Aperture and Automation

Since its debut, Aperture has included powerful automation tools, such as built-in Automator support, and an AppleScript implementation that has expanded with each release.

The following solutions and tutorials demonstrate the power of AppleScript and Aperture to address the automation needs of the professional photographer:


Publish for Approval

Finally, a no-hassle, easy way to for customers to approve images remotely over the internet. With a single button-click, you can web-publish selected Aperture images and know exactly which ones the customer wants to use — with their choices automatically displayed for you in Aperture!

Aperture-InDesign Integration

Enhanced AppleScript support in Aperture 2.0.1 combines with Mac OS X functionality to provide a new level of interactivity with page-layout applications such as Adobe InDesign CS3. For the first time, Aperture preview images can be easily placed into another application's document while maintaining direct links to the related master images in the Aperture library. Placed previews can be updated as needed and even replaced with high-resolution exports in preparation for offset or direct-to-plate printing.

Aperture Caption Palette

The Aperture Caption Palette is a resizable window that floats over the full-screen display of your selected images, allowing instant access and input to both the displayed image's caption and ratings data. Simply select the images to process, launch the Caption Palette application and you're ready to breeze through the process of adding essential metadata to images. In addition, the Caption Palette has been designed to work directly with MacSpeech Dictate to navigate and rate using voice commands, and to accept captions spoken by you!

Aperture PDF Workflows

Aperture 2.1 adds support for the PDF Services menu in the Print dialog. You can now print images and books to a PDF file and have the results processed by Automator/AppleScript workflows installed in the PDF Services folder in your Library folder. Download an installer.