If you’re an Aperture 2.0 users, you no doubt know that you can create custom books within the application. You’re not stuck with the pre-designed albums that Apple offers, though those templates are great.
This article won’t go into how to set up a custom book in Aperture. There are other articles and resources already published about that. Aperture User Network has good introduction that you can read here.
In this article I’m just going to provide a few useful tips for doing layouts.
1. First off, if you create a custom album but you want to later delete it from your list of templates, go to Home>Library>Application Support>Aperture>Book Themes. All the book themes you’ve created will be there. You can delete or add custom themes to that folder.
Layout Panel Tips
2. Sometimes it’s not cool to include the page numbers on your album pages. So you can make them disappear by clicking on the Book Actions button of the Layout Panel and select Page Numbers> Off.
4. I completed a couple of books before I realized that I could save a template and reuse it. Simply right-click on the page layout in the Layout Panel and select Save Page>To Document Master.
After you save it, you can reuse it by right-clicking on a new page layout and selecting your custom layout. This is a great time saver.
The only draw back is that these custom layouts won’t show up in new book projects, so you have to duplicate the book in which you created the custom layout so that you can reuse it in a new project.
5. Thin border: You can create a border around the photos put into a layout. Click on the Book Actions button and select Show Layout Options. Select the image in which you want to add a border. In the area where it says Photo Border, click on the arrows to create the thickness of the border. If you want thiner size than is offered, type in 0.05 in the little window and click the Enter key on your keyboard.
Also, you can re-click on the selected photo in which you created a border, and select Duplicate. That way you don’t have to type in the number again for a new photo. Unfortunately, you can’t copy a photo from one page and paste it on a new page.
6. Edit photos without leaving your book project. I didn’t realize this at first, but you can simply select an image in your album, click on the Inspector Hud, and then do additional editing and enhancements to your photo. Another great time saver.
