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Wed, 19 Oct 2005
Aperture - Wow.

At OSCON, I was asking James Duncan Davidson about photo processing software. He told me that he had tried most of the programs available for the Mac and that they were all inadequate. That was yesterday. Today Apple announced Aperture, which they describe as "the first all-in-one post-production tool for photographers". After watching the videos on the Aperture pages, all I can say is Wow.

I never really looked at Final Cut Pro (not even the web pages), because I'm not a video guy. But I am a budding photo guy, and I am really impressed with what I saw. I have tried to do many of the workflows that were demonstrated in the Aperture videos - they are painful or impossible in iPhoto. The user interface appears to be well thought out, and there are definitely features that will really be useful - stacks, picks, rejects, the light table, the management stuff, versions against a master RAW "negative". And it supports the Digital Rebel XT (finally). I haven't spent any time adjusting my photos, so I don't know if I really need Photoshop grade manipulation facilities. But I'm already drowning in lots of photos, trying to do selects, trying to do decent library management. I have all the problems that Aperture is trying to solve. I'm sure there will be bugs, and quirks. But on the whole, it looks like it will be very fun to use.

After I get the hardware, that is. My PowerBook just makes the cut for systems that can run Aperture. The hardware requirements are why it made (some) sense that Apple also announced their hardware speed bumps and price cuts today. When you are working with lots of RAWs, then it's easy to see the need for dual or even quad G5's. Doing image manipulations? Then you need fast GPU's for CoreImage. If you're using your computer to replace/simulate a light table, your thoughts start to stray to 30" Cinema Displays. And so it goes.

This is when it's painful to know that there's a product transition to Intel. I was already in pain waiting for the Intel gear. I have a feeling that Aperture is going to make that wait excruciating. At least Apple should be able to do the quad core thing on Intel as well. Only 10 more months of pain...

[23:55] | [computers/operating_systems/macosx] | # | TB | F | G | 9 Comments | Other blogs commenting on this post









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Ted Leung FOAF Explorer

I work at the Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF).
The opinions expressed here are entirely my own, not those of my employer.

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