If I had to guess, I’d say, yeah Aperture 2.0. As it stands we have a 2.7Ghz G5 coming in (for the house, not magazine related) and waiting on Photokina to see how Aperture shakes out. Probably will run 1.1 on it even if Apple doesn’t introduce 2.0 though, if only to gauge the output and as a replacement for iView which has been bought by Microsoft. From what I have heard, though, Aperture 1.1 has resolved most of the basic RAW output criticisms. The Noise Reduction and sharpening components are still lacking, however. (That could be gotten around by using Photoshop, and can be automated to a degree).

Kate MacKenzie - 14 September 2006 07:30 PM

The panacea, what I’d like to see, is RAW files that preserve edits after they are saved so that previews/thumbnails/impromptu slideshows reflect the edited image without having to go through the editing process again, and without having to create a separate catalog of edited (PSD, TIFF, JPEG, whatever) images. With good quality RAW conversions.

Makes sense. So what’s currently doing anything like that, though not quite?

Aperture, Capture One, and Lightroom, with varying levels of not quite. Apple introduced Aperture largely because this was a largely unaddressed/poorly addressed market, and we all saw the abrupt Adobe response in Lightroom when they recognized their feet sliding out from under them.

Oh, and when/if Adobe pulls their ducks in a row I think Elements will end up being pretty solid for those that don’t want a full featured editing environment. It’s a slippery slope though; shooting RAW really requires a fair bit of user input in the final product, as does prep for print output—though more for inkjet and press than the various lightjet type devices.

Oh… and you can assume anywhere the — division symbol pops up I meant for an em dash (—), just noticed that was happening.

…or not…

OK, that works for me. If Aperture 2.0 is out or coming after Photokina, then I’m on board. I run PS Elements 4, so between the two I should be able to step it up a notch or two over iPhoto.

I’d like to note that RAW files are “supposed” to be your digital negatives. That’s why when you edit how one looks, you have to save it in another format to preserve your digital negative.

Right, Nick, but because you need different types of source files for different uses, it’s often best to go back to the negative, which is why we have sidecar files or edit databases or something full blown like Aperture; Ideally you’d like to be able to get consistent output every time from your negative, without having to “re-tweak”.

Welll… that wasn’t quite all I hoped it would be. Looks like Apple introduced a possibly high quality sharpening tool though, and the library functionality is a lot more robust (and optionally will preserve folder structure, which is a sticking point for a lot of folks).

I’ll get with Kate later today to see if we can’t do a quick initial review and compare of Lightroom vs. Aperture 1.5. Both are moving forward and adding features and functionality. I downloaded the b4 of Lightroom this morning.

Regardless of your preferences, Adobe and Apple are making life better for the digital photographer; especially those of us in the middle between a professional photographer, and the home user with a nice DSLR.

How would you compare the two (assuming both were available for purchase, side-by-side)?

More to come; probably with Tuesday’s update.

My initial reactions are prejudiced by two things; I can’t yet run Aperture 1.5 because it isn’t available yet, and I downloaded the v4 beta of Lightroom to the new G5 and it completely hosed, so I haven’t had time to look at that either. My understanding is Adobe has further forked “Photoshop Lightroom” from ACR rendering; potentially handling blown highlights better, more flexible white balance (looks like auto does a better job), and some UI cleanup that understandably has people grumbling—things like renaming and relocating tools—considering folks are more treating lightroom like shareware than a beta. I’m not sure how much RAW Shooter RAW conversion is in this; not much I suspect, but I won’t know until I take the time to figure out why it doesn’t work on the G5. I don’t think so though, there just hasn’t been enough time.

And I grumble re Aperture, but all in all there are some solid upgrades in 1.5 for free. The Library system looks really robust now, much more so than Lightroom especially when you consider app integration and upcoming Tiger feature integration and the abstraction layer Apple has introduced between the previews and the RAWs, and the sharpening looks like it will be pretty solid. Also, a subset of Pros will like the Stock up-loader extensibility, and I suspect that plug in architecture will get used heavily; as a bonus for the prosumer/amateur crowd the Flickr type plugins will be welcome as well. The selective color editing reminiscent of Final Cut Pro, Silverfast, and various other editors is a nice touch too. There were a bunch of other little refinements that while nice, I don’t think are very major.

Really, Lightroom’s only real strength at this point is integration with the rest of the Adobe Suite, and I question that value to the prosumer, especially with the relative disarray the suite is currently in (Dreamweaver/GoLive for instance). They did add a nice “run a Photoshop action” hook to the Lightroom batch in v4, however—though arguably you could easily do the same in Aperture with Applescript/automator/automated folders.

[Nearly forgot—Lightroom has added a new tone curve editor with a live histogram that from all descriptions sounds very similar to how Aperture handles curves (their quandrant levels system essentially works like curves in photoshop, just using 5 control points rather than 16)—that sounds fairly intuitive. I actually like Apple’s approach in this regard, but because they are visually representing data in a way most people aren’t accustomed to seeing and manipulating, Apple’s approach can be fairly confusing. Again, this only matters to those that have taken the time to learn Adobe’s curves, but the ideal would be a larger version of Apple’s interface with more flexibility in the number of control points.]

Kate’s set up a private section in the Forums and one of the first topics is her new Canon 30D and Aperture.

I’m reluctant to shell out the money for Aperture right now, as I just bit the Apple Tax bullet and coughed up money for Final Cut Pro to match my new Sony video camera and a one year subscription to Videographer.