Q: Aperture 4 Wish List

Lens correction is the big one for me, especially since I have an Olympus E-M5 on pre-order. Some of the micro 4/3 lenses feature fun-house distortion that really needs to be corrected. Panorama stitching and HDR would be nice to have. The basic workflow is just fine.

—Andreas

1. Performance, performance, performance. There is simply no excuse for local adjustments (retouch, brushes) to be so slow. The same image on the same machine has local adjustments working at lightning speed in PS. Same image, same machine.

2. ITunes synchronization. I have multiple libraries but can only sync with one. This means that when I want to update my portfolio on my iPad, I have to add images from the other library to the One that iTunes syncs with. Seems un-Apple-like to me. I need a neater way to handle this, where I can specify all my portfolio (preferred) images accross libararies.

3. Sharpen on export. When exporting images for the web, some local contrast is lost which has to be compensated for with unsharp mask in PS to make them acceptable. It would be nice to be able to automate that step.

4. Intelligent watermarking. I would like to specify, within Aperture the location for my designated watermark on export. In the current arrangement, you just specify the .PSD containing the watermark and the location for the watermark, and that remains the same for all images in that export batch.

Pixyst wrote:

 

1. Performance, performance, performance. There is simply no excuse for local adjustments (retouch, brushes) to be so slow. The same image on the same machine has local adjustments working at lightning speed in PS. Same image, same machine.

 

It is possible that you are really arguing for a change in the Aperture user interface - that is to use a "Save" command, as is done in Photoshop.

Based on my very unscientific observations on a MacPro with a lot of RAM, the brushes, etc., are very fast, it is the updating of the Version that takes time. As Photoshop does not update the physical file until you "Save" and as you normally pause your workflow when you Save, it may appear to be running faster.

As you know, this aspect of Aperture (and Lightroom) has been much debated.

FWIW, I agree that performance focus would be nice in either an update or the next version of AP (assuming there will be one).

I have been using Photoshop (various full versions) for 10 years and can say that with the hardware requirements that people are recommending on this forum for a good Aperture experience, PS runs extremely well (always has when you spend on hardware). This is with masks and multiple layers, styles, effects and text; which can be created swiftly once you become adept at the program.

I use Aperture for it's organizational attributes more than anything else. The full screen UI is also second to none - IMO - and this is where I would love to see a performance improvement. Brush work on masks in PS is quite a bit more responsive when in long sessions than I experience in AP 3.2.x.

My machine specs:

MacBook Pro (late 2011) 2.5 Ghz i7, 8 GB RAM (Apple), Anti-Glare screen

480 GB OWC Electra 3G SSD (70 GB used)

Note - Photoshop CS6 beta introduces background save and what is called 'Automatic recovery save interval' which can be set between every 5 minutes and every 1 hour. A nice feature if you are working for long sessions and negates the need to stop and run a save command.

So my list for AP 4 would be (in order of preference):

1 - Performance improvements in full screen mode

2 - Lens correction controls

3 - Gradient filter tool (and brush)

4 - Option to tell Aperture to delete unused masks (from what I see in the library package, it currently saves all brush masks which is probably not a friend to the database over time).

5 - Exposure brush

Peace.

Click here and fill out the form.

I'd do so with all your idees

hope this will help to get a very good prog

:-)

I want the abiltiy to choose and use more than one external editor, as in Lightroom.  I tend to use Nx2, and Photoshop quite a bit.

Try to set up the second Editor to be called as a service from Aperture, as descrbed here:

Additional External Editor in Aperture

Regards

Léonie

Thank you, but I have this installed, and this is the point.   I would prefer this function to be part of the programme.

A simple slider for lens distortion correction would be great, as mentioned earlier.

the question is not "what new will be in aperture 4", but "if will be new aperture"... every version was presented in february in 2 years interval...

My biggest wishes:

- ability to use brushes with Exposure

- ability to show individual R, G, B channels in the viewport

- ability to specify Dodge and Burn amounts greater than 1

- better Dodge and Burn.  eg. if a highlight gets blown in your exposure or curves or levels adjustment the Burn adjustment can't recover it.

- ability to reorder Adjustments. Even if only among adjustments of the same type

- ability to create a new adjustment by duplicating the selected adjustment (eg. create a new highlights and shadows adjustment with the same settings as the current one)

- ability to copy and paste brush strokes between adjustments. eg. I want to use the same brush strokes in my dodge adjustment as my curves adjustment

- ability to intractively work with individual retouch strokes. eg. I want to remove a particular stroke but it's not the latest one.

- ability to have more than one Retouch adjustment. eg. I want one adjustment for blemishes, one for flyaway hair, etc.

- ability to specify adjustments which are never lifted/stamped. eg. I never stamp crop or straightend or retouch from one image to another.  It's a pain to have to constantly delete them from the lift window before stamping.

- keyboard shortcut for switching between "repair" and "clone" in Retouch

- keyboard shortcut for turning on/of color overlay in brush mode

- option to have grid always on in Straighten adjustment rather than just while dragging with the mouse

- remove the need to type the % when entering values manually in the Black&White adjustment

- ability to rotate the retouch source when cloning

- ability to have the clone source in a different image

Those are just the things that come to mind in my day to day work with Aperture.  None of them are really showstopping issues but they are lots of little things that, if fixed/addressed would greatly improve my (and I'm sure others') workflow.

(feedback also submitted to Apple).

Agreed. I have the feeling that Apple is abandoning the Pro market and focusing on the consumer side more and more. Notice the new iPhoto for the iPad and the incredibly late Aperture. I will wait a bit longer but I think I will eventually make the jump to LR4.

Don't forget that Apple is dropping both MobileMe and iWork.com this summer. They are also introducing Mountain Lion in late summer. Making things seamless has certainly been one of their strengths to date.

Current versions of Aperture, iLife and iWork all have some of those MobileMe / iWork.com features built in which would be obsolete this summer.

No direct knowledge of Apple's plans - just sayin'.

handling of multiple libraries.

I would like to sea some intelleigent system handling different libraries. As the libraries are growing bigger I would like to choose from the different libraries which one to work on. Having said that I would then like to be able to back them all up in one instance have them all at the ready and the ability to switch on the fly ... I guess I want them as a list of folders that I only click on and boom I get to work in new library. I would also like to move projects from one library to another unsing aperture. Therby moving older projects to a library that will only hold old projects. I would like some libraries to be on a network drive.

Ok Im adding this to every wish list I see, in case its seen by powers in control. Also to fuel the squeekey voices that help resolve problems. 

Apple please fix the colormanagement problem of color loss when importing Adobe98 embedded files.  Im a fan boy of AP3 but this would be a hobbist move to leave this broken.