Aperture?? No thanks.

From the Arstechnica review of Aperture 1.0

It saddens me to say that Aperture's innovations are only skin deep. If it could deliver on the promise of being both fast and produce flawless results, it would be the dream package. At this point it is an expensive and questionable alternative to Camera Raw, a free extension to Photoshop, and Adobe's Bridge which can batch produce better quality images in arguably less time. For US$500 (Photoshop itself retails for US$750), there is no excuse not to be aware of professional needs like a high-quality sharpen tool, DNG exporting or more basic things like curves, a sampler tool for RGB pixel readings, or retention of EXIF data on output.

An interesting review with some very unsettling (for me at least) observations. I'm thinking I might sit out this cycle of Aperture and wait for 1.5 (or possibly 2.0) before taking a plunge.

Yeah, sounds like an update is in order. I do recall readnig something heartening (perhaps on http://www.robgalbraith.com - but I can't remember the exact address) to the effect that Apple are listening and are planning on adding things like curves, RGB readings and EXIF retention in future releases.

This may be of interest to people. My buddy, Adam Tow, has been working on getting Aperture to work with metadata written by iView (also, there is some on a problem with metadata written out by Aperture):

http://tow.com/aperture

there is some on a problem with metadata written out by Aperture

 

http://tow.com/aperture

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In essence, that's what represents the biggest stumbling block for me with Aperture as represented in the Arstechnica review. If we buy into Apple's paradigm (as I understand it), we give Aperture our raw files, they get stored in a pristine state, and everything we do in the future with those images (from a reproduction perspective) involves asking Aperture to make us a file (thus, it needs to have sh*thot RAW conversion tools) and sending it out to another program (where we might need the metadata, so Aperture had better leave that in place too!).

After I decided to actually RTFM I discovered what I have been doing wrong all along with IView and IPTC annotations, so that gave me a bit of a reprieve.

I might still buy Aperture... but I had the box in my hand yesterday, then put it back on the shelf. the force was strong with me.

I have not read the review referred to as I have also seen (on other web fora) that the review was on files from a Canon G series compact digital camera. Now I don't want to be offensive to anyone using this type of camera (I have a G5 myself) but it is most certainly not the camera I would use to run through a new piece of software such as Aperture and so I am neither prepared to read the review nor base my potential purchase of aperture on it. The web is a great place but sometimes has to be treated with caution. I have also read elsewhere about how awful a piece of software Adobe Photoshop is and yet I've used it for years and have few complaints with its abilities (if of course it was perfect then Adobe would presumably be out of business!).

I have just installed and am getting familiar with Aperture. My initial observations:

- it needs a lot of muscle. Runs slowly on G4 1.5Ghz/1GbRam. Fine on G5 DP/2Gb.

- RAW conversions are better than I expected having read the ArsTechnica review.

On a quick comparison of a couple of random images, I would rate the conversions:

1. Nikon Capture are still the best, God help us. This main reason I was drawn to Aperture was to find a converter than runs decently on a Mac. NC is awful but the quality of the conversions is excellent in my experience.

2. Aperture: the speed and ease of use make it a pleasure to use, Mac users would have assumed this. BUT, the bottom line is the quality of the converted RAW files. They are decent, not perfect. Like many users, I am hoping these will improve with future versions. They will have to, or Aperture is dead already.

3. ACR. I would say these conversions are my least preferred of the three. Need time in PSCS2 to get them decent.

My €'s worth....

... that the review was on files from a Canon G series compact digital camera.

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Actually, the reviewer (who is to all appearances an extremely skilled retoucher/image processor) uses 1DMkII, D2X and G6 RAW files. He also compares what you can get from ACR with Aperture using D2X RAWS that are supplied as tutorial files with Aperture.

The metadata destruction is still what bothers me the most though.

Fair enough!

Metadata destruction would worry me too. I think that the lack of foresight about the potentialities for metadata by ALL software manufacturers is either a lack of forward thinking or a ploy so that one day they can launch the Next Big Thing.