Early Notes on Apple's Aperture

[chucknorris]

I have also been wondering about this one.

My dual 2.0 is only a week old, I got it at a £370 discount from the refurb store

As I understand it, the 9600 mobility is a clocked down version of the 9600. ATI doesn't actually sell any "mobility" cards as I've been told, rather computer manufacturers clock them down for use in laptops.

With that in mind the 9600 should work just fine and, if not, they're always upgradable...

 

[d.perel]

Higher resolution iPhoto Books??? I SERIOUSLY want some of those because the ones that they have really don't cut it at all. They may save time for scrap-booking, but if you can't tell who is in the photo, then why order it?

 

[JCT]

i can't believe no one had come up with the idea of the digital lightbox before, that looks amazing.

Though undeniably neat and very useful the lightbox capability is not unique:

DigitalPro ...even has the wicked digital loupe and Photo Mechanic is pretty good as well.

DigitalPro is one of the programs I missed the most when I switched to the Mac. It looks like Aperture will be even more capable.

If Aperture does a good job on my Nikon NEF files I will be thrilled and maybe even match a copy to a Quad G5 to make my processing workflow sing.

JT

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

I'd like to play around with it one day certainly. My poor powerbook doesn't sound like it's up to the job.

That thing required more horsepower than Vista.

This is my lament. A dual G5 (or Intel in the future) is going to require more office space than some of us want to dedicate for such a powerful and useful program.

Aperture is like a pro photographer's own digital lightbox. Managing 1000's of RAW photos after a commercial shoot is pretty daunting, for which Bridge and Photoshop aren't really designed for. The most impressive feature of Aperture is its SPEED. This also requires fast computers and hefty core-image enabled video cards.

Right you are. The main features I see as a photographer and selling to working photographers is the features of Stacks and the Lupe. Do I see it replacing PS at this point, no.

My concern is Apple's speedy response (under 30 days) to new DSLR's as they come out.

For me it is Stacks that may drive me towards Aperture and the machine to drive it. And might just bring me to getting the 20D or what have you.

 

[bretm]

Might be user error. Mine look amazing. What're you doing, scanning old polaroids and blowing them up to 8x10? Zooming way in on digital photos?

Higher resolution iPhoto Books??? I SERIOUSLY want some of those because the ones that they have really don't cut it at all. They may save time for scrap-booking, but if you can't tell who is in the photo, then why order it?

 

[bousozoku]

I really wish that I hadn't bought Extensis Portfolio early this year. That's been accentuated with a note that Portfolio 8 will be released shortly for an upgrade price ($99.95) of half the retail price and the fact that the web features are painful without the separate $200 Web package, which includes a server.

$499 is a great price for everything I do, in contrast to $699 for Photoshop + $199 for Portfolio.

 

[ThinkingMac]

Its Microsoft who should worry not Adobe

I can't see how Adobe would have the problem with Aperture as it would seem to replace the need for programs like C1 Pro and Fotostation in the workflow. But all the pro photographers that use Windows would have a good reason to switch... Like ALL AP & Getty photographers for a start.

 

[johngordon]

Might be user error. Mine look amazing. What're you doing, scanning old polaroids and blowing them up to 8x10? Zooming way in on digital photos?

i wondered about this - i haven't ordered on eyet, but i didn't realise there was a res issue?

but what is amazing about aperture's book tool is the sheer flexibility of the layout design - with all that easy auto sizing and aligning, along with being able to pan and zoom images in live preview to get the exact framing you want - kinda like the ken burns preview pane in iMovie - this would be fantastic to port into iPhoto 6.

Iain

 

[Tino Latino]

. . . along with being able to pan and zoom images in live preview to get the exact framing you want - kinda like the ken burns preview pane in iMovie - this would be fantastic to port into iPhoto 6.

You can already do this in iPhoto 5 - double click on the photo in the book and a zoom slider appears. Click and drag on the photo to reframe.

 

[MontyZ]

.

 

[robbieduncan]

I can't figure out if my brand new PM 2x2Ghz G5's ATI Radeon 9600 is acceptable. The reason: It isn't listed exactly on the Minimum or Reccomended Systems - the ATI Radeon Mobility 9600 is listed.

Is there a difference? FWIW I have a stock 3 week old 2x2.0 (with full 4GB ram). And, no, I am not in any way upset by the new updates, I love my system!

I imagine it will work, but CoreImage will automatically use the CPUs over the GPU most of the time as that is a pretty slow GPU these days.

 

[robbieduncan]

Higher Resolution Photo Books

Everyone who is considering spending £££ (or $$$) just for higher resolution photo-books should read this first. It tells you how to up the resolution iPhoto uses for photo-books.

 

[stuBCN75]

Aperture looks great, I am really excited about this app. I am a graphic designer and also semi-professional photographer. iPhoto has been great to organise my non work kind of snaps but is lacking in professional features.

It is going to be great to at least to be able to REALLY organise my photos for work, i think i will also use it to organise graphic images too. I send out tons of look and feel images (normally jpegs / tiffs ) to clients and it will be nice to at last keep track of everything. It looks like it works with all the major image formats.

For me Aperture is more about file management than anything else, but with the ability to do colour correction and balance images at the same time is perfect. In fact i am shooting a fair bit on black and white film, so image balance becomes more important.

Aperture is not Photoshop .. i think at last people are getting that into their heads. They are two quite different apps. I use Photoshop on a daily basis but mainly for graphics work and compositing, it is perfect for that. It is ideal for preparing graphics for motion work and online work BUT it is bloated for most professional photographers. In many ways Photoshop has out done itself, originally yes it was ideal for a photographer but has evolved into more of a graphics tool. IMHO

My only concern ( well, not really a concern but a thought ) is that there seems to be little support for scanning images directly into Aperture. Not everyone has switched to shooting digital. I still regularly use a film SLR camera hope to scan / import my images into Aperture, then i can add the meta data for exposure, shutter etc. I write down in a note book all this information every shot i take. ( Many amateur / professional photographers do this too ). Some kind of direct support for scanning negatives / positives would be great.

can see myself switching to digital SLR in the next year. There is something about developing and printing your own film, many of you will understand this.

 

[aafuss1]

Aperture looks and it's functions should be amazing -better than the just announced Portfolio 8.

 

[rsailer]

I do a lot of photography in my spare time, and I'll be buying Aperture. It certainly blows away Adobe bridge

This is key: it blows away adobe bridge! I think it is more of a competitor of Bridge than photoshop. Photoshop has much more powerful image editing tools, but Aperture is a much better organizer than bridge...

 

[Lacero]

When will Apple release Dark Room? The direct competitor to Photoshop?

 

[jelloshotsrule]

Though undeniably neat and very useful the lightbox capability is not unique:

DigitalPro ...even has the wicked digital loupe and Photo Mechanic is pretty good as well.

DigitalPro is one of the programs I missed the most when I switched to the Mac. It looks like Aperture will be even more capable.

If Aperture does a good job on my Nikon NEF files I will be thrilled and maybe even match a copy to a Quad G5 to make my processing workflow sing.

JT

hey, thanks for the links and info. admittedly, i hadn't really gone searching for a digital lightbox feature in an app before, so... but you gotta admit, apple's looks way better than digital pro's. hah

as for iphoto books. i got one last year, the 8x10 one i believe (gave it to my girlfriend, so i kinda forget... hah). and it looks good. i looked very closely at some images and there were some pixellation issues and whatnot, but it's certainly good for casual consumers. for the pros, i can see how it wouldn't be good enough. i was more bothered by the limitations of design via iphoto books than i was the print quality, so the greater control will be a nice change

 

[JCT]

hey, thanks for the links and info. admittedly, i hadn't really gone searching for a digital lightbox feature in an app before, so... but you gotta admit, apple's looks way better than digital pro's. hah

Oh definitely! And I think that is a sometimes overlooked aspect of working with OSX and Apple's apps, they are truly visually pleasing --- can make a difference if you stare at them all day!

Folks are going to love the combo of the digital loupe and lightbox ---very intuitive!

JT

 

[Epicurus]

When will Apple release Dark Room? The direct competitor to Photoshop?

Once Apple squared up sizable market share in the photographer market (somebody mentioned getting all AP work into Aperture), then Apple might go after Photoshop. For the next few years (while doing internal development) Apple had better learn to play nice with Photoshop. If they could get with Adobe so that the Photoshop editing wouldn't ruin the RAW workflow, that would be great D).

If Aperture takes off and Apple makes a deal not to compete with Photoshop for the time being, Adobe might go for it. Adobe is probably already working on a way to bone up their own RAW support and making Photoshop nondestructive is one part of that.

 

[CalfCanuck]

May not be the PS killer, but it might become the must have

I think that people might underestimate what effect Aperture (again, assuming it REALLY works as advertised) will have on working digital photographers.

We all have our preferences - while we all like a nice selection of lenses in our bags, if you had to take only ONE lens on a body for an extended shooting trip, you'd make those preferences quite clear. Some might prefer a telephoto for reach, while other (including myself) would opt for a wide angle for my style of shooting. Not right or wrong, just my preference.

The same holds for our software - if we could only take one program on a laptop for an extended shoot, what would it be? Until Tuesday, I'd have had to answer PS. Despite the frustrations in handling large quantities of images, its pluses outweighed its minuses.

But has Aperture changed that equation? If it performs as planned, I WOULD take Aperture's work flow, RAW handling, and limited editing possibilities over PS.

It's not too often that I'd rethink my most important lens, and it's not too often I'd rethink my most important digital darkroom tool. That's why this might be an important piece of software.

 

[Epicurus]

I think that people might underestimate what effect Aperture (again, assuming it REALLY works as advertised) will have on working digital photographers.

We all have our preferences - while we all like a nice selection of lenses in our bags, if you had to take only ONE lens on a body for an extended shooting trip, you'd make those preferences quite clear. Some might prefer a telephoto for reach, while other (including myself) would opt for a wide angle for my style of shooting. Not right or wrong, just my preference.

The same holds for our software - if we could only take one program on a laptop for an extended shoot, what would it be? Until Tuesday, I'd have had to answer PS. Despite the frustrations in handling large quantities of images, its pluses outweighed its minuses.

But has Aperture changed that equation? If it performs as planned, I WOULD take Aperture's work flow, RAW handling, and limited editing possibilities over PS.

It's not too often that I'd rethink my most important lens, and it's not too often I'd rethink my most important digital darkroom tool. That's why this might be an important piece of software.

Excellent analysis. Apple has done a good job of simplification while still adding a wide array of features.

Camera --> PowerBook --> Aperture --> print/web/CD

Simple is good. Apple is better.

 

[d.perel]

Might be user error. Mine look amazing. What're you doing, scanning old polaroids and blowing them up to 8x10? Zooming way in on digital photos?

Does DPI of your photos make a difference, or just pixel resolution?

 

[iGary]

The most exciting thing to me about this app is that I can edit, catalog, and publish to Web without using a bunch of different programs - seamleassly.

No more Photoshop/Bridge/Portfolio - Yippee.

I ordered it on day one.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

The most exciting thing to me about this app is that I can edit, catalog, and publish to Web without using a bunch of different programs - seamleassly.

No more Photoshop/Bridge/Portfolio - Yippee.

I ordered it on day one.

Was wondering when you would chime in!

This should really drive the PM sales....

 

[iGary]

Was wondering when you would chime in!

This should really drive the PM sales....

Only thing I am worried about is applying batch actions. It works with external editors, but I am worried about this "saved original" thing.

I'm happy to do individual tweaks etc in Aperture, but I also need to do batch sharpening etc....I have not seen that yet and I have scoured the Aperture site.

I'm also not thrilled about investing 400 bucks on a video card...but...it is only money.

Anyone?