Apple's Aperture

[bostran1]

Anyone use this program? If so, any thoughts or opinions on it? I'm about to download the trial version and see how it stacks up against Photoshop for processing RAW images.

Thanks

 

[Anewman]

Anyone use this program? If so, any thoughts or opinions on it? I'm about to download the trial version and see how it stacks up against Photoshop for processing RAW images.

Thanks

Sorry never used it but IMO it is more like Adobe Lightroom than Photoshop.

 

[bostran1]

That was my understanding. I'm not looking for a photoshop replacement really, I was just wondering how the RAW processing between the two stacked up.

 

[Groucho]

Lightroom is very, very different in how it operates than Photoshop... but the actual RAW processing options availability should be the same. Note that Lightroom 1.1 has a number of advancements over 1.0, I believe that it's the same as Photoshop with Camera Raw 4.1, with the Clarity slider. Clarity is very cool...

 

[0bli0]

Apple Aperture doesn't process raw, in the traditional sense. OSX natively handles most popular raw image formats. they constantly add new supported raw formats (they added the mk3 about 2 weeks after it was available).

Aperture uses CoreImage to process images in realtime per a set of metadata (used for controlling basic editing such as crop, saturation, contrast, etc.) - leaving the original completely intact. it also stores keyword and other data for searching and organising.

i have been using it since the day it came out and it has greatly streamlined my workflow. ever image i have posted here has been processed in Aperture. these have all been raw, except for scanned film or sports .jpg files.

basically my workflow is like this:
-shoot
-offload from cards into projects and albums
-quickly cull the bad ones (using the minus key)
-batch set white balance tweaks, saturation, and contrast for each different shooting situation
-keyword
-export to print or web

that took maybe 10-15 minutes for the 850 or so pictures i took on saturday

if you are a photoshop user, you can round-trip your images from inside of the program. i only really use photoshop for scanned negatives to remove dust. i'd be suprised if i used it for than 1% of my digital photos.

i went through all 4 Lightroom betas. it works in a fashion very similarly to Aperture, but with some expected Adobe behaviour. because i've been using Aperture since the beginning i'm sticking with it... but i do recommend Lightroom over Aperture to all people who are looking for a solution. it works on both mac and windows.