Aperture 3 Woes -- Forgetting / Changing edits

[mgilbuena]

I am working with Adobe 1998 colorspace TIFF scans from film. There have been adjustments made to exposure, saturation, levels and color. The photo looks great. I quit aperture.

Open re-open, I click on the image thumbnail. The thumbnail reflects how the photos looked as I left them from the adjustments during the last session. Unfortunately, as the image opens up, the brightness suddenly jumps one or two stops and a color cast (seems to be green) is added to the photo. Thing is, it appears that all the sliders are exactly as I've left them. This is affecting every photo I've worked upon, including those shot from digital cameras.

This is making my post-processing life ****. I cannot rely on my edits being retained open re-opening the photos!

I am using Aperture 3.1.1

Opening the image:

After image is opened and some sort of auto-adjustment is done:

It does not seem to consistently do this to all images that are edited, but happens frequently enough to make me not trust Aperture 3 and seriously consider moving to Lightroom.

 

[mgilbuena]

I should mention that after opening this photo and closing it (WITHOUT TOUCHING ANY OF THE SLIDERS), even the library thumbnail auto-updates:

From:

To:

 

[mgilbuena]

An update on what I've worked on:

1> I've removed all preferences and aperture files in ~/library and /library that pertains to aperture, including a re-install. Behavior persists
2> I've attempted to work on these TIFF files prior to the latest RAW update and after the latest RAW update. Behavior persists
3> I've created an entirely NEW library and placed two TIFF images into it. Rebuilt this library and the other two options. Behavior persists.
4> I've changed my monitor color profile to Apple RGB and Adobe RGB (1998) but this behavior persists across all color profiles.
5> Behavior occurs if ON-SCREEN PROOFING is turned ON or OFF.
6> I've upgraded to OS X 10.6.6 last night and the problem continues.

I've screen captured the actual behavior and uploaded it onto YouTube. You'll see that once I close the program and re-open, the image opens and then color shifts a moment later:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUjbeLQOWXU

For those of you who may come across this same very problem, I've logged a ticket with Apple at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=13109249#13109249

I'll keep you posted.

 

[Rob-F]

I wish I knew what is going on there. I use the same version of Aperture, running on an iMac with oSX Snow Leopard. I do not get this effect you describe. However, I use RAW or JPEG. So I'm wondering if maybe the problem is unique to TIFF files?

 

[gavinlg]

Are you allowing aperture to organize your files internally or did you choose to manually structure them?

 

[mgilbuena]

For my DNGs and NEFs, I'm not seeing the behavior in aperture. It seems to be strictly limited to JPGs and TIFFs.

I've not previously noticed because I used to shoot color strictly in digital. However, now I've begun shooting color in film and have noticed this behavior in the TIFF scans from labs AND from my own V500 scanner. I've even been able to reproduce it on an in-camera JPEG image from a Nikon D300. I've had to open and close the program about 15 times, and make different tint changes to the Nikon image and one of the times the bug did finally manifest.

I've tried downgrading to the original version 3.0.0 release of Aperture on the Macbook Air and see the problem present even in the earliest 3 release.

Yes, I have Aperture managing the image locations (consolidated into the library).

I don't know what to do. This is a nasty twist in using color film and Aperture 3.

 

[Tim Gray]

I might ask over in the Apple discussion forums. You have to figure that everyone in their Aperture forum actually uses the program, so you might have a higher chance of finding someone who has experienced this.

 

[Ranchu]

Might want to migrate away from that software, too. That's pretty ridiculous behavior for software of any kind. Cool spacecraft avatar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufknc147DC4

 

[ampguy]

I'm not sure what you're expecting here. It sounds like you are making non-destructive edits to a file, but not exporting your edited file out, then coming back, and are expecting your temp edits to still be applied?

Or am I missing something?

 

[mgilbuena]

Thanks; the avatar is from the classic video game Space Invaders.

Ampguy: Yes, that's correct. Normal behavior for Aperture is for the program to retain non-destructable edits to the file upon program close. This works correctly for all files with the exception of TIFFs / JPEGs with the specific steps I've discovered above.

Most people do not make such unrealistic tint changes to a file and thus the subtle changes upon re-open are not noticed. I certainly didn't notice as I strictly used RAW files up to this point, which seem to be unaffected by this bug.

The Apple Support forums seem to be going nowhere with this discovery. I've been dabbling a little in Lightroom 3, but I can't get over this feeling that the interface for L3 seems to be less refined and cluttered. I guess that happens when trying to learn any new software 🙂

 

[Lss]

Thanks for the heads-up, mgilbuena. I can replicate your problem with the Enhance/Tint feature using a JPG file, but I don't see the brightness issue described in your first post. I'm running Aperture 3.1.1 on OS X 10.6.6. Please keep us posted.

 

[mgilbuena]

I haven't found a way to reliably recreate the brightness issue. It is a more complex combination of adjustments that I haven't fully investigated. However, I was going down the path of if the tinting adjustment bug could be easily reproduced, everything else should follow.

I've attempted a downgrade of camera raw to version 3.0, but this did not fix the problem. I'll be poking around a bit more seriously in my Lightroom 3 trial.

 

[ampguy]

Hi

Hi

I can understand the issue with TIFFs, there are quite a few versions of that format, and few programs if any, support all of them.

The JPG issue is puzzling. What are you using to save the JPG file with? Have you tried saving the JPG as an sRGB and seeing if the behavior exists?

You can also try converting your TIFFs to DNG (or NEF if that is possible?) and seeing if that works.

Also, did you have the brightness issue on the air, or just the mbp? the mbp has an ambient light sensor with auto adjust, while the air doesn't, and keeps the display brightness constant.

Thanks; the avatar is from the classic video game Space Invaders.

Ampguy: Yes, that's correct. Normal behavior for Aperture is for the program to retain non-destructable edits to the file upon program close. This works correctly for all files with the exception of TIFFs / JPEGs with the specific steps I've discovered above.

Most people do not make such unrealistic tint changes to a file and thus the subtle changes upon re-open are not noticed. I certainly didn't notice as I strictly used RAW files up to this point, which seem to be unaffected by this bug.

The Apple Support forums seem to be going nowhere with this discovery. I've been dabbling a little in Lightroom 3, but I can't get over this feeling that the interface for L3 seems to be less refined and cluttered. I guess that happens when trying to learn any new software 🙂

 

[filmtwit]

Programs like Aperture and Lightroom don't actually alter the original file, what they do it essentially set up filters that change the output from that file. So in Aperture, simply make the changes you want, then do an export file. This should have all the changes you've done.