Did'ja Hear? The President's Day Sale is ON!

Why buck tradition… it seems every other store in America is having a sale today, so why not ApertureExpert, as well?

to get 25% off

PresidentsDay2013 code on checkout

This code is good through the middle of tomorrow (2/19/2013 @ 12 noon MST, to be precise) so don’t delay!

This code works on the ApertureExpert Store…

and

my video2brain store (that’s all the fancy looking training you see on the right of this screen).

Enjoy, and happy President’s Day!

Update on Tuesday, February 19, 2013 at 9:48 PM by Joseph Linaschke

NOTE: This promotion is now over. Thanks to all who participated!

Solution to the "Aperture Does Not Support the Image Format" Error

I had heard about this on twitter, but not seen it myself until today. I was opening images to edit in various plugins when out of nowhere, this dialog started popping up:

Aperture says: This image cannot be rendered for editing because Aperture does not support the image format. Say whaaa?

Once that came up, I couldn’t open any image, regardless of the format, in any plugin or external editor. TIF, JPEG, RAWs of various flavors; none! A relaunch of Aperture didn’t fix it, either.

Turns out what was needed was an eject/remount of the external HD where my Originals are stored.

A computer restart probably would have fixed it too, but this is what fixed it for me.

Seen this error yourself? If so, does this fix it, or did you find another workaround?

Backblaze and the Backup Bouncer Test

Recently I was introduced to a backup application called Arq, by Haystack Software. This is a $29 app that gives you a clean interface to Amazon’s S3 or Glacier servers, allowing you to use Amazon as a backup service. Since Glacier is only $.01 per GB per month (about $10 per TB), it’s a pretty good deal. There are initial upload and then retrieval charges to consider as well, but the peace of mind of online/cloud backup is hard to put a price on.

Granted, you can buy a 3TB USB 3 hard drive today for just $130 [Amazon.com link] and ship that to a friend on the other side of the country for safe keeping, but by now I think we all know the advantages of automated, offsite backup.

Backup Bouncer Test

Anyway, this article isn’t about Arq or Glacier. It’s about a disturbing statement I read on the Haystack website, which I immediately challenged Backblaze on. As you know I’m a huge supporter of Backblaze (having written a very popular post on the topic “Cloud Backup; Backblaze in the Real World” last year), so seeing anything negative about a service I rely on is sure to get my hackles up!

The statement in question is under the header “Accuracy”, around the middle of the Arq info page. It states that Backblaze failed 19 out of 20 tests using a test suite called “Backup Bouncer”. In fact, the list goes on to show that Carbonite failed 20 out of 20, Dropbox failed 19 of 20, and so-on. Disturbing numbers, to say the least!

In complete fairness to Haystack Software, the folks who wrote this article, they did state “What do these results mean? For most scenarios, probably nothing. Any of those backup apps can restore your file contents — photos, Office docs, music files. You’ll still be able to view your restored photos, edit your restored Office docs, play your restored music. But the dates on the files might not be correct, for instance.” But regardless; 19 out of 20 failures does not instill confidence.

Backblaze’s response

So naturally, I asked Backblaze, and am quoting their response below.[more]

Click to read more ...

ShootDotEdit Updates Aperture Workflow; Includes Cull Service

ShootDotEdit introduced their Aperture workflow about a year ago, first discussed on ApertureExpert here; “ShootDotEdit Now Offers an Aperture Workflow”. I was very excited about this at the time, because ShootDotEdit were the first to offer their professional photo editing services customized for Aperture users. Basically, if you shoot big events like weddings and don’t want to do the heavy lifting for the photo edit yourself, you can outsource that to SDE. At first launch though, they did not include their “cull” service for Aperture users, which meant you still had to at least do the initial edit on your own.

However, that is no longer the case![more]

Click to read more ...

Aperture Inspector 1.5 Update, and Free Demo Version

Aperture Inspector has been upgraded to version 1.5. This is a free update to all existing owners.

Changes

• Graphs have better values on axes
• Prices are stored for multiple libraries
• Prices will be maintained in future database changes
• Demo version is fully functional but only analyzes the last 6 months
• Focal Length range grouping can be disabled
• Fix mouse-over in graph-links (bar/graph) [it’s no longer a hand icon]
• Various bug fixes

Self-Updating Application

Aperture Inspector is a self-updating application, however due to poor timing on my part, the author of the app is unlikely to be able to activate the auto-update mechanism until after Feb 16th. If you are reading this after that point, simply launch the app you have and it should self-update. Or, you can re-download below and reinstall.

Manually Updating

[Click here to download]

If you would like to download the update manually, simply click above. You will likely need to re-enter your serial number once installed. The new version will run fully functional but only analyze the last six months of your library until a serial number is entered. This new download is available for free because it’s now in “demo mode” until a serial is entered. Cool!

If you’re looking for your serial number, look for the original download email—it’s in there. Every serial number starts with “INFOSTILL” so if you text-search your inbox, chances are you’ll find it. If you still can’t find it, follow instructions here. Please be patient; I have to look each one up by hand so I may not get back to you instantly.

Free Demo Version

Just download from the link above! No email address required; just grab it and play. It will analyze the last six months of your library only; to see the whole thing, you can purchase the full version for just $9.99

Troubleshooting the Update

Since Aperture Inspector runs on Adobe Air, it’s not uncommon to see required Air updates before Aperture Inspector will run. If after the update you are having issues, please follow the instructions in this FAQ.