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Digital Photography
& Macintosh Computers
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December 31, 2005
Will Apple's
Aperture conquer the Professional Photography Industry in 2006?
The big question of the moment, is how long will it take Apple to bring
Aperture up to speed. The competition has had more than a decade to
perfect their software solutions and Adobe has a large number of
smaller third party developers producing extremely useful and well
supported plug-in filters and effects for Photoshop.
Aperture's strongest feature, a non-destructive editing workflow
process, is in some ways it's greatest stumbling block in convincing
the photographic industry to convert to an all Apple digital
photography workflow solution.
Photographers are used to many special problems and many special
solutions in the process of delivering their images to their clients.
The Photoshop plug-in industry has done very well in addressing these
special problems. When you have a certain look or imaging problem that
needs to be solved, there is a good chance that a plug-in will save the
day.
Apple's Aperture unfortunately does not allow for images to leave the
Aperture workflow for special processing and return without losing the
entire non-destructive editing advantage. There is also no provision
for plug-ins inside the Aperture workflow process (let's hope this is
not a permanent situation).
Partially because of these issues and partially because Aperture is a
new application (Version 1), the final image output is also not
currently as high in quality as Adobe Photoshop CS or Phase One Capture
1.
To cut to the chase, Apple has
produced a software
package that has a very good chance of playing as important a role in
the photographic industry as Final Cut now plays in the video and film
industries, but it does not yet deliver the complete workflow solution
or quality of final image output needed by high end professionals to
satisfy their
demanding clients.
http://www.apple.com/aperture/
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Most
Recent Aperture Update and System Requirements
 About Aperture 1.0.1 Update
Designed from the ground up for professional photographers, Aperture
provides everything you need for after the shoot, delivering the first
all-in-one post-production tool for photographers.
Aperture 1.0.1 Update addresses a number of issues related to
reliability and performance. It also delivers improved image export
quality and metadata handling.
Among the key areas addressed are:
- White balance adjustment accuracy and performance
- Image export quality
- Book and print ordering reliability
- Auto-stacking performance
- Custom paper size handling
This update is recommended for all Aperture users.
Minimum System Requirements
One of the following Macintosh computers:
- Power Mac G5 with a 1.8 gigahertz (GHz) or faster PowerPC G5 processor
- 15- or 17-inch PowerBook G4 with a 1.25 GHz or faster PowerPC G4
processor
- 17- or 20-inch iMac G5 with a 1.8 GHz or faster PowerPC G5 processor
- Mac OS X version 10.4.3 or later
- 1GB of RAM
One of the following graphics cards:
- ATI Radeon x600 Pro or x600 XT
- ATI Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition
- ATI Radeon X850 XT
- ATI Radeon 9800 XT or 9800 Pro
- ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
- ATI Radeon 9600, 9600 XT, 9600 Pro, or 9650
- ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 or 9600
- NVIDIA GeForce 6600 LE or 6600
- NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL or 6800 GT DDL
- NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT
- NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500
- 5GB of disk space for application, templates, and tutorial
- DVD drive for installation |
dpmac.com articles on Aperture
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December
21, 2005
Photographers are
being forced to gear up for Aperture.
On October the 15th of this year Apple entered the world of
professional digital photography by launching the Aperture software
package, with the main objective being to compete head on with
the current industry standard being offered by Adobe; Photoshop CS,
Bridge and Raw Conversion; Phase One Capture One; and iView Media Pro
for cataloging.
Apples aim being to simplify the workflow process of professional
photographers by giving them one mighty Swiss Army knife like tool,
with a similar, but more sophisticated, interface to iPhoto, that can
replace the full range of tools now needed to bring digital images from
the camera to the end consumer. Apple is actually very careful to point
out that Aperture does not replace Photoshop (for final image touchups
and manipulations), but it sure does a good job of doing away with
Bridge and ARC (Adobe Raw Conversion).
Most photographers now rely on a combination of tools which are
dominated by Adobe Photoshop CS and Phase One's Capture One
applications. A number of other companies are competing for the
incredibly fast growing digital image workflow business, but for now
Adobe and Phase One are in the well recognized lead. Adobe is the
accepted standard by which everyone else is judged and Phase One is the
considered by almost everyone to produce the highest quality RAW images
for the very demanding high end advertising and publishing industries.
Apple's Aperture is the exotic and easy to look at new mistress who is
turning everyone's heads, but for most it is a much more expensive and
complicated upgrade than they initially imagined. A lot of
photographers immediately complained that Apple was overpricing
Aperture, but in reality it is hundreds of dollars less than the same
solution from Adobe, the price is in upgrading your equipment to make
Aperture run smoothly and actually enhance your workflow.
High end photographers with hundreds of thousands of dollars invested
in camera equipment alone, are of course not concerned about the
$500.00 price tag for Aperture, or even the prospect of having to
upgrade their computer systems. But the average photographer who
thought that he could easily step into the next generation of digital
workflow, by just buying the software and loading it on his two year
old 'state of the art' Mac, is currently in a state of shock.
Aperture quite simply requires the most expensive G5 PowerMac (and
whatever follows) that you can afford, upgraded with as much RAM as you
can afford, the best Graphics card (for Aperture image processing) you
can afford, plus bigger and more hard disk drives than you ever
imagined that you and all your friends combined could possibly need. We
are no longer concerned about gigabytes, the word to get used to now is
terabytes, and you are going to need a lot of desktop space for those
dual 30 inch monitors.
If your mouth is open in astonishment at the moment, or you think that
I am exaggerating, please remember that the reason you are interested
in buying Aperture is to improve your digital photography workflow, not
to build a flashy looking but useless bottleneck on your current
computer's desktop.
Take a look at one of the many digital photography forums on the
internet and they are full of complaints from people who can't
understand why Aperture is so slow on their iBook and how slow it is
generating jpegs from RAW image files, or how it can't compare to Phase
One Capture One. Let's just remember that Aperture is only 3 months old
and more than likely was designed for computers that Apple has not even
put on the market yet.
The main advantages that Aperture offers (and the reasons why it will
more than likely take over the photographic industry just like Final
Cut did with the video industry) are non-destructive editing of all
image formats (untill final image export) and a single application
interface for image importing, image comparing and sorting, cataloging,
RAW conversion, image editing, web page generation, printing and image
archiving.
There are of course some shortcomings and bugs to be worked out but
that is the basic nature of software design and development. I still
remember Adobe Photoshop Version 1 (and the beta versions that came
before that). It will be exciting to see where Aperture will take us,
in the months and years to come.
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November
19, 2005 - Update on Digital Workflow Article
Digital Workflow and Apple Aperture - November 2005
 Nov. 19 - I am still working on a much larger report on the
Kevin Ames
Just Show Me How Seminar and on a Digital
Workflow Report in general. It is a very large and important topic with
many conflicting theories and solutions competing for a very large and
growing market. Kevin Ames has been actively using and teaching Adobe
Photoshop workflow solutions for quite some time and is an expert in
using and teaching the ins and outs of Digital Worflow and Photo
Mechanic, Adobe Bridge and Adobe Photoshop in particular.
Like most good teachers,
Kevin's seminar is based largely on personal
experience and common sense. He acknowledges that you may find a
system, and specific solutions, that works better for you than the ones
he is using and demonstrating, but hopes that you can learn from his
experiences and personal workflow solutions. He stresses again and
again, that even though he has certain seminar sponsors and uses
certain products, not to get too hung up on specific solutions.
For instance he mentions that Apple Aperture will more than
likely become a major player (for professionals) in Digital Photography
Workflow in 2006. Apple Aperture will change the way Macintosh users
deal with digital workflow and therefore much of what is being taught
now will be obsolete for many photographers fairly soon. This does not
mean that what is being taught is unimportant, it just shows how
quickly technology changes and that every photographer has to
eventually find his own best personal workflow solutions.
As I have mentioned before, I expect that Aperture will be the main
reason that professional photographers who are now using Windows PCs
will switch to Macintosh computers in 2006. The switch from PowerPC to
Intel processors will make it even easier to convince them to switch.
At the seminar Kevin asked what computer the participants used, and I
was shocked to see that the majority of the participants were Windows
PC users. Kevin himself has been a Macintosh user for a long time and
conducted the Seminar using a G4 PowerBook.
Several of Kevin's Photoshop
books are available from Amazon. The PhotoshopWorld Dream Team Book, ... and Adobe Photoshop CS . I highly reccomend picking either or both of them up for
yourself or as a present for a photographer friend.
Please stay tuned for a much
larger
report on the Just Show Me How -
Digital Workflow Seminar for Professionals and Apple Aperture. I
recently attended the the
Just Show Me How Seminar in Boston and have a much longer and in depth
report in
the works. Just Show Me How Seminars are conducted by Kevin Ames and
procuced by Blue Pixel.
For a schedule of their seminars please go to - http://www.justshowmehowpro.com/
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October 19, 2005 -
Apple Press Release
Apple
Introduces Aperture
First All-in-One
Post Production Tool for Photographers
CUPERTINO, California—October 19, 2005—Apple® today
introduced Aperture, the first all-in-one post production tool
that provides everything photographers need after the shoot.
Aperture offers an advanced and incredibly fast RAW workflow that
makes working with a camera’s RAW images as easy as JPEG. Built
from the ground up for pros, Aperture features powerful compare
and select tools, nondestructive image processing, color managed
printing and custom web and book publishing.
“Aperture is to professional photography what Final Cut Pro is to
filmmaking,” said Rob Schoeben, Apple’s vice president of
Applications Marketing. “Finally, an innovative post production
tool that revolutionizes the pro photo workflow from compare and
select to retouching to output.”
“Until now, RAW files have taken so long to work with,” said
Heinz Kluetmeier, renowned sports photographer whose credits
include over 100 Sports Illustrated covers. “What amazed me about
Aperture is that you can work directly with RAW files, you can
loupe and stack them and it’s almost instantaneous—I suspect that
I’m going to stop shooting JPEGs. Aperture just blew me away.”
Unique compare and select tools in Aperture allow photographers
to easily sift through massive photo projects and quickly
identify their final selections. Aperture is the first
application that automatically groups sequences of photos into
easy-to-manage Stacks based on the time interval between
exposures. In an industry first, Aperture allows photographers to
navigate through entire projects in a full-screen workspace that
can be extended to span multiple displays, tiling multiple images
side-by-side for a faster, easier compare and select. With
Aperture’s Loupe magnifying tool, portions of images can be
examined in fine detail without having to zoom and pan across
large files. In addition, a virtual Light Table provides the
ideal canvas for building simple photo layouts, allowing them to
be arranged, resized and piled together in a free-form space.
RAW images are maintained natively throughout Aperture without
any intermediate conversion process, and can be retouched with
stunning results using a suite of adjustment tools designed
especially for photographers. Aperture’s nondestructive image
processing engine never alters a single pixel of original photos
so photographers have the power and flexibility to modify or
delete changes at any point in the workflow. As Aperture allows
users to create multiple versions of a single image without
duplicating files, photographers can experiment without risk of
overwriting the master image or using up large amounts of hard
drive space. Aperture images can also be launched directly into
Adobe Photoshop for compositing and layer effects.
Aperture features a complete color-managed pipeline with support
for device specific ColorSync profiles and a set of high-quality
output tools for photographers to showcase their work. Print
options include customizable contact sheets, high-quality local
printing and color- managed online prints. Aperture provides a
deceptively simple layout environment where photographers can
quickly create and order custom professional-caliber books and
publish stunning web galleries. Aperture makes it easy to back up
an entire library of images with a single click and streamline
complex workflows with AppleScript® and Automator actions.
Pricing &
Availability
Aperture will be available in November through the Apple
Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores
and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of
$499 (US). Full system requirements and more information on
Aperture can be found at www.apple.com/aperture
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October
19, 2005
Aperture - Professional
Photography Workflow for the Rest of Us
I don't even have to mention that
other software company
who's name starts with the letter A in this article. This is going to
be the tool that every Professional Photographer must have, and if he
doesn't
already have a Macintosh, he will have to buy one. Just like FinalCut
Pro did with the film industry, this software package will
revolutionize the Professional Photographic industry. Why? Because it
has sex appeal. http://www.apple.com/aperture/
The only people that are laughing
right now are people who know nothing
about Professional Photography. The industry is based on and thrives on
sex appeal. Apple has nailed it right on the head and put together a
package that just oozes that quality all photographers are striving
for.
Advanced RAW Workflow, Professional Project Management, Powerful
Compare and Select Tools, Nondestructive Image Processing, and
Versatile printing and Publishing. And to top it all off you have to
have the biggest meanest Mac out there to take advantage of it all.
Recommended system: Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5 or
faster, 2GB of RAM, One
of the following graphics cards: ATI Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition; ATI
Radeon 9800 XT or 9800 Pro; NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL or 6800 GT
DDL; NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT; NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500,
5GB of disk space for application, templates, and tutorial, DVD drive for installation. If that isn't sexy I don't
know what is.
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October
15, 2005
Apple Computers at Photo
Plus Expo - Oct. 20-22
Officially Apple will not be at the Photo
Plus Expo but unofficially you will be seeing a lot of Apple
computers in use throughout the Expo, both at exhibitor booths and in
the seminars.
Just off the Photo Plus Expo premises there is actually an official
presence at the Clear Focus Studio Event. Clear Focus Studio is a
traveling event that uses a hands-on working studio environment to
present their sponsors products. Sponsors are Hasselblad, Apple,
Hewlett Packard, Gretagmacbeth, Colorbyte, Extensis, Wacom, PDN, Ipnstock.com, and Visatech. The October 20-21
event will be held at the Splashlight Studios, on West 35th Street, in
New York. To participate you must register first at clearfocusstudio.com.
 Now we also get the
word that Apple will be hosting a special by invitation only press
event in New York on October 19th. The rumors hint at PowerBook and
PowerMac updates, and more interestingly (for us) at a possible
Professional Photo application. Sure wish they had invited me to this
party, especially in light of the fact that I have been harassing
everyone I know and have met from Apple to come up with such a software
package for years. 
I hope it is an iPhoto on steroids and not a product Apple has bought
from a third party vendor. iPhoto has always been a great product, just
not strong enough to take professional abuse. More than likely though a
Professional Photo application from Apple would be completely different
from iPhoto and probably very similar to Extensis Portfolio.
The next thing Apple needs to do is to produce an iPod for
photographers (no the Photo iPod was not it). Their newest 60GB iPod
actually comes pretty close but you still have
to add an (Apple) camera connector to it (and since no photographer in
his right mind would actually stop
shooting on location, to download directly from the camera) a card
reader device. Lexar has a very simple Jumpshot cable that would work
perfectly in the field. A really great idea would be for someone to
come up with a version of the Apple camera connector that has a slot
for CompactFlash cards (and another version for a multiple of the
smaller formats) built into the connector, in place of the USB port.
Anyway in a few days we will know what Apple has up their sleeves this
time. If it is a big push into Professional Photography for Apple, I
for one will be a very happy camper.
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