Three hours with Aperture

[anthony]

Aperture 1.5 looks so complete that I'm considering switching to Mac ! In the near future that is...

Lightroom was until yesterday my favorite, but after seeing the demos and tutorials at Apple's site, I find Aperture quit mature and Lightroom still promising.
Even iView could be dropped, as a Aperture can make all the things iView can ('Smart Albums', Backing up and keeping track of where the files are stored on external media)

Peter,
Why not Aperture instead of several programs (II + Lightroom + iView) ?

Best regards,
Dominique

Dominique, I'm a recent switcher myself -- Just got my iMac 24 last week. Thrilled with it. I studied computer science and even I was tired of all the non-productive time wasted maintaining and tinkering required to keep a PC running.

I'm comparing iPhoto as a solution too, since it came with the computer, but it doesn't seem to have the commenting support (IPTC/XMP) as Aperture now appears to have. Nor as much editing capability. My local Apple store didn't have the 1.5 update installed as of this weekend, so I haven't been able to test the features and performance. Looking forward to Peter's take on it.

[peterkrogh]

I looked at Aperture, and I think it's almost ready.  There is a bit of DNG support to do, including the ability for Aperture to see and use embedded previews in the DNG files (not essential, but it would be nice) and the ability to save out the corrected images as DNG with preview (essential, IMO).

There are a few other important missing features, but I'm sure these will come.  I have not delved deeply into the structure of what they are doing with the data, so I can't quite give it a thumbs up yet, but it is definitely getting better.

For those of you who are having problems with DNG files not showing up, are you using the latest version of the converter (3.5)?  If not, then upgrade and try.  If so, try the following.

Make several DNG conversions, each with a single setting changed: Compression, embedding original, Convert to Linear, and all three preview variations.  Let us know if there is one setting that breaks it.

Peter

[gm]

Peter,

When you say it's "almost ready" do you mean both as a processing and archiving solution?

Thanks, Gary

[Steve Fines]

For those of you who are having problems with DNG files not showing up, are you using the latest version of the converter (3.5)?  If not, then upgrade and try.  If so, try the following.

Make several DNG conversions, each with a single setting changed: Compression, embedding original, Convert to Linear, and all three preview variations.  Let us know if there is one setting that breaks it.

Peter

Hello,

I tried this with Canon 1Dsmk2 files (.CR2). I used the 3.5 converter.

The only DNG files Aperture could not open were those with "Linear" selected. I could have compression and/or embedded preview and/or embed RAW image selected and they all came up fine in Aperture.

I tried again with some DNG files from July 22nd. Aperture could not open the DNG files that I had made at that time. (I don't remember which version of the converter they were made with.)

I took those DNG files (the July 22nd ones) and ran them through the DNG version 3.5 converter. Aperture could NOT read these new DNG files. These DNG's were initially made with a medium size preview, no compression, 'Preserve Raw Image' (i.e. not linear conversion) and the RAW files not embedded. I tried all the various combinations for the new conversion and Aperture was not able to read any of them.

So, for now, it seems that Aperture can read newly made DNG conversions of my .CR2 files, but it cannot read any of my older files.

[Mike Guilbault]

I looked at Aperture, and I think it's almost ready.  There is a bit of DNG support to do, including the ability for Aperture to see and use embedded previews in the DNG files (not essential, but it would be nice) and the ability to save out the corrected images as DNG with preview (essential, IMO).

There are a few other important missing features, but I'm sure these will come.  I have not delved deeply into the structure of what they are doing with the data, so I can't quite give it a thumbs up yet, but it is definitely getting better.

For those of you who are having problems with DNG files not showing up, are you using the latest version of the converter (3.5)?  If not, then upgrade and try.  If so, try the following.

Make several DNG conversions, each with a single setting changed: Compression, embedding original, Convert to Linear, and all three preview variations.  Let us know if there is one setting that breaks it.

Peter

Peter... which are the important missing features?  Now that you can import referenced images, will this work for your DAM workflow?

[peterkrogh]

Steve,
Is it possible that the July 22 images were made with convert to Linear?  Once you do this, you can't go back, so this would seem to explain the issue.  Will Apple give any support for the application?

Apple really *should* support linear.  You can make a DNG out of a TIFF or JPEG in Lightroom, and it produces a valid DNG with Linearized data that can be opened with Camera Raw (Really!). I think this is a pretty cool solution for the new imaging paradigm (instruction changes).  THe spec needs to be updated a little bit to deal with some isssues that are raised by this practice, so, as I have been saying, don't do real work with Lightroom at the moment (except Master File Workflow).

Mike, the missing stuff is functionality like "Find Missing Items" and other file handling tools that iView has had for a long time.  Since Aperture has just opened up the storage architecture for user-configuration, they are a bit behind the curve here.  These features are particularly important if things start to go wrong (media problems, user errors, etc.)  I think they'll get it eventually, since users will start asking for these tools soon.

Peter

[Mike Guilbault]

Mike, the missing stuff is functionality like "Find Missing Items" and other file handling tools that iView has had for a long time.  Since Aperture has just opened up the storage architecture for user-configuration, they are a bit behind the curve here.  These features are particularly important if things start to go wrong (media problems, user errors, etc.)  I think they'll get it eventually, since users will start asking for these tools soon.

Peter

So, in your opinion, does Aperture look like a viable solution for RAW processing and DAM?  It really would be nice to have an all in one solution (except for PS of course, which IMO should be left separate with it's own features like layer adjustments, masks, etc.).  Especially for someone like me that doesn't have tens of thousands of images to deal with and most of my client commercial will be archived off to DVD.

[Steve Fines]

Steve,
Is it possible that the July 22 images were made with convert to Linear?  Once you do this, you can't go back, so this would seem to explain the issue.  Will Apple give any support for the application?

Peter

Peter,

Anything is possible, but I *really don't think I had linear selected. That's one of those terms that I don't have a full grasp of what it actually means, and so I would never have voluntarily selected it.

I could have accidently checked it, but looking at the dialog box this would be an odd thng to have happen - the button is in a place where it would be hard to accidentally hit it.

So, can't be certain, but I don't think so.  I'll see what Apple says - I'll send the issue to Adobe as well......


Steve

[peterkrogh]

Mike,
To repeat myself, I think it's almost ready.  Holw long it will take Apple to get the last part down is an open question.  Could be a dot release in a few months, it could be version 3 in two years.

Steve,
Is it possible that you clicked to Linear because the terminology was confusing about "Preserve RAW Image"?  Is it possible that you made the DNGs out of ACR? The terminology is different there.
Peter

[gm]

I'm ready to make the dive into Aperture.  I've been working with it since the update and find it much nicer to work with than ACR
or iView for that matter. And the fact that a single app can handle both processing and archiving makes it very attractive. I understand
Peter's resrevations but I'm willing to bet that Apple will address these issues sooner rather than later.  I may be biased by my experiences
with Final Cut Pro which started out a little rough but evolved resonably quickly into to a first-rate editing tool, each new version bringing
major improvements.

[Steve Fines]

Steve,
Is it possible that you clicked to Linear because the terminology was confusing about "Preserve RAW Image"?  Is it possible that you made the DNGs out of ACR? The terminology is different there.
Peter

Hello,

Maybe Mark can comment here as well. The way I did the July 22nd RAW conversions (I remember now) was through II Pro. I did not open the Adobe DNG converter myself. In II Pro I had the 'Run DNG Converter' and 'Full Sized Preview" options selected. I did not have the 'Verify' or 'Embed' options selected. There is no option to convert to linear through II Pro.

The July 22nd DNG's open fine with PS, Bridge, Lightroom but not with Aperture.

Steve

[Randy Sailer]

I have some images that have been through my workflow that don't work and some that do... I  need figure out if something was different in my workflow.

When I use bridge to examine the file properties metadata, I see that those images that don't work are labeled as "Photoshop document" in the "document kind" field with "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Macintosh" in the Application field. They do show a Raw file name (the actual file name) in a Camera Raw metadata panel called Raw File Name.

Those images that work show just "Camera Raw" as the document kind with no application field listed or filled in...

I wonder what makes that change?

Randy