Apple Announces Aperture 1.5

[Earendil]

Why would Apple logically develop a piece of software that uses the graphics card when I have four processors - many others have two - begging to be worked. I guess I never understood the logic of using Core Image to power this thing.

In a perfect world it would figure out your specs and use what it can. However I'm betting that using a graphics card to do a lot of the heavy lifting enables it to run on far more computers than going proc only. Many of us don't have duel or quad cores, and our procs are also doing other things. Heaven forbid I use other apps at the same time as Apature to. However my graphics card is decent, and sits idle even when other apps are open.

Like I said, perfect world you'd have your cake and eat it too, however for the time being, I'm not so sure the path they chose was all that bad. I'm quite open for discussion on this though, as I'm no expert

 

[Arip]

I have an experiment for those that say "It runs fine on my <insert computer here>."

Open up (in full screen mode) a landscape oriented RAW image and:

1. Use the straightening tool.

2. Try to rotate it 180.

3. Use the patch tool.

Let us know what you find.

Thanks!

nothing strange happend

 

[iGary]

nothing strange happend

Macbook Pro 2.0 - 2 GB Ram

That's prolly why.

I think the UB version is running much better on Intel.

I tried it out on a MBP and a Mac Pro and a new Imac and had much better performance that with my own machine.

 

[iGary]

In a perfect world it would figure out your specs and use what it can. However I'm betting that using a graphics card to do a lot of the heavy lifting enables it to run on far more computers than going proc only. Many of us don't have duel or quad cores, and our procs are also doing other things. Heaven forbid I use other apps at the same time as Apature to. However my graphics card is decent, and sits idle even when other apps are open.

Like I said, perfect world you'd have your cake and eat it too, however for the time being, I'm not so sure the path they chose was all that bad. I'm quite open for discussion on this though, as I'm no expert

Well I guess what I am saying is that the graphics card really doesn't have the muscle that, say, four processor cores do. You should see what my activity monitor does when I crush some havy stuff - it might use two cores if I am lucky.

 

[Westside guy]

I think the issue with people finding it slow is there lack of understand of what Aperture is actually doing. And also not really knowing how to use Aperture to it's full potential.

Some Mac people are like cat owners - the cat (Apple) is never at fault.

Aperture can be very slow, especially on older hardware. I run it on a 1.25GHz Powerbook G4 with 1.5 gigs of RAM. The time required for most actions is acceptable, but none of them are speedy - Lightroom is noticably faster. One action that basically is unusable on my computer - rotating by an arbitrary angle.

I am quite sure I know pretty much exactly what Aperture is doing.

Now when someone reports that the program is dog-slow on a dual-G5, then I'd agree there is something else going on there. But there is a decent range of officially-supported hardware that is, in truth, somewhat underpowered for Aperture. Apple obviously made some decisions regarding the hardware based more on marketing than on the technical specs.

That all said, I am looking forward to trying out 1.5 on my Powerbook! (as soon as I get it back from Apple for yet another in-warranty white-spot LCD replacement... got it in to them 5 days before "our" 3rd anniversary) I think this was a pretty good announcement, and gotta wonder about the unrealistic expectations some people have (WHAT? No 5GHz MacBook Pro with 20" monitor?).

 

[The Mad Kiwi]

The thing I truely love about Apple, is they look after their customers with regular updates to their software with useful features added. I can't think of another company that will add so many new features without charging users for it.

And with some luck it might be faster as well, something that Apple are great at delivering as well, better and faster.

 

[Earendil]

Well I guess what I am saying is that the graphics card really doesn't have the muscle that, say, four processor cores do. You should see what my activity monitor does when I crush some havy stuff - it might use two cores if I am lucky.

And what I'm saying is that once you step down from a $4000 machine you see a much larger power ratio in the graphics card/processor image crunching.
Take my set up, I'm betting that using my graphics card benafits me greatly.

In your case though it would be awesome to hand more of that off to the extra procs.

 

[iGary]

Damn then there must be something wrong with you Quad again Gary. I regularly use 1.1.2 on my 1.67 powerbook and I find it perfectly acceptable. And on my G5/X800XT it's super fast.

I think the issue with people finding it slow is there lack of understand of what Aperture is actually doing. And also not really knowing how to use Aperture to it's full potential.

Everybody wants everything to be instant but that will never happen.

I for one find the workflow of cataloguing, correcting and exporting in Aperture far faster and superior then any comparable app.

I'm starting to think there is, because dual 2.0 G5's are crunching panos about 25% quicker than mine, and I have all the proper software in, according to Kevin. I may take it in soon and show "The Genius" the Aperture issues.

As for catologing and exporting - no complaints here. Some corrections do take a bit of time for me. Not sure why - but I have talked to other Quad owners that have similar issues.

I usually take upwards of 1000 images in an aerial shoot - there's nothing better on the market to sort and catalogue them. I get a bit frustrated at post processing, though.


EDIT - And by the way - it is LIGHTNING fast in regular screen mode. My issues are in full screen mode.

 

[jettredmont]

All except for a few itsy bitsy tiny details.

A: Apple didn't create the event, It is a photography event put on by someone else.

Not to mention, it is a photography event that happens once every two years, which means this is Aperture's first time available during Photokina!

 

[jettredmont]

I have an experiment for those that say "It runs fine on my <insert computer here>."

Open up (in full screen mode) a landscape oriented RAW image and:

1. Use the straightening tool.

2. Try to rotate it 180.

I have an experiment for those that say "My car runs fine on Chevron gas."

1. Use parking break.

2. Try accellerating to freeway speeds.

Report back when done.


Seriously, you realize that the "straightening tool" is not a free-form rotation tool, right? It's optimized for 1-10 degree straightenings, not flipping the picture around.

That having been said, yes, straightening is maddeningly slow on G5s (also on iPhoto ... I have dual 2.0 G5s, and fullscreen or even windowed straightening stutters all over the place). They've got an algorithm problem there (or, more likely, an algorithm which doesn't check for a "break" often enough, which makes it unresponsive and seem really slow). But, the test for that isn't doing a 180-degree rotation on an image; the test is trying to get a correct 1.25 degree rotation when the tools seem to be fighting with you.

The key is this: they could fix the tool to work perfectly for straightening, and still flipping the image around 180 degrees would be slow as molasses to render. Which is just fine, because the 90-degree rotate works fast as can be.

 

[slabbius]

OMFG OMFG! Apple didn't just do Macbook/Pro silent update to Merom!

 

[840quadra]

That having been said, yes, straightening is maddeningly slow on G5s (also on iPhoto ... I have dual 2.0 G5s, and fullscreen or even windowed straightening stutters all over the place). They've got an algorithm problem there (or, more likely, an algorithm which doesn't check for a "break" often enough, which makes it unresponsive and seem really slow).

It is?

I have a Dual 2.0 G5 and it seems quite fluid and smooth.

I also only have a GeForce 5200 !

::EDIT::
I am talking about iPhoto as I do not yet have Aperture .

 

[iGary]

I have an experiment for those that say "My car runs fine on Chevron gas."

1. Use parking break.

2. Try accellerating to freeway speeds.

Report back when done.


Seriously, you realize that the "straightening tool" is not a free-form rotation tool, right? It's optimized for 1-10 degree straightenings, not flipping the picture around.

That having been said, yes, straightening is maddeningly slow on G5s (also on iPhoto ... I have dual 2.0 G5s, and fullscreen or even windowed straightening stutters all over the place). They've got an algorithm problem there (or, more likely, an algorithm which doesn't check for a "break" often enough, which makes it unresponsive and seem really slow). But, the test for that isn't doing a 180-degree rotation on an image; the test is trying to get a correct 1.25 degree rotation when the tools seem to be fighting with you.

The key is this: they could fix the tool to work perfectly for straightening, and still flipping the image around 180 degrees would be slow as molasses to render. Which is just fine, because the 90-degree rotate works fast as can be.

I'd answer this, but you know, I'm tired of fighting sarcasm.

 

[iMeowbot]

Why would Apple logically develop a piece of software that uses the graphics card when I have four processors - many others have two - begging to be worked. I guess I never understood the logic of using Core Image to power this thing.

Apple did the same thing when they got their hands on the G4s, suddenly everything was a vector problem even if it wasn't. They will get over it a couple years down the road when they notice that even the entry level boxes are going to have dozens of CPU cores soon.

 

[Tommyg117]

Excellent news, good to see aperture more integrated into the iLife.

 

[iMeowbot]

And in many ways, Adobe Lightroom has more features than Aperture, particularly (useful) editing tools so that you don't always have to go into Photoshop. The DEVELOP mode in Lightroom is rather brilliant.

They really are doing nice things with the customer feedback. The Library portion, if it picks up enough features to truly replace Bridge (the revised name leaves room for optimism), would make this this scary good.

 

[Abstract]

While I like Aperture's ability to "catalogue" better than Lightroom, I wouldn't choose Aperture over Lightroom right now just because it's better at importing from my camera and "cataloguing" --- not unless I take 500-1000 photos at a time. Lightroom can sort, although I don't like the UI as much. I like Lightroom right now because while not as fantastic as Aperture at sorting, etc, it's much much better at pp. I have literally SAVED a fantastic RAW photo of my girlfriend in tricky lighting with just the editing tools in Lightroom, and I surely could not do that with Aperture.

Lightroom is also faster.


So Aperture has fantastic sorting and cataloguing for those who take >300 photos, but rather poor at post-production (not much editing, and quite slow at what it CAN do).

Lightroom is only "great" at sorting, but fantastic at editing. It's also faster on the same hardware. For the consumer-level, amateur enthusiast level photographer like myself, I think Lightroom is better. For people who will be more productive with better sorting, Aperture has more potential.

It is?

I have a Dual 2.0 G5 and it seems quite fluid and smooth.

I also only have a GeForce 5200 !

::EDIT::
I am talking about iPhoto as I do not yet have Aperture .

In full screen mode?

Mine is choppy. It's like "big steps" of change rather than anything I'd consider smooth. Definitely not precise enough, and not fast enough.

 

[DarkAdept]

Why would Apple logically develop a piece of software that uses the graphics card when I have four processors - many others have two - begging to be worked. I guess I never understood the logic of using Core Image to power this thing.

... because CoreImage allows problems to be described in a way that scales not only across GPU pixel pipeliness, but also across CPUs? This is good bleeding-edge design that will take some time to tweak and tune, but sets the stage for amazing gains over time.

Apple has done their homework on this one - every future release of OS X will do a better job of balancing resources to make Aperture scream.

 

[Some_Big_Spoon]

ummmm... may have been said, it's grea that it runs like a normal app now, but hwo do I get it to load from my 1.0 disk to my 12" pb and Macbook? Do I have to shell out again? Where's the love?

 

[robbieduncan]

Why would Apple logically develop a piece of software that uses the graphics card when I have four processors - many others have two - begging to be worked. I guess I never understood the logic of using Core Image to power this thing.

I think that's because you don't understand how CoreImage is meant to work (I'm not saying how it does work for you). When you write an ImageUnit to run in CoreImage you are not targeting a particular processor at all (be that CPU, GPU or some future co-processor). You write your code in a special language and it gets compiled into a kind of 50% compiled code. CoreImage will then run this on the GPU or any of the available CPUs using whichever it thinks will be fastest at that time.

You can read about it here, see Parallel Execution around half way down.

 

[generik]

OMFG OMFG! Apple didn't just do Macbook/Pro silent update to Merom!

Whinge again tomorrow, when it is Tuesday!

 

[mk_in_mke]

Checked the web site for their RAW file support

I am the owner of a Fuji S3 Pro and I bought Aperture 1 about a year ago ($499). And there was no support for Fujifilm Raw files. I returned the item to Apple.

I checked again today and the Fuji S3 Pro file format is now listed in the Camera Supported page Apple posted for Aperture 1.5 (http://www.apple.com/aperture/raw/cameras.html)

The web page says OPTIMIZED Support. see below

Aperture 1.5 supports the RAW formats from the following digital cameras, providing optimized support to those cameras followed with an asterisk (*). Shoot JPEG? Using Aperture, you can import JPEG images from virtually all digital cameras.

Fujifilm
FinePix S2 Pro*
FinePix S3 Pro*



Does anyone know what this is about?

 

[zoetropeuk]

I am the owner of a Fuji S3 Pro and I bought Aperture 1 about a year ago ($499). And there was no support for Fujifilm Raw files. I returned the item to Apple.

I checked again today and the Fuji S3 Pro file format is now listed in the Camera Supported page Apple posted for Aperture 1.5 (http://www.apple.com/aperture/raw/cameras.html)

The web page says OPTIMIZED Support. see below

Aperture 1.5 supports the RAW formats from the following digital cameras, providing optimized support to those cameras followed with an asterisk (*). Shoot JPEG? Using Aperture, you can import JPEG images from virtually all digital cameras.

Fujifilm
FinePix S2 Pro*
FinePix S3 Pro*



Does anyone know what this is about?

Isn't it obvious

 

[Platform]

Great news, now put the update up on the server...I want it

 

[840quadra]

In full screen mode?

Mine is choppy. It's like "big steps" of change rather than anything I'd consider smooth. Definitely not precise enough, and not fast enough.

Yes,

That is the only way I edit photos now.

Does Lightroom have full screen editing ? If so, I cannot figure out how to activate it!

The full screen editing is going to be the #1 sales point, as that is all I use to edit photos at this point.

So far I am starting to like Lightroom more and more, however I am still liking the aperture interface better as it is similar to the iApps I am used to.