Apple Aperture 2 - Manual (Page 197)

Chapter 6 Displaying Images in the Viewer 197
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Controlling Preview Images
You can control the creation and maintenance of preview images for an entire library,
as well as on a project-by-project or image-by-image basis.
Aperture is preset to create previews for images in the library. Previews are built as a
background activity after importing images. If you import a large number of images, it
may take an extended time to build these previews. In that case, you may wish to
temporarily stop the building of previews using the Activity window and then resume
building the previews later. Or, you can deselect the “Create previews for existing
images“ checkbox and build previews on a project-by-project basis, as discussed in
“
Sample Workflows for Using Previews Effectively ” on page 202.
Setting Preview Preferences
Aperture provides four preference settings for controlling previews. These settings
apply to all libraries.
To open Aperture preferences:
m Choose Aperture > Preferences, then click Previews.
The Previews pane appears.
 New projects automatically generate previews: Selecting this checkbox tells Aperture
to automatically build and maintain previews for new projects you create in the
current library (and, by extension, in new libraries). This checkbox sets the Maintain
Previews for Project setting (discussed below) for each new project as it is created.
 Use embedded JPEG from camera when possible: Selecting this checkbox tells
Aperture to use the JPEG thumbnail produced by the camera, if available.
 Share previews with iLife and iWork: Selecting this checkbox tells Aperture to create a
file, in XML format, that the iLife and iWork media browsers (and Mac OS X screen
saver) use to access the Aperture library. If this checkbox is deselected, Aperture will
not create this file for any of your libraries, and the media browsers and the screen
saver cannot see your Aperture libraries. The XML file is updated whenever Aperture
quits or is no longer the active application. For very large libraries, the XML file can
take some time to update. In this case, if you are not sharing your previews with
other applications (other than through dragging and dropping), you may decide to
deselect this checkbox.