Early Notes on Apple's Aperture

[MacRumors]

Maccentral posts some notes about Aperture with reactions and comments from Apple. First and foremost, Apple insists that Aperture is not a competitor to Adobe Photoshop: Apple said that Aperture opens up a whole new category for photo applications. The company set out to eliminate many of the issues that pros have been facing over the years as they move from their familiar print workflow to the digital workspace.
While not available until November, Apple invited some of the press to a demonstration of the new program. Some notes include:

- Aperture deals with the RAW data coming from the Camera
- All edits are non-destructive
- No "save" command, all changes are logged to a SQL database
- Advanced web galleries, photo books and prints. Photo books are higher resolution and have more flexible layouts than those offered through iPhoto.
- "Smart" web galleries which have images posted based on certain criteria

Article Link: Early Notes on Apple's Aperture

 

[mainstreetmark]

I'd like to play around with it one day certainly. My poor powerbook doesn't sound like it's up to the job.

That thing required more horsepower than Vista.

 

[supergod]

I've got no use for it at all but looking on the Apple site for it, I find that is has a really nice looking interface. A bit grey at times, but certainly more lively than the interface to Final Cut and definitely better than Logic. I would have to say that if this is a sign of things to come, I look forward greatly to new pro apps.

 

[Vonnie]

I wonder what features will trickle back to iPhoto 6. I guess we will see in january

 

[Ibrin]

It would almost be worth it (at the edu price) to get better photo books.

 

[CalfCanuck]

While we'll all have to wait and see the final product's performance, it's obvious that this new product jumped out of yesterdays announcements for EVERY working photographer.

Apple's mild assurances aside, Adobe knows this will impact Photoshop in a big way, similar to how Final Cut Pro impacted the market in digital video (although there Avid and others were also affected besides Premiere).

If thing is decent, will it stop me upgrading my Photoshop? No.

But would I stop spending the majority of my digital darkroom time in PS? Absolutely!!

While I will still need the power of PS for difficult images, the majority of my decently exposed images need only the minor tweeking that seems to be available in Aperture. My goal is to MINIMIZE my time per image to get the MAXIMUM quality, not spend thousands of hours fussing with images just to spend time on the computer.

This is great news for photographers. And just like FCP, wait until version 3 or 4, if this thing delivers as promised!

 

[winjer2k]

This makes sense, in light of the earlier leak where Adobe posted a comparison between Adobe CS3 and Apple's "Photo Pro" app. My guess is that Apple clued Adobe in on their development of Aperature and collaborated as far as making sure CS3 still had some features that Aperature didn't cover.

 

[PCMacUser]

I wonder what features will trickle back to iPhoto 6. I guess we will see in january

Yeah it would be great to see some pro features enter iPhoto. I don't like iPhoto at all really, so something like this might be a good investment.

 

[nagromme]

Soundtrack stuff trickled to GarageBand, so you never know (Not the same situation, really.)

And it's certainly not a Photoshop competitor. Each does things the other doesn't do well, and they work together: you can edit your Aperture images in Photoshop directly.

I had my doubts (as an outsider) that Apple would really release a pro version of iPhoto. But they did and I see now why that's a great thing.

 

[jelloshotsrule]

this app looks pretty dang amazing. it definitely isn't a head on competitor with photoshop... i guess it's like motion:AE::apertureS. well, kinda anyways.

i can't believe no one had come up with the idea of the digital lightbox before, that looks amazing.

i hope it doesn't chug along like motion did early on. shouldn't be AS intense, but still pretty crazy with raw files and all of them laid out and various edits/zooms/etc.... wow

i can't justify buying it (yet!) but i look forward to playing with it for sure. and any additional support for RAW is more than welcome.

 

[puckhead193]

I wonder what features will trickle back to iPhoto 6. I guess we will see in january

i hope the higher resolution books and and make it more custom

I wonder what the pros think (did igary share his thoughts on this)

 

[Lacero]

Aperture is like a pro photographer's own digital lightbox. Managing 1000's of RAW photos after a commercial shoot is pretty daunting, for which Bridge and Photoshop aren't really designed for. The most impressive feature of Aperture is its SPEED. This also requires fast computers and hefty core-image enabled video cards.

 

[Sdashiki]

Aperture isnt to Photoshop what Motion is to AE

Motion cant do layers.

Aperture cant do layers.

Aperture is a compliment to Photoshop
Motion is a compliment to AE

Adobe seems to be the "compositor" and Apple is the creator, like FCP is also AE. FCP and layers, while possible DO NOT run as smooth or as fast as AE, but AE cant chop parts out of a video layer....

Those who constantly are refering to Aperture as a PS killer or blah blah, are just wrong. Its not, its a PRO Photo app for "high" end digital manipulation INSTEAD of physical negatives and a light table.

 

[paulypants]

Sweet! Can't wait to pick this up, hopefully this will also push Adobe to put some innovation into Photoshop, like non-destructive edits across the app. The no "save" command is pretty sweet. I'll have to un-train myself for Aperture.

 

[~Shard~]

Normally I would never have even thought of purchasing it, but the idea of having high resolution photo books is very tempting. Urgh, damn you Apple... I think I'll wait until MWSF and see what iLife '06, specifically iPhoto 6 brings to the plate. If they incluide the high res books, then I'll have absolutely no need for Aperture, which will definitely be easier on the wallet and easier to justify purchasing, since I'll probably be purchasing iLife '06 regardless.

I also find the no "save" command interesting as well. Forgive my ignorance, but do many other applications log all changes to a SQL database in this manner?

 

[dongmin]

sure it's not a photoshop 'competitor' but it eliminates about 50% of what i use photoshop for, which is color correcting, adjusting contrast, etc. the interface seems waaaaay better photoshop which has gotten too complicated & bloated for its own good, in my opinion. if i had a fast enough computer to run this, i'd jump all over it. as it is, i'll have to wait until they release dual-core intel powerbooks...

 

[mlrproducts]

All I have to say is that this is the tool I've been waiting for. And no, this is not iPhoto on steroids, hardly.

I will have to put the best core image capable card I can in my old Dual 1.8 w/2GBs, but I have faith it will run well.

What am I excited about?
-How about vault, great storage and organizing as well as backup.
-More than one way to compare. Use the stack function to compare or use the "digital lightbox."
-All the ways stacks are related. Such as by time of the shot, versions of the shot using Aperture or brought back in from PS, or manually.
-FTP and webpage settings probably aren't everything I could ask for, but they are a start, and I sure will at least use the FTP function (sending orders to printer directly from Aperture... sweet!).

This is not Photoshop folks. This is however (appears to be) a huge leap in combining ACR w/ Bridge, adding some insanely intuitive features, and then making it all 10 times better. I love the ability to export to PS to work on it, and then it automatically brings it back in and adds it to your stack (although destructive I would assume, unless it saves in PS format for later editing there).

All in all I'm pretty excited, as this looks to be a great tool to reduce the time I can get everything from proofs back to my clients to files sent to the printer.

Way to go Apple, keep upgrading this sucker, and one question....
How friggin long have you been working on this thing!? And who's helpin!?

 

[CalfCanuck]

What am I excited about?
-How about vault, great storage and organizing as well as backup.

YES!

I've been talking about how powerful this feature is to us power shooters. As our digital RAW image collection grows exponentially, we really needed this. I use Retrospect as BU, but I assume that Vault also saves all the "edits" as well as the originals.

Creating multiple Firewire BUs easily on huge, cheap HDs seems like a no-brainer for the overworked (and probably under "backed up") digital pro.

 

[~Shard~]

YES!

I've been talking about how powerful this feature is to us power shooters. As our digital RAW image collection grows exponentially, we really needed this. I use Retrospect as BU, but I assume that Vault also saves all the "edits" as well as the originals.

Creating multiple Firewire BUs easily on huge, cheap HDs seems like a no-brainer for the overworked (and probably under "backed up") digital pro.

Yep, looks like a powerful app - I've receommnded it to our wedding photographer already!

 

[jelloshotsrule]

Aperture isnt to Photoshop what Motion is to AE

did you mean "is" or "isn't"?

what exactly is "vault"? i'll see if i can find info about it on the aperture site too...

 

[workphoto.net]

i am very happy they released this software, it will solves many workflow problems for me as iPhoto and its RAW support doesnt really do anything useful with raw files, and i dont like C1's interface, and working with photoshop CS and trying to keep everything organized is ridiculous when you do a shoot with more than 600 images, but i am slightly unhappy it wont possibly wont work on my iBook 12" 1.33 1GB ram, it may not even work on a new 12" powerbook which kinda stinks, and i'm not a big fan of the 15" powerbook or having to buy a new computer like that when i need to buy lenses and more lighting equipment. oh well hopefully i will find find out soon if it can work on the 12" apples

 

[CalfCanuck]

did you mean "is" or "isn't"?

what exactly is "vault"? i'll see if i can find info about it on the aperture site too...

Look at the section on Integrated Backup in the right column:

http://www.apple.com/aperture/management/

To see the video, take the tour, select the Proffesional Project Management QT, and drag the slide to about 3/4 of the way through to get to the vault demo.

 

[ipacmm]

I can't wait to play with it at the apple store once they install it on the computers...

 

[ktb53]

Longtime Photoshop User

I'm a longtime photoshop user and as a graphic designer and photographer I can really how this can accompany photoshop and be used in conjunction. Except for a few of the simple photograph retouching tools the programs don't seem to overlap much.

I think most photographers will use this hand in hand with photoshop. Looking forward to trying it out.

 

[mcadam]

Yay - this is really cool. I'm very happy to see apple make another smart move on the software front. Nice way to keep the public and media busy while we're all really waiting for the macintels.

It doesn't seem like this app is something I'll buy though. I don't think I'm pro enough to justify 499$ mainly to improve my workflow. But I'm sure curious to see what it does and how it works.

A