Aperture 2: First Thoughts

[compuwar]

After shooting and processing tens of thousands of photos, I have never needed layers.

Post-processing (tweaking) photos will not involve layers 99% of the time. Photoshop is fantastic (as is PS Elements) for layer-based work, but given the poster's needs, layers don't come into play.

Conversely, I find myself using layers more and more. From dewrinkling portraits to adjusting backgrounds I find that using layers speeds up and provides me with better results overall, even if I'm doing something I used to do without them. If "light touch up" includes fixing skin in portraits, then I'd say with layers I can get acceptable results in under a minute versus about 10-15m without. If "light touch up" is just levels/saturation/contras then Elements is fine if you're sure you're not going to start fixing up faces.

 

[sonor]

For me Aperture has always been great because I can very quickly process images in it using the tools provided. However, I'm talking basic editing: WB/exposure adjustment, adding a bit of contrast, maybe cropping judiciously, resizing, sharpening..... For anything more I go to CS3 -- that's when I want to use layers, filters, whatever.

Are the editing tools in Aperture better than those in Adobe Camera Raw? For most images I just use Bridge and Camera Raw and don't need to open up Photoshop itself very often.

How good is the raw conversion? As good as/better than Camera Raw? I used to use Nikon Capture NX, which I suspect might have been the best conversion for NEFs, but it was just too slow.

I'd like to use Aperture for file management, but am I right in thinking that when I open my edited NEFs and DNGs in Aperture, it won't recognise the editing I've done in Camera Raw or Capture NX - I'll just see the unedited raw files?

 

[Maui]

Thanks for the post Grimace. I just picked up 2.0 to go with my new D300 and my new G9.

One quick question (and I know I might get smacked for this....): is there any way to use the auto exposure button with jpg's? In both 1.5 and 2.0, it seems to work only on raw images. I'm shooting everything in raw now (well, except for my iPhone), but I have thousands of jpg's from previous cameras. I suppose I can always just use iPhoto if I want a quick edit on those.

 

[onomatopoeia]

Nevermind...I figured it out.

 

[JonD25]

I'm familiar with Lightroom but have been trying the Aperture 2 demo for the last day. Perhaps someone can answer a couple n00b questions:

How do I convert an image to B&W? Lightroom has a bunch of obvious B&W settings to auto-apply (sepia, etc.). I'm sure Aperture has this too but I can't find it.

Where is the vignetting option? That's supposed to be in Aperture 2.0 but I don't see it.

I'm sure I'm simply overlooking the obvious but with no manual I'm a bit at a loss.

At the top right of the adjustments panel, there's a "+" drop down. Click it, and there will be more adjustments you can add, including B&W, Sepia, and Vignette.

 

[redrabbit]

Initial Thoughts:

Speed: Great

Needs split-toning badly. Yes, I know there's color monochrome, but it still needs split-toning. Lightroom has it.

Please just give us curves. I am learning to use Levels, but it is nowhere near as good and intuitive as curves editing.

Also, probably my biggest gripe is there is no quick way to go into greyscale. I usually do extra adjustments to a bnw image, but sometimes its nice to quickly see what an image would look like in black and white. In Lightroom, while sorting, I would just hit V to see what it would look like in bnw and then hit V again and worry about properly converting it later. In Aperture, I have to switch over to the Adjustments panel, adjust saturation to see what it would look like, adjust it back, and then switch back to organizing it.

 

[Evangelion]

OK, this is a dumb question, but I'm a dumb person . In order to upgrade from 1.5 to 2.0, you need a "valid serial-number". Well, my copy of 1.5 is 100% legit, but I can't find the installation-media anywhere (that also has my serial-number). But when I launch Aperture, it displays a string of numbers and letters in the splash-screen. Is that my serial-number? If it is, can I then upgrade to 2.0, or does the upgrade require the original 1.5 media (in order to check that am I eligble for upgrade etc.)?

 

[scotthayes]

would love to say what I think, but Birmingham Apple store does not have the upgrade in stock and now having to wait 1-2 weeks for shipment off the Apple store...

 

[redrabbit]

OK, this is a dumb question, but I'm a dumb person . In order to upgrade from 1.5 to 2.0, you need a "valid serial-number". Well, my copy of 1.5 is 100% legit, but I can't find the installation-media anywhere (that also has my serial-number). But when I launch Aperture, it displays a string of numbers and letters in the splash-screen. Is that my serial-number? If it is, can I then upgrade to 2.0, or does the upgrade require the original 1.5 media (in order to check that am I eligble for upgrade etc.)?

you will need a new 2.0 key with a new purchase of an Aperture upgrade for $99

 

[John T]

But when I launch Aperture, it displays a string of numbers and letters in the splash-screen. Is that my serial-number?

Yes it is

 

[krye]

Hey I have the original 1.0 for powerpc. I know longer have a machine to run it since I have an intel machine now. It does install, it just states that the machine does not meet the hardware requiremets to run and exits. Can I buy the $99 upgrade to fix this, or do I have to buy the full version?

 

[CalfCanuck]

Best upgrade ever!

I spent about 6 hours in Aperture 2 yesterday, and am loving the new speed as well. The Quick Preview mode is amazing. The first time I click on "All photos" after starting up the program each day it will open my library of 50,000 images in about 12 seconds - then I can scroll and open full screen (using the Quick Preview image) all 50,000 images in REAL TIME. If I scroll down 10,000 images and release the mouse, the thumbnails pop up instantly. Note that if I go do work inside projects and then return to "All photos" they show up in about 4 seconds - must be caching.

Further, the DB rewrite is amazing (especially as the DB in 1.5 was unusable). When I toggle on the filter for the 50,000 images, it pops right up - I filter keywords and IPTC data (an essential for handling city, country, etc) and it finally works.

The only downside is that I have several hundred hours of keywording to do now for photos shot the last few years, as I had abandoned that powerful feature in the messy implementation in Ap 1-1.5.

---
For new users or people testing downloads:

As Apple notes, there are 5 Essential keyboard shortcuts to learn: V, W, F, Z, and P. Use these and your work flow will speed up quite a bit. The link also takes you to their great online tutorial page - no real need to buy third party books to learn how the program works.

http://www.apple.com/aperture/tutorials/#managing-navigating

 

[CalfCanuck]

Hey I have the original 1.0 for powerpc. I know longer have a machine to run it since I have an intel machine now. It does install, it just states that the machine does not meet the hardware requiremets to run and exits. Can I buy the $99 upgrade to fix this, or do I have to buy the full version?

You can just buy the upgrade - I also bought version 1.0 (though Ap 1.56 was installed on my Mac Pro via all the free upgrades), but I'm sure Apple must allow a clean install of Aperture 2.

I assume, of course, that you'll need (and have) your original Aperture 1.0 serial number.

 

[Grimace]

Now that I have played around with 2.0 for a while, I am upgrading my assessment to 8.8/10.

The whole application is much zippier.
Lift/Stamp is much improved to allow certain cloning without stamping out *everything*

Overall, it is extremely solid and has great organizational workflow. Kicka$$ web gallery exports would have pushed my assessment up one extra point.

 

[Binford]

I spent about 6 hours in Aperture 2 yesterday, and am loving the new speed as well. The Quick Preview mode is amazing. The first time I click on "All photos" after starting up the program each day it will open my library of 50,000 images in about 12 seconds - then I can scroll and open full screen (using the Quick Preview image) all 50,000 images in REAL TIME. If I scroll down 10,000 images and release the mouse, the thumbnails pop up instantly. Note that if I go do work inside projects and then return to "All photos" they show up in about 4 seconds - must be caching.

Further, the DB rewrite is amazing (especially as the DB in 1.5 was unusable). When I toggle on the filter for the 50,000 images, it pops right up - I filter keywords and IPTC data (an essential for handling city, country, etc) and it finally works.

The only downside is that I have several hundred hours of keywording to do now for photos shot the last few years, as I had abandoned that powerful feature in the messy implementation in Ap 1-1.5.

---
For new users or people testing downloads:

As Apple notes, there are 5 Essential keyboard shortcuts to learn: V, W, F, Z, and P. Use these and your work flow will speed up quite a bit. The link also takes you to their great online tutorial page - no real need to buy third party books to learn how the program works.

http://www.apple.com/aperture/tutorials/#managing-navigating

12 seconds? are you loading jpegs? how big?

 

[CalfCanuck]

12 seconds? are you loading jpegs? how big?

A mix of jpegs and various raws (including some scanned 100 MB tiffs). I'd guess about 25% jpeg, and the rest are RAWs from my 20D and 40D's (approx 7-12 MB's each). To open a project with 4500 x 12MB RAWs, example, takes about 3 seconds after the first click.

As for my system, I just upgraded to the new 8 core 2.8 GHz Mac Pro with 10 GB of RAM, still the stock ATI 2600 XT (I have the 8800 on order). I split my Aperture setup over 3 drives - use the stock 320 GB drive for OS and programs (like Aperture), then I have a second 1 TB drive set for my main user, the APerture library, and all my various project files. My third drive is another TB drive that is used exclusively for linked photos for Aperture, currently with about 500 GB of images on it. I'll stick in a 4th drive later this year or next year when I'll need more space for images.

I thought that having Aperture access 3 drives at once (program, library, files) might help speed things up, but use no RAIDs, etc.

As I stated, I'm very happy with the speed. My identical setup (last week) with the same library and Aperture 1.56 was extremely frustrating - my thinking was that if Ap1.56 was a dog with this gear, what would it take to make it work?

Edit - And the DB filter is sweet now that it finally is useable. I came to Aperture from a $5000 network version of Canto Cumulus, which had fantastic DB searches but many other problems for me.

 

[Father Jack]

I ordered mine today, really looking forward to giving it a try. I have been using Adobe LightRoom.

 

[Binford]

A mix of jpegs and various raws (including some scanned 100 MB tiffs). I'd guess about 25% jpeg, and the rest are RAWs from my 20D and 40D's (approx 7-12 MB's each). To open a project with 4500 x 12MB RAWs, example, takes about 3 seconds after the first click.

As for my system, I just upgraded to the new 8 core 2.8 GHz Mac Pro with 10 GB of RAM, still the stock ATI 2600 XT (I have the 8800 on order). I split my Aperture setup over 3 drives - use the stock 320 GB drive for OS and programs (like Aperture), then I have a second 1 TB drive set for my main user, the APerture library, and all my various project files. My third drive is another TB drive that is used exclusively for linked photos for Aperture, currently with about 500 GB of images on it. I'll stick in a 4th drive later this year or next year when I'll need more space for images.

I thought that having Aperture access 3 drives at once (program, library, files) might help speed things up, but use no RAIDs, etc.

As I stated, I'm very happy with the speed. My identical setup (last week) with the same library and Aperture 1.56 was extremely frustrating - my thinking was that if Ap1.56 was a dog with this gear, what would it take to make it work?

Edit - And the DB filter is sweet now that it finally is useable. I came to Aperture from a $5000 network version of Canto Cumulus, which had fantastic DB searches but many other problems for me.

interesting, my specs aren't too different from yours so far, minus the ram. ram on the way, same with 8800 (god knows when). i got an additional 4 gigs of ram totaling me to 6...hope that makes a big difference haha

 

[onomatopoeia]

That 8800 is nice but won't speed up Aperture in the least.

 

[netherfred]

That 8800 is nice but won't speed up Aperture in the least.

I thought Aperture COULD use video hardware acceleration???

 

[netdog]

I thought Aperture COULD use video hardware acceleration???

To paraphrase Obama, yes it can.

 

[netherfred]

To paraphrase Obama, yes it can.

So how much faster would it run than the 2600XT? Or do you only "feel" the increase in speed, like, say, the snappiness of the program?

 

[onomatopoeia]

I thought Aperture COULD use video hardware acceleration???

I want to see benchmarks before I buy into that. The 8800 is a powerhouse for 3D...something not happening in Aperture. I think any performance advantage between the nVidia 8800 and the stock ATI card (Mac Pro) would be negligible at best.

 

[Binford]

is there an expected/rumored lightroom2 release time?

 

[bellrinder]

After a trial with Lightroom, I started trying out Aperture 2 today. I'm looking mostly right now for a good management program for my large, not well organized, photo collection. Keywording is important. I'm such a newbie, I'm sure there are other important features I don't know I need yet.

I'm hoping for an answer to my first two questions:

1.
I renamed a small test folder (imported into Aperture) with A Better Finder using the files in Finder.

(Lightroom behaved badly when I did this. Lost all my keywords on a reimport. A Better Finder gives me far more options than renaming in a DAM program.)

Aperture hasn't lost the keywords OR changed the file names.
I found out that it actually pointed to the renamed file in Finder, but is it possible to update my Library/project with the new names?

2.
Is there a way too spell check the keywords already applied?