Aperture: How to search by "sharpness"?

[ipedro]

I'm looking to delete 50% of my 40,000 + library of photos and I know that a large portion of those photos are low quality for quick consumption and can be discarded.

I've been sorting manually through photos and I find that my tendency is to delete photos that aren't perfectly sharp (with some exceptions).

I see that it's possible to search photos by sharpness but I don't know what to put in the value field.

I looked at the EXIF data of my photos and I don't see a Sharpness field. Most of my photos were shot on a D200 and D300.

What values do I use to search my library by sharpness?

 

[Kronie]

I'm sorry but this has to be the silliest thing I have ever heard.....

....is this photo sharp or soft?

 

[ipedro]

I know... I came to that realization real fast

Nonetheless, the search option is there.

What does it do? Look at the overall sharpness of the photo? Use the rule of thirds to determine if the photo is sharp is certain areas? Determine an overall sharpness of the photo discriminating between photos with wide or narrow apertures?

Aperture does have the ability to identify faces. It's theoretically possible to have Aperture look for faces and determine if they're in focus. The option isn't in the UI as far as I know but would be very useful for sorting photos into potential selects and trash.

 

[ipedro]

(duplicate)

 

[bocomo]

it's in the EXIF data, so i probably refers to the setting for sharpening applied to each image in the camera

 

[gødspeed]

it's in the EXIF data, so i probably refers to the setting for sharpening applied to each image in the camera

this (only not probably, but definitely).

EXIF doesn't analyze an image and calculate relative sharpness or anything like that. Sharpness in EXIF would refer to a picture style setting.

 

[ipedro]

Makes sense. Thanks guys.

That said, one Pro use for the Faces feature would be leveraging it for what I described above. It would be great to take for example a set of 100 images and let Aperture show you the ones with the best focus on the eyes. Aperture can analyze faces and find the eyes. It can also find soft areas in a photo and auto-sharpen them. Combine the two and you've got a really powerful productivity/sorting tool for professionals.

Now back to my daunting task of reviewing 40,000 photos (almost 6,000 are gone phew)

 

[Doylem]

Aperture can analyze faces and find the eyes. It can also find soft areas in a photo and auto-sharpen them. Combine the two and you've got a really powerful productivity/sorting tool for professionals.

I'm not sure about that. I don't let my camera make decisions about exposure... and I don't want any software to decide which pix to keep and which to throw away. The professional approach, IMO, is to stay away from 'auto'-anything...

 

[ipedro]

I wasn't suggesting that Aperture delete anything. Just like you sort your photos by date/time taken or by any other EXIF data, you could sort allow Aperture to sort photos by sharpness. Once sorted, it makes your job of finding a select a whole lot quicker.

 

[HBOC]

what i do BEFORE importing photos to Aperture from a CF card, is i will open up all the images (CR2) in Photoshop (Camera RAW?) and will look at them quickly. Anything that is no good, I will delete.

I will then import them into A3. But that is just a personal preference.