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Aperture 3 – First Impressions
I have used Aperture 3 since yesterday morning and stayed up until the wee hours. I will obviously post a lot of first impressions but I wanted to get this one out while it is still fresh. Overall this is way more than I expected as an update. There are some things in my wish list that are not there and some nice surprises. Some of my comments are first impressions and I may change my opinion as time goes on.
First – there are some bugs – nothing earth shattering but they are there. I am confident that Apple will nail these pretty quickly. It is faster – if you have the hardware and if you are intelligent about using it. Just like before. You can pile on intensive adjustments and do things that are not a smart way to go about doing them and bring Aperture 3 to it’s knees. I am sure we will hear lots of complaints about this. For me – it is faster. Aperture has always been fast but also very easy to ask it to do insane amounts of work easily as well.
Just about everything in my eBooks is still very relevant – actually critical in using Aperture effectively. File management, Organization, work-flow, even the book tool eBooks are spot on. With the exception of a couple of new twists on project and library import and export. I will not comment on these until I really put them through there paces. Today I want to offer my impressions on the UI changes and three headline new features.
For the most part I do not like most of the UI changes – they are okay and most of what I love is still there but there are a couple of things that get in my way as well as the new UI associated with Faces/Places. For the most part the UI has dumb-down features so the first time you fire it up it is “easier” – this is debatable considering most of the power is still not “obvious”. I do not like the new RAW+JPG, in my opinion it is a dummy feature that provides no new functionality and gets in the way. It will stop the incessant question of “Hey where are my JPGs” for people that care not to explore the context menus for more than 4 seconds. For me it adds an extra step. I guess if you shoot RAW+JPG and ONLY want to screw with the JPGs then it saves you a step. Easy album access to both it costs a step no matter how you slice it.
The “Aperture trash” is stupid. Yes it will save inexperienced users some pain – once. For everyone else – it is an extra step. Now you have multiple redundant “Are you sure” steps reminiscent of Windoze. Reject the image, review your rejects, get rid of them, empty the aperture trash, empty the system trash. Good for casual users – bad for Pro users. Both the Faces and Places UI decisions seem to be hung on the side of the rest of Aperture – sure they work in whatever context you are in like everything else but… You have to use the mouse – no shortcut keys – I will fix this but out of the box there is no standard shortcut keys so it is a huge disruption if you are used to using shortcuts to change what is or is not on the screen without the mouse. So you can cycle viewer/browser/spit but to activate Faces or Places it is the mouse – to deactivate the mouse again – wouldn’t it me nice if the V key at least cycled you back or something. The Faces UI is pure iPhoto only worse. The Places is better but needs huge improvement to fit in with the rest of the Aperture UI. The local adjustments and multi zoom UI is fantastic – so are the new full screen modes.
Faces – I have spent significant amount of time with Faces – I will try to find a pro use for it but this is pure casual user gee wiz at the moment. I know Apple has to have this for graduating iPhoto people but for the most part it seems to be useful only as a casual user tool like if you shoot a limited number of fairly diverse people like your immediate and extended family. If you shoot lots of people – even dozens let alone hundreds and a lot of them have a similar demographic it is worthless. It also seems to have no other connection with Aperture metadata than just itself. Keywords are faster, easier, and a better way to do this for now. Faces is a giant waste of time. I am tenacious and will continue to try to find a way where it will improve your workflow – casual or pro – when I get there you will know.
Places on the other hand is fantastic – except for some of the UI that I hope will improve and feel more a part of Aperture as time goes on. It is simple, powerful, doesn’t seem to have glitches, the searches and metadata are well integrated into Aperture. Well done. I am in the middle of a second gigantic snow storm within the last few days so I had to make a cigarette run to stock up while I am trapped. I tested the Places stuff in Aperture 3.
I took two cameras and shot them while driving (not a good idea). I also took my Garmin 76CSx marine GPS. I got home, imported the images, clicked on the Places button in the toolbar, imported the GPS track data, selected the images and drug them to the track on the map. Aperture 3 asked me if I wanted to tag the images based on time, I answered yes. Bang done. Fantastic. This is a great UI. I wish the place definition was a little more direct but it is easy enough. If you have a GPS and you can get at the track data – you can have geotaged images no matter how many cameras you shoot. The workflow is really really fast compared to anything else I have used. Good work Apple. (screen shot at the top)
Local adjustments are fantastic but they take a little getting used to. You need a tablet – or at least a magic mouse to be productive. Just one tip the strokes are cumulative but… Only if the strenth slider is set low. In other words the maximum degree of the effect is the amount slider. If the strength slider is all the way up that is it for the brushing. To work like you do in PS set the amount higher in the adjustment inspector and the strength slider low in the brush controls then you can paint in the effect cumulatively. This should be obvious but I am pointing it out for people not super used to local adjustments.
Okay – not a real educational post but I did want to share some “feelings” and see what all of your thoughts were as well.
RB
Actually, I’d like to have your impression on how AP manages NEF files now.
I have my own, but I don’t want to put any bias on my question.
Oh by the way, I love the new preset tool, especially for White balance. Call me dumb, but I find it a big time saver! That and the new metadata options are great (to cite two new things).
Manu –
I am not seeing a big difference what – if any. What NEF files do you have again?
RB
Well, it was my belief too :p No difference noticed by now.
I own a D50, old but in great shape
Manu
Manu – send me an NEF and I will see about making a preset for you for all the new Picture controls in NX2.
rwboyer@mac.com
I don’t have a D50.
Also note that the newer NEF’s don’t have the same WB problem the older ones did.
RB
Thanks for the candid first impression. I’m updating my Library now after doing backups and looking forward to digging in later.
One thing. In general, whether you like it or not, Apple has taken a middle of the road approach to the UI that is going to persist in all future upgrades, in all its software, I believe. The “dumbed-down” stuff is annoying when you’re a pro who is used to keystrokes (and as few as possible of those) and shortcuts and nothing cute- just business. But as much as I’d rather not see that stuff, it is doing one very good thing for us all- gaining market share. And this, if nothing else, will help ensure Aperture’s future and Apple’s interest in continuing improvements.
However, they should really provide a quick way to turn it all off. everybody’s happy.
rob,
At least I can get rid of the cute pins and stupid cork board. I am thinking of shutting faces completely off depending on whether I can find anything useful for it for not just me but every serious user of Aperture.
the annoying lockout of UI shortcut keys when in faces/places views is horrendous. boink boink boink ohhhh. f@#k. I will figure out a sequencing and customization that I find productive and publish it within a few days.
RB
the first thing i did was turn off faces.
i’m playing around on my laptop while my desktop converts my old libraries to 3.0. i think this will take the better part of the week.
agree about the extra trash and raw+jpg. although i heard something about being able to import the jpgs, delete the ones you don’t want and then sync the raws to only import the ones that match the jpgs you saved.
Can’t wait for your thoughts about the import/merge/sync librarys features betwen a laptop and a desktop.
I’m an absolute novice as Robert knows but having my videos in my library is a huge plus for me. Has anyone figured out how to put the videos associated with projects (ie: the vidoes that were not imported in Aperture 2) into existing projects in the new Aperture 3 library?
I’ve been playing around with Aperture 3 all day and see no other way than to manually do it project by project.
@Jonathan – if I you do not get a reply from one of the nice folks on the site I will put it on my list of stuff to do. Maybe I will write a script or something but give me the naming convention that your camera uses.
RB
I can imagine a wedding/event photographer making great use of Faces and smart albums.
Client: can you show us all the photos of the Bride, Groom and Great-Aunt Edna?
obviously Bride and Groom will be tagged, so just need to find Great-Aunt Edna, tag her, let Aperture run its magic and create a smart album.
Arthur,
I agree – but… My experience so far with it tells me that that will be time consuming and error prone. We will see but with my library that would never be workable with a typical wedding shoot of say 2000-3000 shots in a normal sized wedding say 100 people. Right now that won’t work with a fashion shoot having 3 models and 2000 images. Seriously.
RB
@RB – These are 3 main ones I have used.
- MOV####.MPG
- CIMG####.AVI
- VID#####.AVI
Thanks!
Just wanted to post a performance note after importing a version 2 library.
I was having major lag on my mac pro after pulling in a project and trying to load its books. The CPU wouldn’t spike, but aperture would stop responding for 30-60 seconds after each mouse click, trying to scroll the viewer, loading any albums in that project… It was very odd.
I think I narrowed it down to a permissions related issue with the library trying to access that projects previews.
After trying library rebuilding and permissions repair, to solve the problem I wiped all the previews out of the library and regenerated them in aperture 3.
All the lagging is gone now – but I can reproduce it if I try to import another old aperture 2 project.
This doesn’t happen on my macbook pro so I’m trying to figure out what is causing this in my library.
I posted more details here after seeing lots of people on the forums having LAG problems.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11060086
Seems like a best practice for updating the library should be:
1. Referenced masters.
2. Optimize/rebuild/clean library in aperture 2 first.
3. Delete all previews out of your aperture 2 library in aperture 2.
4. Disable auto preview generation and faces in aperture 3.
5. Use file->import library in aperture 3 to copy your aperture 2 library into the new library while leaving the old one in tact.
Great tips Matthew – I did something similar but did not use the file->import – that is a great idea.
RB
Ps. I am turning faces off permanently as soon as I figure out if it could be useful to anyone and the best way to use it for those that like to fiddle with such stuff.
Thanks Rob -
I’m surprised Apple doesn’t have more dedicated support around the issue of upgrading libraries. Seems lots of people are struggling.
I actually had really good luck with faces (primarily weddings) – It will save me a bunch of time tagging photos for facebook…
It did make me crack up though when it picked up all the shots of my dog, and a few Still life shots of some design brochures that had stock photos of people laying down getting massages on the brochure…
Matthew –
I will have to have you write up some tips on Faces. For the stuff I shoot it is worthless. Maybe all of the models I use for fashion stuff are way too similar and capable of too many expressions. I swear Faces has two issues that are the reverse of each other in one project that has about 1500 images all shot the same day with the same 3 models.
1)It cannot seem to figure out that 1 model is the same person shot to shot after a lot of training.
2)It confuses all three models constantly.
Worthless. I guess your wedding crowds/parties are more diverse or something.
RB
I did notice better faces results after I forced updated previews first… Of course, I might be having better luck since I don’t have to worry about mammaries confusing the algorithm…
Also noticed you can go image by image and hit the “N” key to help train it…
Matthew,
Good tip – I am going to have to go out and do second shooter at a wedding or something to see if I can get it to be a little more cooperative. Seriously – if it works well to save time in assigning metadata that you obviously need. Fantastic.
RB
This is actually a pretty cool “tagging” workflow for training faces, going image by image, hitting N and adjusting the box around the face…
Good first take, but I’d disagree with you about faces – for me it might just be the best bit. I shoot a lot of people; most are in images as one-offs, but a few dozen will appear, one or two at a time (politicians) in a big part of my reportage work along with the assorted others. Till now I’ve keyworded the relevant people, but this will be a big help in being able to nail pics where A+B appear together, or to narrow the field when looking for stuff from a particular event. I’ve still to give it a good run round the block, but in principle at least, it’s a killer for those in my trade.
About Faces,
does someone know if it’s possible to link a Face to a specific keyword? hen I tag a person with Face, say “Emmy”, I’d like Aperture to add “Emmy” as a keyword to this picture…
@Jason D,
re the Wacom tablet; I don’t have any plugins, so I can’t speak for those, but the Wacom is great with Aperture 3 – in working with the interface, it feels more intuitive than it does with photoshop, perhaps because A3 is a more ‘full screen’ program. If you’re likely to find yourself using the new brush on/off adjustments, then you really should take the plunge. Just as with photoshop, if you do a lot of masking it’s about the biggest timesaver you could have – it comfortably knocks 50 percent off my time to mask a complex pic, and I used to swear my Kensington trackball was the best tool in the world for that.
It takes a week or so to get used to the ‘absolute’ positioning with regard to clicking buttons, sliders etc, but once you’re used to it you probably won’t touch a mouse again – in any program. The wacom software is friendly, stable and allows plenty of customisation for the buttons and sliders which can all be assigned to A3 functions.
I bought an Intuos3 A4 size, although the A5 ‘wide’ would probably have been a good choice, especially if your screen is a wide format. I’m glad I didn’t penny pinch and buy anything smaller.
Try the Wacom site’s ‘estore’; look under ‘older products’ or ‘sale items’. They often have older lines like the Intuos3 at large reductions, and the sale stuff is ex-demo. Thats what I bought and to be honest, it’s as good as new; serviced warrantied etc, although I suppose mileage may vary. If you’re in the US, they don’t have any Intuous on offer, but in the EU (wacom.eu) the store has some stunning bargains – currently an A3 or “A4+” size for 200 euro, about 400 euro off. If you see what you want, act quickly; once they’re up the sale stuff goes in a matter of hours- not surprising since the prices are on a par with ebay secondhand.
Disappointing, and some Aperture 3 features are broken.
Try selecting multiple images and apply a keyword. Only one image gets the keyword.
Try selecting multiple images and assign a rating. Only one image gets the rating.
The camera metadata is wrong. Now, all of my images (D300) show auto white balance — they’re not.
Faces is cute, but largely useless outside of the faces view. Coupled with the above problems there’s no easy way to apply face names to keywords en mass.
Richard,
I am trying to run down a similar issue for someone else right now with respect to multi-image modification – for now with the lift and stamp tools work for you in pinch? They are easy enough especially if you just invert the selection Command+R
RB
@Richard – Mark has had a lot of success with Faces – my stuff not so good.
RB
@Richard,
Re the multiple image keywording/rating; are you sure you haven’t accidently selected the “primary only” button?
Thanks for this assessment. It’s going to be fascinating to see how Faces develops. Entirely agree that it doesn’t seem to scale at the moment and creates more rather than less work.
I’ve been playing around with the merge function.
I’ve created a few projects on my MBP and added some faces, flags , adjustments etc.
Then I’ve created a new library on my MacPro connected my MBP using an ethernet cable and hit File/Import/Library / Project. Then hit merge.
Doesn’t seem to merge any of faces or flags.