DPC Aperture Users Group - DPChallenge Forums

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

04/26/2011 05:51:00 PM · #26

The basic issue here is that a given image file in Aperture can easily be opened by Every Other Nik Plugin, but SEP2 cannot open it. Â SEP2 will only open the image if a duplicate is created. Â None of the other Nik Plugins have this issue.

A given workflow may not encounter this bug, and for certain images I had not encountered this bug. Â But for example, doing a Dfine noise reduction step is not really worthy of a separate duplicate image, whereas a complicated viveza adjustment is well worth a duplication before other edits.

But this is not really a workflow problem--SEP2 cannot open files that every other Nik plugin is able to open easily, with no duplication required. Â That is odd behavior for the plugin. Â I can create a lot of extra duplicates to work around the issue, so it is not a showstopper. Â But it is danged odd behavior: once another Nik plugin has been used on an image, that file cannot be opened by SEP2 directly. Â It can be opened by any other Nik plugin. Â SEP1 can open it. Â But not SEP2. Â Bug.

Nik has responded that this is a known problem (not a workflow issue)

Nusbaum

Fujifilm X-T1

Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM

04/26/2011 07:03:45 PM · #27

Originally posted by chromeydome:

Nik has responded that this is a known problem (not a workflow issue)

I was about to say "clearly a bug", but it sounds like the developer has already agreed. Nik seems like a pretty good company and I would expect that they will stand by their products.

I'm curious about Aperture handles the use of multiple plug-ins on an image. This is NOT to say anybody's workflow is good or bad, I'm just curious. I've always avoided stepped out into photoshop if I wanted multiple plug-in to be applied because I wasn't sure of Apertures underlying behavior. In general Aperture has to render an image as a TIF and then pass it to the plug-in. Do I have multiple TIFs stacked up if I use multiple filters, or is the last plug-in applied and then the previous TIF discarded?

cpanaioti

Canon EOS-40D

04/26/2011 09:38:23 PM · #28

Every plugin is probably different but here's the behaviour with Photomatix:

Starting from the master choosing edit with plugin creates a new version. If edit with plugin is chosen again but on this newly created version, no new version is created. The plugin is applied directly to the version selected for editing. This means you need to be careful when using Aperture if you want to keep the intermediate steps as separate files.

By applying all plugins in Photoshop you have the luxury of layers.

04/26/2011 09:50:34 PM · #29

Originally posted by cpanaioti:

This reflects my experience with Nik plugins, though some behave differently than others. An imported RAW file that is opened, worked, and saved from the Dfine plugin will create a new version, and opening that version with Raw Presharpen, working, and saving will save into the same image file, not create another. Editing that file with Aperture (brushes, etc) clearly keeps those changes within that file. Subsequently opening the file with ColorEfex, Viveza, etc, working, saving will not (necessarily) create a new file. Subsequent edits of that new file with another Nik plugin will not create a new, separate file. So it is good practice to create duplicates of any file/edit which would be difficult or just annoying to have to repeat from scratch. The denoise of the initial RAW import is not problematic to repeat since, if you are returning to that step, you are really only one step away from the original RAW in any case. You just don't want to denoise, do edits with aperture's brushes and such, then do a viveza edit, not be satisfied, and have to go back and repeat all the aperture brush work. So some strategic duplication is warranted.

04/26/2011 10:53:15 PM · #30

Originally posted by salmiakki:

The Custom presets should be as follows: go to Home folder, Library, Preferences, Nik Software, SEP2, User Presets

Hopefully that will help you find them on your Time Machine.

Found em, got em, restored em! Gotta love Time Machine and

salmiakki (who provided this information many hours earlier than Nik Support :)

04/26/2011 11:51:37 PM · #31

This is a really useful thread! Thanks folks.

04/30/2011 05:20:37 AM · #32

Originally posted by chromeydome:

Nik has responded that this is a known problem (not a workflow issue)

Interesting. My support requests go to Nik Europe and they didn't seem to have come across this before! They suggested it maybe something to do with where I was storing the images. This seemed unlikely to me as all my images are referenced. I'll be interested to see the outcome. I have to say though, I haven't actually had the problem at all today which seems quite odd.

04/30/2011 03:49:37 PM · #33

Originally posted by salmiakki:

Originally posted by chromeydome:
Nik has responded that this is a known problem (not a workflow issue)

Interesting. My support requests go to Nik Europe and they didn't seem to have come across this before! They suggested it maybe something to do with where I was storing the images. This seemed unlikely to me as all my images are referenced. I'll be interested to see the outcome. I have to say though, I haven't actually had the problem at all today which seems quite odd.

There is actually something a bit odd going on with Nik's response here: They were quick to acknowledge the problem, and said that if I changed my Aperture Export Preferences to Tiff instead of psd, that would resolve the problem completely. They said they had not bought the very expensive license to use the psd format from adobe, and their products had never supported the psd format......

So I told them that their products had ALWAYS supported the psd format on my and my friends' machines, that they still do, and that SEP2 still does, too--it just requires a duplicate file to be created if any other Nik Plugin has opened and saved the file first. (And ALL of the other Nik Plugins can open the same file that SEP2 cannot). They shifted from being helpful to legalistic responses:

"None of our plugins offer compatibility with psd format. If you have experienced some of them working on your computer, then you have experienced functionality beyond our compatibility. The file formats that all of our software fully supports are .jpg and .tif." (I added the boldface)

I had some big deadlines this week, so have not had a chance to try out the tiff option, see if it makes a difference or not. And, like you

salmiakki, I find it to be an intermittent problem. I think they may be in some wranglings with adobe, and so they had to become deliberately obtuse when psd was mentioned.

But in the first communication they did immediately acknowledge that it is a known issue, and immediately stated that changing to tiff would fix it. So i interpret it to mean that they know they have a bug in SEP2 with respect to psd files, but for legal reasons they can't fix the bug, since none of their plugins are licensed to use psd. So, since they can't actually fix the bug, they have to apply some legal protectionist language, say to use tiff and that even if any plugins actually work with psd, they don't support that compatibility (and officially pretend that none of the plugins work with psd).

I'll give the tiff thing a try when I get some free time--not sure of other potential ramifications to using 16 bit tiff vs. 16 bit psd. Both are lossless types. But not sure about compatibility with other software tools.

Message edited by author 2011-04-30 15:51:55.

Nusbaum

Fujifilm X-T1

Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM

04/30/2011 04:29:18 PM · #34

Originally posted by chromeydome:

I'll give the tiff thing a try when I get some free time--not sure of other potential ramifications to using 16 bit tiff vs. 16 bit psd. Both are lossless types. But not sure about compatibility with other software tools.

I actually read an article by one of the Photoshop developers recommending the use of TIFF vs PSD. Evidently when Photoshop was merged into the Creative Suite the uniqueness of the PSD file was lost and it essentially became a TIFF file anyway. I was using TIFF files for a long time, but I ran into some quirky problem with date fields losing timezone information. I don't know if the problem was with CS3 or Aperture, but I switched back to PSD files just to avoid the problem.

One advantage to TIFF would be long term compatibility with non-adobe software.

04/30/2011 04:48:15 PM · #35

OK, that is interesting, I think to be on the safe side I'll double check everything is set to tiff. It is on my new computer, not sure on the laptop.

Thanks for the detailed info, much appreciated.

04/30/2011 05:19:03 PM · #36

Just for quick reference, so folks don't have to hunt for the settings:

Aperture>Preferences and under the Export tab, change the setting to Tiff 16 bit.

Canon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1 L IS USM

05/01/2011 03:36:41 AM · #37

In case anybody has need to have access to some tutorials, I have found this resource to be useful. The guy running them has worked for Apple previously.

//www.apertureexpert.com/

cloudsme

Canon EOS R5

05/01/2011 08:29:59 AM · #38

I have Aperture and PS, I really haven't put much effort into Aperture. I do have a question. Can you do batch processing in Aperture? For example, could you take a group of photos and apply enhance to all of them in some easy manor?

Canon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1 L IS USM

05/01/2011 08:57:39 AM · #39

Originally posted by cloudsme:

Can you do batch processing in Aperture? For example, could you take a group of photos and apply enhance to all of them in some easy manor?

Yes, it's pretty easy in Aperture.

Couple of videos on Apple's website that are quite helpful. You do it using Lift and Stamp.
//www.apple.com/findouthow/photos/aperture.html#stamp

cloudsme

Canon EOS R5

05/01/2011 09:24:45 AM · #40

Originally posted by salmiakki:

Originally posted by cloudsme:
Can you do batch processing in Aperture? For example, could you take a group of photos and apply enhance to all of them in some easy manor?

Yes, it's pretty easy in Aperture.

Couple of videos on Apple's website that are quite helpful. You do it using Lift and Stamp.
//www.apple.com/findouthow/photos/aperture.html#stamp

Thanks, that was helpful. Gonna try it out!

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

05/15/2011 11:21:56 AM · #41

Coming back on this tif vs psd thing and the Nik plugins. Its a real PITA that you can only set it to one or the other. I was doing something today that I needed Photoshop for (it involved a couple of layers) and I noticed that unless you flatten the Tiff file, the image does not reappear in your Aperture library. Meaning, if you then need to go back to PS for any reason you won't have any of the layers you were working with. At least with the psd format the layers are retained, so if you do need to go back to PS for any reason you have the layers available. Anybody found a good workaround to this, or should I just save a psd version in PS and keep that just in case?

cpanaioti

Canon EOS-40D

05/15/2011 12:49:31 PM · #42

tif files can have layers as well but that may depend on the version of photoshop that you have.

Nikon AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR DG IF-ED

05/15/2011 01:02:20 PM · #43

Yes, in PS you can have layers, but if you want the tif you saved to come back into Aperture, then they have to be flattened or they will not show up in your Aperture library. At least this is what I have noticed today and also it was confirmed in the Aperture Expert forum. It's annoying, as Nik won't support psd files and Aperture doesn't handle layered tiffs. Grr.

Message edited by author 2011-05-15 13:05:09.

GuGi

Nikon D750

05/15/2011 01:30:05 PM · #44

I am a Nikonian who recently said goodbye to her last pc and bought a mac. Glad for this discussion, thanks. My photoshop is for pc and I am wondering what to do next.

cpanaioti

Canon EOS-40D

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

05/15/2011 03:51:11 PM · #45

Originally posted by GuGi:

I am a Nikonian who recently said goodbye to her last pc and bought a mac. Glad for this discussion, thanks. My photoshop is for pc and I am wondering what to do next.

Buy the PS version for MAC or buy Parallels (or something like if) to run Windows programs on the MAC. If you're never going to want to use PS on the PC again then Adobe has a way of transferring the license from PC to MAC.

GuGi

Nikon D750

Nikon AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR DG IF-ED

05/15/2011 04:48:32 PM · #46

Thank you!

Originally posted by cpanaioti:

Originally posted by GuGi:
I am a Nikonian who recently said goodbye to her last pc and bought a mac. Glad for this discussion, thanks. My photoshop is for pc and I am wondering what to do next.

Buy the PS version for MAC or buy Parallels (or something like if) to run Windows programs on the MAC. If you're never going to want to use PS on the PC again then Adobe has a way of transferring the license from PC to MAC.

Nusbaum

Fujifilm X-T1

Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM

05/15/2011 06:59:55 PM · #47

Originally posted by salmiakki:

I didn't even realized Aperture used the same export format for the external editor and all of the plug-ins. It really does seem like a plug-in should be able to specify which format it needs. But, I usually launch images in Photoshop and then apply my plug-in there. I figured I'm going to create a new TIFF or PSD as a master file anyway, so I might as well use photoshop so I can create a layer for the plug in and then play with it a bit.

05/15/2011 11:45:59 PM · #48

Originally posted by Nusbaum:

I think that's probably the answer, which is a shame really, as it'd would be nice to use the Nik plugins directly in Aperture. Good suggestion thanks. And I suppose for those who don't use PS, it's a non-issue anyway :)

Message edited by author 2011-05-15 23:47:22.