The now almost unheard of word processor, Wordperfect, used to be the most popular word processor in the planet and one reason for this was it used a very clean screen (no menus) and it had a page preview featuring at most two pages at a time. That may seem like such a forgettable feature now but then, it was quite new since people were still using Wordstar and its very messy screen with all the codes shown on it. It’s distracting really to have all sorts of menu items surrounding your photos and that’s why programs like Photoshop have incorporated a viewing mode allowing a user to do away with everything that’s not the photo. This is quite useful and Aperture now has it as well.
We mentioned last week that photographers are actually used to putting their slides (positives instead of negatives) on a light table to look more closely at them. Aperture simulates this experience with the full screen view. Everything is black except the photos when you’re looking at your library. You can rearrange photos and do your usual library stuff when in this mode but things are so much cleaner so you can focus on the photos and not the menus.
Similarly, full screen mode is also there when you want to edit specific individual photos. Nice to have a clean black screen. Honestly? I’m not such a big fan of the gray look on the default editing screen and finding out that there is this other way of doing things is such a great thing.
What’s more is that you can easily toggle what editing stuff you have on the full screen mode. You can have the usual straighten control, red eye, cropping, etc. You can even have the whole shebang that you normally have on the default editing screen – library, metadata, and adjustments but with a nice black finish. Much more elegant, I think.
Typical Apple though to add some visual spice to the mix: When you press the Shift key when you’re moving sliders in this mode, the rest of the adjustment palette (or HUD) disappears leaving just the one slider you’re using. Again, this does a pretty good job of letting you concentrate on the adjustment you’re doing.
Just a little observation: When you shift back to the usual screen and the library, metadata and adjustment heads up display (HUD) was left on, it can stay on though you have the same set of controls on the default screen. If you lock the HUD on the full screen mode, it will fade out when you go to the default screen. If you don’t lock it, that’s when it stays there when you exit. How’s that?
Oh, there’s this nifty toggle switch that allows you to keep some of the controls always available or if you want them to just slide out of the sides when you hover your mouse pointer. It’s always nice to be in control.
