RB Design

All Things Photography

1. Eric 02.09.10 / 9pm

   RB:

   There is no question that Apple always finds a way of shaking things up. It seems to me that if we close our eyes and think of it, we would have to conclude that in today’s consumer market, it is Apple who is setting the pace. Not perfect, but certainly pushing the envelope and pulling ahead of competitors in the critical area of multimedia production for the masses. I can’t help but think that to a large extent, Adobe is becoming too much like Microsoft these days — too big and too ill-fitting for the fast-moving, integrated media environment in which we live today. From what I have seen in Aperture 3, the “generational” gap with Adobe has just gotten a lot wider over the past 24 hours. I bet the Lightroom 3 team is scrambling right now.
2. RB 02.09.10 / 9pm

   Eric,

   You know I will agree with that. As I have said many times Aperture 1.0 woke Adobe up but they got it way way wrong in my opinion. They gave us Bridge+PS-lite+ACR in a cumbersome package that is not really a whole lot different than my old workflow. Aperture on the other hand was and is revolutionary in it’s concept and execution.

   The Adobe team implemented albums and stacks and a few other things but it really didn’t “get it” before jamming them in. Lr3 is a joke – it better be better than it is on release.

   RB
3. Michael 02.09.10 / 9pm

   This is nice to see, and he has a very large following.
   I’ve been to several of his seminars, and as you say he has been a long term user, but not a very public endorser.
   I guess Aperture 3 changed that. It could be a tipping point of sorts, the more people buy & use Aperture, the more attention Apple will pay to it.
   For anyone interested I did a brief import test.
   I installed A3 on a new external FW800 Boot drive 10.6.2.
   I booted my 17″ 2.6 GHZ , 4 GB Ram MBP from the FW800 Drive
   Downloaded & Installed the Trial without a hitch.
   I Had an 8 GB UDMA CF Card with 208 files on it from a Canon 1Ds III (21 MP sensor +-25 MB raw files)
   I attached it via a FW 400 reader here are some times:
   Import 208, 25+MB files 3min 45 sec
   It simultaneously began building Half Size Previews
   (I forgot to check preferences, and would normally make 1920×1920 previews, since the sensor is 3744×5616 half size would be larger than 1920 [unless it just used half of 3744?])
   All 208 half size previews were done in 19min 20 sec.
   That’s more than 10 per minute which is MUCH faster than usual.
   Very un-scientific, but very encourraging.
4. Jason D 02.09.10 / 10pm

   This is the kind of thing that I was talking about when we were all pondering the very real possibility of the cessation of Aperture altogether.

   I noticed during the last Photo Expo in NYC how many people were still devoted to Aperture. It was much more than I had anticipated and was considered equal or better among the Adobe “standards”.

   There are/were VERY big names that use Aperture without so much as a mention by Apple (McNally probably only got a free copy).

   I couldn’t see Apple abandoning this market completely, no matter how much/little the product alone contributed to the bottom line.

   It doesn’t make sense for Apple to market themselves as this great computer/software company and then send you to a 3rd party for one of it’s claimed core competencies, especially since they had such a solid foundation with A 2.5.

   They could have taken the easy way and implemented faces/places and called it done. However, there was a real effort to make this product the best that it could be while also looking towards the future with multimedia.
5. Johan 02.10.10 / 1am

   I think NOW would be a good time for you to write a post here on how to convert from being a Lightroom user to a Aperture believer. Please Please, I think many of us would love to witch from LR but dont know how..
6. Nigel 02.10.10 / 5am

   I’m thrilled. Seriously thrilled.

   I’ve been a reluctant Lr user, daily cursing Apple for not giving me a product that could do what Lr could do. Lr2 is a ugly mess, but it kicked Ap2′s butt and that’s all I care about – getting thousand image shoots out the door NOW.

   Lr3 looks more like Lr2.5. It’s a lazy update and proof that nobody had a clue what Apple was about to do.
   I was so sure Apple was going to add ‘Faces’ and ‘Places’ and a few iPhoto-esque tweaks. But they have blown my mind. I have watched every last ‘how-to’ video.
   Ap3 copies Lr but so what?! Adobe managed to make cool features boring, Apple has made mundane adjustments sexy and has achieved the impossible – they’ve actually managed to make me think of ways I could use ‘Faces’…

   Adobe should officially be afraid of Apple again.
7. robogobo 02.10.10 / 10am

   @Johan I second that. I’m no LR user, but I know many who would like to switch and are too afraid of losing metadata.

   I do have a question about upgrading however. I use Time Machine + Vault for backing up my Library (managed). Should I do a real clone backup before allowing Aperture 3 to touch it?
8. RB 02.10.10 / 10am

   rob

   I would – in fact you might want to think about restarting the TM backup after the conversion as well.

   RB
9. RB 02.10.10 / 10am

   All – I will post a test on moving from LR to Ap3 under various circumstances (XMP, embedded, etc) I just do not want to make light of it and make sure the mappings are all what they should be.

   I will also publish something regarding using both at the same time while making the transition – do’s and don’ts

   RB
10. Nigel 02.17.10 / 2am

    Er…
    Can I take back EVERYTHING I just said.
    I tried the new Aperture and am very, very disappointed.

    I frequently apply presets in Lightroom consisting of sharpening, contrast, vibrance, saturation, exposure, color balance and vignette adjustments without any faltering.
    I foolishly expected Aperture to be as fast.

    Boy was I wrong.
    Aperture 3 is stunningly slow, give it too much to do and that blasted pinwheel goes for what seems like forever.

    This speed handicap effectively cripples Aperture’s potential, and ruins Apple’s hopes of getting back lost market share. Who cares about the new books and slideshows if it takes twice as long to process a shoot? Features are irrelevant without performance.

    I give Aperture 3 a one, out of five.
    Back to you Steve.

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