Don't make the same mistake I did. I have a Canon 5DMK2 and I wanted something decent to make edits to my pictures when I'm on the road with my MBP, and I was suckered in by the $79 price point for Aperture. I downloaded a trial of LR and had fantastic success with it, but I didn't want to spend the money on it since Aperture was so much less. Huge mistake. LR3 is easily 10 times as fast when editing large RAW files. Fair warning to anyone out there considering Aperture for the same use.
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PSA: Large RAW files + Aperture 3 = HORRIBLE
- Thread starter hitek79
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??
Please specify.
Importing is slow?
Doing all edit tasks are slow, or only certain tasks?
I went from iPhoto to Aperture 3.x and very happy.
My RAW file size from T1i 15MP sensor is 17meg-21meg.
What are your RAW file sizes?
Have you tried to return for refund?
(if within 14 or 30 days??)
I would also like to know this. I have done imports from a 5d mark 2 into aperture and my RAW files are also nowadays 20+MB large. I have a ****** macbook pro 2009 13" with 4GB ram and i am quite happy with the speed, especially with the import speed. Then again, and i am sorry if i am wrong here,you might just need an excuse to use Lightroom then, so go get it.
Who downloads the trial of one software, is happy with it and then purchases the other without trialling?
Nothing but bad experiences with Aperture 3.
Used lightroom 3 trial for a month and I ended up liking Aperture 3 a tiny tiny bit more.
Looking forwards to an Update to aperture though, if Apple is still making desktop software whenever its time
Used lightroom 3 trial for a month and I ended up liking Aperture 3 a tiny tiny bit more.
Looking forwards to an Update to aperture though, if Apple is still making desktop software whenever its time
I'm not sure why you're having such speed troubles. I routinely edit 4x5 scans (around 80 MP) with very little trouble.
The trick with Aperture is to have lots of RAM and have the photos on a fast drive (internal works the best).
The trick with Aperture is to have lots of RAM and have the photos on a fast drive (internal works the best).
I have to agree with the OP to a certain extent here. When I first started shooting RAW I tried both Aperture and Lightroom on the same computer. It was a really old powerbook G4, which even back then was long in the tooth. I found LR to be much more responsive than aperture and that was a big factor in me deciding to stay with LR. FYI this was using "Version 1" of each software suite at the time.
That was of course a few versions ago but it seems more recently that LR is still comparatively faster (or at least more responsive) than AP on the same hardware. That doesn't mean AP is unusably slow, but that LR seems a little more responsive. If you have a marginal computer, using LR may give you a little more interface responsiveness which makes the editing workflow more easier.
Ruahrc
That was of course a few versions ago but it seems more recently that LR is still comparatively faster (or at least more responsive) than AP on the same hardware. That doesn't mean AP is unusably slow, but that LR seems a little more responsive. If you have a marginal computer, using LR may give you a little more interface responsiveness which makes the editing workflow more easier.
Ruahrc
Here are the facts...
http://barefeats.com/wst10c4.html
Personally, Aperture is extremely responsive for me when working on my 7D RAW images, but then I have a fast quad core, 12GB of RAM, and SSDs for storage.
http://barefeats.com/wst10c4.html
Personally, Aperture is extremely responsive for me when working on my 7D RAW images, but then I have a fast quad core, 12GB of RAM, and SSDs for storage.
Aperture and Lightroom have to hide the time it takes to load and process files and they do that in different ways.* I've tried each new version of Lightroom and I didn't find it particularly faster. As a matter of fact, I was a bit disappointed after reading all the folklore on th enet of how much faster it is supposed to be than Aperture. For instance, I found that I had to wait each time I'd zoom into images in Lightroom while in Aperture that was the exception rather than the rule. I have 8 GB of RAM, though.
Especially when you get used to using the Preview mode, Aperture is rather speedy. Especially after getting a machine with 8 GB RAM, Aperture feels quite zippy. In any case, people should be using whatever app they prefer. IMO the major factor in deciding between Aperture and Lightroom is the app's UI philosophy.
* It's a matter of math and there is no magic bullet: if you import a project with, say, 100 RAW files which are about 20 MB a piece, then you have 2 GB to transfer. Even with fast harddrives that manage at most 50~100 MB/s, it still takes half a minute to a minute to transfer all the files. Of course, these are just very rough estimates and you have leeway in either direction, e. g. the number of files per project may be significantly higher. Aperture and Lightroom take different approaches to mask this in an intelligent way.
Especially when you get used to using the Preview mode, Aperture is rather speedy. Especially after getting a machine with 8 GB RAM, Aperture feels quite zippy. In any case, people should be using whatever app they prefer. IMO the major factor in deciding between Aperture and Lightroom is the app's UI philosophy.
* It's a matter of math and there is no magic bullet: if you import a project with, say, 100 RAW files which are about 20 MB a piece, then you have 2 GB to transfer. Even with fast harddrives that manage at most 50~100 MB/s, it still takes half a minute to a minute to transfer all the files. Of course, these are just very rough estimates and you have leeway in either direction, e. g. the number of files per project may be significantly higher. Aperture and Lightroom take different approaches to mask this in an intelligent way.
Aperture was decent enough on my early 2008 MBP with 4GB. I know it was lagging somewhat on edits, but it was usable. I never really tried Lightroom because the cost was just too high. Now I have a new 27" iMac and Aperture is just fine on that. Strange how the cost of Lightroom seems "too high" while the cost of the iMac is a lot more than that...
Right now I'm plenty happy with Aperture, and I'm fully into its workflow. I can't really justify the cost of switching to Lightroom at this time.
Right now I'm plenty happy with Aperture, and I'm fully into its workflow. I can't really justify the cost of switching to Lightroom at this time.
That's why my iMac has 12GB in it. Having both open with several layers in Photoshop Elements is no problem at all now.
goodness gracious.... I wish my stupid 24" imac could take more than SIX gb of RAM.... then I wouldn't need to spend 2k+ on a new computer just to get some software to run properly...
I'm sorry but Aperture 3 is excellent. As someone who has used LR since Beta all the way up to the current version (and also someone with a 5D Mark II) who just made the switch to Aperture I have to say on my machine Aperture is faster than Lightroom. (Both are good programs, I just prefer Aperture after learning the shortcut keys).
Please don't go making blanket statements based on your experience. There are a huge amount of factors that can go into this, all the way down to the speed of your memory cards and reader if you are importing straight from card.
Sorry for the delayed response, Aperture just finished processing that last picture
My first comment was harsh, but I was pretty irritated the other night. I imported 89 files and every time I tried to zoom, dodge/burn, or anything with brushes, my computer would basically freeze for about 90 seconds while it made the edits, and then all of a sudden Aperture just started shutting down. My MBP isn't the highest end computer I realize, but it has NO problems working with 5D MK2 1080P video footage.
I'm frustrated with the whole experience for 3 reasons. First is I'm frustrated with myself because the only reason I bought Aperture is because it was so cheap, and I should know better than to buy something because it's cheap.
The second reason I'm frustrated is I'm on an Apple computer using Apple software, and they don't seem to play all that well together.
The 3rd reason I'm annoyed is because I really like the results I get with Aperture. It produces fantastic results. The final product is every bit as good as the results I got with Lightroom, but the performance is lacking severely. It's really a shame because Aperture has the potential to be an amazing product at a great price point, but as of right now I'd just prefer to have my $80 back to not deal with frustrations.
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My first comment was harsh, but I was pretty irritated the other night. I imported 89 files and every time I tried to zoom, dodge/burn, or anything with brushes, my computer would basically freeze for about 90 seconds while it made the edits, and then all of a sudden Aperture just started shutting down. My MBP isn't the highest end computer I realize, but it has NO problems working with 5D MK2 1080P video footage.
I'm frustrated with the whole experience for 3 reasons. First is I'm frustrated with myself because the only reason I bought Aperture is because it was so cheap, and I should know better than to buy something because it's cheap.
The second reason I'm frustrated is I'm on an Apple computer using Apple software, and they don't seem to play all that well together.
The 3rd reason I'm annoyed is because I really like the results I get with Aperture. It produces fantastic results. The final product is every bit as good as the results I got with Lightroom, but the performance is lacking severely. It's really a shame because Aperture has the potential to be an amazing product at a great price point, but as of right now I'd just prefer to have my $80 back to not deal with frustrations.
I have to agree that Aperture is slower. I finally got fed up with it and switched to Lightroom. Aperture was just ridiculously slow. LR still leaves a lot to be desired, however. I often wait for several minutes for a file to resolve at 100% when I enter Lightroom's develop module, but once that's done, editing is at least bearable. The brushes aren't always snappy to respond in LR, but they're not dog slow either. Tugging on a slider in Aperture was like wading in molasses. It was utterly exasperating. And that red screen of death of Aperture 2 was the bane of my existence for about a year. I was very reluctant to switch to Lightroom because I had done so much work in Aperture, but I'm glad that I did.
I too am using a 5D Mark II, by the way.
I too am using a 5D Mark II, by the way.
I think with the release of LR3 and it's more advanced rendering engine, the responsiveness of LR has gone down a bit. I think it partly has to do with the fact that many more changes are rendered into the "live action" view than before. For example, sharpening and NR are now visible in your pictures even when viewing at reduced resolution, whereas previously only the 100% view would show you what your sharpening and NR looked like.
When you get such long delays on rendering, are they with single images, or mosaic composites? I don't really see that big of delays (5-10 seconds at worst maybe) when working with single images (10MP RAW images), but I can see rendering times of a couple minutes when loading up my panos, which can stretch to 50MP or more. This is on a 2009 13" MBP (2.53GHz, 4GB RAM) with a 3rd party SSD installed.
You're right though once everything's loaded and rendered, the interface is actually fairly responsive. This is a trait that has been with LR since the beginning. Back with my old PBG4, once I waited for everything to render, manipulating sliders was more responsive than in other programs I tried.
Ruahrc
I also have edited many 4x5 scans, and medium format, usually without a big problem. Sometimes, though, on even a 2mb reflective scan A3 will decide to go slow, real slow even when doing a simple task like retouching a little dirt spot. Then, the next one, a similar photo, will go fine.
I went from 2 to 4 mb on the ram and installed a 500 gb 7200 HD in place of the original 160/5200 one in my 07 MBP and while it seems to be somewhat faster overall, sometimes the slowdown will still happen. It can often be cured by quitting A3 and starting over.
A3 is not yet a good program. It does some things well, but there is a lot of work for Apple to do with this, if they are even interested these days. I imagine that some sort of iOS version is getting all the attention.
Single images: raw files that average about 26MB in size each. Sometimes I'll type "D" on an image to develop it and will wait a full minute before I see *anything*. Then I'll click to view the image at 100% and might wait several minutes before it resolves. I have to go do something else for a while until it finishes. But after that, editing moves along alright. I had the exact same problem in Aperture, but there even editing was painfully sluggish.
I'm using a 2008 15" MBP (Penryn) w/4GB RAM and an external display. My images (with both Aperture and Lightroom) have always been on an external FW800 drive. It's workable with Lightroom, but I could feel myself growing old while using Aperture on this system.
This was another reason I weened myself off of Aperture. I did not have the confidence that Apple would give the application its full attention well into the future.
Interesting... I use both Aperture and Lightroom. Aperture is a little bit slower than LR3 but we are talking some rendering. I don't handle video in any of the photo editors. I use Image Capture to upload.
From my experience on my Powerbook, I noticed that the type of SD card you use plays a factor in uploading. Sandisk Extreme are a lot faster than Ultra. Also while editing close some of the Apps that you're not using when you plan to do heavy editing. THen make sure you have cleaned up your Mac. That whole Disk Utility thing helps every now and then ... especially if you creating lots of folders and deleting images.
From my experience on my Powerbook, I noticed that the type of SD card you use plays a factor in uploading. Sandisk Extreme are a lot faster than Ultra. Also while editing close some of the Apps that you're not using when you plan to do heavy editing. THen make sure you have cleaned up your Mac. That whole Disk Utility thing helps every now and then ... especially if you creating lots of folders and deleting images.
OP,
check with Apple.
You can also use DPP (which you got for free with your 5D2).
I use Capture One (not sure how much it costs now, I think it is at $99): great application, highly recommended!!
Download the trial and see how it runs.
check with Apple.
You can also use DPP (which you got for free with your 5D2).
I use Capture One (not sure how much it costs now, I think it is at $99): great application, highly recommended!!
Download the trial and see how it runs.
Tips
Having spent probably 15 hours researching how to make aperture run fast, I ended up with a new computer and a new workflow.
I was having the same problems, A3 was taking what seemed like HOURS to do basic adjustments to 5DII RAW files... I was working on a 2007 24" iMac 2.4ghz C2D 6GB ram 256mb graphics ,with the library on a FW800 external. Slow as syrup.
Upgraded to a 27" 201 iMac 2.93i7 12GB ram with 1gb graphics, with the libraries on the internal SATA 2TB WD Black 7200rpm and A3 on the internal Vertex 2 SSD.
The new hardware makes a world of difference of course, but I feel that working from multiple, smaller libraries makes just as big a difference.
Another thing- I found out that simply rating an image "9" or "x" does NOT delete the image. It simply brings it to a sub-library "rejected". Turns out I had 30,000 rejected photos sitting around in my lone Aperture library. It took about an hour to delete all the rejected photos (after I went through my Albums and "rejected" all the non-rated photos).
I brought my Library file from 1.4TB to 800GB without losing any important stuff.
I then started to export all my biggest Albums (Weddings, events, vacations) into their own "Export as Library" Libraries onto my internal HDD. I deleted them from my "Various" Library after they were exported and confirmed. This took about an entire day to get them all out of my "Various" library as it IS tedious, but they all run lickety split now.
I now create a new Library for every couple/event/shoot and store it on the internal HDD. I have been using this new workflow for a few days now and it works great. Aperture 3 is now acceptably fast and it does not slow me down. It keeps right up
EDIT: Even when using plugins in 32 bit mode, it seems that my time spent waiting around for Aperture has been slashed by 70%. I spend probably a third, if that, of the time I did a week ago waiting for Aperture to make it's adjustments and show me the results.
Having spent probably 15 hours researching how to make aperture run fast, I ended up with a new computer and a new workflow.
I was having the same problems, A3 was taking what seemed like HOURS to do basic adjustments to 5DII RAW files... I was working on a 2007 24" iMac 2.4ghz C2D 6GB ram 256mb graphics ,with the library on a FW800 external. Slow as syrup.
Upgraded to a 27" 201 iMac 2.93i7 12GB ram with 1gb graphics, with the libraries on the internal SATA 2TB WD Black 7200rpm and A3 on the internal Vertex 2 SSD.
The new hardware makes a world of difference of course, but I feel that working from multiple, smaller libraries makes just as big a difference.
Another thing- I found out that simply rating an image "9" or "x" does NOT delete the image. It simply brings it to a sub-library "rejected". Turns out I had 30,000 rejected photos sitting around in my lone Aperture library. It took about an hour to delete all the rejected photos (after I went through my Albums and "rejected" all the non-rated photos).
I brought my Library file from 1.4TB to 800GB without losing any important stuff.
I then started to export all my biggest Albums (Weddings, events, vacations) into their own "Export as Library" Libraries onto my internal HDD. I deleted them from my "Various" Library after they were exported and confirmed. This took about an entire day to get them all out of my "Various" library as it IS tedious, but they all run lickety split now.
I now create a new Library for every couple/event/shoot and store it on the internal HDD. I have been using this new workflow for a few days now and it works great. Aperture 3 is now acceptably fast and it does not slow me down. It keeps right up
EDIT: Even when using plugins in 32 bit mode, it seems that my time spent waiting around for Aperture has been slashed by 70%. I spend probably a third, if that, of the time I did a week ago waiting for Aperture to make it's adjustments and show me the results.