Expand your skills. Chat with the experts. Join our community of kindred spirits on this exotic journey.

Our Speakers on Aperture Aura 2 are:
Sissee Brimberg, Cotton Coulson, Joe Schorr,
Martin Gisborne, David Schloss, and Sal Soghoian

Aperture Seminars

Introduction to Aperture: From Capture to Output (3.5 hours)
Speaker: Joe Schorr and Martin Gisborne

The perfect introduction to Aperture. We'll start at the very beginning — getting pictures off your camera's memory card and into Aperture — and walk you through all the steps that it takes to go from RAW images on a CompactFlash card to a set of final prints. First, you'll get an overview of Aperture's tools for culling your best shots, and organizing thousands of photos into well-arranged projects. Then we move on to image processing, with an emphasis on basic exposure adjustments and color correction. Finally, we'll introduce you to each of Aperture's various output options: Mocking up layouts on the Light Table, creating contact sheets and full-size prints, building web pages and producing printed books and albums.

This is a great class for getting the big picture: What is Aperture really about? How does it differ from other tools, such as Photoshop, or iPhoto? And most importantly, how can it help make you a better photographer?

• Importing photos from card and disk
• Using Stacks to get organized fast
• The Photo Edit: Comparing and selecting your best photos
• Ratings, keywords and other metadata
• Using Smart Albums to get organized fast
• Image adjustments and color correction
• Using Aperture with Photoshop
• Making multiple versions of your images
• Understanding the Light Table
• Slideshow options
• Web Galleries and Web Journals
• Making great prints
• Building and printing a book
• Backing up your work with the Vault
  
  

Advanced Aperture: Becoming a Power User (3.5 hours)
Speaker: Joe Schorr and Martin Gisborne

Taking you beyond the basics, this class will dig deep into the keyboard shortcuts, hidden features, and advanced options that can really make Aperture fly. Discover shortcuts that allow you to accelerate repetitive tasks and streamline your photo processing. Learn how to customize the Aperture interface so that it conforms to your working style and puts the tools you want exactly where you need them. Go under the hood to see how Aperture organizes your files on disk, and learn how to use that knowledge to work faster and more efficiently.

• The most powerful keyboard shortcuts you need to know
• Customizing the layout of the Aperture interface
• Customizing metadata sets
• Building keywords buttons and customizing your keyword library
• Taking advantage of multiple displays
• Faster and better ways to comparing images
• Image adjustment tips and tricks
• In-depth project and file management
  
  

Making Gorgeous Aperture Books (90 minutes)
Speaker: Joe Schorr

Aperture's book-layout tools go far beyond those found in iPhoto and allow you to create incredible one-of-a-kind booklets, albums, and keepsake books. This class reveals the program's surprisingly powerful (and usually undiscovered) page layout features in all their glory and shows you what you need to know to design a custom book from scratch with high-quality results. Learn how to go beyond the pre-made templates to produce professional-looking designs from your photos with as little effort as possible.

• Building custom book layouts
• Making and using master pages
• Page-building shortcuts
• Understanding image sizes and resolutions
• Changing fonts, colors and styles
• Good book-design principles
• Printing vs. ordering your book
• Adding third-party templates
• Turning books into PDFs and slideshows
  
  

Aperture Speed Secrets (90 minutes)
Speaker: Joe Schorr

We'll reveal a host of tips and tricks designed to help you get every bit of speed out of Aperture. Learn how to best configure the interface for a streamlined workflow and how to set preferences to get the best possible performance out of Aperture on your particular Mac.

Publishing your Photos Using Aperture Web Galleries and Journals (90 minutes)
Speaker: Joe Schorr

How to use Aperture's built-in web publishing tools to make great websites from your photos. Learn the nuances of web journal creation and discover how to get the most out of the pre-defined templates. In addition to how to use all of Aperture's built-in web publishing features, you'll learn the basics of customizing Aperture's built-in templates, by using some simple HTML tricks.

Aperture Seminars (continued)

Getting Creative With Aperture (90 minutes)
Speaker: Martin Gisborne

Learn how Aperture's adjustment tools can do more than correct problem images. Learn all about masterly monochromes, creative color and awesome adjustments. In addition, wrap your head around one of Aperture's most unique and powerful features: Versions. With versions, you can spin off as many different variations of an image as you want — without ever having to duplicate the original photo. This time- and space-saving feature can radically streamline the way you work with digital photos — once you understand it. Learn all about how versions work, how they can help you save hard drive space, and how to keep them perfectly organized in Aperture. Discover the benefits of using Smart Albums in combination with versions to locate photos in your library more quickly. See how versions can help you create better books, better websites and better prints.

• What are "versions" and how do they work?
• The difference between duplicating files and duplicating versions
• Making new versions from master images
• Creative monochrome effects
• Color effects: the subtle and the not so subtle
• Cropping and straightening for radical effect
• Using Aperture images with Photoshop CS 3
• Managing versions inside stacks
• Comparing versions
• Making specialized versions for print and web
  
  

Managing your Images and Projects — Without Going Crazy (90 minutes)
Speaker: Martin Gisborne

Aperture provides all the tools to manage vast collections of photographs and to get the most from it, you need a good strategy. This session will run through all the elements of image management with Aperture from folders to projects, albums to Smart Albums and import strategies to backup strategies. Take some time to dig in deeper and see just how powerful Aperture's organization and management tools are. If your image collection is bursting at the seams, you'll need all the tools Aperture provides.

• Import strategies
• Offline image storage
• Folder structures
• Field workflows
• Desktop workflows
• Project window elements in detail
• Backing up with the Vault
• Backup strategies for offline images
• File management with Aperture tools
  
  

Amazing Aperture Plug-Ins (90 minutes)
Speaker: Joe Schorr or Martin Gisborne

There are literally dozens of plug-ins available for Aperture — and most of them are free! This session will introduce you to the best of these plug-ins and show you exactly how they can be used to extend Aperture and save you hours. We'll cover plug-ins for connecting to popular photo-sharing sites such as Flikr and SmugMug, as well as plug-ins for archiving photos or for sending them to other applications such as FileMaker Pro and Soundslides.

Adding Sound And Motion To Your Photos (90 minutes)
Speaker: Martin Gisborne

Learn how to use Aperture along with other Apple tools such as iDVD, Keynote, GarageBand and even Final Cut Pro to easily create presentations that combine photos and audio with dramatic results. This seminar will show you the fastest and easiest techniques for turning a set of photos into a standalone audio slideshow that can be shown on screen or distributed on disk or via the internet. Topics will include creating both Flash- and QuickTime-based slideshows, as well as enhanced podcasts.

Venice Vision
is running concurrently.

VENICE VISION, Part 1 — Monday, April 21
Perfecting Your Digital Photographic Environment
Speaker: David Schloss

Getting the most out of your digital photography means more than just buying a digital camera. Digital technology has turned the photographer into more than an image-maker; shooters have had to become printers, designers, archivers, studio assistants and more.

Great photographers know that it's crucial to make the right choices in hardware, software and to the setup their own digital "studios" in order to create truly great pictures, every time. Aperture is center-stage in this new photographic workflow, but it takes an understanding of things like camera selection, monitor calibration, printer settings and archiving solutions to let you really unleash the full power of digital photography.

In this day we'll cover:

• Selecting the right camera system, lenses and accessories for your photographic style (without wasting money).
• How digital cameras "see" and how to get the best images from your camera.
• Purchasing the right equipment for your digital "studio" including hardware, software and accessories.
• The camera settings that can help you create better looking images.
• Raw shooting, and why it's the best thing about digital.
• How to get your images onto your computer faster than ever.
• Proper setup of your work environment including calibrating and profiling your monitors and printers.
• Best practices for working on location and in-house.
• The gear you MUST have in your camera bag.
• Printer technologies and the confusion between different brands.
• Archiving and storage technologies.
  
  

VENICE VISION, Part 2 — Friday, April 25
Taking Your Travel Photography to the Next Level
Speakers: Sisse Brimberg and Cotton Coulson

Learn the ins and outs of digital photography on our Mediterranean cruise. In this full-day class you’ll discover the creative potential within yourself as a photographer and how your digital equipment can help you achieve your goals.

This photographic workshop is for people who want to learn how to use color, light, and composition to create new and contemporary images allowing for your personal style to shine through. Digital photography offers so many creative possibilities, freeing us to explore new ways of seeing with our cameras. Lectures and demonstrations cover essential digital camera settings, accurate metering and exposure, the rules of composition, creative uses of light (such as flash techniques and mixing different light sources). We will also explain how to tell a story with photographs. Travel photography requires an understanding for shooting in a variety if situations; people in their environment, landscapes, cityscapes, food shots, as well as portraits to evoke a sense of place.

We then discuss how to be in the moment, recognizing and working with different qualities of light, and discovering new ways to compose images that capture the essence of location. Back onboard, we will demonstrate our workflow for downloading, editing, and processing digital images using Aperture.