corbis?  No chimping possible with these.

Makes me glad I kept my darkroom and a hefty stash of film.

Thanks, Photojojo!

The export original sized jpeg problem has been solved! While trying to solve my cropping issues, I started looking in the presets to see if anything was awry. I didn’t find anything that affected the cropping, but I did see where the export problem came from.

Somehow, I had two original sized jpeg export presets showing up and one of them had the “Size to” changed. I’m not sure where the second preset came from or why one of them would have had the size changed, but the problem is solved now. Just wish I would have thought of checking that earlier.

There aren’t changeable presets for cropping (although that might be a nice feature), so I still can’t figure out why a ratio set at 1.5 to 1 is cropping at a ratio of 1 to 200 one time and a minute later cropping at a ratio of 11 to 1.

A few things in Aperture 2.1 that make me smile:

1.  The new Dodge & Burn plug in that came in the latest update.  It is found under Images -Edit with - Dodge & Burn.   A new window will open with the image and tools.  When you are done editing, click Save and the edited image will be saved as a TIFF stacked with the unedited version.

2.  Adjustment tools are available at the top of the second monitor.  This allows you to keep Aperture in Browser mode on one display and edit your image on the second display without switching out of Browser mode.

3.  The ability to move to the next image while editing the metadata.  Command + arrow key moves you to the next image without having to leave the metadata field to click on the next image.   A HUGE time-saver.

The cropping and exporting problems are still present, but the good news is that someone from Apple contacted me after I requested advice on the Apple Support Forums.  I’m confident that a solution will be found and grateful that one of the Aperture engineers is looking at this.

Outside of those two issues, Aperture 2 is working great and really makes organizing a huge library of images easy.