When I create stacks mixing video clips with jpgs using Auto-Stack, it doesn’t seem to follow any kind of pattern as to which file it uses for the top of the stack. On some it’s the video, on others it’s the jpg. I’ve tried messing with filenames and time stamps on import to get it to recognize one or the other, but haven’t been able to isolate it. Any ideas?
Rob,
Auto-stack picks the earliest image to be the stack pick. If you have photos (or videos) taken at, let’s say, 12:00:00, 12:00:10 and 12:00:15 and choose a 5 second stack, the :10 and :15 will be stacked and the :10 should be the top of the stack.
It shouldn’t matter if it’s video or still. I just tried this in my iPhone project (which has loads of both), and it seemed to behave as described above.
Is that not what you’re seeing?
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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Prior to 3.0.2, I had issues with Auto Stack not performing as you stated. I just tried it again, and now it is working correctly. I had renamed the Canon 5dMk2 .thm files to be .jpg files and imported them with the video. In some cases they had the exact same creation time as the video files, where others were a few seconds earlier. I have a screen shot that you can view here (it’s the last image in the post) clearly showing that some of the image files were moved to the top position and others weren’t while using the Auto-stack feature.
Anyways - it seems to be working correctly now with the 3.0.2 upgrade using the exact same files. Thanks for responding!
Rob,
Glad it’s working now. I had seen that you could rename the .thm to .jpg files to view their metadata, but importing and stacking is very clever. Bravo!
@PhotoJoseph
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Thanks Joseph. Unfortunately the thm file is created earlier, so it becomes the top image in the stack, which stinks when you want to export. Couldn’t find a way to promote multiple .mov files at once or a way to reverse the Auto-Stack order (that would make a nice checkbox in the Auto-Stack HUD or preference), so it seems you’d have to manually promote them. This is a little easier now that they are all stacked the same with 3.0.2.
BTW - The image I referenced in my reply is now the next-to-last image in the post - I updated it with this new behavior.
Thanks again for you responses! When anyone asks me about Aperture websites, your’s is always the first one I mention. Looking forward to more great info!
Rob,
Thank you… I certainly appreciate that support!
And here’s another tip that should solve the problem above :-)
Aperture has a feature to time shift files, under Metadata > Adjust Date and Time…. It’s there to correct for incorrect camera settings, but you should be able to use it to your advantage here.
Do a search for all .jpg files in the album (the formerly .thm files). Select them all, then open the Adjust Date and Time… menu. Shift them all one second forward (that should be enough). You’ll see there that you can even update the EXIF data in the Master file if you like; probably unnecessary for your needs.
Then do the Auto Stack.
I’d wager that’ll put the video files first.
Let me know!
@PhotoJoseph
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