Aperture 3.0 came out a few months ago, so you're probably wondering why this review is so late. I had hoped to do a simultaneous review of Lightroom 3 and Aperture 3, but I was thinking that Lightroom 3 would come out at the same time as the CS5 applications, which came out just recently. It now looks like Lightroom 3 is not due out until June or July, judging from the winds (that's hippy talk for 'when the beta program expires'). Anyway, it's better that we waited, since Photoshop CS5 includes Adobe Camera RAW 6 and the noise reduction improvements that are going to be included in Lightroom 3. It also gave Apple a bit of time to clear up some bugs with the release, so we're reviewing version 3.0.3 here.
- Aperture is a photo manager developed by Apple and focussed on professional photographers that allows them to organize and manage their photos in a very useful way. Organize photos, edit metadata, adjust colors, saturation and other properties.
- Digital Photo By Russ Juskalian Mar 3, 2010 8:30 pm PST. Apple has finally updated its pro photo management app, Aperture, to version 3,.
The NZXT Aperture M fits in a single 5.25' bay, the same used by your optical drives. It uses two motherboards headers, one USB 3.0 for the dual USB 3.0 ports and a USB 2.0 header for the card reader.
Test Hardware
- Mac Pro dual quad-core Nehalem Xeon 2.66 GHz
- 24GB RAM
- 120GB OCZ Vertex Turbo SSD system drive with separate HD RAID library disk
- Geforce GTX 285/Radeon 4870 test scenarios
- Dual NEC WUXi 2490 Spectraview monitors
- OS X 10.6.3
- MacBook Pro Core2 Duo 2.4GHz 15' Santa Rosa
- 4GB RAM
- 120GB OCZ Vertex SSD
- NVIDIA Geforce 8600M 256MB
- OS X 10.6.3 running 32-bit kernel
Interface and Workflow Improvements
Aperture 3 includes a ton of workflow tweaks and improvements—so many that covering every little one would be excessive. Sure, the new feature page has some padding like 'Space Bar Playback'—that's a bit of a stretch as a feature. But there are lots of touches that make version 3 a more comfortable, well-rounded workspace for importing, sorting, tagging, developing, and exporting images. Even the icons are nicer:
It's almost weird how bad the version 2 icons look now, like Aperture 2 was using NeXT icons where 3 uses OS X ones. While I can understand why you'd want more toned-down icons in an image editor, they didn't fill the space very well. Of course, if you find them too loud, you can command-click the oblong widget at the top right to pick a more compact mode, like text-only display.
AdvertisementFullscreen Projects View and Full-Screen Browser
Fullscreen mode got a big upgrade in Aperture 3. I like to work with the least clutter possible, and the changes in the latest Aperture make working in a minimal, fullscreen workspace a lot easier. There is no longer a need to go back and forth between modes to navigate thanks to the browser bar at the top of fullscreen mode:
Vanishing HUD
Another enhancement that will help you see more work while working is the Vanishing HUD. If you hold shift while tweaking a slider in the Adjustment HUD, the palette disappears and shows just the image and the slider, letting you concentrate on the image:
It's a nice touch but I just prefer to use the new docked Adjustments HUD while in full-screen mode:
Both of these interface tweaks help Aperture 3 feel less constricted and cluttered overall.
Aperture 3.0 Trial
Aperture Trash
Aperture 3 now has a trash bin, so you don't have to commit to nuking files outright. Command-delete files or projects and clear the trash when it's safe to later:
This helps projects stay organized, since sometimes you want to be able to go back to some options later, but you're 95% committed to your picks and just want to deal with those after trashing the others. On empty, you're given an option to remove the master files from the disk, or just clear them from the library (the default).
Adjustment Presets and Live Previews
One of the sleeker changes to the interface is the addition of a live preview for adjustment presets. You click on the preset menu and drag through the options to watch a good-sized preview of the image pop up with the settings:
Zoom navigator.
If you're working on a zoomed part of an image, a little zoom navigator pops up at the right side of the interface:
Once you mouse over the navigator, it expands to show the image contents, and you can grab and slide the zoom value for interactive zooming:
The zoom navigator and live previews, combined with the myriad other small tweaks, make working in Aperture 3 less restrictive, and they add to the feeling of having of a fully personalized workspace.
As a photographer, I‘m ten times more excited about the just released Aperture 3.0 update than I am about the iPad. When I woke up this morning and read the announcement I phoned the local Apple Store to see if they had copies of the program in stock. They didn’t, but then a few hours later I found a 30-day trial version of the program from the Apple site.
There are a few new features that I’ve always wanted to see in Aperture that makes it now a seemingly perfect image management and editing program. (For past articles and tutorials I‘ve written on Aperture, see my blog, Mac Photography Tips.
For me, Aperture has always been about batch processing images and getting jobs done in a quality, timely manner. I’ve stuck with Aperture mainly because its superior management tools (e.g. smart folders, easy interface navigation.) However, on the image adjustment side, Aperture has always lagged behind Adobe‘s popular Lightroom program. But not anymore. It has caught up and may well have surpassed Lightroom with it’s 3.0 update. Here’s why:
Multiple Presets
Oh yeah! Love it, love it, love it. In previous versions of Aperture you could only apply one adjustment preset at a time, or you could copy and paste a set of adjustments from one photo and apply them to several others. But say you had a combination of settings for converting an image to your own flavor of monochrome, you couldn’t save that mixture as one preset. Now you can.
This is a huge time saver because adjustment presets can be starting points for adjusting and enhancing image files. When you select an image you get a preview of each adjustment set before you apply it. And of course you can also save your own custom presets and share them with others. Apple starts you off with several dozens.
But wait, there’s more. You can actually apply a selected set of adjustment presets as you import new images into your Aperture library. This approach may slow down the import process a bit, but it’s great to have this feature if you simply want Aperture to initiate the image adjustment process while you’ve off doing something else.
There are also other enhanced presetting features for importing photos, including the ability to run AppleScript scripts on import.
Adjustment Tools
Oh yes, Apple must have read the Adobe’s Lightroom manual, because now 3.0 includes a set of brushes for making such selective adjustments to images, such as touch-ups, dodging and burning, tinting, and sharpening and blurring. And it can all be done non-destructively.
There’s also a new Curves tool that works just like Photoshop so that you can have better control over tweaking exposure, colors, luminance, etc. The Exposure, Levels, and Curves adjustment tools also now each has an Auto button to quickly make or try out image adjustments. You typically don’t use auto features like this in a professional image editor, but sometimes you just want to see what the automatic settings might do, because it might save you a little time.
Aperture 300x Light
There are several adjustment features that I will revisit later. Overall, Apple has seriously perfected this aspect of Aperture. I think I’ll be round-tripping my images a lot less to Photoshop because of these enhanced features.
Improved Slide Show
Apple basically copied and pasted the slide show features in iPhoto ’09 and put them in Aperture, with of course much more customization features for this professional program. The beauty of creating slide shows in Aperture is that even as you’re laying out your show, you can still make adjustments to your images without leaving the slide show editor.
Apple Aperture 3.0
The enhancements in this area include custom timing of slides, varied transitions, background music, the Ken Burns panning effect, and the ability to include video clips alongside still images. You can even set the time duration of slides according to the beat of your background music, similar to how it’s done in iMovie ‘09. I played around with this feature and it’s seriously easy and quick.
Apple has improved Aperture so much that most users will not need to use other programs to manage, process, and export photo projects.
I remember when Aperture 1.0 came out, Apple said it was not a replacement for Photoshop, well that’s not the case anymore for most photo editing needs. If all you are doing with Photoshop is making basic and advance image adjustments, you probably will get more out of Aperture because it’s pretty much a single solution image management and processing program.
I have always said that if you’re a photo hobbyist or professional photographer who shoots lots of photos, it’s best not to waste time in iPhoto. Aperture‘s batch processing features are huge time savers, and now that it includes all the features of iPhoto (and Adobe Lightroom), including the Faces and Places feature, and the ability to export images to your Facebook and Flickr accounts, you now have several more reasons to step up to this greatly improved professional program.