Apple announces Aperture, professional-grade software for managing and manipulating photos. A little bit o' iPhoto mixed with Photoshop, it looks like. (Also, new Powerbooks...higher res, better battery life.)
Well - yes - a LITTLE iPhoto, and a LITTLE Photoshop, but MUCH more.
I am a long time Apple junkie, but have not the lifestyle that benefits from an iPod. To say the least, in the past 2-3 years the luster has been coming off of the Apple for me due to the iPod obsession.
Today is the first time in a long time I am foaming at the mouth for an Apple app since I don't know when.
I happen to be an "intermediate" level photographer, so I was more than interested in their new app. Here is my unsolicited breakdown:
• The loupe tool nearly makes me weep.
• As does the versioning control.
• The "Import iPhoto Library" that honors your existing architecture is HUGE.
• It refers to the floating transparent windows as HUDs instead of calling them windows. Nice. I'd like to see more of them across apps.
• The filter tool for finding images is slick - looks pretty powerful.
• Smart web galleries - export your filter (search) results to HTML. Good idea.
• Incorporates "Vaults" for backups. Set it up once, then when you plug in your external drive it automatically updates it with work you have added since last time. I love it! Why can't they incorporate that into the OS??
• The "Stack" feature is a great idea. I like that you have control over the time difference between shots that get stacked.
• I don't have my first 30 inch Apple display yet, and it looks like I need ANOTHER one already, since it has all the dual monitor features.
• The "virtual light table" is a cool idea.
• Looks like they have done a good job managing color profiles as well. Leave it to Apple to do something well that Adobe has been trying to do well for 10 years.
• WOW - the book creation in Aperture is AWESOME. When will THAT show up in iPhoto?
• The Spot & Patch tools are more intuitive than the exact same tools in Photoshop.
• The un/re-crop tool is nice.
• The thing that really sells Aperture? ONE CLICK PHOTOSHOP INTEGRATION. Aperture is sweet, but it only goes 70% of the way. Apple was smart enough to see that they HAD to work with the industry standard for post-processing, and it appears that they have done a great job integrating them.
• All in all - well worth $500!
It was a pretty poorly kept secret that they were coming out with something like this today, I am happy to say that for once lately, an Apple product announcement hasn't left me yawning - it has me YEARNing.
I am officially Appled out. For some reason today I decided I just don't care anymore.
I have to keep telling myself that I'm not buying a new Mac until the Intel boxes hit.
Just like iTunes is a way to get people to buy iPods - from watching these videos Aperture seems like a way to get people to get people to buy two Apple displays!
It's nice, but the hardware requirements are very steep: Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5 or faster; 2GB of RAM. Ouch.
It just occurred to me that Aperture may be the reason that iPhoto hasn't fully lived up to its potential in a lot of ways.
I just bought my very first Mac - a 15" PowerBook. Ohh it is so sweet! Looking forward to switch from my old PC.
Simply stunning. It's like the developers read my mind and threw in my every want and need and then decided that my life wasn't sweet enough and added more candy.
I've spent a lot of time working with Bibble Pro, my only exposure to a RAW workflow-based photography tool. It is a great tool, but methinks Apple will bring a lot of usability to the game. For more $$ of course. The best thing about Bibble, that Aperture will also provide, are non-destructive edits. Aperture slaps versioning on top of this which is AWESOME! Something I've found lacking in Bibble.
I hope my 15" Powerbook will be up to the task.
One-click uploadr to flickr once you're done editing.
As someone who shoots only in RAW with a Nikon D100 and loves Macs, I am eagerly awaiting the availability of Aperture. It looks like a wonderful tool for post-processing with a cleverly designed user interface.
ok, let me guess what the catch is. requirements: single processor (to launch the app), and triple processor to actually use it?
Unfortunately, like many of Apple products, perfection comes at a steep price ($499). It broke my heart because, as a photoblogger and semi-pro photographer, I could really use this.
I should note that I used to think the same about iPods but I ultimately cracked and now all four members of my family have one.
Hmm...cheaper than CS2, (though the requirements -- 2GHz Power Mac G5 or faster; 2GB of RAM! -- are steep) slick interface...looks promising. I'd love to see a detailed, feature to feature comparison/evaluation between this and CS2. Photoshop is so entrenched, I doubt Adobe is sweating this much.
Aperture will take a lot of users away from Photoshop -- Photoshop is a design tool above and beyond being a photo management tool. And it doesn't have all these nifty traditional (but virtual) management tools that Aperture has reprodcued -- a light table, stacks, the loupe. Do less and less "design" and more photography, I'm all ears.
I've been waiting for this Powerbook update. Though there's not a whole lot new with it, it looks good to me. Just want to be sure I have the latest without fear of updates the day after I buy. Going toy shopping this weekend!
This thread is closed to new comments. Thanks to everyone who responded.
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blurb57 19 2005 4:57PM
The photographer profiles are interesting. How sweet would it be to have a couple of 30" monitors at a shoot? And that wedding guy, 12 cameras without an assistant?
Looks very sweet. I'm scheming already, even without the dual 30" monitors or 12 cameras.
I wonder how Adobe feels about this.