Aperture 3 questions

I think you'll like Aperture once you get used to it.

Certainly one of the best ways to learn is by doing.

Go out, take your photos, import them to Aperture and play around. The edits your doing can be turned off or reverted to their default state later if you decide you don't like them.

Or if it all goes bad, you can revert back to your master file.

Do you shoot in RAW with your camera? If not, you might want to look into that.

Are you doing the post processing on your photos just for you, or do you have clients your working for? If the photos are just for you, adjust them to YOUR liking, their YOUR photos.

ADDED: I would also keep your early adjustments simple. Concentrate on the basics: Sharpening, Straightening, Exposure, White Balance.

There's no rule that says you can't come back later and do some more adjustments on your early photos when you get more comfortable.

Also - back up your photos, regularly. A lot of people don't think about backups until they need one, then it's too late.

 

Everything with photography is really subjective, as you mentioned.

I could tell you exactly what I do to my photos, and to you they would look like junk.

I don't have any Aperture books, so I can't recommend one. I'm up to my ears in Adobe books, but no Aperture ones.

As far as sharpening, each camera is different as to how much sharpening is needed. My wife and I have an XS and a 7D. The images from the XS (RAW) are always pretty good and need minimal sharpening (the standard .50 strength and 1 radius is fine). The 7D needs more post process sharpening, so for most images we end up using something like .75 strength and 3 for the radius.

As far as the histogram goes, for starters I wouldn't worry too much about it. Adjust the images to your liking. When you get going, then take a look at the histogram if you want and use that for a guide.

Just like in Photoshop, there are many ways to get to the same end. I work in a department of about 10 people and if you asked each one of us to adjust an image to match a proof or whatnot, all 10 of us would go about it differently. The final product would probably look similar, but the path to get there would be diverse.

Here's an attachment of a histogram on one of my photos. Probably a horror show, but I thought the photo was decent...

 

I would suggest starting with the Apple video tutorials...
http://www.apple.com/aperture/how-to/

That's all I needed to get going. From there I've picked up a additional techniques along the way by searching online for more information, reading the manual, experimenting with a given adjustment on some photos to see how it works, and asking questions on forums like this.

If you want to pay for more video learning, this is apparently very good (but I haven't used it myself)
http://www.lynda.com/Aperture-3-tutorials/essential-training/59221-2.html

In general there are a few things you want to do to a picture, and your eye, the loop, and the historgram are the best way to determine what's right...

1. Level the horizon
2. Crop it if necessary
3. White balance (for me: almost always required for indoor shots since I shoot RAW and AWB which Canon camers never get right. AWB works perfect outdoors and I never adjust WB in Aperture for outdoor shots)
4. Exposure - using either curves (auto to start with some fine tuning), or the exposure brick. For outdoor daytime shots I try to ensure my histogram is filling the full range and the subject is appropriately exposed. Sometimes I use the highlights and shadows sliders to help in very high dynamic range scenes.
5. Saturation and Vibrancy - but often getting the contrast right (with the exposure) first is important before getting carried away here
6. Sharpening - use the loop at 100% when adjusting sharpening to identify when artifacts are being introduced - I use the old school sharpening tool in Aperture (which mimics the Sharpening Canon applies) as I find it has less artifacts. Many people prefer the Edge Sharpen tool which works more like unsharpen mask in Photoshop.

Good luck!

 

I have found ApertureExpert to be an invaluable source of info and help. They have cheap ($2 per download) training sessions on the file management and labeling side of the system. Go to www.apertureexpert.com and check it out. Their user forum has good info as well and they do offer some download-able books and guides as well.

 

I think the issue you're having is that you're looking for objective answers to subjective questions. Unless you're shooting a wedding or ads, there is no "right white" in any photo, it's the white what *you* want it to be. There is no such thing as a "healthy" histogram as it is heavily dependent on the image content and the mood the photographer was looking for (i.e. a high key photo will have a large bias to the right, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is wrong). Sharpening is usually a balance between extracting maximum detail from the image without overenhancing the noise.

There is no formula, you will have to develop these intuitions for yourself over time, based on your style and what you aim for in your photography. The nice thing about Aperture (or any modern RAW editor) is that any edit you apply is non-destructive and you can return to the same image months or years later and re-process it as your skills develop. I feel like I was somewhat in your shoes early on too- I tried to make every image "correct" and "accurate" and "realistic", but as I developed my photographic vision and PP skills further, I bean to make more subjective decisions on the images (i.e. purposefully warming or cooling the WB, purposely increasing the saturation, selectively only sharpening parts of the image, etc.).

Also remember that it is not necessary to apply every adjustment to every photo. Some pictures will need some contrast adjustment, others will not. If you just do down in a row and try to make some change to the picture using each tool, you'll usually end up with something overprocessed. That's working it backwards. You are starting with your RAW picture, and looking for a result. You should be doing the opposite- envisioning the final result in your head and working the controls to change that RAW photo to match what you envision.

Ruahrc