Aperture 2.1 with plugins!

Apple updated Aperture to 2.1 today.

The plug-in architecture has gone live. Noise Ninja is coming as a plugin. A plugin SDK is apparently on the way.

Very cool

<edited to clarify. Noise Ninja plugin is not yet available, but coming soon>

Rob Gailbraith's review of 2.1 and the plug-in architecture is excellent. Looks like all kinds of excellent plug-ins and functionality are on the way.

I love it when a piece of software brings a smile to my face.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_p...cid=7-9308-9356

These plugins are not non-destructive. They are more like mini versions of running an external editor like Photoshop. Perhaps a little quicker to get to but not something you can't do already.

Lightroom has begun testing a limited version of its SDK as well. Lightroom is written largely in an interpreted language so it will be interesting to see what Adobe allows developers to provide and how it contrasts with Apple's approach.

I'd much rather have access to the workings of the program itself and the ability to do non-destructive edits that what Aperture appears to provide. For example, I'd like a calibration automator for LR/Aperture but that appears not supportable through the Apple plugin architecture. It may not with Lightroom either, but is certainly is through Photoshop.

You are correct they are not non-destructive just as Photoshop is now, but it appears that each time a plug-in is run, a new version is created, as is now done for external editors. So essentially one will maintain previous versions in the stack which will not be altered, and new versions are all stored as an instruction set only.

It will also be interesting to see how much Adobe facilitate Lightroom becoming more and more like Photoshop, and effectively destroying any need for Photoshop.

Edit: Seems I may be wrong on the part regarding new versions being stored as instruction sets - seems aperture creates a new TIFF

Yeah, I think Aperture creates a new TIFF each time.

Lightroom is written largely in an interpreted programming language called LUA. Because of that, Adobe can provide an SDK that allows access to integral workings of LR rather than just bolt-ons that a plugin provides. I would assume this would allow fundamental integration with the UI and automation of built-in LR features. Since Adobe is only putting out a limited beta SDK right now it's not clear what their plans are. Adobe may restrict programmer's abilities to add binary executables to LR for instance. That would give Aperture a leg up on things like Noise Ninja integration if it were true. We don't know yet but I doubt they are that short-sighted. I'm glad they are competition for one another.

Of course, I suspect Aperture can be automated through AppleScript but that doesn't hold my interest especially.

and now lightroom 2 is in beta