Aperture 4

DLScreative wrote:

I started typing a response that began to become an essay that I can't finish tonight. I'll post it tomorrow or perhaps post a link.

I'd love to see it. If you don't finish and/or post, let me know. Perhaps we can correspond off-list.

I could go on about unnecessary features and needed features, but for now all I can say is:

What I really want from Aperture from a pro stand point is for it to Seriously. Compete. With. LR. For. The. Pro. Market. That way I won't be compelled to switch to an application that I hate to keep up with the industry.

DLS

Well if your just going to say it should be more like Light Room that won't be much help as I'm unfamiliar with LR.

I'm not sure what you were trying to convey with the font change and strange punctuation. I am asking an honest question and if you feel its not worthy of an honest response then just let it go.

Kirby,

I'm disappointed you haven't chimed in. You seem to also be disappointed in Aperture and I was hoping to get some honest feedback from you.

regards

Frank,

Bells and whistles:

Big silly icons on the toolbar

Corkboard behind faces

Faces

The toolbar is completely customizable to the point of removing the icons entirely. Cork board background is also removable.

I'm surprised you categorize Faces this way. While the current implementation has problems remember it wasn't very long ago that this capability was restricted to law enforcement and government due in large part because of the requirements of the hardware/software needed to perform the task. So improvements will definitely occur. And I can see face recognition being something useful to say a wedding photographer. And of course Faces can be turned off.

Missing features:

Noise reduction

Lens distortion correction

Gradient filters

There is noise reduction in both the RAW brick and as its own brick so I must not know what noise reduction means to a pro.

Lens correction would be nice but in some ways I prefer to have this as a 3rd party plug-in and here is why, a small 3rd party outfit is more receptive to the needs of its customers. We all know how long it takes Apple to incorporate new RAW capabilities and marginal cameras may never get included. Imagine what would happen with lenses, apart from the major labels what would be the chance of smaller specialty lenses making it in? I would like to see better perspective correction.

Not sure what you referring to as far as Gradient filters go.

Things I'd like to see incorporated (bearing in mind I'm approaching Aperture as a semi-pro photographer and a professional software developer) are a much better macro capability. That is, right now AppleScript is useful but it lacks the ability to really get in at a low level and a lot of very basic stuff like knowing what type of album you're dealing with for example is missing.

I'd love to see a stronger search and sort capability. For me the filter HUD's are nice but leave off some very basic searching capabilities. What I hope for in a future Aperture would be the ability to do true SQL like searches of the database. I hope at some point they do away with this hybridized library, some things in a true database and some things in plain files and put the whole thing into a true database, places, faces and images included. This wouldn't just make searches better you could sort on any field in the DB even do the question asking type of queries a true DB can do.

Bells and whistles:

Big silly icons on the toolbar

Corkboard behind faces

Faces

The toolbar is completely customizable to the point of removing the icons entirely. Cork board background is also removable.

I like icons in the tool bar. But there is no longer the option for small icons - all we have are either these big cartoony ones or none at all. Aperture 2 had more "professional looking" icons. As done Final Cut Pro. I suspect Apple made them this way to be more approachable for iPhoto upgraders. I want the Apple pro interface.

I'm surprised you categorize Faces this way. While the current implementation has problems remember it wasn't very long ago that this capability was restricted to law enforcement and government due in large part because of the requirements of the hardware/software needed to perform the task. So improvements will definitely occur. And I can see face recognition being something useful to say a wedding photographer. And of course Faces can be turned off.

And I have them turned off. For me, its a lot easier to just include a tag for anyone in the picture that's critical to know about later. Another feature for iPhoto upgraders that severly bogs Aperture down. One of the first recommendations you'll read to speed Aperture up is to disable faces.

There is noise reduction in both the RAW brick and as its own brick so I must not know what noise reduction means to a pro.

Aperture can put a check in the box that it has noise reduction. But its a poor stand-in for "real" noise reduction. Lightroom 3 is far, far better. And plug-ins can do a better job, still.

Lens correction would be nice but in some ways I prefer to have this as a 3rd party plug-in and here is why, a small 3rd party outfit is more receptive to the needs of its customers. We all know how long it takes Apple to incorporate new RAW capabilities and marginal cameras may never get included. Imagine what would happen with lenses, apart from the major labels what would be the chance of smaller specialty lenses making it in? I would like to see better perspective correction.

Well, I suppose you could make that argument for any feature in Aperture. Just because third parties can do it faster and/or better doesn't mean they should. How does Apple decide what they'll do and what the third parties do.

I hate plug-ins because they disrupt the RAW non-destructive workflow by creating a static, enormous .PSD or .TIFF file.

Not sure what you referring to as far as Gradient filters go.

Check out the demo of Lightroom. In essence its like a software graduated neutral density filter, but with the ability to had other effects in addition to exposure such as saturation or clarity. But I would use it mostly as a graduated neutral density filter.

The balancing act for Apple is to decide what goes in Aperture and what Photoshop needs to do instead. For me, I'd like to be able to do everything in Aperture short of removing or relocating content.

Bob

Wishes:

#1 • A bombproof pro single-user laptop/desktop Apple-supported synch workflow. Badly needed and requested since v1. Here we are years later still dealing with workarounds, some flaky. Filemaker, Apple's other database app, has had this capability for decades.

#2 • See #1.

#3 • See #2.

• Layers with transparency.

• Text á la Photoshop.

-Allen

This new forum is weird.

More of my earlier post, cut off by the forum:

Pro App Wishes (continued):

#4 • Timely RAW support of new cameras. Note that inclusion of RAW capability pretty much defines a camera as being in the pro or prosumer spaces that Aperture addresses. Quick response to customers' needs is basic, and new RAW-providing cameras literally define Aperture's customer base. Even diehard v1 users like me buy new cameras to achieve new tech capabilities like high ISO and video.

Wishes #1-4 I consider it a huge flaw for Aperture to lack. Other wishes below I do understand that Aperture is not intended to be $700 Photoshop, but they do drive me to Photoshop every day, and every new version Adobe links Photoshop tighter to Lightroom.

• Layers with transparency.

• Text á la Photoshop.

-Allen Wicks

P.S. Yes these wishes have been fed back to Apple.

P.P.S. The troll OP appears long gone.

Bob Rockefeller wrote:

Missing features:

Noise reduction

Lens distortion correction

Gradient filters

First, I will mention that I am a photographic enthusiast and in no way a professional, so Aperture actually meets my needs (aside from a crash here and there and other quirks).

I do however know a few professional photographers who started with film back in the 70's and moved to digital as it developed. From what I have learned and heard from them, I have to agree with Bob that the three features he lists as missing are definitely needed by someone who wants to work non-destructively and at a high rate of speed through many hundreds or thousands of shots in a session.

By most accounts on the web and from said professionals I know, the noise reduction in Aperture is lacking compared to the other big players (so much so that a product like Noise Ninja is recommended for serious noise reduction).

Automatic lens correction for distortion and CA would be much better - IMO - if it was non-destructive inside of Aperture instead of increasing the size of the library on disk with large numbers of TIFF or PSD files. Note - I use DxO Pro with my kit lens due to excessive distortion and CA, which then results in either a large TIFF or a JPEG file. Not an issue for an enthusiast like me, but probably a huge problem for a professional workflow.

The aforementioned professionals I know also use the gradient filter as a fast means to get a desired look in any of their landscape shots.

Including those three things in the brick system and improving Aperture's performance programming so that people do not have to turn off features or purchase more hardware to support the program would go a long way toward improving Aperture - IMHO.

I doubt my lowly Nikon D80 and discontinued 18-135mm lens will be included in any automatic correction if added, so I remain content to use Aperture for what it can do on my computer and use other software to help as needed. 😉

Frank Caggiano wrote:

DLS

Well if your just going to say it should be more like Light Room that won't be much help as I'm unfamiliar with LR.

I'm not sure what you were trying to convey with the font change and strange punctuation. I am asking an honest question and if you feel its not worthy of an honest response then just let it go.

First, I wasn't trying to convey anything with the font change. I typed it in Text Edit and pasted it into the browser. It must brought some html with it. The strange punctuation was just placing emphasis on each word as if being spoken with feeling. Clearly, it didn't work. No offense was intended.

I didn't say I wanted it to be more like LR. I said I wanted it to target the same market. I was just trying to give a quick bottom line response that I had planned to expand on today. However, as I was writing about why I wanted them to compete with LR, I began to realize that my dissatisfaction with the direction of the app was more about my own Aperture tech support business than anything relevant to this forum so I aborted.

What I wrote wasn't negative just irrelevant to the forum. You can read it if you wish

http://www.dlsphoto.com/A3pro/

I have been much more satisfied with A3 vs A2. Editing is far more sophisticated, and I seldom need to go to PS CS5 unless I need layers or a couple of special filters.

Red-eye reduction far better in A3, and better than in CS5. Repair function in Retouch is outstanding considering A is not a pixel editor. Many other functions seem both more convenient, and more efficacious.

Lens correction in concert with CS5 works a treat with my Nikon equipment. Noise reduction has not been an issue, as I remain very satisfied with Noise Ninja, which I got while using A2.

Ernie

Message was edited by: Ernie Stamper

Maybe this is heresy, and a good lynching will straighten me out, but...

I really like the functions brought over from iPhoto! 😝

I'm not a professional, just a keen hobbyist.

As an asset manager and a tool for improving photos, I found that iPhoto did not scale to my needs, and it was too basic. Aperture 2 did not support the more modern iPhoto functions. Hence I picked up Aperture 3 as soon as it was released.

I use the integration with iWork and iLife, Faces and Places, Book printing and MobileMe Gallery support. I hook my Apple TV2 into the Aperture Library for slide shows and "screen saver". iTunes pulls selected albums into my iPad and iPhone.

On rare occasions, I invoke Photoshop CS4 when I need layer stuff or fancy creative manipulation, and I'm reminded how I dislike its modality. But the integration is fine and Aperture protects me from destructive editing.

I realize that by using the "iPhoto functions", Aperture eats up even more resources, but I'm happy to live with that. I've moved my Aperture work to a new iMac with all the bells and whistles, and it behaves well.

PS Sad that the iCloud is about to kill MobileMe Galleries!

OK, go look for a noose....

Apple has been notoriously slow on the RAW updates for new equipment. But you have to admit the last update was actually pretty fast and ahead of PS and LR. The Canon T3i was supported before you could even buy it. Hopefully it becomes a trend.

It's not heresy: you are the target market, and you're happy so somebody is doing their job. Still, I mourn the loss of a big chunk of the pro user base because it means that I have to do half my work in an application that I don't really like.

DLS

It's not heresy: you are the target market, and you're happy so somebody is doing their job. Still, I mourn the loss of a big chunk of the pro user base because it means that I have to do half my work in an application that I don't really like.

But Aperture hasn't gotten worse, even as it has added some admittedly prosumer features. Is it that Lightroom has moved ahead of Aperture and you need Lightroom's extra features (which are mostly in its Develop module, its Library module pales when compared to Aperture)?

Which features from Lightroom MUST migrate to Aperture for Aperture to remain "pro?"

Bob

Bob Rockefeller wrote:

It's not heresy: you are the target market, and you're happy so somebody is doing their job. Still, I mourn the loss of a big chunk of the pro user base because it means that I have to do half my work in an application that I don't really like.

But Aperture hasn't gotten worse, even as it has added some admittedly prosumer features. Is it that Lightroom has moved ahead of Aperture and you need Lightroom's extra features (which are mostly in its Develop module, its Library module pales when compared to Aperture)?

Which features from Lightroom MUST migrate to Aperture for Aperture to remain "pro?"

Bob

I have to add Lightroom to my workflow because most of the industry is using Lightroom. It's not a choice!

While there are features in Lightroom that I admire- mostly in the Develop module- its Library module is absolutely atrocious and inferior to Bridge IMHO. In a nutshell: I HATE it. Probably the most enviable thing about Lightroom is its Photoshop integration- primarily the ability to send a RAW image to PS as a Smart Object then revisit the RAW setting in ACR.

I'm certainly not here to talk down the Aperture or advocate for Lightroom: I've been an Aperture user since 2005 and an Aperture evangelist since 2006. If I personally preferred Lightroom, I would have switched a long time ago. I've had every version of both applications available to me at all times.

Let me repeat: I have to add Lightroom to my workflow because most of the industry is using Lightroom. It's not a choice!

DLS

PS: I'm with SierraDragon: this new forum interface is funky