Automator and Aperture - A Simple Workflow
Automator provides a graphical interface with which to define complex workflows that use either Mac OS X actions (such as Core Image or Core Video) or application actions (such as Finder or Aperture). Automator allows you to develop workflows that span applications, where performing the same functions manually would require you to work with each application.
Automated is bundled with Mac OS X and has been updated in Leopard. The screenshot below shows a typical Automator workflow, and is the workflow that is built as part of this article.
Note that this article is equally applicable to iPhoto, and Automator also includes a number of actions for iPhoto. The Mac OS X workflow actions are installed as part of the Mac OS X installation, where the application workflow actions are installed as part of the application installation. I was particularly impressed with the number of actions added by Microsoft Office 2008, across the Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage applications. It seems that not all third-parties bundle actions with their applications, so it is good of Microsoft to provide such comprehensive support.
This article will guide you through a fairly basic workflow example, that will create a PDF contact sheet from a selected Aperture project. I have tried to demonstrate the core features of Automator, and provide a good starting point for you to explore further.
Automator can be used to streamline complex imaging workflows, automating the import, backup and export workflows associated with digital photography.
Automator Layout
When you first start Automator, you are presented with a set of workflow starting points (or helpers). I think one of the best ways to learn a new application is to actually use it, so I recommend choosing the Custom workflow option.
The application is divided into 3 main panes.
- The left pane provides a number of logical groupings for workflow actions, such as Documents, Movies and Music. We will be more interested in the Photos group. Also included are groups for the Most Relevant, Most Used and Recently Added actions.
- The middle pane provides the list (alphabetical) of actions associated with the selected group.
- The right pane displays the workflow itself.
To create a workflow, you simply drag actions from the middle pane onto the workflow pane. You can position the new action either before or after an existing action, connecting the actions together to form a linear flow. It is not possible to form complex branching workflows; however, I have never found a situations that has required such a complex workflow. Data flows between the actions, with each action having defined inputs and outputs.
Example Workflow
For this example, I will be exporting some photos from an Aperture project and then creating a PDF contact sheet document. This is a simple workflow example that shows a number of different actions and how data is passed between them.
To start the workflow, we will need to choose an Aperture project. Select the ‘Photos’ group and drag the ‘Choose Projects’ action to the workflow pane. This will generate a new action in the workflow, showing a list of available Aperture projects. The Results tab will open the results window, showing the results of the action when it is run. The Options tab shows any available options for the action, and the Description tab provides a summary of the action and its inputs and outputs. The same description is also displayed at the bottom of the main window when an action is selected.
I have selected the ‘Tile Shift Test’ project, images used when writing my previous article on Tilt Shift images with Photoshop.
To generate a PDF document, we will drag the ‘New PDF Contact Sheet’ action to the workflow. This action allows us to enter a filename for the contact sheet, its location and format. I have selected A4 paper and 4 columns as an example.
If we were to now run the Workflow using the ‘Run’ bottom from the toolbar, both actions would complete with a success (a green tick in the action status-bar) and a beep will sound. However, if you look at the Automator status bar it will indicate that the workflow has completed with a warning. To see the warnings you will need to open the log window that is closed by default. If you select ‘View -> Log’, the log window will be displayed below the workflow. The log will show that the New PDF Contact Sheet action was not supplied with the required input data. Looking at the description of the action, it shows that it requires image files as input. However, the Choose Projects action only outputs an Aperture Project. We obviously need a way of extracting the images from the project and passing them to the PDF action.
Drag the ‘Get Selected Images’ to the workflow pane and position it between the existing workflows. You will now see the Choose Projects and the Get Selected Images actions connected with an arrow, showing that data will flow between the actions.
Note that no arrow is present between Get Selected Images and New PDF Contact Sheet. This does not look so good, but lets run the workflow anyway. After the workflow is run, we see the extra success message from the new action in the log, but we still get the same error regarding the input to the PDF action.
What is missing is a way to pass the images into the PDF Contact List action. The issue is that RAW images have been selected from the Aperture project, but the creation of the PDF does not support RAW images. To overcome this, we will export the images from Aperture and pass them to the PDF action. Drag the ‘Export Versions’ action to between the Get Selected Images and New PDF Contact Sheet actions. This will now connect the actions up, showing arrows between all workflow actions. This actions allow you to adjust the size of the exported images using the set of Aperture presets. I have chosen to export the images to the desktop, with a folder being created to match the project name.
Running the workflow will now take longer due to the export of the JPEG images and the successful creation of the PDF document.
The Log window will show the execution of the workflow as it is running, showing the duration time for each action. As can be seen the export too 76 seconds and the PDF creation 13 seconds. Now there is a reason to upgrade to a Mac Pro!
The final output PDF document looks as follows, showing the 4 columns that was selected in the action.
The workflow could easily be extended further by adding a ‘New Mail Message’ action to automatically send the contact sheet to a contact or contact list.
I hope that this simple workflow has shown you to potential and flexibility of Automator. For managing your digital photography workflow, Automator can help with repetitive tasks that span multiple applications. Both iPhoto and Aperture include a comprehensive set of actions, allowing you to build complex workflows to help automate your daily tasks.
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