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Apple announces Aperture, professional-grade software for managing

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.)

Reader Comments
17 comments
blurb says:

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.

» by blurb on Oct 19, 2005 at 04:57 PM
Chris says:

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.

» by Chris on Oct 19, 2005 at 05:07 PM
Chad says:

I am officially Appled out. For some reason today I decided I just don't care anymore.

» by Chad on Oct 19, 2005 at 05:27 PM
Brian says:

I have to keep telling myself that I'm not buying a new Mac until the Intel boxes hit.

» by Brian on Oct 19, 2005 at 05:29 PM
Jimmy S says:

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!

» by Jimmy S on Oct 19, 2005 at 05:32 PM
Bill says:

It's nice, but the hardware requirements are very steep: Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5 or faster; 2GB of RAM. Ouch.

» by Bill on Oct 19, 2005 at 05:34 PM
jkottke says:

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.

» by jkottke on Oct 19, 2005 at 05:35 PM
Johan Sundkvist says:

I just bought my very first Mac - a 15" PowerBook. Ohh it is so sweet! Looking forward to switch from my old PC.

» by Johan Sundkvist on Oct 19, 2005 at 05:39 PM
seriocomic says:

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.

» by seriocomic on Oct 19, 2005 at 05:57 PM
Glenn says:

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.

» by Glenn on Oct 19, 2005 at 06:13 PM
Donnie Jeter says:

One-click uploadr to flickr once you're done editing.

» by Donnie Jeter on Oct 19, 2005 at 06:19 PM
disneymike says:

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.

» by disneymike on Oct 19, 2005 at 06:36 PM
990000 says:

ok, let me guess what the catch is. requirements: single processor (to launch the app), and triple processor to actually use it?

» by 990000 on Oct 19, 2005 at 07:18 PM
andre says:

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.

» by andre on Oct 19, 2005 at 08:24 PM
Beerzie Boy says:

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.

» by Beerzie Boy on Oct 20, 2005 at 09:38 AM
Ravi says:

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.

» by Ravi on Oct 20, 2005 at 01:05 PM
Brian says:

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!

» by Brian on Oct 20, 2005 at 07:13 PM

 
This thread is closed to new comments. Thanks to everyone who responded.

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This entry was published on October 19, 2005 at 04:42 pm.

Tags for this entry:  apple  aperture  photography  photoshop  iphoto  powerbooks  osx 

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