targa format

OK, I'll bite.

Raw formats are unique to *each camera*. Just because you can decode the raw from one camera, does not mean that the same code will work on another, older camera. You can probably understand what the bytes mean, but you cannot assign meaningful color values to them without profiling the camera.

Aperture is a professional tool for working photographers to manage workflow. As such, support for older formats is a small part of that scope. Go ahead and search the Aperture forums for Targa support and see what you get. Then search for "Why doesn't Aperture support the Raw for my [just released camera] and see where the Aperture team is probably focusing (hah!) resources.

Alex,

What would happen, if I were to batch convert the targa files, while they are inside the library? Would Aperture re-scan the folders inside the library and then show me the converted tiff's?

Inside the Aperture library, you can look but don't touch. However, you will probably spend a lot of time looking for what you want to look at, since the database is not set up for human consumption.

If you convert the targa files, and then put the resulting TIFF (or whatever) inside the Aperture library, you have touched, and there are no guarantees what Aperture will do with the invading files inside your library. However, it will most certainly not add them to the library just because they exist. This is true even if you keep the masters outside your library, using referenced masters.

Or would I have to move them outside, convert them manually and then I would have to manually add them again? (the latter is a no-go, since I have many stitched panoramas in TGA format, and it would be much easier to buy lightroom in that case...)

Pretty much. Why is that a "no-go" though? You imported, say, 200 TGA files into your Aperture library. How is it conceptually different to 1) find the masters inside your library, convert those to TIFF, and then have Aperture do magic for you, versus 2) ignore those 200 TGA files, convert your originals to TIFF, and then import those 200 TIFF files? (I.e., #1 cannot happen because Aperture doesn't work that way, but you want it to work that way and is acceptable to you, and #2 is how you would have to do it, but you don't want to do it and it is unacceptable.) The tedious part would be doing the converting and making sure you got everything, and that must happen in both your acceptable and unacceptable case.

nathan

What makes you think that lightroom handles targa files?

I don't see it here:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Lightroom/3.0/Using/WS42D207D7-B290-4baa-A896-AB7196 5BF24B.html

Alex --

alFrame wrote:

I stand by my words and I still think that, in this case, neither Aperture nor Lightroom deserve the tag proffesional.

You voted with your wallet. Good.

"Professional" is a marketing term. It should have no influence on your purchase of software, any more than it might on your purchase of a hammer. Buy a tool for what it does. Neither Aperture nor Lightroom meets your needs -- and each makes it plain that it does not.

Aperture is marketed to professional photographers. They have different needs than "animators and UI designers."

So as you surmised, Aperture is not aimed at you.

Look how many times "photo" and "photography" show up on the Aperture website:

http://www.apple.com/aperture/what-is.html

It was never intended as a photoshop replacement, or general graphics organizer.

Did you submit your feature request to Apple? Seems like a reasonable request.

Have you checked out iView Media Pro? It appears to support TGA files.

http://www.iview-multimedia.com/mediapro/fileformats.html

I looked at it a long time ago, but never used it.