Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

gryffinwings

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 25, 2012
118
0
So I use my MacBook for photo editing on Aperture 3 (Version 3.2.4), I can't actually upgrade it anymore since newer versions require at least Lion.

Since I have an Early 2008 MacBook, I can't upgrade to Mountain Lion, which sucks but isn't the end of the world.

Now I was wondering if it was worth it to upgrade to Lion to get the updates for Aperture 3. Do the updates my Aperture 3 perform better?

Also I hear a lot of bad reviews about how Lion is pretty slow, so at the moment I'm not sure.

My Early 2008 Macbook 2.1 GHz Intel Core2Duo, currently has the 120 GB Hard drive it came with. I now have 2.5 GBs of RAM now.

What do you guys thing?
 

kevinfulton.ca

macrumors 6502
Aug 29, 2011
284
1
So I use my MacBook for photo editing on Aperture 3 (Version 3.2.4), I can't actually upgrade it anymore since newer versions require at least Lion.

Since I have an Early 2008 MacBook, I can't upgrade to Mountain Lion, which sucks but isn't the end of the world.

Now I was wondering if it was worth it to upgrade to Lion to get the updates for Aperture 3. Do the updates my Aperture 3 perform better?

Also I hear a lot of bad reviews about how Lion is pretty slow, so at the moment I'm not sure.

My Early 2008 Macbook 2.1 GHz Intel Core2Duo, currently has the 120 GB Hard drive it came with. I now have 2.5 GBs of RAM now.

What do you guys thing?

Honestly, unless you absolutely need the Photostream features I wouldn't bother. I've recently switched from Aperture to Lightroom and what a huge difference it has made to my photos and workflow. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with Aperture (in fact there's still some features on it that I prefer), but you will find Lightroom gives you more room to grow as you demands as a photographer grow. Just my two cents.
 

Isamilis

macrumors 68020
Apr 3, 2012
2,020
920
I have iMac 2010 with 4gb RAM, had lion and mountain lion for 6 months, and went back to SL because of performance and kept my Aperture to 3.2.4 - same with you.

So I use my MacBook for photo editing on Aperture 3 (Version 3.2.4), I can't actually upgrade it anymore since newer versions require at least Lion.

Since I have an Early 2008 MacBook, I can't upgrade to Mountain Lion, which sucks but isn't the end of the world.

Now I was wondering if it was worth it to upgrade to Lion to get the updates for Aperture 3. Do the updates my Aperture 3 perform better?

Also I hear a lot of bad reviews about how Lion is pretty slow, so at the moment I'm not sure.

My Early 2008 Macbook 2.1 GHz Intel Core2Duo, currently has the 120 GB Hard drive it came with. I now have 2.5 GBs of RAM now.

What do you guys thing?
 

gryffinwings

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 25, 2012
118
0
Honestly, unless you absolutely need the Photostream features I wouldn't bother. I've recently switched from Aperture to Lightroom and what a huge difference it has made to my photos and workflow. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with Aperture (in fact there's still some features on it that I prefer), but you will find Lightroom gives you more room to grow as you demands as a photographer grow. Just my two cents.

I've used Lightroom 4 and understand what your saying, but for me, I think I'm getting better results with Aperture 3 at the moment.

I was also using Lightroom 4 on a Sony that wasn't keeping up very well.

But since I switched over to Macbook, I figured I'd give Aperture 3 a try and it works rather well for me, I also don't have enough ram is my opinion to handle Lightroom 4, which requires 2 GBs, but honestly I'd rather have more.
Aperture supposedly requires less, and so far it works for me.
 

OreoCookie

macrumors 68030
Apr 14, 2001
2,727
90
Sendai, Japan
Keep in mind that one of Apple's recent updates includes a new RAW engine, and if you want to use it, you need to reprocess old photos just like you had to when updating between major Aperture versions. I don't seem to remember when exactly Apple has released it, but it must have been within the last 10 months, because there are photos from last May and June which I had to reprocess.
... but you will find Lightroom gives you more room to grow as you demands as a photographer grow. Just my two cents.
I find that is largely a matter of preference. Each app has its strengths and weaknesses, and I can see good reasons why some people prefer one over the other.
 

gryffinwings

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 25, 2012
118
0
So I was contemplating an issue that will arise from staying with SL. The issue I see is, say I upgrade to a newer camera from my current D200, say the D7100 that just came out, I prefer to shoot RAW, however as I'm sure the current version I have does not support newer model DSLR cameras. So what options do I have, I could just upgrade to Lion and get the latest Aperture 3 version and max out my RAM which I figure I'll have to do anyways for my current Early 2008 MacBook to keep up with the new camera.

Obviously the other option is to upgrade to a newer MacBook Pro, but that isn't in my budget at the moment.

I will mention that working with my Macbook with 2.5 GB of memory and D200 RAW files while a tad slow, is completely workable for me, so if it's a tad slow with my Macbook with 6GB and D7100 files then that is fine by me as well.

What do you guys think? Any other ideas?
 

Laird Knox

macrumors 68000
Jun 18, 2010
1,956
1,343
Upgrade you memory ASAP. I expect you will find new life in your computer.

Sorry I can't really offer a recommendation on aperture - I'm a Lightroom user. With more memory I expect it will be faster with D7100 files than it is currently with D200 files. The specs may say 2GB but that is the bare minimum.

Does Apple patch the RAW definitions or does it require an upgrade?
 

OreoCookie

macrumors 68030
Apr 14, 2001
2,727
90
Sendai, Japan
Aperture and Lightroom try to hide load times in different ways, and I was a bit underwhelmed every time I tried Lightroom after hearing people claim it's supposedly a lot faster than Aperture. In your situation, you'll push your machine to the limit. My D7000's RAW files are 20 MB a piece, so I reckon the D7100's are even larger. Just do the math: if you have 100 photos on your card, it requires 2 GB of memory to just load RAW files into RAM. There is no programming pixie dust that can hide that your machine is running out of RAM, especially since you have a traditional spinning platter hard drive. Hence, Lightroom will have to deal with the same realities as Aperture.

I'm not sure whether Lightroom 4.4 still works on 10.6, but from my experience, you should slowly plan an upgrade to a new machine. Perhaps not right now, but in my experience, I need to get a new computer every 4-6 years, and your machine is over 4 years old now. If you want to extend the life of your machine, invest in more RAM and an SSD. Even if you get an SSD that is the same size as your current hard drive.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.