Tweak the Info.plist if required in order to remove or reduce the CPU MHz limit, and then open up /Applications/Aperture.app/Contents/MacOS/Aperture file in 0xED and jump to the offset 0x6f9a80 and change the text in right hand pane from performRequirementsCheck to performLicenceCheck and then add five hex 0x00 in the left hand pane to make the strings equal length.

New version – new offset. Things are getting trickier now as I only have one machine that needs this hack, and that doesn’t have a live network connection which slows down the whole process somewhat.

Having said that, tweak the Info.plist if required in order to remove or reduce the CPU MHz limit, and then open up /Applications/Aperture.app/Contents/MacOS/Aperture file in 0xED and jump to the offset 0x6f7bfc and change the text in right hand pane from performRequirementsCheck to performLicenceCheck and then add five hex 0x00 to make the strings equal length.

Ok, the offset for this latest update is 0x6f4bf0 – see the original Aperture 2 post for full details.

The summary is that you need to hex edit the Aperture.app/Contents/MacOS/Aperture file so that the string that starts at offset 0x6f4bf0 reads performLicenseCheck and is followed by five zero characters (ie: replace all of the text in the original performRequirementsCheck string).

Enjoy.

Photojojo – The Fastest Way to Learn Keyboard Shortcuts for Photoshop, Aperture, FCP, and more: http://photojojo.com/content/buy-this/photoshop-keyboard-skins/

This looks interesting: a fairly reasonably priced set of silicon overlays for various Apple laptops and current keyboards (and, for that matter, more than just Aperture).

The layouts are tailored for US keyboards, so I sent a message via Photojojo’s feedback page asking if they had any plans for a UK layout Aperture skin for the slim Aluminium keyboard. This is the response I received:

“Good point!

If there’s enough demand, we’ll definitely look into getting
international boards!

Amit”

So there you go – if you fancy a nice looking overlay in a non-US format please send them a polite request.

This one isn’t mine: Michal was so quick off the mark I haven’t even downloaded the update yet

this time performLicenseCheck is @ 6F2B0C

Thanks very much for the speedy update !

This is pretty much the same as the original Aperture 2 trial hack, but with a different offset for the binary once it’s been installed. Follow the previous instructions but change the offset for the start of the performRequirementsCheck string to be 6dcd44

Update: 09mar08 Ok, fixed. Not sure when this changed, but each city now has its own registration link.

I had been going to let this pass, but seeing as there’s no change after three days I think it needs to be at least pointed out…

Apple have announced an Aperture World Tour to show off Aperture 2 worldwide. Excellent: they include London, so I’ll click on the Reserve Your Seat link and I’ll book one for myself…

Oh.

Hang on.

Check those dates.

Recheck the locations.

Recheck the reservations list.

Yup – only US cities are listed for reservations: there’s not even a hint that Milan, London, Moscow, Sydney, Hong Kong or Singapore even have events.

Yes, I can understand that the booking for those might be handled in a different fashion: there’s only one in each country so it’s not the same as the US set, but to not even have a list of what non-US users might have to do to get a place is a little rough. Maybe I should just switch to decaf and not take it personally, but it just smacks of the whole World Series attitude which is not what I would have expected of Apple.

Update: 18feb08 My original hack required multiple edits in order to get the program to run, but Michal has found a far better method that just means a single change is required – I’ve reproduced it here from his comments and email so it’s easy to see what to do.

Update: 04mar08 At the request of hydr0, I’ve added screen shots of the application to demonstrate what zero-padding is – click on the image to view the whole application window grab if you require more context.

I’d sort of promised myself that by the time Aperture 2 came out I’d have managed to get a machine that was modern enough to be supported natively and be able to drop this script hackery rubbish… Needless to say, in light of certain other recent events a new Mac isn’t likely in the near future, and besides, if Aperture 2 is faster than 1.5.6 as all the early reviews indicate, maybe I don’t need to upgrade afterall.

Ok, this time I don’t have the original media, just the same trial package as everyone else so there will be two stages to this. The first is to allow the installer to run and ignore the minimum requirement checks – I skipped this last night on my PowerBook and didn’t install any of the helper packages and happily crashed my system when trying to quit the program. Not recommend.

In order to get the program installed on my MDD dual 867MHz G4 I had to fudge the speed test:

1. Download the trial from Apple’s website
2. Open the ApertureTrial.dmg disc image
3. Create a new directory on your hard drive
4. Drag the two items out of the .dmg and onto your local disc
5. Right-click on the ApertureTrial.mpkg file and choose Show Package Contents
6. Open the Contents directory
7. Right-click on the ApertureTrial.dist file and choose Open With and then Other...
8. Choose a text editor such as TextWrangler or TextEdit
9. Scroll down until you find: function installationCheck()
10. Change the next var regexp line to read: var regexp = /Power/;
11. Change the next line to read: if (!checkCPUFrequency(600000000))
12. Find the line below this that reads checkRAMRequirement and change the value inside the brackets if desired
13. Save this file
14. Double click on the ApertureTrial.mpkg icon and the installation should complete. Note you will need the trial licence key emailed to you by Apple

This will change the limit from a 1.25 GHz PowerBook to a 600MHz generic Power machine (ie: any G4 system). Note that you can drop the RAM requirement below 1GB and take the CPU limit down below 600MHz if you desire, but I would really, really question how usable this would make the final program.

After the installation has completed (don’t forget to rename your existing Aperture program – the trial will stop if you haven’t and ask you to do so) you will find that it fails to launch, complaining the the computer doesn’t meet requirements. Now it’s time for the hex editor (0xED.app is my favourite choice here) on the binary, just like before.

Michal’s new version:

1. Open 0xED
2. Choose File -> Open...
3. Navigate to /Applications, then Aperture.app, then Contents, then MacOS, and finally choose the Aperture file and then click on Open
4. Ensure the editor is set to Overwrite mode (Edit -> Write Mode)
5. Enter 6d21b0 into the Offset box and hit Enter
6. Check the ASCII side of things and you should see the string performRequirementsCheck starting under the cursor
7. Replace the string with performLicenseCheck
8. Switch to the hex view, and erase the extra five characters (the Check string) with zeros
9. Save this file
10. Launch Aperture as you normally would

That’s it: no more video card checks or RAM limits to edit.

The data before editing looks like this:

After editing, it should look like this:

This does work, but I have had problems when quitting Aperture: the program does keep all of my changes but often crashes on termination. So far as this evaluation goes, I can live with that but maybe others out there can sort out a clean shutdown ?

Now I haven’t actually got around to trying find these myself: 1.5.4 was working just fine for me and I couldn’t see anything that the 1.5.6 update would give me until I get OS X 10.5 (and that’s not likely until Aperture is properly supported there^[1]) but others have found this information and posted them in the old 1.5.2 and 1.5.4 threads, so I thought it would be helpful to make a more Google friendly URL.

All of the credit for these values goes to Thao Nguyen and Paul (I can verify that only the first of Thao’s values is required for my dual 867MHz MDD as it has a hacked Radeon 9800 and 2GB of RAM so the video check and plist mods aren’t required).

Thao suggests:

0xbf08: 40 9E 00 88 –> 48 00 00 88
0xbfa4: 40 9E 00 88 –> 48 00 00 88
0xc0a4: 40 9E 00 6C –> 48 00 00 64

Paul suggests:

0xbf08: 40 9E 00 88 -> 48 00 00 80
0xbfa4: 40 9E 00 88 -> 48 00 00 80

Of course, having applied the change I now feel that 1.5.6 is faster than 1.5.4, but I can’t say how much of that is down to the usual problem of “newer must be better”…

^[1] Hint, hint, Apple: stop making the Aperture library a 3rd-class citizen compared to iPhoto, and give us the full Time Machine whizziness too please. Feel free to make this part of Aperture 2 (including vignetting), of course !

As with the previous v1.5.3 tweaks, the Info.plist change for CPU speed (and RAM, if your system needs it) was all that was required to enable my ageing 1GHz 12″ PowerBook to run with v1.5.4, but the MDD Dual 867 machine still needed a tweak. The MDD system is now running a supported graphics card (a Radeon 9800, but don’t worry: it was also hacked from the PC variant), so I don’t have any offsets for getting around the video detection code.

Only one edit is required to skip the speed test on the MDD:

0xbfc8: 40 9E 00 88 -> 48 00 00 80

Update 22apr07: Hex offsets for MDD dual 867MHz now available

Ok, things haven’t changed much for machines close to the minimum spec since 1.5.2, so for my 1GHz 12″ PowerBook all I need to edit is the Info.plist file inside the Aperture.app/Contents directory. I changed both the minimum RAM and minimum CPU requirements down to 500MB and 1GHz:

  <key>AELMinimumRAMSize</key>
  <string>500</string>

and:

  <key>RKG4LaptopMinimumCPUSpeedMHz</key>
  <integer>1000</integer>

Edit those entries with either a text editor, or the plist editor that comes with the (free) Developer Tools. Note that I don’t have any hex offsets for video card check bypass, as I no longer have a machine that triggers those checks and therefore have no way of testing any values I may find.

I’ve now found an offset for a G4 MDD dual 867 MHz machine, but do bear in mind that this system has 2GB of RAM and a supported graphics card, so I have not applied the graphics edits kindly provided in the comments. The only change I needed to make after applying the Software Update to 1.5.3 was:

0xb5e8: 40 9E 00 88 -> 48 00 00 80

Update: 15dec06 If you have a PowerBook model with a CPU below 1.25GHz then there’s no need to binary edit this version of Aperture: click on the post title to read the comment from Shane

As with all the 1.5 series, this latest update just needs the one change to the binary to function on a 1GHz 12″ PowerBook. The method is the same as for the Aperture 1.5 and Aperture 1.5.1 changes, but the location has changed:

0xbd38: 40 9E 00 88 -> 48 00 00 80

I’ll also take this opportunity to state that if the values at the above location do not match the values on the left of the arrow do not simply change the values and hope ! Magic hacking fairies or binary gnomes will not come and make the program work for you: double check the version number of the software is correct (all the digits must match) and that you have the correct binary file. Also note that all of my hacks are for PowerPC machines: if you wish to donate an Intel Mac (it is the season, afterall ) then I’m open to offers, but as I understand it all of the Intel systems should ‘just work’ (as of Aperture 1.5).

This single line change will not stop the video card checks taking place: I’ve tried the changes modified from 1.5.1 but this caused the program to simply exit when launched, so it looks like the checking system may have been altered slightly. Anyone with an unsupported card that has 1.5.1 running should certainly make a copy of that working system before running software update.

Not new, but (finally) updated versions of the previous four themes for the new location of the web themes in Aperture 1.5 (and 1.5.1).

This version also has a faster installer that simply assumes the program lives in /Applications, and so the whole thing is over in less time than the .dmg file takes to open

Download the .dmg file

It’s update time, which means hacking the minimum requirements again. More details on how to actually change the numbers are in the Aperture 1.5 post and comments, but this time I only seemed to need one change to the binary:

0xb8e8: 40 9E 00 88 -> 48 00 00 88

and the Info.plist minimum memory requirement had to be adjusted down for me as I only have 768MB on the 12″ PB. I seem to recall that the other entries may have been for unsupported graphics cards, but these appear to have been relaxed somewhat: all I can say for sure is that my 1GHz 12″ PowerBook is happy with just the single binary edit (and I’d not need the Info.plist hack if I just bought a new memory module…)

Update: It does appear from comments that the video card detection does need more edits, so if you don’t have a 12″ 1GHz PowerBook you might want to try:

0x0b8e8: 40 9e 00 88 -> 48 00 00 88
0x0b984: 40 9E 00 88 -> 48 00 00 88
0x17810: 40 9E 00 e0 -> 48 00 00 D8

Aperture seems to have a pretty good set of defaults in the main – it certainly doesn’t get in my way for simple things, but recently I’d been getting upset with the performance of the EOS 350D kit lens (Canon EF-S 18-55mm) where my images just simply looked poorer than I expected. Until recently I’d not been able to use Adobe’s raw convertor, but after a terrible shot of a climbing wall I was really annoyed and on a whim tried the image in PSE3 as well as Aperture.

The difference was night and day: the lens isn’t great, but the image was certainly acceptable and nowhere near as poor as I’d first thought, so I started going through all of the Aperture options in more detail. It turns out that the default 350D raw conversion settings have a chroma blur of 2.00 applied, and whilst this gives a gorgeous blend for the blue tones in the sky, it exacerbates any chromatic aberration that might be present. Take a look at the following 100% crop examples:

Chroma Blur = 2

Chroma Blur = 0

Just in case you couldn’t guess, the first image has a chroma blur of 2, and on the second it has been turned off completely. The yellow hold is now bearable in terms of sharpness considering the lens, and the wall itself has much more edge detail, but looking closely at the sky shows that the lack of blur can be a bad thing too…

For this image, I found that chroma blur of 0.43 gave an acceptable result for viewing on screen, but this is more of a warning that the default settings are not perfect, so do bear this in mind when shooting anything that may contain a high contrast edge. Adding a blur/sharpen slider to the colour editing tool would be a great compromise, but the answer is that region selections would make this problem vanish.

Here’s hoping for an updated colour tool in 1.6, or region selection in 2.0…

I am completely obsessed with the colour tool in the latest point release of Aperture, but it’s got to the point where I’m not sure if I like the results, or clicking the change button on and off and looking at the before and after results… Have a look for yourself and see what you think. The index pages have some description of the images, but looking at the full page views allows a simple before/after click to see the differences.

Oops, busted link fixed

It seems as though the minimum system requirements are still in force in Aperture 1.5, which means that although 1.25GHz PowerBooks are supported, my dual 867GHz MDD isn’t, which is rather odd. Still, the hack for Aperture 1.1 still works on 1.5, but the offsets have (unsurprisingly) moved a little.

Using a hex editor (I found 0xed very useful), try changing the following:

0×0b548: 40 9E 00 88 -> 48 00 00 88
0×0b5e4: 40 9E 00 88 -> 48 00 00 88
0×17390: 40 9E 00 E0 -> 48 00 00 D8

The updated binary has been tested on both an 2GB MDD 867GHz PowerMac and also a 768MB 1GHz 12″ PowerBook, but note that the Info.plist file might still need tweaking to remove the minimum RAM check.

Enjoy !

Being a total Aperture convert, I’ve been amusing (?) myself over the summer trying to get 18,000 or so photos into something like a useable state, but being scattered over 4 hard drives and two computers (with no one drive having enough space for them all, of course) has been an exercise in watching progress bars moving GB of data around.

As part of all this I’m correctly tagging, naming and rating images as I get a logical group together, and many images that look good on camera, and occasionally on screen just don’t hold up in terms of sharpness when examined at 1:1, so they’re being classed as Rejects from within Aperture, meaning they effectively vanish from all normal views of my photos. They’re not gone however, and can be viewed in context with the originals or in a group that just contains all the other underachievers, which some have advocated using as an easy target for permanent deletion.

Back when I shot slide film I would indeed chuck away terribly under or over-exposed images (the pack-rat in me refused to let go of all but the most hideously blurred images) but now there is actually a point to having unprintable files lying around: photo books. The more basic books that iPhoto offers don’t appear to have this option, but in Aperture it’s trivial to assign an image to the background and choose to have it colour washed, or converted to black and white in order to use it as a background for the real images. To work as a background, the image obviously needs to be less attention grabbing than the foreground (hence the ability to apply a wash) but focus is also another useful tool, so rather than deliberately blurring a decent image why not have a look through the Rejects and see if there’s one in there that gives the page a lift ?

Of course, it’s not at all required to use an image from that time or place: sufficiently blurred and colour-muted many other images could be used – if an object in the background is a little too pronounced (say a person in an otherwise empty landscape) then simply place the foreground image over the top of the object. Re-invent the original background in a totally different way, and have the satisfaction of making a terrible photo actually add something to a project.

Update 07nov06: Note that the download here is only for Aperture versions up to (and including) 1.1.2 The location of the themes is different for Aperture 1.5, so view the updated post if you’re using 1.5 or 1.5.1.

Well, more variations than true themes, but if you have Aperture I have add a new Stock theme which has a grey background, and also created versions that have a link to a parent directory in the theme itself so it’s a little easier to get at least a one level deep gallery out of the program.

The four are called:

• Stock Grey
• StockSub
• StockSub Black
• StockSub Grey

(the Sub to show they are used as Subdirectories rather than for the top level)

You can see it in action with a few of my own pictures. For the moment I have resorted to a hand-built top level page, but have a few ideas about how to automate this side of things.

Download the installer.

(Update: a missing / at the start of the download link might have caused problems for some: my apologies if this affected you)

If you are using Aperture and are going through a large collection of older images it’s very nice being able to add IPTC Copyright entries during import. The auto-complete is very handy too, as most of mine have been in a few distinct locations and the saving on typing is very easy to get used to, but I found a problem when I came from adding a load of images from 2005 into 2006: the auto-complete works on an ASCII ascending match rather than most recently used, so by default my Copyright was coming out as ‘Ian Spray, 2005′ which was annoying to correct.

The answer may lie in the menus, but you can also open ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Aperture.plist with the Property List Editor program (it’s a binary plist – convert to and from ASCII and stay on the command line if you wish) it’s trivial to look for the node called iptcProperties.CopyrightNotice.Completions and expand it to show all the values that Aperture uses. Note that simply changing the order (in my case so the index to ‘Ian Spray, 2006′ comes before ‘Ian Spray, 2005′) does not change the lookup behaviour of Aperture, but deleting the 2005 entry sorted things out completely.

(Update: Doh ! Old news: http://www.tow.com/2005/12/16/aperture-and-iview-auto-complete/ but in this case it was faster to find the file myself than Google for a solution)