Adding context to your images, specifically within Apple Aperture

Question

I am an amateur photographer, and am looking to streamline my aperture workflow. Up till now, I have added specific "version name" metadata to all my photos, for example:

"Exhausted after a long walk"

It provides some context that can't be obtained from faces,location or keywords. Problem is it takes so long, especially with aperture as the only way to change version names on a few images simultaneously is to use "batch change"

Do others bother with this sort of thing? do you use the "version name" field, or something else?

Just curious as to how others provide context to their own photos, and any tips on streamlining my workflow.

Thanks

Answer 1

The reason it takes so long is that it's super complex and specific to each photo. In my experience most of my metadata is broad across many photos (location, event, people, etc.)

Making that subjective description you have after returning from shooting photos something easily repeatable sounds difficult to make simple, but we can try!

If your metadata was common enough across your photos - in so much as you often tag photos with similar descriptions (metadata) - you could use the Keyword Controls (Shift +D) panel to quickly search and tag photos with any existing keywords. The more you do this, the more keywords you'd have to use.

You might even want to spend a few minutes to put in a collection of keywords before you go shooting. Then when you return, you could pop open the Keyword Controls and tag away!

It's a bit hidden, but the "Edit Button Sets" pane allows you to create metadata sets that you can load into the Keyword Controls for specific "sets" of photos. You might have one set of metadata for your landscapes, one for hiking, etc. Maybe you could use this for moods or something similar.