You wouldn't try to teach yourself to drive by reading the manual that came with your car would you? If you have the software you need this training

The book is the official Apple Pro training course for Aperture, Apple's all-in-one post-production tool for photographers.

It's a book-DVD training combination which starts with the basics of image management and takes you step by step all the way through Aperture 2's powerful photo-editing, image-retouching, proofing, publishing, and archiving features.

The book is designed to teach you how to use Aperture in the context of a professional workflow, using 12 project-based, step-by-step lessons and accompanying media files. It's almost 100% hands on.

Running through all the lessons will take you about 17 hours.

It's divided into three main sections: importing and organising, image editing, and printing and publishing. The first topics are exploring the Aperture workflow, evaluating images: compare and select, and organising your project. The image editing section is sub-divided into basic edits, working with RAW images, correcting tone, correcting colour, and repairing and enhancing your images. Finally, section three covers delivering images for client review, delivering final images, showcasing and promoting you work, and Aperture automation.

I have worked through the first three lessons myself. The DVD material is easy to use. Lessons are structured very clearly in manageable steps with brief, clear explanations about the context of what you are doing. I liked the lesson review questions and answers at the end of each lesson. At the beginning of each lesson there's a list of lesson files, time and goals spelling out how long it will take to complete the lesson, followed by a list of what is to be achieved.

This is a comprehensive, practical and well organised training course written by those who know what they are talking about. If you take the trouble to complete all 12 lessons, you'll find yourself amply rewarded: perhaps even an Aperture whiz.

[...]

This book was one, if not the first book available for Apple's Aperture 2 software. Being a new Aperture 2 user, I was anxious to get more familiar with the tool, so I dove in to read this book.

As part of the Apple Pro Training Series, this book reads like a typical textbook. This is a self-paced, lesson based book, complete with a DVD of projects to work from (I never used the DVD, as I used my own photos so I cannot comment on the DVD itself).

It has 12 project based lessons, one for each chapter. At the end of each chapter, a list of questions are included. The chapters include: Exploring the Aperture Workflow, Evaluating Images, Organizing Your Project, Basic Edits, Working with Raw Images, Correcting Tone, Correcting Color, Repairing and Enhancing Your Images, Delivering Images for Client Review, Delivering Final Images, Showcasing and Promoting Your Work, and Aperture Automation. The authors also include two appendices: Advanced Media Management for Professionals, and Aperture and iPhoto Integration.

The content of the book adequately covers the basic functionality of Aperture 2, but I was disappointed for the following reasons:

* Some of the writing is not clear. I found myself having to read a step several times before understanding what the authors were trying to convey, and the book's layout didn't aid me.
* The writing style is too dry for my taste, and thus, I became bored quickly.
* The authors' tips leave little to be desired. Instead of "expert insider tips", most of the tips were fairly basic. Some, I could not even classify as a tip, e.g., "...click the Options & Prices button to view the latest pricing from Apple.com..."

I also was disappointed with the layout of this book. The layout makes it cumbersome for the reader to quickly absorb the information. Maybe this layout is typical of the "Apple Pro Training Series" books; if this is the case, the publisher should make it more palatable to users. Here are some examples of layout issues that really bothered me.

* Some of the critical steps do not offer a picture, which sometimes makes it so difficult to follow.
* Some of the pictures included just show the buttons or a portion of the screen being referenced in the step, and not where exactly the button is, forcing me to waste time, hunting around the screen to find these elusive buttons. I want to see the entire Aperture 2 screen first, with the button or function circled, and then a close-up of the circled item itself.
* I would much prefer a three column page layout for step-by-step instructions (a column for pictures, steps and tips).
* Only the chapter name is included in the header of the page, not the chapter number, which forces me to have to go back to the Table of Contents to find what I need. The chapter number and subchapter title should be included on each page.
* There are tips from the authors, but they do not stand out on the page (perhaps it doesn't matter anyways, since the tips are not very interesting to read).

Summary:

This book is targeted for taking the Aperture certification course, rather than being a good reference book. It provides a basic view of Aperture functions, but it does not really provide much in the way expert tips in using Aperture 2. I do open it, as needed, since it's the only Aperture 2 book on my shelf, but each time, I cringe because the writing style is a typical dry textbook style, and the layout leaves little to be desired, in my opinion. It is, however, better than simply relying on the little "Exploring Aperture Guide" that accompanied the Aperture 2 software.

For very beginning Aperture 2 users, this book may be somewhat useful. For savvier users, consider another book.

My thoughts:

Ease of use: Dry reading that is sometimes hard to follow. Content not well laid out.

Audience: Very beginning Aperture 2 users

Cost: Reasonable

This book and accompanying CD provide an excellent, hands-on tutorial for anyone using Aperture to process digital images. Both the professional and amateur photographer will find it beneficial. I not only learned how to add impact to my photos, I learned how to take better photos as well. The lessons are easy to follow and readers can pace the instruction to their level of experience. For those using PhotoShop, the book also address editing with PhotoShop while working in Aperture.

This is an excellent instruction book for Aperture 2.
The book is thorough and well written. I use this program
daily and have learned a great deal.

if you're trying to teach yourself [ like me ] and hit a snag -like not being able to drag & drop keywords - then the learning is over [ page 92 for me ]. there is no way to contact ben long or the other authors. now, this expensive book gathers dust. a little support goes a long way for a joe snap like me.

This is an excellent value for the money. It takes you step by step through the process of working with aperture 2. THe DVD that comes with this book is invaluable in learning how to use this program to its limits. It is excellent from beginner to advance user. One of the better books in Apples Pro Training series.

If you own and mac and if you want to master Aperture 2...this book is for you.

The content of the book is completely up to date and it teaches you the marvelous wonders of Aperture....this is the future of photography. shoot in RAW mode, edit, and put it out there.

I love this book - although I have to say my review is in its infancy. I have just started learning Aperture and reading this book. Watch for more information in the future.... I just wanted to get something in so that you would at-least consider getting this book.

I dont know the author nor have I read any other books on Aperture...so this may be somewhat of a one handed bias opinion type thing...

My 2 Cents...

This is a great learning tool to learn Aperture, it takes you step by step

I found this book to be very helpful . It`s a tough read if you are using aperture for the first time . I really don`t know if they could of made it any easer . but over all I really enjoyed and constantly use it as a reference when needed . Tom Lavery

The book is really a hands-on workbook - you get a disc with sample files (annoyingly compressed, and not simply available through the finder), and are guided through different activities in Aperture, from importing and sorting, rating, through various basic image adjustments, to getting your images out of Aperture as prints, books and web pages. The book covers all major features of the application, and includes a few basic examples of how to use it in conjunction with other Apple software apps (Keynote, Pages, iWeb, etc.), including basic Automator actions.

Step-by-step instructions are very good, and are clearly written. The book is functionally, and logically organized. There is a benefit to using the images provided on disc, since it is easy to confirm that the visual outcome of various actions is the same as in the book. The lessons are, however, very (and I mean VERY) basic, despite the book's back cover rating as "Level: Intermediate."

For people who have NO previous experience with ANY image editing or photo-workflow software, this will be a good first step-by-step intro. But for those who have used the previous version of Aperture, intermediate / advanced users of iPhoto, and even very inexperienced users of Photoshop CS3/ACR or Lightroom (which would likely include most advanced amateurs and pro-photographers), this book will be too basic, in all respects.

I do NOT mind at all the fact that this book has introductory information. This would be a good thing. What I DO mind (and hence my lowered, 3-star rating) is, that despite it being pitched as "intermediate" Apple-certification guide, for those who are above the absolute entry-level skill set, it offers very little practical, usable info.

Often, the "explanations" offered are simple tautologies (i.e., things like: to sort, click on sort button, and to darken, click on darken button, etc.). This is particularly visible in weak and too general "explanations" given for some of the image adjustments controls. If you were wondering, for example, when to adjust Exposure, and when to adjust the Brightness control slider instead, you will find no satisfactory info to clarify the issue here - you will learn that "in the exposure area of the adjustments inspector, drag the exposure slider to the right to increase the exposure of the image" (p 215; duh!) and "Exposure adjustment controls [...] allow you to set the exposure (duh! again), black point, and brightness values in your images"; later you'll learn that "Aperture offers the Brigntess parameter when you want to lighten or darken the image." (p 223; yet another duh!). So what is the difference between the Exposure slider and the Brightness slider, you might wonder? Apparently both do the same thing (actually, they don't - but you'll never know the difference based on this book's info. or find any practical advice on when to use which one). More, similar examples could be found, and they are numerous. The authors insist on explaining in detail what is simple, and often quite obvious, yet frequently leave what is unclear, more complex, or not-so-obvious, unexplained.

I will take issue with another reviewer who found this book's design "beautiful" - the quality of color print is OK here - functional, and perfectly serviceable as illustration of processes and software features, but nothing to write home about. At times, the images are too small, and print quality (rather dark)) not good enough to make more subtle image adjustments visually obvious. If you want a beautiful (although not necessarily useful) software book with attractive graphics, compare this with "Photoshop Lightroom Adventure: Mastering Adobe's next-generation tool for digital photographers" - and it will not be a favorable comparison. Alas, there is no "Aperture 2 Adventure" equivalent. Too bad.

I found the book's design to be rather annoyingly "loose": there are pages when small images (all placed inline, with no text wrap on the left or right side on any pages) with 2.5-3 inch margins, leave an awful amount of blank, awkwardly empty space on numerous pages. E.g., p. 66, has just two, small images and a total of about 60 words on the page (yes, I actually counted them on p. 66 which is quite typical of the book's design). I can think of many, by far more efficient, not to mention attractive, book designs (think: Pogue's Missing Manuals series); this one-column, inline-images-only design looks like it was done on MS Word (although I am sure it was NOT), and seems padded. My guess is, with more effective design, it should have easily been been a 250-page book; at almost double that, it's just wasteful.

This book has the "Apple Certified" status / label. Depending on how you look at it, it may be a good thing, or a bad thing. On the plus side, it is confirmed to be accurate, and it is the required reading for level-one Apple certification; on the other hand, the authors have to carefully toe the Apple party line. You will not find here mentions of bugs, the software's shortcomings, and their possible workarounds (if available), or mentions of competing products that may address some of the shortcomings better. The software is always lavishly praised (it's "revolutionary"), and its deficiencies are gently "de-emphasized," i.e., presented so as to be less noticeable. For example, when discussing Apple's (quite functionally limiting) plug-in architecture, authors say "Aperture also supports an open plug-in architecture, for using specialized third-party software." (306) What they omit here, is that the plug-ins are NOT non-destructive editing processes, and only work by virtue of creating a "baked" copy of the image; the changes made with plug-ins, once confirmed (OK'd and rendered) cannot be undone (other than by deleting the image copy). Technically, the authors mention that fact, but only several pages later (312-13), and without making it clear that this restriction applies to ALL plug-ins, not just the one used as an example.

IN SUMMARY: For complete beginners, this book is a good, clear entry-point to Aperture 2 - probably the best and most comprehensive one on the market at this point (June 2008); for anyone even slightly above the beginning level, other than a very basic (although admittedly comprehensive) review, there is little more to discover here; for those intermediate and advanced users, I would highly recommend trying the 1.25 hour video "Aperture 2: New Features" instead; it's available on lynda.com, where you can get a free trial and watch the whole series, also including several hours of still-useful tutorials on Aperture's previous version (also available as ridiculously overpriced book/disc sets: Aperture 1.1 Essential Training and Aperture 1.5 Beyond the Basics)

This book comes with a DVD with media files to load to a Mac and then follows step by step on hands learning for work flow within Aperture 2.
The book starts with the basics in a Getting Started chapter outlines system requirements, setting up the environment and system preferences, calibrating display while explaining methodology and course structure, as well as outlines chapters that are for importing and organizing, image editing and printing.
I believe it would be quite useful to anyone new or casually familiar and yet serious about using Aperture 2.

I just got into this book today and loved the layout and easy to understand directions and lessons. Until I got to the multiple monitor display/calibration part. I was excited about finally finding a clear explanation of the set up of Aperture and Max OS X for multiple displays and color calibration. Color calibration was referenced in the text as in Appendix B. Appendix B has nothing to do with color calibration and and I could not find this subject (one reason I purchased the book) anywhere.

I had to register with PeachPit Press in order to see if there were any updates or "bonus" materials. I spent half an hour surfing around their website, only to be presented with screen after screen of pimping more of their products. What a scam. One Star for PeachPit, 4 Stars for the authors.

As an Apple Certified Aperture trainer, and well-traveled Aperture instructor, I had high hopes and expectations for this book. And Rich, Ben and Orlando didn't disappoint me.

This is the book that trainers train from and it is much better organized than the original Aperture 1 book. The logical flow from section to section more clearly mirrors the real-world approach one should take when using Aperture to organize a photo library.

The exercises are clearly written and they make sense. There's no mindless repetition and the authors cover all the areas of the program that most photographers would need to know.

You can't ask for anything more than good information, cogently presented, in an easy-to-read and understand manner. The Aperture 2 Pro Training Book delivers on all of this and more. Highly recommended.

I'll write a more detailed review once I've gotten a chance to actually use the book. But I wanted to tell people that this book is beautiful. So many times I've had the unpleasant surprise of buying a computer book, only to find that the entire thing is _black and white_. :-(

But this book has beautiful color pages with pictures. It's the way a computer training book should look like. Indeed, the book is so nice that I'm now excited to use it (before, I was kind of dreading it). Looks very accessible and easy to follow.