Aperture Special Report: Methods for doing RAW conversion in ACR

CNET staff

Sept. 2, 2009 8:40 a.m. PT

3 min read

Perhaps the most lamented issue with Aperture 1.0 is an inability to convert RAW files from the camera with another application (such as the Adobe Camera RAW component of Adobe Photoshop) while still using Aperture's organization capabilities.

Several users have reported lackluster results from Aperture's RAW conversion engine, dependent on which camera model is being used. As such, some users desire to convert the RAW images with another tool, but Aperture does not allow this, only allowing export to other editors in TIFF or PSD formats.

A poster to Apple's Discussion Boards, tc has discovered an admittedly awkward way of getting access to the original RAW for editing in another application:

Choose your image and select "Open with External Editor".
When the image opens in the editor you've chosen CMD click on the document title in the window, where you would see DSC1234.TIFF for example. This shows you the path of this version created by Aperture.
Select the enclosing folder, in my example it would be DSC1234 1. This will open the folder in the Finder.
As you can see in the folder name, DSC1234 1, Aperture adds extra numbers to put the versions edited by external apps into a different folder from the original file. In the finder if you are in column view you should be able to see that the folder containing your original file, in this example the file DSC1234.NEF is in the folder DSC1234 which is right above the folder you just opened DSC1234 1.
Drag the original file, in this case DSC1234.NEF onto the dock icon of your editing app to open it.
You will now have the original and the tiff version open in your external editor. Close the tiff version and then make whatever changes you need to the original image.
When you've finished editing you can then export a tiff version of the image to overwrite the one which aperture created for the external editor to use. (In the directory DSC1234 1)
When you go back into aperture it will show you the version of the tiff you created as a version of your original file.

Apple Discussions poster Ian Wood has developed a more effective process, as follows:

"First, set up a hot folder that will automatically open files in Photoshop. Then make sure that Photoshop is set up as the external editor using PSD, and that the preferences in Photoshop are set to 'maximum compatibility' for PSD files.

"Then, whenever you have an image that you want to convert in ACR:

Select the image, export master (Apple-Shift-S) to the hot folder.
The image will automatically be launched in ACR and you can make your conversion with full control.
Swap back to Aperture and 'Open in external editor' (Apple-Shift-O). This will make a 16-bit conversion of the RAW file, automatically linked with the original, and open it in Photoshop.
Copy your ACR conversion into the new 16-bit file from Aperture.
Flatten, reduce to 8-bit if required, add any layers that you want, including text layers. Save, close both files.

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