Aperture 2, rockin’ so far

Okay, so Allie and I got our new iMac today and we decided to go ahead and try Aperture.  We made the decision based only on their album design aspect, which was a little much to ask for $200, but it was close enough so we jumped in a got it.

So I had to quickly design an parent album, and it was a breeze.  What can I say.  Apple.

Seeing that I don’t sleep, I stayed up and started importing all our JPEG catalog form every shoot we’ve ever done into the program.  Importing the RAW images would take too much space, and they are backed up and ready to be called into action if needed.  Anyways, the tagging and organization of Aperture is amazing.

So, editing photos.

For one, they look better in Aperture than they do in Lightroom, sharper and with more contrast.  It must have something to way the programs render previews or something like that.
Two.  I’m a Logic Pro user, which is Apple professional audio suite, and the menus and the lay out is very similar.  They look like the same program, another bonus here.
Three.  The UI is not as well laid out as Lightroom and it doesn’t have presets, which is a big negative here.  Still the features are cleaner and process images better in my opinion.
Four.  Working in full screen.  On my laptop and soon our iMac, you can toggle into full screen mode and edit.  It hides all your tools on the top and bottom of the screen, so if you move your mouse to the top, you can switch your brushes and such.  You can also simply hit a hot key and pull up the full adjustment window.
Five.  Highlight clipping and black clipping.  It will show you (with a hot key) where you need to apply Recovery with a red overlay, and where you need to recover and adjust your black clipping with a blue overlay.  Seriously, this is simple, but awesome!

 

Anyone else using it?  We’re really experimenting with everything to find the best possible workflow for us, so we are not set in stone yet by any means.  We love Lightroom, it’s so fast, but Aperture is Apple, and I love me some Apple.  If you are a Apple-fan-atic you’ll know what I mean.

So my verdict from playing with it for one day.  A first it might go a little slower processing images in Aperture than Lightroom, and the learning curve is pretty steep, but once we get over it…  In the long run, I believe that better images and faster workflow are on the horizon.

 

Chris.