Apple's Aperture Reviewed 383
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has done an in-depth review of Apple's Aperture. Reviewer Dave Girard gives it a once over and walks away with a sour taste in his mouth. From the review: 'It is also disappointing to see form beat out function here, but hopefully this will be Apple's software equivalent of the G4 Cube. They have only themselves to blame: they set themselves up for a big fall by attempting to dig themselves a chunk of the pro market by purporting to have the lossless holy grail of imaging. The trouble with that is they obviously didn't have the engineering or expertise in RAW processing to pull it off or, if they did, they chose not to include it because of speed constraints due to Core Image.'"
Re:My Thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Finding flaws with a magnifying glass (Score:3, Insightful)
Something's wrong here (Score:4, Insightful)
You're using a $500 software product with a $300 camera? There's something wrong here.
Damien
Re:Biased? and Negative (Score:4, Insightful)
He does several times. For instance, "Once you've set some ratings and keywords, sorting through the items is very elegant and well thought out. If there's one thing Apple knows how to do, it's help you find things easily."
Did people even read the review? Or did they just immediately cry bias because he had some negative things to say about Apple's UI.
Re:Finding flaws with a magnifying glass (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Biased? and Negative (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Finding flaws with a magnifying glass (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not a Photo Pro, but I play one on TV.. (Score:2, Insightful)
A pro photographer is paid for his "eye"/ability to capture an image that is so desirable, someone wants to pay for it.
so I understand the needs of a professional digital photographer.
I spent some time working at an OEM, so I got a little tiny window into their workflow. Much of the value of an Aperature is in importing and managing on a large scale for review and basic selection.
Maybe the better article choice would have been to collect feedback from pros instead of assuming he "knows" all about it?
To quote somebody more intelligent than me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Aperature is the light table.
If you don't understand this, you're not the target market.
Apple (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm not sure its a valid reason to be critical though, apple users expect this tradeoff, and prefer it. They pay for Apple products becuase they are idiot-proof, and either don't know or don't care that they perhaps do not have all the functions of other products.
This obviously doesn't apply to all apple products, the new OSX is a wonderful piece of work, finding ways to make it very accessible yet maintain the power of a *nix based operating system was not an easy task.
Re:Finding flaws with a magnifying glass (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple has a history of mediocre 1.0 releases, and I am sure Aperature is the same. I will bet that over the next few years, this will become a good app.
So they're trying to do what by releasing mediocre 1.0 releases? Take your money in advance of giving you a good product?
Do you at least get free upgrades to whatever point the apps start being good (2.x maybe)?
Re:Something's wrong here (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My Thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
Not true. Click the little key icon on the bottom left, and now you can drag images to buttons with the keywords on them.
Note that this is even more of a pain in the ass than the multiple-checkbox window, particularly if you use more keywords than there is room for in the panel that displays the buttons.
But at least it's another interface. And if you're only assigning one keyword to a whole bunch of photos, it works fairly well.
Re:My Thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
I haven't heard of anyone comparing Aperture's performance with huge libraries vs. iPhoto's performance with those same libraries on Aperture-able hardware. Frankly, I'm curious; I avoid iPhoto in part because of its performance limitations.
Re:My Thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
a) does Aperture support layers?
b) does Aperture have a clone tool/healing brush/patch tool? These are the tools I use most often for actual retouching.
c) does Aperture support 16 bit images? (My guess is it would pretty much have to in order to truly support RAW, but I don't think they specifically say it does anywhere.)
Aperture is not an image-editing program. It is a workflow and organization tool with a few editing features, but it is not and is not marketed as a replacement for Photoshop. Aperture is not remotely meant to supplant Photoshop (or Picasa, for that matter) for professional photographers, but as anyone who shoots hundreds or even thousands of photographs a day professionally will tell you, Aperture does fill a pretty big hole in the market.
There isn't currently software that does what Aperture does - the light table layout, stacking, the rich data tagging and database structure.
Whether it does this well or not is the point of the Ars review, and clearly Apple has a lot of work to do on their version 1.0 product.
If your primary questions about Aperture are whether or not it supports layers, "does it do this Photoshop feature" etc, then you may not understand the point of the product. That's partially Apple's fault and partially the fact that most people don't understand how professional photographers using digital tools actually work.
From my experience as a professional photographer and from working in the digital imaging and printing industry, the outsider's view is that professional photographers do a bunch of shooting, some healing brush magic, playing with sliders, and then hit print. This ignores the massive amounts of data, the client's need for proofing, the organization and requirements to differentiate two vitually identical needles in a haystack of exposures.
Aperture was created in part to address the shortcomings of products which only address the 1990s world of digital photography. Now that digital cameras and imaging tools have grown beyond curiosities and exploded into the mainstream of professionals and amateurs alike, those professionals need better tools to organize and present the data. They'll still use Photoshop to edit their images, because that's not what Aperture is for.
Re:Biased? and Negative (Score:4, Insightful)
Now here we have an article that's critical of Apple. That doesn't happen often. Let's see what the dittoheads do.
Re:Something's wrong here (Score:5, Insightful)
So I'm really trying to figure out what your point is here. If I have two tools I use in my work, and one costs twice what the other does, are you really saying that makes no sense? A few weeks ago, I used like $100 worth of precision tools to take apart an iBook, but I put the parts I got out in a $2 mini-muffin tin. Was there something wrong there?
The closest I can get to a useful argument here is (I think) your opinion that a $300 camera can't generate pictures "good enough" for a $500 editing program, but that isn't a slam-dunk these days, especially if the software saves you a lot of time no matter how much you camera costs *and* your time is worth something. Another possibility is that you're pointing out that most casual users probably don't use most of the features from the $500 piece of software, and would be better off using something cheaper and spending the other money on something else. Now, that would be my opinion most of the time, but I don't see that it has much to do with how fancy your camera is...
Re:To quote somebody more intelligent than me... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's for proofing hundreds of frames in a relatively short period of time. Of course most of us (the reviewer included), don't routinely shoot 500 or 1000 frames in a day, and then need to get the best 10 to an editor two hours later.
Ars and Slashdot's reviews of Aperture are about as insightful as a Blind Spot review of Solaris 10.
Re:Something's wrong here (Score:5, Insightful)
No you are thinking backwards. He is using a $500 software product to manage $10,000 worth of images. The fact that those images where shot with an inexpensive camera does not mater.
I use a Canon A95 also. But for example a couple weeks ago I spent two days of my time and $2,000 worth of SCUBA equipment and waterproof housing and pay for a charter boat to take me to the back side of an island of the California coast. I shoot for three hours and get about 200 images. What did those images cost me? The $300 I paid for the camera is meaningless in that calculation.
Let's say I go in vacation to Hawaii and take the famly or I take the camera with me to my daughter's Halloween party and so on and so on. OK I've actually done all that and have 2500 images all shot wuith the $300 A95. and now I'm thinking of how I'm going to scan a few thousand slides and negatives I shoot with 35mm and 120 size film. What are these images worth? The cost of the equipment they were shot with? The cost of the time effort and money spent shooting them? IIf so then they are wortth FAR more then the cost of a $500 software aplication AND the Quad Core Power Mac.
If you are a profesional it's easy to know tha value of your images: It's whatever a client is willing to pay you for them. The cost of your time and your equipment does not even come into the calaculation. If you images are paying the rent and you areliving a midle class lifestyle then a few years worth of image are worth a LOT more then a Quad Core Powwer Mac and a RAID disk system and the $500 cost of Aperature would be in the noise.
All that said I'm seriouly looking to buy a DSLR soon. My A95 is just to darn slow and the image quality is not up to 35mm film standards and I think the new Nikon D200 will do better. OK it's a $2K camera but it will shoot tens of thosands of images in it's lifetime - A nickle a shot maybe.
Re:Finding flaws with a magnifying glass (Score:3, Insightful)
and neither did Aperture!
It was mentioned at a conference. Once conference. It got some hype on the web, and slightly less press hype in print.
There have been zero TV ads.
Zero radio ads.
Zero print ads.
In other words, apart from a couple of press releases which cost them basically nothing, there has been no marketing for Aperture whatsoever.
Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, it's quite different from the Cube. The Cube was overpriced to begin with ($200 *more* than a comparably-specced, and expandable, G4 tower) and had no hope for success other than the price to be dropped. Software, on the other hand, can be improved and expanded in many directions. If Aperture is as bad as he says (and I'm sure for many it isn't) it can be improved. The Cube, on the other hand, had nothing to offer except "Ooh! Pretty! Small!" and unless Apple would have pushed it in the home-media-hub direction, there's not much that could have been done with a product like that.
Re:Apple deserves the same treatment (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't that a little bit like saying Photoshop is useless for you because it can't run spreadsheets?
Re:in Apple's defense (Score:5, Insightful)
Aperature was NOT intended to replace Photoshop. Aperature's job is to streamline the digital workflow. This is a "Big Deal" for people who shoot hundreds of images a day. Just ty it. Download 200+ images every day, day after day. Just previewing those images and ranking them for quality, deciding which to keep and with to toss, doing minor crops and color corections take _hours_ Profesionals are looking for workflow automation it would be worth much more than $500 if post shoot time could be cust by even 20%
Aperature WAS intended in integrate with Photoshop. You can set up Aperature so that Photoshop is the default image editor and I figure that almost _everyone_ does this.
Valuable to experiment with (Score:4, Insightful)
In addition, I got to play with Pages, and while it isn't currently "there yet" it has some neat features. I played with it to see if it was viable, because I'm looking for an affordable solution for people that don't NEED Office, but it would be nice to have something better than TextEdit. So for a few bucks, I determined that it is one release from being usable, and I can use that to plan my roadmap. Instead of waiting on Open Office, or playing with Abiword, I decided that for most of my people, we'll limp along with TextEdit for now (limited Office installations) and adopted iWork. Those of us that need Excel/Word will have Office + iWork, but iWork 2.0 will likely be part of our standard office setup.
However, by releasing Keynote 1.0, I was able to buy it and decide if this was the direction I wanted to take. Then when the "better version" comes out in a year, I can decide if I am ready to buy 10 copies or not... same-thing with essentially bundling Pages 1.0 with Keynote 2.0 as a preview.
It is no secret that the 1.0 versions are a bit rough, but sometimes it is worth evaluating if switching software takes you a year to decide on. In the end, we get to preview where the App is going, and Apple gets us to cover the development costs. For me, it's often a win/win. For others, it isn't, so they shouldn't buy the 1.0 version.
A viable review should be able to determine 1) if the App in its current state is worthwhile, and 2) if it is moving in that direction, is it worth keeping an eye on. Software purchases aren't about "moral justice" (are they entitled to my money), but rather, does the current value of the software + my ability to see where it is going warrant the expenditure of my money. For some, the decision is yes, for others no, and for a third group it is, go play with it at the Apple store and then buy 2.0... all of which is enhanced by Apple choosing to release early, release often.
Alex
Ignore the WTF posts (Score:5, Insightful)
There will always be better algorithms and processing as time goes by - the RAW data will never get more accurate than that which you capture initially.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Quantum Phenomenon (Score:3, Insightful)
You were better off kidding (Score:1, Insightful)
You're using a $500 software product with a $300 camera? There's something wrong here.
So I'm really trying to figure out what your point is here.
ok, spelling it out for all the slow-thinkers who hit the GP with WTF? posts: if your photos are so precious that you need a RAW workflow tool to process them then you either have a pretty darn good source for those RAW pictures (read: a pro-level camera) or you have no idea what you're doing. Besides, A95 only shoots JPEG so WTF is the use for a RAW workflow tool in that? you're already at 8-bit lossy to begin with and Aperture won't make your image any better endowed.
so
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Something's wrong here (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyways, the point being is that you're not going to get the amount of images from a $300 camera that this software was used for.
Actually... (Score:3, Insightful)
Aperture is a 'workflow' program. Designed to help in getting a RAW image out of a camera, do basic processing, and hand it off to an image editor.
The problem with the camera mentioned in my limited knowledge of the product is that it produces no RAW/NEF image, only a JPG.
What would you workflow on it? Nothing that another raster program like Photoshop Elements or something else can do, because the RAW processing is handled by insert-chip-with-fancy-marketspeak-name-here instead of an external tool like Aperture/iView Media Pro/Bibble/Capture One/Adobe Camera RAW.
So using your analogy that would be like building a clean room and then using it to install your favorite OS of choice.
Re:My Thoughts (Score:2, Insightful)
You're not looking hard enough. Portfolio doesn't have anything like Aperture's nondestructive image processing. You'd need Photoshop for that. Aperture is more like a cross between Portfolio and Photoshop.
Re:I am not a Photo Pro, but I play one on TV.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Given than Aperature is a workflow product more than an image manipulation product, a photo retoucher and art director should have an excellent idea of what a commercial photographer needs Aperature to do. Both deal with large numbers of images, are concerned about image quality, relevance, building libraries, searching by metadata, color data, or thumbnails.
Is it just me (Score:2, Insightful)
What happened to concepts like human factors, real testing to ensure that the software really works, and oh, I don't know, pride in workmanship?
Re:Something's wrong here (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not the original poster, but I don't see anything in his/her message to indicate that the software was pirated. On what do you base this allegation? On the fact that the camera being used cost less than the software? What kind of "evidence" is that? (other than totally unrelated, as other people have already pointed out).
I don't get the "in thing" among both ordinary posters and corporations in assuming that everyone is a scumbag. Most people are honest, and there's a reason why "innocent until proven guilty" is at least theoretically still the legal standard, at least here in the US.
And there are hobbyists who acquired the software legally (like me; working at a university has a lot of perks, and cheap apps is one of them). The OP could be someone like me. Or be someone with enough disposable income to pay the standard retail price.
Your post just makes baseless accusations, on the other hand. If you can't justify a comment like that, don't make it.
Re:Finding flaws with a magnifying glass (Score:4, Insightful)
Point to a piece of software that has no flaws.
TeX
If you can find a flaw, it's worth $327.68 but there hasn't been one reported since 1994 or 1995.
It's a 1.0, so what? It will kick ass anyway! (Score:2, Insightful)
Second, yes, it's a 1.0 Apple App. This means it's a great idea, but not so well done, it WILL improve. It's much like Keynote, a "cute 1.0 buggy app" that replaced powerpoint and that now, on it's 2.0 version, really kicks ass.
Aperture has the incredible potential for any pro or addicted amateur to sort out amongst hundreds or thousands of photos, to compare them, tag them and use very basic tools to improve minor details. And it works with RAW files (though in a buggy way, it seems).
The pro's are known to shoot thousands of photos per day and I can say (not being a pro though) that sorting out 10 great photos out of 500 "snapshots" was, until Aperture, a real pain.
So, the strength of Aperture is not on it's RAW conversion capabilities nor on it's editing tools (allways remember that Aperture is NOT a Photoshop relacement). Aperture strength is in making it easy to sort out and compare thousands of images... fast and easy on a single app. And this is why I say Apple has "done it again", it's expensive, but if you're a pro that must "be done with it" in 2 hours, you'll not what to spend thouse 2 hours sorting, you'll what to spend 5 minutes with Aperture and deliver your photos faster than anyone else.
Give Aperture some time, it's already one heck of an 1.0 app, but it's still as buggy as any new app. Believe me that in a few months Aperture will be THE app for sorting and tagging and that pro photographers will almost forget about photoshop (most of them don't even need to edit their photos if they're good enough, like photojournalists).
Oh, and if all you paying Aperture custumers here in