Has anyone tried Aperture 2 yet?

On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:29:41 -0600, Randy Howard wrote
(in article ):

> On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:34:56 -0600, Andy Hewitt wrote
> (in article ):
>
> Sure. I said Aperture wasn't all that and a bag chips already. iPhoto
> is a lot less capable than Lightroom, a product that Aperture purports
> to compete with for the prophoto market. iPhoto used to be extremely
> buggy with RAW files, especially the very large variety coming off pro
> D-SLRs and in large import sessions it would crash very frequently,
> plus the RAW processing was suspect at best.

Not my experience at all, though 1.5 came out shortly after I started using
Aperture. I can't recall having a single crash in any version of Aperture.

I have no complaints except for speed, which seems to be much less of a
problem with Aperture 2 - although RAW renders are slow and there's really no
getting around that.

Funny thing is one of the reasons I ordered a MacBook Pro was for the faster
processing, and things like straightening which used to be glacial on my
Powerbook 1.5ghz are now pretty smooth.

I haven't really haven't had an opportunity to use it much yet but what I've
seen is pretty impressive.

> All iPhoto really has going for it is integration with iMovie and iDVD,
> and for that to really work well, you'll need David Pogue's book, because
> a lot of the dirty little tricks to get DVD quality images on burned media
> with screensavers and photo gallery stuff isn't documented anywhere else
> that I've ever found.

Well, integration with iLife _and_ Aperture.

For instance, once you've made all your adjustments in Aperture, you can
import references into iPhoto and you have access to all your post-processed
images.

>> The latest version is pretty good now, and in combination with a good
>> external editor it can be quite a formidable photo management tool.
>
> Well, I never liked the way the "database" kept copies of images all
> over and it was difficult to control that behavior.

I believe the default behavior of both Aperture and iPhoto is to keep images
managed in their own libraries.

It was the users who had legacy image hierarchies who demanded options to
allow images to be strewn all across their systems.

>> Amateur users of DSLRs, and other cameras that have RAW images,
>> will benefit from some features in Aperture, but the gap is reducing.
>
> I can't think of any convincing argument to pick Aperture over
> Lightroom, other than waving the Apple flag, especially for someone
> that hasn't mastered getting the image they want in the camera, rather
> than editing and jacking with white balance and stuff at the keyboard.
> Lightroom is demonstrably better at postprocessing imo.

I'm just a hobbiest, and I've not tried Lightroom, but I do know there are
just as many folks waving the Adobe flag :-).

And really ... I'm not a professional so I'm not being paid to shoot, and
under no pressure to deliver even if I "haven't mastered getting the image I
want in the camera" - so I don't pixel twiddle which is mostly what Photoshop
does that Aperture does not. I won't spend hours on an image - if it's that
far gone I give it a kiss good-bye and empty the trash.

Aperture 2 will bring down blown highlights and bring out details - you
really ought to take a gander at the Aperture 2 tutorials. There's a fair
amount of reengineering that's gone into the product.

And due to the nature of the beast, it's still processor intensive but the
new version is not _that_ demanding.

>> Indeed, although its questionable reliability means it may not be the
>> best choice. We'll have to wait and see how V2 develops, and what bugs
>> have been left in it. As an enthusiast I got Aperture but have been
>> quite dissapointed with its performance (in relation to the marketing
>> hype it's had).
>
> Which is why you don't hear much about it at all anymore outside of Mac
> fan forums. :)

Well, it's an Apple product which runs on Macs, so I guess you won't see much
about it in Windows forums. OTOH, the few photographers I know use Macs.

I personally was impressed enough to buy it again full retail after finding
they won't upgrade an academic license.

On 5-Mar-2008, Verne Arase wrote:

> On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:29:41 -0600, Randy Howard wrote
> (in article ):
>
> > On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:34:56 -0600, Andy Hewitt wrote
> > (in article ):

(Clipped)
> >
> >> The latest version is pretty good now, and in combination with a good
> >> external editor it can be quite a formidable photo management tool.

I'm not sure what this means. I haven't yet used the editor in Aperture
myself. I am aware that Aperture includes an editor but allows one to
seamlessly use an external editor if you wish. Is there a problem with the
editor in Aperture itself?
> >
> > Well, I never liked the way the "database" kept copies of images all
> > over and it was difficult to control that behavior.

I assume you are describing iPhoto. Images imported into iPhoto are moved to
its own arrangement of numbered folders and files that only iPhoto
understands. And there is no turning back once that is done. To return the
images to the prior arrangement is a very difficult and time consuming task.

Aperture provides options that allow one to retain all images wherever they
exist on a hard drive or to actually import them into Aperture. Either way
they can be managed and edited the same as if they were actually in
Aperture, but no change is made to the original image unless one chooses to
do so.
>
> I believe the default behavior of both Aperture and iPhoto is to keep
> images managed in their own libraries.

This is not accurate--unless I misunderstand what you are saying or iPhoto
has changed since I last used it.. As noted in my previous paragraph, iPhoto
has no option for leaving image files where they are.
>
> It was the users who had legacy image hierarchies who demanded options to
> allow images to be strewn all across their systems.

That is a rather judgmental statement.

There are valid reasons why some of us would prefer to keep our image files
organized in various places on our systems. I wish I had been able to do
that when I initially started using iPhoto. Problems with my computer and a
hard drive crash caused me to lose everything except backups on an external
drive.

Two years later I am still trying to recover all of my images. They were
'strewn across' a maze of folders in iPhoto. I should have kept them in the
neat arrangement they were in before using iPhoto. That's what I have been
able to do with Aperture--without any extra difficulty or any limitations on
management or editing. That can also be done in Photoshop Elements.

Thanks to Aperture I am making good progress in recovering my image files
and returning them to the places where they were before disaster struck.