Apple Aperture 1.5 [Old Version]

Like a lot of amateur photographers, I was wondering whether to make the leap and use RAW files or not. I decided to try RAW out, and in order to take advantage of RAW formats I got Aperture.

So far, I've found this to be a useful photo-processing program - certainly an improvement over iPhoto. Here are some of the highlights for me:

1) Easy to use adjustment tools. If you've used iPhoto or any basic program, you can probably open Aperture and figure out how to use everything in 10 minutes. I remember years ago struggling with Adobe Photoshop and being confused out of my mind.

2) Good range of color adjustments available. I love being able to change the saturation of individual colors. The range doesn't quite cover the entire rainbow (orange is missing), but it is great when you want to adjust one color and not the others.

3) Aperture allows you to organize similar photos in stacks for easy access. Often, I take a series of photos of the same subject, changing shutter speed or f-stop slightly, to see which composition or exposure I like best. Stacks keeps all of these photos in a group so I can easily compare them later.

Now, for the drawbacks:

1) The magnification tool ("loupe") is not as useful as the magnification in iPhoto or other programs. First of all, it slows down the program quite a bit and every time I use it I have to wait about 20 seconds before I can continue using the program. Second, its minimum magnification is 50x, which isn't always useful (particularly if I want to see how a picture would look if cropped). By contrast, iPhoto simply has a useful sliding bar that allows you to zoom in or out quickly.

2) Aperture, like many advanced photoshop programs, uses a lot of memory on your hard drive (~1 GB) and ram. Using it slows your computer down. It has already crashed twice on me over the course of 24 hours. This certainly isn't a reason not to get it - I would just warn you against getting it and storing it on your computer if you don't expect to seriously use it.

3) No full-screen editing mode.

Aperture 1.5 was great, but do yourself a favor and buy 2.0 instead. A much improved work of art and less expensive to boot.

Having used both Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture, I have to say that I am more comfortable working in Aperture. It has something to do with not feeling locked into an interface structure that I don't particularly want to come back to time and again. Aperture is open and I can accomplish what I need to do without feeling constrained.

In other words, you should not buy version 1.5. (You will for a while get an upgrade for 9.95 from Apple.) But since the new version is $199... Well, you do the math.

Looks like a ton of new and improved features, so check it out.

5 stars because it is a promissing new program positioned for very strong success due to Apples market position and its use, and availablity on its Mac computers

The good news:
This is a great program for viewing, organizing and performing basic editing using RAW files. The presentation ablilities of this software are magnificent. I will mainly use it to organize, display, present, email, create slideshow or DVD's, and maybe print from my databases on my Mac.

For advanced photo editing features you will have to rely on other methods.



The not so good news:
Aperture 1.5 is the second in the line from Mac for Mac use. Photoshop would be the obvious choice for any type of advanced photo editing or graphics creation softwares. If that is your thing, get Photoshop or one of its dirivatives. Or install vmware fusion or parallels and work windows XP or Vista on your Mac, and use the wide variety of photo processing applications available for windows. You can save the file in RAW, Jpeg, Tiff or whatever, and then open it up in Aperture for any additional presentation commands within your Mac.

Again hopefully this product is in its early development stage. The folks at Aperture must add a slew of editing features to remain relevant as other softwares catch up and exceed the demands placed by the new Dual Core technologies which are emerging.

What it doesn't do:
Take Layering for example, or working with layers. Take one click auto fix commands for contrast, levels, lighting, sharpness, exposure etc.(somewhat,but very archaic) Along with macro adjustments for the same. How about one click Black and white, spehia, antique, negative or other conversions. iPhoto does it. how about a back and forth over changes command for quick do's and undo's.Where is Hue alteration(found it!), Diffuse glow, texture and color, copy, and clone features. Paint, text, edges, and filters. good gracious, where are all the filters? Why cant you cut, copy, duplicate and paste from one pic to another?

I guess it depends on where you have been regarding advanced photo processing features offered by all the variants of photoprocessing softwares. And what you are ultimately trying to create.

This is 90% workflow and organizing software/10% editing.

Again, Hopefully the folks at Aperture plan to expand this products capability before the plethera of available softwares make it irrellevant. It would be nice to have one software for everything. Aperture is just one part of the solution at this point.