Aperture from Mac for digital workflow

[PrisonersDilema]

Hi,

I was a Capture 4.0, Adobe Photoshop CS 3 user for the last 4 years. However, my most sophisticated needs are only contrasts, saturation, curves, burn and dodge and sharpening. All of these were done on PC.

I have now just gotten a Mac for exactly 1 week now, after my PC died. My Leica Capture LE that I got for my M8 in Jan 2009 will not load in my Mac, even after the Mac version has been detected. It just terminates. I have been using Capture as my RAW converter since 2009 and post-processing in Adobe CS 3 that I even invested in a Gary Fong plugin for my wedding shoots (I have now stopped after 15 assignments and having paid off my gear).

I need to know:
1. If Aperture 3.0 would fit my needs for RAW conversion and Adobe CS 3's functions that I use. Anyway, I will need to buy again and assumes I will not go PC again.

2. If the learning curve is very steep for the switch. PC -> Mac was still ok buy still learning.

 

[mugent]

I use Aperture, and find it to be pretty good, I've only used it for RAW a little bit, as I really only shoot film these days. The only thing I miss from Lightroom is exposure gradients, but again, since I use film, I don't find it as necessary as I did with digital.

It can certainly dodge and burn and the other stuff you need to do, and it's so much cheaper than it used to be, so not much of a risk.

You can get a 30 day trial from here...

http://www.apple.com/aperture/

MT

 

[Rob-F]

I used to use Photoshop Elements as my main photo program. When I switched to Apple I installed Aperture. I like it a lot, as it is both very useful, and easy to use. I also like that by signing up for Apple's "One to One" tutoring, I can go in for an hour learning session whenever I want.

However, Aperture doesn't do everything. I installed a copy of Elements 6, which runs on OSX Snow Leopard (some versions of Elements don't). I wanted to still be able to do my perspective corrections and clone stamp, my most needed Elements features.

I don't know anything about CS3, never had it. But Aperture is much better than Elements for changing contrast, color cast, saturation, etc. I can really fine-tune in ways not possible with Elements.

I can't compare with Lightroom since I don't use it.

I have Capture One laying around here. I found it to be a bear to use. Completely non-intuitive, baffling, and frustrating. I'll take Aperture over it any day.

 

[gavinlg]

Hi,

I was a Capture 4.0, Adobe Photoshop CS 3 user for the last 4 years. However, my most sophisticated needs are only contrasts, saturation, curves, burn and dodge and sharpening. All of these were done on PC.

I have now just gotten a Mac for exactly 1 week now, after my PC died. My Leica Capture LE that I got for my M8 in Jan 2009 will not load in my Mac, even after the Mac version has been detected. It just terminates. I have been using Capture as my RAW converter since 2009 and post-processing in Adobe CS 3 that I even invested in a Gary Fong plugin for my wedding shoots (I have now stopped after 15 assignments and having paid off my gear).

I need to know:
1. If Aperture 3.0 would fit my needs for RAW conversion and Adobe CS 3's functions that I use. Anyway, I will need to buy again and assumes I will not go PC again.

2. If the learning curve is very steep for the switch. PC -> Mac was still ok buy still learning.

What mac did you buy. I love apertures interface and library, it's raw converter is generally good but lagging a bit behind lightroom/ACR with ISO files, but the main problem is that it can be really laggy and sluggish on the lower end macs. It's very video card and RAM intensive. To be honest, lightroom 3 is probably the better allround program, and works really slickly even on my 4-5 year old imac...

 

[Ronald M]

Try iPhoto that came with the Mac. At the bottom is an adjust image icon. Give it a try.

Aperture 3 will work in a similar way with more features such as local control, ie dodge, burn.

Apple will sell you a "platform swap" to Mac for a few dollars, perhaps 25, and you can buy an upgrade to CS3. PS only version which is PS & bridge is $200 upgrade. Other versions of CS are considerably more.

Elements is a pain to work with.

LR is a digital asset management program with the ACR converter from CS5 as the develop module. It does local controls to a large degree. The noise reduction is best they have offered to date. There is no difference in raw processing in CS5 or LR3.

Can you not get an upgrade to the program you are familiar with?

 

[filmtwit]

I've gotto agree here

Aperture: Good and decent tools concerning library and raw tools, but quite a memory hog

Lightroom: Excellent raw tools, good library tools and over all better work flow tool.

What mac did you buy. I love apertures interface and library, it's raw converter is generally good but lagging a bit behind lightroom/ACR with ISO files, but the main problem is that it can be really laggy and sluggish on the lower end macs. It's very video card and RAM intensive. To be honest, lightroom 3 is probably the better allround program, and works really slickly even on my 4-5 year old imac...

 

[bwcolor]

I've been using Aperture since it came out and find the newest version to be quite capable. I've been using PS less and less as Aperture has evolved. Regarding memory, I never noticed that it was particularly an issue. It rarely occupies but a small fraction of the 16GB of main memory on my Mac and memory is cheap these days. You can't go wrong with Aperture and I believe that you can try it before purchasing...at least this was how I did it when I was trying to decide between Lightroom and Aperture.

 

[mugent]

Before my RAM upgrade I only had 4GB, Aperture struggled on this, now I have 12GB its a different animal, very good indeed. RAM is cheap now, for the price of Lightroom, you could buy Aperture, RAM, and have change. Lightroom is good though, I'm not knocking it.

MT

 

[j j]

I much prefer Aperture to Lightroom for ease of use and for image quality, and at the current price at the App Store also for cost. Adobe will switch your CS3 to Mac at no cost. Aperture works well sending files PS and taking them back into the Aperture library. PS plug-ins should work on a Mac as they do in Windows.

 

[ramosa]

Over the past three or so years, I have matriculated from PS to LR to Aperture. I have also had Nik plugins for each one. Aperture, with an occasional move into Nik, does everything I need. The move from PS to LR or Ap is similar, as you give up some specialized tools ( which I don't use), while gaining in terms of management.

 

[Ronald M]

Try iPhoto that is built in. It does simple adjustments.

You can purchase a platform swap and upgrade from Adobe. Then install the DNG converter from Adobe Download Center.

Parallels or Bootcamp will allow a partition of the HD and you can run windows programs on the windows side. You will need to be able to install a windows OS if you have one on disk.

Aperture 3 will certainly work also.

 

[user237428934]

What mac did you buy. I love apertures interface and library, it's raw converter is generally good but lagging a bit behind lightroom/ACR with ISO files, but the main problem is that it can be really laggy and sluggish on the lower end macs. It's very video card and RAM intensive. To be honest, lightroom 3 is probably the better allround program, and works really slickly even on my 4-5 year old imac...

Aperture may be a little slower when working with a file but it is so much faster than LR when it comes to browsing through the photos or filtering. I run it on a 4GB Macbook Pro and the only time when it's really slow is when I work with a brush to do partial adjustment.

 

[user237428934]

The only noticeable functional difference between Aperture and LR3 for me is, that LR3 offers the embedded lens correction where you can correct distortion and perspective. I have the ptlens plugin so I can do this type of correction in Aperture.

 

[j6ppc]

I'm playing around with the aperture trial and it seems to do what I want it to do without taxing my 13.3 MBPro (4GB Ram). It is all new to me in any case since my only experience with image manipulation thus far has been in a darkroom.

 

[Rogier]

Its very well possible that the Version of "Capture One" that you have is not compatible with the current version of Snow Leopard. Assuming you updated your new computer to 10.6.7 right?
Also did you install "Rosetta" on your new Mac? Its not installed by default. You can find it on the installation disk 1 in the Optional installations folder. Or download it from the Apple support site.
Rosetta is an emulator needed for programs written for the old Power PC platform in order to make the work with the current Intel processors.

With regards to Aperture, I have returned back to it and like it a lot.
Nothing is perfect but this Application for this low of a price is darn good!
Basically you can do everything you might want to do in Photo Shop with the exception of masking and layers.
If you need to rescue an image to the lever where layers and advanced tricks are needed you can set Aperture to use an external editor like PS. The advantage is that the image remains in the Aperture workflow and library system.

With regards to the system requirements it wants RAM just like any other image editing program. My Mac Mini (server) with 8GB of ram and SSD drive runs Aperture 3.0 like a charm.

Hope this helps.