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Aperture’s feature set is a unique ‘1 stop shop’ for image acquisition, processing, output and storage. This tidal wave of features is both empowering and daunting– some great features aren’t as obvious as others.

I’ll cover two of those features today, Metadata Views, and Metadata Presets. Ellen Anon covered the step by step over at the Inside Aperture Blog, so I’ll be sticking to an overview– and an explanation of why views and presets are important features to understand and use.

First off, Metadata Views are all about viewing metadata, whereas Metadata Presets are all about entering metadata.

(Take a minute and re-read that last sentence–Apple does a poor job of seperating the two, and that can make it a bit confusing. Don’t get scared, this stuff is crazy easy and crazy useful. Remember, viewing data vs. entering data )

I. Metadata Views filter in what’s relevant to you at the time, and prevent information overload by filtering out the rest. Aperture ships with a bunch of metadata views as you can see here (choose Window>Show Metadata if you don’t see the metadata side panel):

Each view displays some relevant group metadata and filters out the rest. Each preset shows you a different slice of the metadata for a given image.

Aperture’s built in Metadata views are a great starting point– and it’s easy to make a copy of one of the built in views, and then add whatever else you need by clicking the buttons (Keywords, EXIF, IPTC, Other) at the bottom of the screen, and checking the box next to the fields you want shown. You can save your custom view using the action pull-down menu (the one that looks like a cog).

So, see what you want, hide what you don’t. Moving on…

II. Metadata presets allow you to fill in some information as a preset that you can rubber stamp onto your images. The beauty is that when a tool makes something easy you’re more likely to use it.

To create a preset, you simply enter in some custom metadata and then click save as preset. That’s it! then any time you want to add that metadata to an image.

You don’t have to type the same thing over and over again for each image you import– just select append or replace with preset, and BAM! your preset info is entered for you.

Metadata Presets help ensure that you enter the bare minimum metadata into your images: your name, contact info, and copyright info. This stuff is easy, and important.

I’ll get into some workflow related stuff next time out.

*Metadata views can be helpful for data entry as well– a well crafted ‘data entry’ view will prevent you from getting bogged down in useless info, make good use of your limited screen space when importing, and make it easier to see what info needs entering.