From the 2008 programme
In our session on raw files we'll separate fact from the fiction and explain in easy-to-understand terms why you'll want to take advantage of a raw workflow, we'll discuss the problems with the current state of raw and we'll talk about the future of high-resolution images.
Next we'll discuss Aperture's powerful file management systems and you'll learn how to store your images anywhere and keep working on them. Then we move onto importing, keywording and adding metadata. A few minutes spent properly adding information to your images can save you countless hours down the road, and you'll learn how to add tags and rate your images in the most efficient way possible.
What it still teaches
Aperture's central idea was the library: one database holding every image, its versions and its metadata. Files could live inside the library ("managed") or stay where they were on disk ("referenced"). That is what the course meant by storing images anywhere and still working on them.
Every serious photo application since has followed the same model. Lightroom Classic and Capture One both work from a catalog that points at files, and both offered importers for Aperture libraries once Apple stopped development. The part of the session that matters most is the part about metadata. A keyword added at import costs seconds. Finding an unlabeled frame three years later costs an afternoon.
The argument for raw has been won; phones shoot it now. What hasn't gone away is the "current state of raw" problem the programme mentioned. Camera makers' formats are still proprietary, so an archive of raw files depends on software that can still read them. Some photographers convert to DNG for that reason, and others keep the originals and trust the big editors to support old cameras. Either way it is a decision worth making on purpose.
An import routine that has aged well
- Rename on the way in, date first, so files sort themselves.
- Add who, where and the job name as keywords before culling starts.
- Copy the card to a second drive before formatting it. The archiving session comes at the end of the day, but the first backup happens here.