Aperture Plug-in Interest High?

[MacRumors]

One of the less-touted (at the time) features of the Aperture 1.5 update was Apple's opening of a new plug-in architecture to extend Aperture. According to MacWorld, the plug-in interest is exceeding Apple's expectations.We knew that there would be a lot of interest, but we received 150 emails from individuals, companies and organizations that all want to develop plug-ins for Aperture, Richard Kerris, Apple's Director of Professional Photography Partnerships, told Macworld. We are all pleasantly surprised with the companies that want to develop plug-ins. It really makes this a powerful application for whatever type of photographer you are."
Apple had launched its API with some big-name partners already supporting the application, including Getty Images and Flickr among others. At this week's PhotoPlus Expo in New York, ExpressDigital and DigitalFusion are releasing plug-ins.ExpressDigitals Aperture plug-in allows photographers to directly upload photos to PhotoReflect.com, a virtual storefront for professional photographers. Through PhotoReflect.com, photographers are able to provide their customers with a fully functional and professional Internet store to order finished, high-quality professional photo products...

DigitalFusion is also offering a new Aperture plug-in. DF Studio Link allows direct upload of images from Aperture to a DF Studio account.

Article Link: Aperture Plug-in Interest High?

 

[hob]

Sweet !

Been using a Flickr plugin for a coupla days now, not sure if it take advantage of the new API of not. Doubt it...

How would one make a plug-in? Is it all XCode?

 

[samh004]

This sounds very promising, by the time I get a new computer and get to use Aperture, hopefully there'll be a slew of useful plug-in's out there, and more featured plug-in's than just being able to upload to different sites.

 

[Maxiseller]

It's a logical extension.

Music Apps couldn't manage without plugins - there isn't any reason why design apps shouldn't be the same.

 

[GoCubsGo]

The plug in feature is definitely where it is it at these days. I hardly use flickr and such, but I'd have to admit if it were easy as sin to use, I would probably use it and spare my web host and zenfolio site.

 

[jslabovitz]

Unfortunately, only export plugins seem to be supported at the moment. Quoting from the Aperture SDK: "The Aperture SDK lets you create plug-ins that control the entire export process from Aperture, version 1.5."

Now, given the technical nature of plugins, it's probably possible for other types of plugins to be written (alá input managers). However, Apple's documented only the export process, so it would be a matter of clever developers reverse-engineering the guts of Aperture to provide such things as additional image processing, metadata, or the like.

 

[081440]

It's probably just a matter of time now before Adobe allows some developers access to make plugins for Lightroom.

I can't wait to delve deeper into the trial version of Aperture. I've been using Lightroom a lot and love it. Sp let's see how Aperture stands.

 

[bigandy]

oooohoooh. plugins good

 

[hob]

I hope one day people can make enough plug-ins so that aperture becomes a viable alternative to photoshop. PS is so slow on my x86 architecture, I'd love to be able to dump it...

 

[CrackedButter]

This sounds very promising, by the time I get a new computer and get to use Aperture, hopefully there'll be a slew of useful plug-in's out there, and more featured plug-in's than just being able to upload to different sites.

By the time I get a new computer and get to use Aperture, hopefully the machine will be capable of running it!

 

[mcarnes]

I'd love to see them add processing plug-ins (not just export stuff). I'd love to have plug-ins for photokit sharpener, noise ninja, pano tools, helicon focus, etc. etc.

Light Room has this functionality and I'm afraid they will blow Apple out of the water because of it. As good as Apple is, there is no way they could keep up with the millions of energetic developers waiting to write plug-ins for a top photo app. Everyone is a photographer these days it seems.

Of course, Apple would have to relent some quality control since any joe-blow can write a plug-in (kind of like the slew of bad widgets). I think this is why they are hesitant about it. They want to maintain control of how Aperture "feels" to the user.

 

[barakthecat]

I hope one day people can make enough plug-ins so that aperture becomes a viable alternative to photoshop. PS is so slow on my x86 architecture, I'd love to be able to dump it...

You may as well hope someone makes a plugin that makes Safari a viable replacement for Photoshop, seeing as how Aperture is not meant to be a Photoshop replacement any more than Safari is.

 

[Westside guy]

You may as well hope someone makes a plugin that makes Safari a viable replacement for Photoshop, seeing as how Aperture is not meant to be a Photoshop replacement any more than Safari is.

I would disagree with this somewhat. Aperture is a perfectly capable Photoshop replacement... for those tasks that a lot of dSLR users were using Photoshop for previously. I haven't found a need to call up Photoshop for any actual photo processing in a long time.

Now, I do still use Photoshop for some web work.

 

[AppliedVisual]

...And that's exactly it, Aperture is an image processing / photo editing application. It's not meant to be a Photoshop replacement.

As for plugins, I think it's a no-brainer for most Photoshop plugin authors to adapt their tools to Aperture. If I had the time and resources, I'd consider writing an interface that allows use of Photoshop plugins within Aperture, that could be a real winner. Although, with my current workload and lack of manpower, there's no way I'd get it done in time to beat anyone else to the market, let alone get anything out there before we start seeing all the common plugins being ported over.

 

[Karpfish]

Aperture isnt meant to compete with Photoshop, but its slowly becoming it(with additions in 1.5) and with plug-ins it could be there.

 

[hyperpasta]

Hopefully this trickles down into iPhoto, and maybe some other apps too.

 

[Aperture]

I was one of the 150 who emailed them!

I asked about a SmugMug plug-in.

This sounds awesome, I hope they develop more plug-ins!


Kevin

 

[manu chao]

Music Apps couldn't manage without plugins - there isn't any reason why design apps shouldn't be the same.

Don't want to nitpick your choice of words, but I think there is a distinction to be made between photographers and (graphic) designers. Not that some people would not be both, but Aperture certainly is built largely for photographers not designers, therefore I would not call it a design app.

 

[lorductape]

I've heard that apple is developing their own photoshop-like software. I can't actually use apeture (own it, not enough ram ) but my teacher does and he tells me the tools that Apeture has are for real pro photographers, not photographers who want to cheat us with their picture by putting things where they never were & touching it up too much.

example of person who was never really there (its a spoof, btw):Why the Last Alliance Really Won

bottom line, apeture is for real men. and I hate adobe.

 

[randomlinh]

I'd love to see them add processing plug-ins (not just export stuff). I'd love to have plug-ins for photokit sharpener, noise ninja, pano tools, helicon focus, etc. etc.

I completely agree here. I haven't tried lightroom yet, but I'm somewhat vested in aperture. Unless of course lightroom can import the library.

As of now, for noise reduction, I have to boot up parallels and basically run neatimage from there (i have the stand alone app). I don't need it often, but it is cumbersome. Crossover works with it, but I don't want to pay yet again, and I can't get darwine to run it.

 

[twoodcc]

this is sweet! bring on the plug-ins!

 

[islandman]

As a photographer, I am VERY excited about this. A SmugMug plug-in would be awesome!

 

[IlluminatedSage]

hey there, i think this is a very cool thing. I have only just started to use aperture. but it is amazing and i feel like these plug ins will only make it easier to get the most out of your pictures.

 

[ChrisA]

I hope one day people can make enough plug-ins so that aperture becomes a viable alternative to photoshop. PS is so slow on my x86 architecture, I'd love to be able to dump it...

I think you already have this today. Does aperture allow you to specify an "Image editor" and you have specified PS. This is a kind of plug in because you could have specified some other editor which is not so slow as PS in Rosetta

 

[suneohair]

Some noise reduction plug-ins would be phenominal.