iPhoto and Aperture
2006-07-31
MacOSXHints has a hint on moving images from Aperture to iPhoto. There is also a $15 utility that does the same thing. Since I use iPhoto for almost nothing, I have not tried either of these.
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Aperture Full Screen
2006-07-31
The fastest way to see things big in Aperture is to go full screen. It's a lot quicker than trying to adjust all the various parts of the workspace to get the biggest viewer you can and then having to adjust it all back again once you are done looking. Just hit F and the screen will change to this layout:
Hit escape or F again to go back to where you were. This display needs some adjustment: there is wasted space at the bottom (taken by the filmstrip) and at the sides.
To improve things, first move the filmstrip to the left or right side by clicking on it and dragging:
The image scales to suit. Next reduce the size of the filmstrip. How? It is not obvious at all. You move the slider at the top (as shown above). As the thumbnails get smaller the filmstrip gets narrower. This is the opposite behavior to the thumbnail browser in that here the thumbnail size drives the window size. In the thumbnail browser the window size drives the thumbnail size. If you use a graphics tablet you will find that there are some odd visual interactions between the filmstrip and the pen position cause by the absolute coordinates coming from the tablet.
The filmstrip can also be longer or shorter. Click close to the ends and drag to stretch or compress it.
Next, change the way the filmstrip interacts with the big image. The way I have my display set up is so that the filmstrip fits into space not used by the large image. You can change this behavior in several ways:
The leftmost menu item selects the viewing mode. It has the five normal modes, plus the ability to control the filmstrip behavior. On makes it always visible if selected. Auto will make it appear if the mouse rolls over it. Avoid moves the large image out of the way of the filmstrip, but only if it is visible. So I normally set mine up as Auto, Don't Avoid. In that way the whole screen is available for the big image, but if I need the filmstrip I can mouse over and it will appear for me. The aspect ratio of my images and the screen is such that with a narrow filmstrip I lose almost nothing on the left edge, so Avoid is not helpful.
You can't use the projects pane (W) or display the adjustment pane (I). But that is not why you are here, so it does not matter. The adjustment HUD (H) is available, and so is the keywords HUD (shift H). All the normal display modes work too, so you can zoom (Z), open multiple images, etc. and it all works as expected.
I normally turn off metadata display, or have just the badges overlaying. Rating works as well; you just have to learn the key presses necessary to do what you want.
Navigation works the same way as in the normal display mode, but you cannot see where you are in the thumbnails. So I normally just use the left and right arrow keys to scroll back and forth. Another nice set of keys to use are J, K, and L. Mouse over to the film strip to make it visible and hit J to scroll one way and L to stroll the other. Hit those keys more than once to speed up the scrolling. K stops it dead. Home and End take you to the first and last respectively.
If you have stacks, then it is handy to know Option Page Up and Option Page Down. Those jump from stack to stack. If the stacks are open all the enclosed images will be shown in Multi mode or Stack mode. If the stacks are closed, they will be opened automatically (but not closed later). In Primary mode, only the pick will be shown. This means that you can either view every image (right arrow, right arrow, ...), or only stack picks, skipping all others (including images that are not in stacks) (option page down, option page down, ....).
With multiple images displayed and zoomed (Z) like this:
You can scroll them about using the space bar and click-dragging. If you modify that with Shift-Space, then clicking and dragging moves all the images around together. This is very useful for comparing many images in detail. The M key will show the master images at any time.
One thing to watch out for, or at least know about, is another way to "lose" images. If you have one image displayed on the screen in full screen mode and command-click the image the screen will go black. What happened?! All that you did was to deselect the current and only image. To get something back, hit Home and your first image in the filmstrip will appear.
If your cursor wanders to the top of the screen you will see the command bar appear as an overlay. It is normally auto-hiding, but you can change this with the third-from-left icon:
I usually just keep it out of the way. The loupe and all the adjustment tools are available too. And they have keyboard shortcuts, such as Control-S for sharpening, and Command O for Lift.
Hit escape or F again to go back to where you were. This display needs some adjustment: there is wasted space at the bottom (taken by the filmstrip) and at the sides.
To improve things, first move the filmstrip to the left or right side by clicking on it and dragging:
The image scales to suit. Next reduce the size of the filmstrip. How? It is not obvious at all. You move the slider at the top (as shown above). As the thumbnails get smaller the filmstrip gets narrower. This is the opposite behavior to the thumbnail browser in that here the thumbnail size drives the window size. In the thumbnail browser the window size drives the thumbnail size. If you use a graphics tablet you will find that there are some odd visual interactions between the filmstrip and the pen position cause by the absolute coordinates coming from the tablet.
The filmstrip can also be longer or shorter. Click close to the ends and drag to stretch or compress it.
Next, change the way the filmstrip interacts with the big image. The way I have my display set up is so that the filmstrip fits into space not used by the large image. You can change this behavior in several ways:
The leftmost menu item selects the viewing mode. It has the five normal modes, plus the ability to control the filmstrip behavior. On makes it always visible if selected. Auto will make it appear if the mouse rolls over it. Avoid moves the large image out of the way of the filmstrip, but only if it is visible. So I normally set mine up as Auto, Don't Avoid. In that way the whole screen is available for the big image, but if I need the filmstrip I can mouse over and it will appear for me. The aspect ratio of my images and the screen is such that with a narrow filmstrip I lose almost nothing on the left edge, so Avoid is not helpful.
You can't use the projects pane (W) or display the adjustment pane (I). But that is not why you are here, so it does not matter. The adjustment HUD (H) is available, and so is the keywords HUD (shift H). All the normal display modes work too, so you can zoom (Z), open multiple images, etc. and it all works as expected.
I normally turn off metadata display, or have just the badges overlaying. Rating works as well; you just have to learn the key presses necessary to do what you want.
Navigation works the same way as in the normal display mode, but you cannot see where you are in the thumbnails. So I normally just use the left and right arrow keys to scroll back and forth. Another nice set of keys to use are J, K, and L. Mouse over to the film strip to make it visible and hit J to scroll one way and L to stroll the other. Hit those keys more than once to speed up the scrolling. K stops it dead. Home and End take you to the first and last respectively.
If you have stacks, then it is handy to know Option Page Up and Option Page Down. Those jump from stack to stack. If the stacks are open all the enclosed images will be shown in Multi mode or Stack mode. If the stacks are closed, they will be opened automatically (but not closed later). In Primary mode, only the pick will be shown. This means that you can either view every image (right arrow, right arrow, ...), or only stack picks, skipping all others (including images that are not in stacks) (option page down, option page down, ....).
With multiple images displayed and zoomed (Z) like this:
You can scroll them about using the space bar and click-dragging. If you modify that with Shift-Space, then clicking and dragging moves all the images around together. This is very useful for comparing many images in detail. The M key will show the master images at any time.
One thing to watch out for, or at least know about, is another way to "lose" images. If you have one image displayed on the screen in full screen mode and command-click the image the screen will go black. What happened?! All that you did was to deselect the current and only image. To get something back, hit Home and your first image in the filmstrip will appear.
If your cursor wanders to the top of the screen you will see the command bar appear as an overlay. It is normally auto-hiding, but you can change this with the third-from-left icon:
I usually just keep it out of the way. The loupe and all the adjustment tools are available too. And they have keyboard shortcuts, such as Control-S for sharpening, and Command O for Lift.
Aperture Training Videos From Apple
2006-07-30
Thomas Pindelski's blog has a breakdown of what is presented in two training videos made available for free online to Aperture users.
Music
2006-07-29
I've tried my hand at composing some things musical over the last few years. You can hear my five attempts at music at iCompositions. I have a 49 key USB keyboard and Garageband. My favorite (and most complicated piece) is called From Behind The World. I hope you like flutes. I am unskilled musically, so it is very difficult for me to improve things beyond a certain point. I certainly find mixing very hard.
It's interesting what Garageband has done. It's reinvigorated many, many people who have dabbled in music but never had the barrier to entry lowered far enough for them. If there is one word that sums up Apple's business philosophy, it is Passion. Find something that people care about passionately and sell them things that feed that passion. Music. Composing. Running. Coding. Photography. Movies. Writing. Teaching. Remove barriers and noise. Let me focus.
Canon S3 Review At The Luminous Landscape
2006-07-28
The Luminous Landscape has a review of the Canon S3 IS. They like it. That's good because Michael Reichmann who runs the site seriously knows what he is doing.
A Bag For The Canon S3 IS
2006-07-28
That's the bag I keep my Canon S3 IS in. It's 7 inches (18 cm) high, 4.5 inches (11.5) wide, and 4 inches (10 cm) deep with the camera inside. Also inside is a pack of four batteries (flat across the bottom) and in the pocket are spare cards. The camera goes in with the grip at the top and the lens pointing away from me. That's it. There is nothing else to carry. That set up is good for more than 1100 pictures. I could fit a second pack of batteries in there too if I tried.
The two zippers go all the way to the bottom and there are pieces of fabric that prevent it from opening too far. So access is really easy. It has a velcro strap that hangs it on my belt (I never use the shoulder strap). It's a TRAX TCP 03 and cost about $10 at Best Buy.
Microsoft Feels Your Pain
2006-07-27
Aperture Viewer Tricks
2006-07-26
Can your viewer do this?
The movie above shows nine images in the Aperture viewer chasing around in a square. I'll show you how it is done.
In the thumbnail viewer (grid) make sure you have at least twenty images. Make the viewer visible and set the viewer into Multi mode (option U). Scroll to the top of the thumbnails and mentally label the first nine images from 1 to 9.
Click on the first image (number 1), then command click on eight more in the order 2 3 8 9 4 7 6 5. Once you have done that you will have nine images in the viewer.
Now hit command right-arrow a few times. Images appear in the middle and disappear on the left! Command left-arrow will do the opposite. Command arrow is the Slide function. By clicking on the images in that special order you defined how they slide on the screen.
Here are some things you can do with four images (click image to download movie):
To slide two images up together, click in the order 1 2 3 4 and hit command-right twice in quick succession. To do a double down, the order is 4 3 2 1 and command-right twice. A double left is 1 3 2 4, and a double right is 4 2 3 1. So expressed in shorthand this is:
1 2 3 4 RR slides up
4 3 2 1 RR slides down
1 3 2 4 RR slides left
4 2 3 1 RR slides right
You can make four images rotate too. Try these. This time they use a single command-right key:
1 4 2 3 R clockwise, enter top right
3 2 4 1 R clockwise, enter bottom left
2 3 1 4 R counter, enter bottom right
4 3 1 2 R clockwise enter top left
This next one I call "the rocket" (click image to download movie):
Notice that you have to use seven images for this one.
1 4 5 7 R Rocket to top right
1 7 5 2 R Rocket to top left
It works with six images too, but this is different. Depending on the shape of the viewer six images can be arranged in either two rows or two columns. Here is a six image rotate for two rows (click image to download movie):
For two columns, these patterns work:
1 2 3 4 5 6 RR Double slide up
1 4 3 6 5 2 R Kisses, new middle right
The last one I call "kisses" because all the images kiss in the middle. With two rows you can do these:
1 3 5 2 4 6 RR Double slide left
1 3 5 4 6 2 R Kisses, new bottom middle
1 2 3 6 5 4 R Counter clockwise, bottom left
And here are some tricks with nine images. First a kiss (click image to download movie):
1 2 3 8 9 4 7 6 5 R Rotate counterclockwise new in the middle
1 3 5 8 9 7 6 4 2 R Kiss
The last one, another rocket, needs more than 18 images to work (click image to download movie):
1 4 8 5 9 12 16 13 18 R Rocket to top right
Now it's your turn.
The movie above shows nine images in the Aperture viewer chasing around in a square. I'll show you how it is done.
In the thumbnail viewer (grid) make sure you have at least twenty images. Make the viewer visible and set the viewer into Multi mode (option U). Scroll to the top of the thumbnails and mentally label the first nine images from 1 to 9.
Click on the first image (number 1), then command click on eight more in the order 2 3 8 9 4 7 6 5. Once you have done that you will have nine images in the viewer.
Now hit command right-arrow a few times. Images appear in the middle and disappear on the left! Command left-arrow will do the opposite. Command arrow is the Slide function. By clicking on the images in that special order you defined how they slide on the screen.
Here are some things you can do with four images (click image to download movie):
To slide two images up together, click in the order 1 2 3 4 and hit command-right twice in quick succession. To do a double down, the order is 4 3 2 1 and command-right twice. A double left is 1 3 2 4, and a double right is 4 2 3 1. So expressed in shorthand this is:
1 2 3 4 RR slides up
4 3 2 1 RR slides down
1 3 2 4 RR slides left
4 2 3 1 RR slides right
You can make four images rotate too. Try these. This time they use a single command-right key:
1 4 2 3 R clockwise, enter top right
3 2 4 1 R clockwise, enter bottom left
2 3 1 4 R counter, enter bottom right
4 3 1 2 R clockwise enter top left
This next one I call "the rocket" (click image to download movie):
Notice that you have to use seven images for this one.
1 4 5 7 R Rocket to top right
1 7 5 2 R Rocket to top left
It works with six images too, but this is different. Depending on the shape of the viewer six images can be arranged in either two rows or two columns. Here is a six image rotate for two rows (click image to download movie):
For two columns, these patterns work:
1 2 3 4 5 6 RR Double slide up
1 4 3 6 5 2 R Kisses, new middle right
The last one I call "kisses" because all the images kiss in the middle. With two rows you can do these:
1 3 5 2 4 6 RR Double slide left
1 3 5 4 6 2 R Kisses, new bottom middle
1 2 3 6 5 4 R Counter clockwise, bottom left
And here are some tricks with nine images. First a kiss (click image to download movie):
1 2 3 8 9 4 7 6 5 R Rotate counterclockwise new in the middle
1 3 5 8 9 7 6 4 2 R Kiss
The last one, another rocket, needs more than 18 images to work (click image to download movie):
1 4 8 5 9 12 16 13 18 R Rocket to top right
Now it's your turn.
Aperture: Clues To The Future?
2006-07-25
I opened up the Aperture application today and looked through the resources -- images, tool tips, error messages, that sort of thing. There are some big clues in there as to where Aperture could be heading. You can do this too. Control-click on the application icon and select Show Package Contents. Now poke around -- but don't change anything.
It looks like vaults will be able to store full size master images and Aperture itself will be able to work with lower-resolution proxies. When you access the originals it will pull them from the vaults as needed, prompting for the appropriate vault of it is off line. It will also track how many vaults a master is stored in and warn you if you delete all but one master. Archiving to DVDs will be supported. New badges for low resolution and offline status support this theory.
Masking and mask painting support will be provided through a brush HUD. Though there are just some odd images in place right now: a picture of a red rock, three clouds, and a happy meal. Those are Apple code names for Aperture and another pro app. Brush sets will be accessed via Option Shift 0, 1, 2, 3.
In several places I found support for audio files, iTunes, movie formats, and text files. So I would guess that Aperture will be able to store these other formats just like iView can.
It also looks like user-definable workspaces will be supported too.
A Bigger Role For Vaults
It looks like vaults will be able to store full size master images and Aperture itself will be able to work with lower-resolution proxies. When you access the originals it will pull them from the vaults as needed, prompting for the appropriate vault of it is off line. It will also track how many vaults a master is stored in and warn you if you delete all but one master. Archiving to DVDs will be supported. New badges for low resolution and offline status support this theory.
Brush HUD
Masking and mask painting support will be provided through a brush HUD. Though there are just some odd images in place right now: a picture of a red rock, three clouds, and a happy meal. Those are Apple code names for Aperture and another pro app. Brush sets will be accessed via Option Shift 0, 1, 2, 3.
Support For Audio And Video
In several places I found support for audio files, iTunes, movie formats, and text files. So I would guess that Aperture will be able to store these other formats just like iView can.
It also looks like user-definable workspaces will be supported too.
It's A Snot Vacuum
2006-07-25
Wiva Vac USA has one up on the Flowbee: the Nasal Aspirator, otherwise known as a Snot Vacuum, setting a new high in the efforts of parents intent on terrorizing their children with vacuum cleaner attachments.
Restoring An Aperture Library From A Vault
2006-07-23
Vaults store the critical data from an Aperture library so that you have a back up in case disaster strike your main drive. Lets restore a library from a vault to see what happens.
I quit Aperture, rename my library, and restart Aperture. I expected to be able to just select Restore Vault from the vault pane, but that was grayed out. So I had to go to the File -> Vault menu and select Restore Vault from there. Aperture had created a new empty Aperture Library file for me, so all I had to do was tell Aperture where to restore from and to:
Data loss paranoia rules here:
The files are read back in, and Aperture must be relaunched:
On relaunch Aperture sees that it lacks a database and so asks if I want to rebuild the database:
This step can take a significant time to complete. I have seen many complaints on discussion boards about the rebuild, since it was unexpected. There is a trade-off: if the vault contained everything then it could contain everything with corruption, but would be complete and take less time to restore as the cost of more disk space. Apple has taken the safe route and chosen to just keep the data it needs to keep.
The restored library is not as big as the original library: it's the same size as the vault actually. Only when I click on a project does it rebuild the thumbnails: again this can take a long time and there is no warning that this needs to be done. The thumbnails, once recreated are cached, and so subsequent opens of the project are fast.
A vault reflects the same contents as the library after updating, so you would think that if you delete an image and then back up to a vault, the image is gone, both from the library and the vault. But you would be wrong. Just as Aperture saves images deleted from the library by putting them into the trash, it also saves images deleted from the vault by putting them onto the drive that the vault is on. To show this, I deleted three images, backed up, and got this on my Firewire drive:
The masters are there, each in individual folders. The containing folders are named after the date and time. The files you see in the screen capture above are very small because the example TIFFs I was using really are very small.
I quit Aperture, rename my library, and restart Aperture. I expected to be able to just select Restore Vault from the vault pane, but that was grayed out. So I had to go to the File -> Vault menu and select Restore Vault from there. Aperture had created a new empty Aperture Library file for me, so all I had to do was tell Aperture where to restore from and to:
Data loss paranoia rules here:
The files are read back in, and Aperture must be relaunched:
On relaunch Aperture sees that it lacks a database and so asks if I want to rebuild the database:
This step can take a significant time to complete. I have seen many complaints on discussion boards about the rebuild, since it was unexpected. There is a trade-off: if the vault contained everything then it could contain everything with corruption, but would be complete and take less time to restore as the cost of more disk space. Apple has taken the safe route and chosen to just keep the data it needs to keep.
The restored library is not as big as the original library: it's the same size as the vault actually. Only when I click on a project does it rebuild the thumbnails: again this can take a long time and there is no warning that this needs to be done. The thumbnails, once recreated are cached, and so subsequent opens of the project are fast.
A vault reflects the same contents as the library after updating, so you would think that if you delete an image and then back up to a vault, the image is gone, both from the library and the vault. But you would be wrong. Just as Aperture saves images deleted from the library by putting them into the trash, it also saves images deleted from the vault by putting them onto the drive that the vault is on. To show this, I deleted three images, backed up, and got this on my Firewire drive:
The masters are there, each in individual folders. The containing folders are named after the date and time. The files you see in the screen capture above are very small because the example TIFFs I was using really are very small.
Zune Is Incompatible With Everything
2006-07-21
It looks like my prediction from January 2006 has come to fruition: Microsoft has announced that it will sell its own music player. Actually I predicted that they would ship one, and that has not happened yet, so I'm not 100% right. And I'm at least partly wrong because I said the reason they would do it would be to bail out their licensees who have failed with subscription-based music. Whatever it is, they are saying that it is incompatible with everything that is currently on the market: new DRM, new everything. So that's not the reason. Maybe I was right for the wrong reason.
From Slashdot comes this gem:
Zune's a name like Tune, (how odd!)
Just lacks an 'i' and lacks a 'Pod'.
With marketing and Xbox gloss
They'll gain a share but take the loss.
With 40 billion stock bought back
Ballmer might just dodge the sack.
But Jobs would say the chance is slim,
and silhouettes will come for him.
From Slashdot comes this gem:
Zune's a name like Tune, (how odd!)
Just lacks an 'i' and lacks a 'Pod'.
With marketing and Xbox gloss
They'll gain a share but take the loss.
With 40 billion stock bought back
Ballmer might just dodge the sack.
But Jobs would say the chance is slim,
and silhouettes will come for him.
Completion Latency
2006-07-21
There are different kinds of latency. Each one frustrates in a different way.
The third type of latency is Completion Latency, (Lc). This one is very frustrating. You've gotten there (Transport Latency), and you've waited in line for your ticket (Gate Latency), and now you are ready to go. But you are waiting. And waiting. And waiting. You're waiting for everyone else to get on the bus, because the bus won't leave until all the passengers are on and their luggage is stowed. And it doesn't matter if you are first on or last on (except for the looks from the other passengers anyway), the bus still has to wait and you cannot leave any sooner.
Completion Latency, as it turns out, can be expressed with a very simple equation, and it does not involve calculus, at least in the simple case:
That's it. So if you can load 120 passengers an hour onto buses that seat 30, the completion latency is 1/4 hour.
To reduce Completion Latency, there are exactly two things you can do: decrease the payload (fewer butts on seats), or increase the throughput (figure out how to get butts and seats together faster). For tour buses this is how it works and the friendly-but-firm lady with the watch and the clipboard ushers everyone on in an efficient manner.
This equation also says something very important about payloads. If you are moving something and have a situation where the Completion Latency is fixed, such as a scheduled bus service, then throughput is proportional to payload. In other words, if you buy buses that are twice as big (and can be filled fully), then the throughput will double. For a bus service, this is very important to know, because throughput directly controls income, and cost is driven to a great extent by the number of buses you have, not their size. The same applies to airlines. This is one of the reasons passenger vehicles of all types that run on a schedule come in such a wide variety of sizes.
It also applies to computer networks. Data is always sent across a network in packets, frames, datagrams, or some other chunk that has to be received in its entirety before being verified as being correct. For a statistically fixed end-to-end latency, something very common is real-life networks, the throughput (bytes per second) is controlled almost completely by the number of bytes in each chunk. So to get more throughput, you must use bigger chunks.
If your throughput is fixed (cars coming off a production line, for instance) you can either vary the payload to match a certain latency (pick a train of a certain length to be able to make two deliveries a day), or live with the variable latency according to what payload you can muster (no control over the length of the train, deliver when it is filled).
What about the less simple case? I have assumed so far that the throughput is constant: things (people, bytes, cars) flow regularly. Efficient use of a payload (the need to fill it fully) leads to an unbounded latency if the throughput is variable. The equation turns into this:
which really means
In other words, the Completion Latency is the total time to process P things, where P is the payload. So Completion Latency is just an aggregation of other delays -- other latency. The time to process each thing could be due to Transport and/or Gate latencies. It has to be due to something.
There is no integral form of this equation because we are concerned with groups of discrete things. You could argue that processing some continuous thing (spaghetti for instance) that varies in speed and needs something completed (a spaghetti packet filled) is another form of Completion Latency. But it is not -- that is just Transport Latency.
The above sum makes another assumption. It assumes that talking about a thing-to-thing delay, Tn, makes sense. For some things it does, for instance processing things sequentially in order to make a complete group (like packing eggs from a conveyer belt). In other cases there is no sequence: the things you are waiting for are not correlated like they are in any sort of production line. An example of this would be T-shirt give-away. The first ten customers get a free T-shirt. How long does it take to give away all the T-shirts? If there is a line of people waiting for them at opening time, then it is sequential and it will take about ten times the time to give away the first one to give away all of them. But if the store is not that popular, it could take hours, days even, before ten customers show up. So Completion Latency is unbounded if the thing that must be completed is made of uncorrelated events.
There is just one more type of latency to discuss. The wait is almost over.
The third type of latency is Completion Latency, (Lc). This one is very frustrating. You've gotten there (Transport Latency), and you've waited in line for your ticket (Gate Latency), and now you are ready to go. But you are waiting. And waiting. And waiting. You're waiting for everyone else to get on the bus, because the bus won't leave until all the passengers are on and their luggage is stowed. And it doesn't matter if you are first on or last on (except for the looks from the other passengers anyway), the bus still has to wait and you cannot leave any sooner.
Completion Latency, as it turns out, can be expressed with a very simple equation, and it does not involve calculus, at least in the simple case:
That's it. So if you can load 120 passengers an hour onto buses that seat 30, the completion latency is 1/4 hour.
To reduce Completion Latency, there are exactly two things you can do: decrease the payload (fewer butts on seats), or increase the throughput (figure out how to get butts and seats together faster). For tour buses this is how it works and the friendly-but-firm lady with the watch and the clipboard ushers everyone on in an efficient manner.
This equation also says something very important about payloads. If you are moving something and have a situation where the Completion Latency is fixed, such as a scheduled bus service, then throughput is proportional to payload. In other words, if you buy buses that are twice as big (and can be filled fully), then the throughput will double. For a bus service, this is very important to know, because throughput directly controls income, and cost is driven to a great extent by the number of buses you have, not their size. The same applies to airlines. This is one of the reasons passenger vehicles of all types that run on a schedule come in such a wide variety of sizes.
It also applies to computer networks. Data is always sent across a network in packets, frames, datagrams, or some other chunk that has to be received in its entirety before being verified as being correct. For a statistically fixed end-to-end latency, something very common is real-life networks, the throughput (bytes per second) is controlled almost completely by the number of bytes in each chunk. So to get more throughput, you must use bigger chunks.
If your throughput is fixed (cars coming off a production line, for instance) you can either vary the payload to match a certain latency (pick a train of a certain length to be able to make two deliveries a day), or live with the variable latency according to what payload you can muster (no control over the length of the train, deliver when it is filled).
What about the less simple case? I have assumed so far that the throughput is constant: things (people, bytes, cars) flow regularly. Efficient use of a payload (the need to fill it fully) leads to an unbounded latency if the throughput is variable. The equation turns into this:
which really means
In other words, the Completion Latency is the total time to process P things, where P is the payload. So Completion Latency is just an aggregation of other delays -- other latency. The time to process each thing could be due to Transport and/or Gate latencies. It has to be due to something.
There is no integral form of this equation because we are concerned with groups of discrete things. You could argue that processing some continuous thing (spaghetti for instance) that varies in speed and needs something completed (a spaghetti packet filled) is another form of Completion Latency. But it is not -- that is just Transport Latency.
The above sum makes another assumption. It assumes that talking about a thing-to-thing delay, Tn, makes sense. For some things it does, for instance processing things sequentially in order to make a complete group (like packing eggs from a conveyer belt). In other cases there is no sequence: the things you are waiting for are not correlated like they are in any sort of production line. An example of this would be T-shirt give-away. The first ten customers get a free T-shirt. How long does it take to give away all the T-shirts? If there is a line of people waiting for them at opening time, then it is sequential and it will take about ten times the time to give away the first one to give away all of them. But if the store is not that popular, it could take hours, days even, before ten customers show up. So Completion Latency is unbounded if the thing that must be completed is made of uncorrelated events.
There is just one more type of latency to discuss. The wait is almost over.
So That's What A Thagomizer Is
2006-07-19
Thagomizer is the name given to the arrangement of spikes on a dinosaur's tail. Just in case it comes up in casual conversation.
Step Inside The Aperture Vault
2006-07-18
As part of my back up strategy, I use an Aperture Vault. The vault lives on a Firewire drive that I keep connected to the computer but normally turned off. That's what that particular drive is for: quick back ups of critical items that cannot wait for my regular 5am back up to another drive (that back up is driven by SuperDuper).
I'll create a vault and look inside. Clicking on the middle icon in the lower left-hand corner of the Aperture window brings up the vault pane:
No vaults yet. I'll add a new Vault to my Firewire drive "Crow" and call it Blog:
Local250 is another Aperture vault that is already on the drive. The new vault, Blog, appears in the Vault pane. Clicking the disclosure triangle shows which drive it is on:
You can have as many vaults as you like on a drive.
It is possible to create a Vault on a network volume, although Aperture tries to prevent this. To create a vault on a network volume, first create one on a Firewire drive, then Quit Aperture and copy the vault to the network volume and delete the original on the Firewire drive. Start Aperture again the vault will show as Offline. You can tell Aperture the new location of the vault by control-clicking on it and selecting New locaton.
Updating the vault takes a long time the first time, but subsequent updates are very fast because only the differences are resolved. Vaults are not archives -- that is they do not store any history, such as items you may have deleted a long time ago. They are just a snapshot of the library at one moment in time, so if you delete something in the library and update the vault, that thing is gone. (Well, almost gone. You actually get one last chance! More on that in a later article).
If the drive is disconnected, Aperture knows this and will show the status:
If you try to update you will get a dialog box:
My Aperture library for the examples in this blog is 91.8 Mbytes in size. Yet when I look at the vault I see it is only 75 Mbytes. That's 18% less. For my real Aperture library, the vault is 26% smaller. What is missing?
The vault is a package, just like the Aperture library. Packages are just folders marked to look like a single icon. Packages are opened by control-clicking and selecting Show Package Contents. Here is the inside of the vault I created:
So the vault contains all the keywords and other settings. But there is no database. So restoring from a vault requires that Aperture rebuild the database. Looking inside the Library folder gets this:
This looks just like the Aperture library itself. Let's look inside the Photos project:
That's almost like the Aperture library, but some things are missing. The Aperture Library has this in it:
Notice that the AP.Minis and other similar files are missing. Those are the cached thumbnails. So restoring from a vault also requires Aperture to rebuild the thumbnails.
If I look inside the import group folder I see my images:
So there they are, complete with all the adjustment and version information. Everything I need is in the vault.
One last thing that confuses people. The vault icon has a little lock next to it:
That shows that the file is locked. If you do a get Info, you will see that the Locked box is checked:
If you try to trash the locked vault, the Finder will prevent it. You must remove the lock first, then drag to trash.
I'll create a vault and look inside. Clicking on the middle icon in the lower left-hand corner of the Aperture window brings up the vault pane:
No vaults yet. I'll add a new Vault to my Firewire drive "Crow" and call it Blog:
Local250 is another Aperture vault that is already on the drive. The new vault, Blog, appears in the Vault pane. Clicking the disclosure triangle shows which drive it is on:
You can have as many vaults as you like on a drive.
It is possible to create a Vault on a network volume, although Aperture tries to prevent this. To create a vault on a network volume, first create one on a Firewire drive, then Quit Aperture and copy the vault to the network volume and delete the original on the Firewire drive. Start Aperture again the vault will show as Offline. You can tell Aperture the new location of the vault by control-clicking on it and selecting New locaton.
Updating the vault takes a long time the first time, but subsequent updates are very fast because only the differences are resolved. Vaults are not archives -- that is they do not store any history, such as items you may have deleted a long time ago. They are just a snapshot of the library at one moment in time, so if you delete something in the library and update the vault, that thing is gone. (Well, almost gone. You actually get one last chance! More on that in a later article).
If the drive is disconnected, Aperture knows this and will show the status:
If you try to update you will get a dialog box:
My Aperture library for the examples in this blog is 91.8 Mbytes in size. Yet when I look at the vault I see it is only 75 Mbytes. That's 18% less. For my real Aperture library, the vault is 26% smaller. What is missing?
The vault is a package, just like the Aperture library. Packages are just folders marked to look like a single icon. Packages are opened by control-clicking and selecting Show Package Contents. Here is the inside of the vault I created:
So the vault contains all the keywords and other settings. But there is no database. So restoring from a vault requires that Aperture rebuild the database. Looking inside the Library folder gets this:
This looks just like the Aperture library itself. Let's look inside the Photos project:
That's almost like the Aperture library, but some things are missing. The Aperture Library has this in it:
Notice that the AP.Minis and other similar files are missing. Those are the cached thumbnails. So restoring from a vault also requires Aperture to rebuild the thumbnails.
If I look inside the import group folder I see my images:
So there they are, complete with all the adjustment and version information. Everything I need is in the vault.
One last thing that confuses people. The vault icon has a little lock next to it:
That shows that the file is locked. If you do a get Info, you will see that the Locked box is checked:
If you try to trash the locked vault, the Finder will prevent it. You must remove the lock first, then drag to trash.
A Widening Gulf
2006-07-17
I jumped when I read this article on CNET (cough, cough) entitled Microsoft Shutters Windows Private Folders:
"Following an outcry from corporate customers, Microsoft is removing an add-on feature to Windows that allowed users to create password-protected folders"
This is perfect, I thought.
It's perfect because it perfectly illustrates the problems caused by the widening gulf between Microsoft and its users. Not between Microsoft and its customers, but between Microsoft and its users. I stress that because it is the whole point. Microsoft's customers are big businesses who either make the computers (like Dell), or those that buy the computers (like General Motors). Microsoft's users are the poor folks who have to use the things to get something done.
What happened here is that in order to try to close the widening gulf that exists between themselves and their users, Microsoft added a useful feature that has value to them. But they got beaten up by their customers for whom the same feature has negative value. This shows two things: 1) Microsoft does not understand the people who pay the bills (its customers), and 2) users don't count, even if Microsoft wants them to.
It's beginning to sound a lot like the cell phone market. That's the one that delivers features that users (you and me) want but customers (service providers) don't.
"Following an outcry from corporate customers, Microsoft is removing an add-on feature to Windows that allowed users to create password-protected folders"
This is perfect, I thought.
It's perfect because it perfectly illustrates the problems caused by the widening gulf between Microsoft and its users. Not between Microsoft and its customers, but between Microsoft and its users. I stress that because it is the whole point. Microsoft's customers are big businesses who either make the computers (like Dell), or those that buy the computers (like General Motors). Microsoft's users are the poor folks who have to use the things to get something done.
What happened here is that in order to try to close the widening gulf that exists between themselves and their users, Microsoft added a useful feature that has value to them. But they got beaten up by their customers for whom the same feature has negative value. This shows two things: 1) Microsoft does not understand the people who pay the bills (its customers), and 2) users don't count, even if Microsoft wants them to.
It's beginning to sound a lot like the cell phone market. That's the one that delivers features that users (you and me) want but customers (service providers) don't.
Ant Stuck On A Sticky Plant
2006-07-17
I shot a movie of an ant stuck on a sticky plant with my Canon S3 IS today (10MB 30fps H.264 Quicktime, 45s). Click to play in a new window:
To get the magnification I used an old 50 mm SLR lens mounted backwards. I used Quicktime to reduce the size and recode from AVI to H.264.
The plant that it is on has blue flowers and sticky parts that break off easily:
What type of plant is this? [Update: A reader tells me it is Cape Plumbago (Plumbago capensis)]
To get the magnification I used an old 50 mm SLR lens mounted backwards. I used Quicktime to reduce the size and recode from AVI to H.264.
The plant that it is on has blue flowers and sticky parts that break off easily:
What type of plant is this? [Update: A reader tells me it is Cape Plumbago (Plumbago capensis)]
Vector-Blurred Fluid Simulation and Other Goodies
2006-07-16
[Note: some of the Blender links are very busy today]
Blender 2.4.2 is out. What's that? Blender is an open-source 3D modeling, animation, and rendering package. It's multi-platform and it's free. And slowly but surely it's changing the 3D animation world by lowering the cost of entry and raising the payoff.
The learning curve is pretty steep because it doesn't do things the way you think it should. Figure on a couple of weeks of frustration as your wrestle through. But once you know it, it's very powerful, and being continually improved.
There is even an open movie made entirely with Blender, including the compositing and editing, Elephant's Dream. By open I don't just mean that the movie can be duplicated, but everything used to make the movie is open too: the models, scenes, animation, sound track, everything is licensed under a Creative Commons license so that only proper credit is needed for reuse. You can remix this movie.
See the milk flow on this 250k H.264 Quicktime.
Blender 2.4.2 is out. What's that? Blender is an open-source 3D modeling, animation, and rendering package. It's multi-platform and it's free. And slowly but surely it's changing the 3D animation world by lowering the cost of entry and raising the payoff.
The learning curve is pretty steep because it doesn't do things the way you think it should. Figure on a couple of weeks of frustration as your wrestle through. But once you know it, it's very powerful, and being continually improved.
There is even an open movie made entirely with Blender, including the compositing and editing, Elephant's Dream. By open I don't just mean that the movie can be duplicated, but everything used to make the movie is open too: the models, scenes, animation, sound track, everything is licensed under a Creative Commons license so that only proper credit is needed for reuse. You can remix this movie.
See the milk flow on this 250k H.264 Quicktime.
Aperture Stacks and Album Picks
2006-07-15
That's a stack, and on the left is the pick, the image that I actually want to use out of all the candidates. When the stack is closed, only the pick shows:
But there is another kind of pick supported by Aperture, an Album pick. Album picks are very handy because they let you have a different pick for each album (or gallery, etc.) that the image appears in.
If I open the stack again, duplicate the K twice (option V) and put those two K versions together in another stack, then put that stack in an Album by selecting the images and selecting New From Selection -> Album, I get this:
Working in the album and duplicating one of the versions I get this:
There is a check mark on the third image. That check mark shows the Album Pick. You can set and clear the Album pick from the Stacks menu (Stacks > Set Album Pick) or use command shift backslash. An Album pick allows you to have a different pick for each album that the stack appears in. This is useful because the context of each album may cause you to favor a different image for each one.
To illustrate this, I created a stack containing three versions in the Project called Stack. I made some adjustments to these three versions so that they are visually distinct; blue, yellow, and rotated:
Here is the same stack in an Album (note the check marked image):
And in another Album (note the different check marked image). I did this by selecting each Album making different images the album pick for the Albums:
If I close these stacks I get different results in each case. I get a stack in the Project with the blue image showing as the pick, as expected:
In the first Album I get the rotated image as the pick:
And in another Album I get the yellow image as the pick:
This shows the strength of stacks: they are a tool designed to defer choosing among interchangeable images to the point of use.
Canon S3 IS Image Sharpening Settings
2006-07-14
The Canon S3 IS has the ability to select one of five sharpening settings, and I have been experimenting to figure out which one to use. The real question I have is which setting gives the best results after post processing, and is post-processing worth the trouble?
So I shot some test pictures. Here are reduced versions of the images:
All the original and adjusted images are posted to the Sharpness gallery. They are taken at ISO 100, f4.5. Those marked "low sharp" are with the camera set at its lowest sharpening setting, those marked "med sharp" are with the setting in the middle, and those marked "high sharp" are at the maximum. The suffixes: "50" = 50% at one pixel; "100" = 100% at 1 pixel; "100 2" = 100% at 2 pixels.
To change the sharpness settings on the Canon S3 you go into the Function menu, then scroll down to My Colors. One click left gets to the Custom settings and you can hit Set to make changes. Scroll up and down to Sharpness and select the amount.
The first thing I see is that the high setting is too sharp. There are halos everywhere. See these 100% clips:
Now compare that last one with the low sharpening fence picture:
and with the medium sharpening one:
The medium one is not bad at all, and the low sharpening one is too soft. How much can I improve the images, and is it worth it?
Using Aperture's default sharpening setting of 50% 1 pixel, I sharpened the low and medium sharp fence pictures. Then I changed the setting to 100% and sharpened the low sharp fence picture, and finally tried a radius of two pixels:
First medium at 50%, 1 pixel:
Then low at 50%, 1 pixel:
Low at 100%, 1 pixel:
And finally low 100% at 2 pixels:
Scaled to screen size, I prefer the second to last one. It has slightly more noise than the second one, but the sharpness looks good.
One thing I discovered is that the size of the final image affects the effect of the radius of the sharpening filter. Viewed at about 25% full size, the low sharpness fence and trike pictures look best with 100% at 2 pixels.
One side effect of the sharpening in Aperture at 2 pixels is that it creates more noise than the high setting of the camera and results in a lot of 100% black pixels, something that the camera does not do. The result is that the Aperture-sharpened images have a better contrast than the camera-sharpened images at the expense of noise.
Boosting medium sharp images to 100% 2 pixels resulted in oversharpening. Playing with the images at likely viewing resolutions I ended up preferring the low sharpness setting of the camera and using 100% intensity at between 1 and 2 pixels. So I think that it is worth using the lowest sharpening setting of the camera and the post processing. Aperture makes it easy and to generate new versions and fast to apply sharpening, even on my imac G5.
See all the images in the sharpness gallery.
So I shot some test pictures. Here are reduced versions of the images:
All the original and adjusted images are posted to the Sharpness gallery. They are taken at ISO 100, f4.5. Those marked "low sharp" are with the camera set at its lowest sharpening setting, those marked "med sharp" are with the setting in the middle, and those marked "high sharp" are at the maximum. The suffixes: "50" = 50% at one pixel; "100" = 100% at 1 pixel; "100 2" = 100% at 2 pixels.
To change the sharpness settings on the Canon S3 you go into the Function menu, then scroll down to My Colors. One click left gets to the Custom settings and you can hit Set to make changes. Scroll up and down to Sharpness and select the amount.
The first thing I see is that the high setting is too sharp. There are halos everywhere. See these 100% clips:
Now compare that last one with the low sharpening fence picture:
and with the medium sharpening one:
The medium one is not bad at all, and the low sharpening one is too soft. How much can I improve the images, and is it worth it?
Using Aperture's default sharpening setting of 50% 1 pixel, I sharpened the low and medium sharp fence pictures. Then I changed the setting to 100% and sharpened the low sharp fence picture, and finally tried a radius of two pixels:
First medium at 50%, 1 pixel:
Then low at 50%, 1 pixel:
Low at 100%, 1 pixel:
And finally low 100% at 2 pixels:
Scaled to screen size, I prefer the second to last one. It has slightly more noise than the second one, but the sharpness looks good.
One thing I discovered is that the size of the final image affects the effect of the radius of the sharpening filter. Viewed at about 25% full size, the low sharpness fence and trike pictures look best with 100% at 2 pixels.
One side effect of the sharpening in Aperture at 2 pixels is that it creates more noise than the high setting of the camera and results in a lot of 100% black pixels, something that the camera does not do. The result is that the Aperture-sharpened images have a better contrast than the camera-sharpened images at the expense of noise.
Boosting medium sharp images to 100% 2 pixels resulted in oversharpening. Playing with the images at likely viewing resolutions I ended up preferring the low sharpness setting of the camera and using 100% intensity at between 1 and 2 pixels. So I think that it is worth using the lowest sharpening setting of the camera and the post processing. Aperture makes it easy and to generate new versions and fast to apply sharpening, even on my imac G5.
See all the images in the sharpness gallery.
Underwater Photography
2006-07-13
Aperture Adjustment Tools
2006-07-13
Inside Aperture has some very detailed information (PDF) about using the adjustment tools in Aperture. That's not an area I will be covering: I don't do a great deal of adjusting, I don't use RAW (yet!), and I certainly don't understand all the sliders and options as well as many people.
Aperture: Stacks And Versions
2006-07-12
When you use stacks and also create new versions of images, Aperture does some interesting things. Versions are grouped together inside a stack if you put them there.
To illustrate this I'm starting with a stack of six simple images:
I make a new version from the K and apply some adjustments to get this:
Creating a new version using Duplicate Version (option V) gives me another version right next to it:
I didn't create that stack, but Aperture has done it for me. And this stack is different -- it has a light gray background inside the dark background. It has grouped the two versions for me. I can drag one of the versions out and have them as separate images if I like:
Duplicating versions that are inside a stack makes a version group inside it. Here I have duplicated the T:
And adding versions to a stack that contains the master or other versions of the master automatically creates a version group inside the stack, so putting all the versions next to each other. It's a little like siblings always wanting to sit next to each other when they are with others. Dragging the two Ks I made above into the stack gives me three Ks together:
And this brings up another way to magically make images vanish. Here is an album that contains just the two blue Ks. I created this when they were outside the stack. See there are (2) items in the album:
When I moved the two Ks into the stack and went to look at the album it showed empty -- but the Album still shows a count of (2):
I am not sure if that is a bug or a feature, but it is an easy way to lose images. There is no way to mark an Album to ignore stack groupings, and this is the result. It's not a filtering thing either. Filtering was set to show unrated or better. I also discovered that by using undo and redo you can get the Album to show the stack pick and not the Album pick.
To illustrate this I'm starting with a stack of six simple images:
I make a new version from the K and apply some adjustments to get this:
Creating a new version using Duplicate Version (option V) gives me another version right next to it:
I didn't create that stack, but Aperture has done it for me. And this stack is different -- it has a light gray background inside the dark background. It has grouped the two versions for me. I can drag one of the versions out and have them as separate images if I like:
Duplicating versions that are inside a stack makes a version group inside it. Here I have duplicated the T:
And adding versions to a stack that contains the master or other versions of the master automatically creates a version group inside the stack, so putting all the versions next to each other. It's a little like siblings always wanting to sit next to each other when they are with others. Dragging the two Ks I made above into the stack gives me three Ks together:
And this brings up another way to magically make images vanish. Here is an album that contains just the two blue Ks. I created this when they were outside the stack. See there are (2) items in the album:
When I moved the two Ks into the stack and went to look at the album it showed empty -- but the Album still shows a count of (2):
I am not sure if that is a bug or a feature, but it is an easy way to lose images. There is no way to mark an Album to ignore stack groupings, and this is the result. It's not a filtering thing either. Filtering was set to show unrated or better. I also discovered that by using undo and redo you can get the Album to show the stack pick and not the Album pick.
Inside The Aperture Library Database
2006-07-11
I found this article that delves into the SQLite database that lies inside the Aperture library. There are other Aperture articles on this site on performance, and downsampling.
Fantastic Creatures at The Pink Tentacle
2006-07-10
The Pink Tentacle has several links to a Japanese web site that features some amazing creatures. The Japanese web site is hard to navigate if you don't read Japanese, but the Pink Tentacle article has some helpful links.
A Dip Inside The Aperture Library
2006-07-09
The nightmare scenario is this: Steve Jobs is dead and now Steve Ballmer runs Apple. A mandatory system update to install a DRM-protected Clippy on Mac OS X has wrecked things so badly that Aperture will not launch. You have 500TB of images in Aperture libraries that you can no longer view, sort, search, or export.
Now what do you do?
I recently had a look inside the Aperture library to see what I could see. The results are described here. For this investigation I put together a test library that looks like this in Aperture:
The Aperture library lives by default in your Photos folder inside your home folder and looks like the kind of washing machine that Jonathon Ive would design:
If you double click on it, you'll launch Aperture, so that is no good. The Aperture library is a type of OS X folder called a package. That's really just a folder with some special information that makes the Finder display it and manipulate it as a single icon. So control-click on the library and select Show Package Contents. My example looks like this:
The built-in Smart Album folder contains these small files:
and it is obvious how these connect to the built-in Smart Albums that the library shows:
The folders Blog, Commercial, Government, and Retail all correspond to the Blue Folders I created, so clearly the Aperture library employs a folder structure that follows the one displayed.
info.plist is a standard OS X property list file. It contains structured data about the library package that relates properties to things:
That is XML. The green header references information about how the information is presented and what the dict and key words mean. The rest gives two properties marked as keys CFBundleGetInfoString and CFBundleShortVersionString with values that are strings, "Aperture Library 1.1.1" and "1.1.1" respectively. Those two values are packaged into a dictionary (dict). If you Get Info in the Aperture library you see the first one displayed as the version.
Lets look inside Aperture.aplib:
More plists, an empty folder with archive information (Vaults?) and a Library.apdb file. That's an SQLite database and if you open it with a text editor you get nothing useful. But checking it with SQLite Database Browser shows the database structure and files:
That database provides fast access to all the images, albums, keywords, projects, filters, and everything else that makes Aperture go. It's actually expendable. If you delete it from the folder and launch Aperture, it will get regenerated from the data stored in the rest of the library. So if you cannot use the database, all you have lost is speed.
The database is there as a back-end to Core Data. Core Data is part of OS X that helps programmers work with persistent data relationships. It manages all the details of performing queries, fetching data, handling deletions, storing changes, and things like that.
Lets check the Blog folder that is at the top level of the library:
Here we see Aperture project files. These are packages too, so to go further, control-click and Show Package Contents:
Now this is getting more interesting. Compare this with the project structure as displayed:
The folder structure matches the Brown Folder structure and the apalbum files correspond to the albums. There are some extra files too. Album.implicitalbum looks like it is a hidden album that displays everything in the Project. The three files AP.minis, AP.Thumbnails, and AP.Tinies are binary files that contain three different sizes of thumbnails. Again, these are there for speed only and can be regenerated from the originals at any time.
Info.apfolder is another plist file. With a text editor it looks like this:
There is actually a better way of viewing this. The Mac OS X developer tools include a plist editor. That gives this display:
Lots of information about this folder. The UUID numbers are universally unique identifiers. They ensure that everything is uniquely numbered, making corruption identifiable and recovery possible.
So far we have not found any images, and that was the goal of the whole exercise. There are two importgroup folders present. One contains nothing and the other has 59MB of data, so lets look in there:
Those are the names of the files that were imported. Lets look inside BEE:
And there is the original JPEG that was imported. There is a file that describes the Bee.jpg file:
Here we also meet the sidecar files. There are two apversion files that describe the adjustments to the original (master) and to one version. As versions are created, more version files are added. In this way the original is never touched. Lets look inside the apversion file:
More UUIDs to help tied everything together. Looking at what the UUIDs reference it is not hard to imaging that the whole library could be reconstituted from just a sea of files. Here we see ratings, time zones, image size, stack index, and image cache information. Lets look inside the image adjustments:
And there are all the gory details of the adjustments that define this version. We can also look at the searchable properties:
And in there we see all the metadata. So as long as you can parse XML, the metadata can be read.
How about the Albums? Back here in the Photos project we see a Bombers album:
The Bombers.apalbum looks like this:
The version UUIDs is the list of image versions in the album. The filter information is the thumbnail filter that is currently active on the album. Opening up the subqueries gives:
Smart albums are the same, except they contain more information and don't have a list if UUIDs, since they need to generate the list on the fly:
Clearly it would take some work to recover all of the information about particular images, but I am sure that someone will create a tool or script to extract it. Extensive use of UUIDs would allow a database to be generated and albums and projects to be recreated automatically. Keywords and all the other metadata could also be extracted and associated with the images.
How about the images themselves? That's easy: opening up the library and dragging all the contents onto iView MediaPro creates a catalog that contains all the master images. From there you can sort, search, and copy. Any other image-finding program could do the same thing easily.
Some of the limitations of Aperture stem from the limitations of Core Data. It's single-user and designed to run with a single store (database). It is not a far stretch to imagine that these limitations will disappear as OS X matures and Aperture gains some very attractive workgroup features: multiple users, multiple libraries, and off-line storage management.
So the Aperture library is not as dark and dangerous as it might at first seem. It's really just a filing system like the one that manages your hard drive already. Could you find a file on your disk without the filing system? Not without a lot of trouble, yet nobody is really worried about that.
Now what do you do?
I recently had a look inside the Aperture library to see what I could see. The results are described here. For this investigation I put together a test library that looks like this in Aperture:
The Aperture library lives by default in your Photos folder inside your home folder and looks like the kind of washing machine that Jonathon Ive would design:
If you double click on it, you'll launch Aperture, so that is no good. The Aperture library is a type of OS X folder called a package. That's really just a folder with some special information that makes the Finder display it and manipulate it as a single icon. So control-click on the library and select Show Package Contents. My example looks like this:
The built-in Smart Album folder contains these small files:
and it is obvious how these connect to the built-in Smart Albums that the library shows:
The folders Blog, Commercial, Government, and Retail all correspond to the Blue Folders I created, so clearly the Aperture library employs a folder structure that follows the one displayed.
info.plist is a standard OS X property list file. It contains structured data about the library package that relates properties to things:
That is XML. The green header references information about how the information is presented and what the dict and key words mean. The rest gives two properties marked as keys CFBundleGetInfoString and CFBundleShortVersionString with values that are strings, "Aperture Library 1.1.1" and "1.1.1" respectively. Those two values are packaged into a dictionary (dict). If you Get Info in the Aperture library you see the first one displayed as the version.
Lets look inside Aperture.aplib:
More plists, an empty folder with archive information (Vaults?) and a Library.apdb file. That's an SQLite database and if you open it with a text editor you get nothing useful. But checking it with SQLite Database Browser shows the database structure and files:
That database provides fast access to all the images, albums, keywords, projects, filters, and everything else that makes Aperture go. It's actually expendable. If you delete it from the folder and launch Aperture, it will get regenerated from the data stored in the rest of the library. So if you cannot use the database, all you have lost is speed.
The database is there as a back-end to Core Data. Core Data is part of OS X that helps programmers work with persistent data relationships. It manages all the details of performing queries, fetching data, handling deletions, storing changes, and things like that.
Lets check the Blog folder that is at the top level of the library:
Here we see Aperture project files. These are packages too, so to go further, control-click and Show Package Contents:
Now this is getting more interesting. Compare this with the project structure as displayed:
The folder structure matches the Brown Folder structure and the apalbum files correspond to the albums. There are some extra files too. Album.implicitalbum looks like it is a hidden album that displays everything in the Project. The three files AP.minis, AP.Thumbnails, and AP.Tinies are binary files that contain three different sizes of thumbnails. Again, these are there for speed only and can be regenerated from the originals at any time.
Info.apfolder is another plist file. With a text editor it looks like this:
There is actually a better way of viewing this. The Mac OS X developer tools include a plist editor. That gives this display:
Lots of information about this folder. The UUID numbers are universally unique identifiers. They ensure that everything is uniquely numbered, making corruption identifiable and recovery possible.
So far we have not found any images, and that was the goal of the whole exercise. There are two importgroup folders present. One contains nothing and the other has 59MB of data, so lets look in there:
Those are the names of the files that were imported. Lets look inside BEE:
And there is the original JPEG that was imported. There is a file that describes the Bee.jpg file:
Here we also meet the sidecar files. There are two apversion files that describe the adjustments to the original (master) and to one version. As versions are created, more version files are added. In this way the original is never touched. Lets look inside the apversion file:
More UUIDs to help tied everything together. Looking at what the UUIDs reference it is not hard to imaging that the whole library could be reconstituted from just a sea of files. Here we see ratings, time zones, image size, stack index, and image cache information. Lets look inside the image adjustments:
And there are all the gory details of the adjustments that define this version. We can also look at the searchable properties:
And in there we see all the metadata. So as long as you can parse XML, the metadata can be read.
How about the Albums? Back here in the Photos project we see a Bombers album:
The Bombers.apalbum looks like this:
The version UUIDs is the list of image versions in the album. The filter information is the thumbnail filter that is currently active on the album. Opening up the subqueries gives:
Smart albums are the same, except they contain more information and don't have a list if UUIDs, since they need to generate the list on the fly:
Clearly it would take some work to recover all of the information about particular images, but I am sure that someone will create a tool or script to extract it. Extensive use of UUIDs would allow a database to be generated and albums and projects to be recreated automatically. Keywords and all the other metadata could also be extracted and associated with the images.
How about the images themselves? That's easy: opening up the library and dragging all the contents onto iView MediaPro creates a catalog that contains all the master images. From there you can sort, search, and copy. Any other image-finding program could do the same thing easily.
Some of the limitations of Aperture stem from the limitations of Core Data. It's single-user and designed to run with a single store (database). It is not a far stretch to imagine that these limitations will disappear as OS X matures and Aperture gains some very attractive workgroup features: multiple users, multiple libraries, and off-line storage management.
So the Aperture library is not as dark and dangerous as it might at first seem. It's really just a filing system like the one that manages your hard drive already. Could you find a file on your disk without the filing system? Not without a lot of trouble, yet nobody is really worried about that.
Hotheaded Naked Ice Borers and Other Fools
2006-07-09
The Museum Of Hoaxes has a list of the top 100 April Fools. At number nine are the hotheaded naked ice borers (a great name for a band, incidentally):
"In its April 1995 issue Discover Magazine announced that the highly respected wildlife biologist Dr. Aprile Pazzo had discovered a new species in Antarctica: the hotheaded naked ice borer. These fascinating creatures had bony plates on their heads that, fed by numerous blood vessels, could become burning hot, allowing the animals to bore through ice at high speeds."
"In its April 1995 issue Discover Magazine announced that the highly respected wildlife biologist Dr. Aprile Pazzo had discovered a new species in Antarctica: the hotheaded naked ice borer. These fascinating creatures had bony plates on their heads that, fed by numerous blood vessels, could become burning hot, allowing the animals to bore through ice at high speeds."
An Educational Two For One
2006-07-08
Since Mac OS X is based on a multi-user OS, all that is needed is the ability to handle two keyboard/mouse pairs and associate them with the users correctly. In an educational setting you can place the eMac facing one student and have the other either sitting opposite with the second screen's back to the back of the eMac, or side-by-side, both facing the same way. The additional cost is small: use existing monitors, keyboards and mice. Now the educational system would be spending half as much per student.
What I don't know is what this would take software-wise. Although the OS is multi-user and the file system is multi-user, and fast user switching is supported, the applications are not so savvy. One option would be to bring the OS and applications up to scratch (Leopard?) Another is to use virtualization to support the second user: just create a new machine and do it on the other monitor. All that remains is to associate the mouse and keyboard appropriately.
Gate Latency -- Cumulative Probability
2006-07-08
The last time I wrote about Gate Latency, I ended with an attempt to diagram the chances of having to wait for a bathroom that is busy:
That's the chance of encountering gate latency (wait) for a bathroom that has one hour-long busy period and two half-hour busy periods per day. The problem with this diagram is that the spike with the arrow has to be infinitely high and infinitely narrow to express that we have 11/12 chance if finding the bathroom free and so have to wait exactly no time at all.
There is a better way to show this kind of information: a cumulative density function (CDF). Let's go back to the single die and look at its probability density function:
Expressing this as a CDF gives:
Now the chance accumulates as the die scores are added in left to right. Scoring less than 1 is impossible, so the chance is zero. At 1, the chance rises to 1/6, then at 2 it rises to 2/6, etc. all the way to 6, after which it does not rise past 1. All CDFs start at zero on the left and end at one on the right. For die throws this is not all that useful, since there is nothing special about accumulating the numbers 1, 2, 3.
But for waiting, this does a very useful thing. Here is the CDF for the bathroom wait diagrammed above:
The chance of no wait starts off at 44/48 on the left. Moving to the right, the chance accumulates. The chances of having to wait 1/2 hour or less is 47/48. The chances of having to wait 1 hour or less is 1. The advantage with this diagram is that we can show the chances of exactly zero wait by just starting the graph at that point on the left. What were areas on the previous diagram become heights on this one.
The shape of the line as it goes from left to right shows how the probability accumulates. There is no summing to one here because the 1 representing 100% likelihood is always there on the right.
That's the chance of encountering gate latency (wait) for a bathroom that has one hour-long busy period and two half-hour busy periods per day. The problem with this diagram is that the spike with the arrow has to be infinitely high and infinitely narrow to express that we have 11/12 chance if finding the bathroom free and so have to wait exactly no time at all.
There is a better way to show this kind of information: a cumulative density function (CDF). Let's go back to the single die and look at its probability density function:
Expressing this as a CDF gives:
Now the chance accumulates as the die scores are added in left to right. Scoring less than 1 is impossible, so the chance is zero. At 1, the chance rises to 1/6, then at 2 it rises to 2/6, etc. all the way to 6, after which it does not rise past 1. All CDFs start at zero on the left and end at one on the right. For die throws this is not all that useful, since there is nothing special about accumulating the numbers 1, 2, 3.
But for waiting, this does a very useful thing. Here is the CDF for the bathroom wait diagrammed above:
The chance of no wait starts off at 44/48 on the left. Moving to the right, the chance accumulates. The chances of having to wait 1/2 hour or less is 47/48. The chances of having to wait 1 hour or less is 1. The advantage with this diagram is that we can show the chances of exactly zero wait by just starting the graph at that point on the left. What were areas on the previous diagram become heights on this one.
The shape of the line as it goes from left to right shows how the probability accumulates. There is no summing to one here because the 1 representing 100% likelihood is always there on the right.
Canon S3 Image Stabilization Trick
2006-07-07
I discovered that it is possible to change the image stabilization mode from Shoot Only to Continuous and back again without going to the menu. You can do it quickly between shots. This might be useful in some circumstances, since while Shoot Only gives better results than Continuous, the viewfinder image is more jumpy.
Here is how to do it. Set the camera into Shoot Only IS mode by going to the menu and selecting it under IS Mode. Look through the viewfinder, zoom to 12x or more, and take a picture in Shoot Only mode -- but don't let the shutter button come all the way up. This will stop the camera from forgetting its current focus (you still have a green rectangle) and will also keep the IS turned on, running continuously. Now the viewfinder image is steady and you can take more pictures, either letting the button come all the way up to go back to Shoot Only mode, or letting it come part-way up to stay in Continuous mode.
Here is how to do it. Set the camera into Shoot Only IS mode by going to the menu and selecting it under IS Mode. Look through the viewfinder, zoom to 12x or more, and take a picture in Shoot Only mode -- but don't let the shutter button come all the way up. This will stop the camera from forgetting its current focus (you still have a green rectangle) and will also keep the IS turned on, running continuously. Now the viewfinder image is steady and you can take more pictures, either letting the button come all the way up to go back to Shoot Only mode, or letting it come part-way up to stay in Continuous mode.
Aperture: Stack Behavior
2006-07-06
Stacks feature heavily in the promotional material for Aperture, so I leaped upon them as soon as I had the application installed on my hard drive. The first thing I did was to autostack on import. That was problematic because I had to undo many of the stacks later. I had found that the rating system and the stacking system interact in some surprising ways, sometimes to the point of having images vanish in front of my eyes.
The other thing I did was to stack things (manually) that should never have been stacked. Then I could no longer see or find the stacked images that were "hidden" behind the pick. Another way to "lose" images.
The real reason for stacking is to simplify the management and display of images 1) where a number of interchangeable alternatives exist and 2) to defer image selection to the point of context.
So don't use stacks to group images together for any other reason. They are for fine-tuning, not for grouping arbitrary images. Use Albums and Brown Folders to make arbitrary groups. If you shoot sports, for instance, where only one image of a burst shows the impact of one thing against another, then stacks are not for you. That one image is not interchangeable with the others shot at the same time. But if you have four great pictures of the same person undergoing an impact during the same game, then do stack them. In that way you can defer your selection to the point at which the images are used. The images are interchangeable in that context.
Lets look at stacks in action. To use stacks, first import some images:
Make a selection:
Hit command K, and voila! a stack is born:
Look carefully at those three graphics. The first has six separate images. The second has six separate images with a thick line around the primary selection and thin lines around the rest. When you create the stack, it is that primary selection that goes to the left and is determined to be the "pick" of the stack. That's handy and will save you some effort.
The third graphic shows the stack created and open. The background is now dark around the six images in the stack. The 6 on the pick shows how many members there are; clicking on the 6 or hitting shift S gives this, a closed stack:
If you open a stack and select a member it looks like this:
Doing a Select Parent (Edit menu, option shift E) will create yet another display that shows the pick selected and the whole stack selected:
Within a stack the images can have any order; and contrary to many expectations, the order has nothing to do with the rating given to each member:
If you close a stack with rated images then the pick is the rating for the whole stack. The others are ignored:
This means that if you have images filtered to, say, two stars or better, and you change the pick to one star or promote another stack image that already has one star to the current pick, then the whole stack disappears without warning. Images that are in the stack are "protected" by the rating of the pick. So you can have a stack with lots of rejects, but the filtering doesn't make them invisible if it is set to one star or better.
And this is a problem if your images are autostacked on import. All those rejects don't disappear with filtering. So a better workflow is to find the rejects first and delete them, then autostack. But then autostacking is not as effective because there are gaps in the images.
You can still find images that are rejected if they are in stacks. Look at this Smart Album:
At the bottom I have checked Ignore stack groupings. That allows the filter to look inside the stacks. So there is a wholesale way of deleting the rejects where ever they may be.
Apple's Charting Application
2006-07-06
Think Secret is reporting a rumor that I am inclined to believe: that Apple will be including a charting application in the next release of iWork. I actually predicted this more than a year ago when the Numbers rumors were swirling.
This makes much, much more sense than the idea that Apple will create a head-on competitor to Excel. Charting and information presentation is something that Apple can excel (pun intended) at, and will show how bland and dated the Microsoft tools have become. Apple can make full use of the great graphics capabilities its computers already have. Animations can be smooth and informative, transitions likewise. I expect the tool to build on the structured document regimen that Pages employs so that the chart presentation and the chart data are independent enough to each be changed at will with instant results. Think themes.
Charts, or whatever it is called, will fit very nicely into Keynote and Pages, and will be able to work alongside Excel and any other application that can export data.
This makes much, much more sense than the idea that Apple will create a head-on competitor to Excel. Charting and information presentation is something that Apple can excel (pun intended) at, and will show how bland and dated the Microsoft tools have become. Apple can make full use of the great graphics capabilities its computers already have. Animations can be smooth and informative, transitions likewise. I expect the tool to build on the structured document regimen that Pages employs so that the chart presentation and the chart data are independent enough to each be changed at will with instant results. Think themes.
Charts, or whatever it is called, will fit very nicely into Keynote and Pages, and will be able to work alongside Excel and any other application that can export data.
Do NOT Press The Big Red Button
2006-07-06
Canon S3 Fireworks Pictures Posted
2006-07-04
The Canon S3 IS has a fireworks mode. Turn the dial to select the scene setting and then use the left/right button to select Fireworks. Hold the camera steady and snap away. It does noise reduction, so one picture every five seconds is about as fast as you can go.
I have added fourteen fireworks pictures (full size) to the canon S3 gallery.
Acts of Gord
2006-07-04
Gord owns a video game store. This means that in the normal course of business he has to deal with people every day.
[ring]
Ah sweet! That's the same last name as the crazy lady… Unleash the dogs of war!
"Good Afternoon, Government's Agents Office. How may I direct your call?"
"Yes, I'd like to make a complaint about Gamer's Edge. I need to talk to… [pause]… the bureau, the bureau of… the bureau of video games and uhm…"
"The Bureau of Video Games and Customer Relations? One moment please. I'll transfer your call."
Gord presses the 5 key on the phone and says:
"Bureau of Video Games and Customer Relations. How may I be of assistance?"
"Yes, I'd like to file a complaint about Gamer's Edge in Penticton! For no reason they were rude to me and refused to rent to me!"
"Wait a minute, aren't you that crazy lady that was down there earlier today? We're heard about you! You slammed your door on your kid. So what, are you retarded by birth or just been beat around the head too much?"
"WHAT?!?!?"
Acts of Gord chronicles his dealings with the public. That snippet was from The Book Of Victory, Chapter 2.
[ring]
Ah sweet! That's the same last name as the crazy lady… Unleash the dogs of war!
"Good Afternoon, Government's Agents Office. How may I direct your call?"
"Yes, I'd like to make a complaint about Gamer's Edge. I need to talk to… [pause]… the bureau, the bureau of… the bureau of video games and uhm…"
"The Bureau of Video Games and Customer Relations? One moment please. I'll transfer your call."
Gord presses the 5 key on the phone and says:
"Bureau of Video Games and Customer Relations. How may I be of assistance?"
"Yes, I'd like to file a complaint about Gamer's Edge in Penticton! For no reason they were rude to me and refused to rent to me!"
"Wait a minute, aren't you that crazy lady that was down there earlier today? We're heard about you! You slammed your door on your kid. So what, are you retarded by birth or just been beat around the head too much?"
"WHAT?!?!?"
Acts of Gord chronicles his dealings with the public. That snippet was from The Book Of Victory, Chapter 2.
Aperture: Four Steps To Getting To What You Want
2006-07-03
How do you find the images you want and omit the ones you don't?
You could click on the Library, select the All Images filter, and scroll through thousands upon thousands of them, clicking wildly as you see what you want:
But that is very slow. Instead, follow these four steps to getting to what you want.
The first step to finding what you want is to narrow the scope to something less than the entire library. You can do that by selecting just one Project. Or if you are using Blue Folders to organize your Projects, one of those might be more appropriate:
But what if there are three projects that the images could come from and they are not in a Blue Folder? Or what if there are lots of other Projects in the Blue Folder that you don't want included? One way is to simply make a new Blue Folder and drag the three Projects into it. When you are done, return them to their proper place. Not very tidy, but it does work. Another way is to select the Blue Folder that encloses all the Projects you are interested in and narrow down to particular Projects later (more later on that).
A Smart Album is another way of reducing the scope. A Smart Album filters images that are inside whatever it was created in. So creating a Smart Album inside a Blue Folder will let you filter only the images in Projects it encloses. Creating one in the Library will filter the whole library. Either way, creating and using a Smart Album can substantially reduce the number of thumbnails shown. And Smart Albums can be saved, so you only have to create them once.
For example, if the scope were images in all Government projects in Brazil that were shot with a Canon camera and have a rating of three of more stars, I would create a Smart Album here:
and define it so:
By not ignoring stack groupings I am letting the pick of each stack stand in for all the images in that stack.
Now having reduced the scope, the second step is to filter the result of the first step. Although it does not advertise the fact, Aperture supports two levels of filtering. Smart albums or Project selection is the first level, and thumbnail filtering is the second level. Thumbnail filtering is done on the thumbnail viewer or the list viewer:
Click the filter button to bring up the dialog, enter text in the search field, or use the pop-up (triangle) to select a predefined filter.
The default dialog allows you to filter by rating just by dragging the control left and right:
You can also use the calendar to narrow down to specific days or ranges of days, filter by keywords, or select any number of import sessions:
The Match All/Any pop up on the top left gives an and/or selection to the filters that are listed. And the Keywords can have and/or selected too, using their pop-up.
The + button top right gives access to additional criteria and lets you use them as many times as you like. For instance:
This selects only images shot in January, March, April, May, or December, irrespective of year (note pop-up says Any). And remember, we are using this on top of the first-level of filtering provided by the Smart Album (Brazil, three star, Canon) that reduced the scope. As a reminder, the filter search box changes to show that filtering is active and uses three date filters:
You can add additional filters based on absolute dates, dates relative to now (three months ago, for example), specific hour, day, month, or year values (as above), EXIF, IPTC, text, rating, or other metadata, such as orientation or file size. Here is another example:
Despite this variety, there are things you cannot filter on. For example, you cannot directly filter on masters or versions. You cannot directly filter on where master or versions are stored, such as in particular Albums or Projects. You cannot filter on whether an image is stacked or not. You cannot filter on the number of versions it has. You cannot filter on whether and what type of adjustments have been made.
The third and final step is a manual one: select the images you actually want to use. By now there should be a manageable number of thumbnails. To help your selection, sort them the way you want to see them. The sort criterion is shown in the pop-up on the thumbnail panel. Here, file size is selected:
The little triangle reverses the order. You can choose among: Image Date, Rating, Version Name, File Name, Keywords, File Size, Orientation, and Master Pixel Size. Custom is also an option, but is usually grayed out. That's because it only appears if you rearrange the thumbnails manually. If you are bold enough to select the list view (three line button on the left), then you can sort by any column:
including this one, all the way to the right:
That will let you sort on the Project that holds the master for each image in the list. So if you had to include Projects that you did not want to include in Step 1 above, this is how you identify them. What you cannot do is to sort on more than one column. And clicking columns in a special order does not have any effect on the final outcome.
Once you have the images sorted the way you want them, shift click to select ranges, command click to select individual images, alternate shift-clicking and command-clicking to select a range and then another disjoint range, command-drag to add regions of images, and many other shortcuts. You can also use command-R to reverse the selection.
FInally, do whatever it is you wanted to do with these images. Since it has taken work to get here, the most obvious thing to do is to create a new Album. Newer images added to the Library will not show up in that album, but you will have recorded what you found, and you can use that Album to print, create a gallery, export, or make further selections from.
Note that under the hood, there is only really one filter. You can see this if you filter thumbnails already selected with a smart filter: there is no New Smart Album button on the filter dialog. That's because behind the scenes the thumbnail filter is just temporarily modifying the Smart Album database query.
You could click on the Library, select the All Images filter, and scroll through thousands upon thousands of them, clicking wildly as you see what you want:
But that is very slow. Instead, follow these four steps to getting to what you want.
Step One -- Narrow Your Scope
The first step to finding what you want is to narrow the scope to something less than the entire library. You can do that by selecting just one Project. Or if you are using Blue Folders to organize your Projects, one of those might be more appropriate:
But what if there are three projects that the images could come from and they are not in a Blue Folder? Or what if there are lots of other Projects in the Blue Folder that you don't want included? One way is to simply make a new Blue Folder and drag the three Projects into it. When you are done, return them to their proper place. Not very tidy, but it does work. Another way is to select the Blue Folder that encloses all the Projects you are interested in and narrow down to particular Projects later (more later on that).
A Smart Album is another way of reducing the scope. A Smart Album filters images that are inside whatever it was created in. So creating a Smart Album inside a Blue Folder will let you filter only the images in Projects it encloses. Creating one in the Library will filter the whole library. Either way, creating and using a Smart Album can substantially reduce the number of thumbnails shown. And Smart Albums can be saved, so you only have to create them once.
For example, if the scope were images in all Government projects in Brazil that were shot with a Canon camera and have a rating of three of more stars, I would create a Smart Album here:
and define it so:
By not ignoring stack groupings I am letting the pick of each stack stand in for all the images in that stack.
Step 2 -- Filter To What You Want To See
Now having reduced the scope, the second step is to filter the result of the first step. Although it does not advertise the fact, Aperture supports two levels of filtering. Smart albums or Project selection is the first level, and thumbnail filtering is the second level. Thumbnail filtering is done on the thumbnail viewer or the list viewer:
Click the filter button to bring up the dialog, enter text in the search field, or use the pop-up (triangle) to select a predefined filter.
The default dialog allows you to filter by rating just by dragging the control left and right:
You can also use the calendar to narrow down to specific days or ranges of days, filter by keywords, or select any number of import sessions:
The Match All/Any pop up on the top left gives an and/or selection to the filters that are listed. And the Keywords can have and/or selected too, using their pop-up.
The + button top right gives access to additional criteria and lets you use them as many times as you like. For instance:
This selects only images shot in January, March, April, May, or December, irrespective of year (note pop-up says Any). And remember, we are using this on top of the first-level of filtering provided by the Smart Album (Brazil, three star, Canon) that reduced the scope. As a reminder, the filter search box changes to show that filtering is active and uses three date filters:
You can add additional filters based on absolute dates, dates relative to now (three months ago, for example), specific hour, day, month, or year values (as above), EXIF, IPTC, text, rating, or other metadata, such as orientation or file size. Here is another example:
Despite this variety, there are things you cannot filter on. For example, you cannot directly filter on masters or versions. You cannot directly filter on where master or versions are stored, such as in particular Albums or Projects. You cannot filter on whether an image is stacked or not. You cannot filter on the number of versions it has. You cannot filter on whether and what type of adjustments have been made.
Step 3 -- Select What You Want To Use
The third and final step is a manual one: select the images you actually want to use. By now there should be a manageable number of thumbnails. To help your selection, sort them the way you want to see them. The sort criterion is shown in the pop-up on the thumbnail panel. Here, file size is selected:
The little triangle reverses the order. You can choose among: Image Date, Rating, Version Name, File Name, Keywords, File Size, Orientation, and Master Pixel Size. Custom is also an option, but is usually grayed out. That's because it only appears if you rearrange the thumbnails manually. If you are bold enough to select the list view (three line button on the left), then you can sort by any column:
including this one, all the way to the right:
That will let you sort on the Project that holds the master for each image in the list. So if you had to include Projects that you did not want to include in Step 1 above, this is how you identify them. What you cannot do is to sort on more than one column. And clicking columns in a special order does not have any effect on the final outcome.
Once you have the images sorted the way you want them, shift click to select ranges, command click to select individual images, alternate shift-clicking and command-clicking to select a range and then another disjoint range, command-drag to add regions of images, and many other shortcuts. You can also use command-R to reverse the selection.
Step 4 -- Use The Images You Have Selected
FInally, do whatever it is you wanted to do with these images. Since it has taken work to get here, the most obvious thing to do is to create a new Album. Newer images added to the Library will not show up in that album, but you will have recorded what you found, and you can use that Album to print, create a gallery, export, or make further selections from.
Note that under the hood, there is only really one filter. You can see this if you filter thumbnails already selected with a smart filter: there is no New Smart Album button on the filter dialog. That's because behind the scenes the thumbnail filter is just temporarily modifying the Smart Album database query.
Just How Big Is Big, Anyway?
2006-07-02
Planet Earth is pretty big. Or maybe not once you start comparing it to the other planets or the sun, or other suns. That link is very slow. Give it a minute or so.
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