Apple Aperture 2.1.1
by Apple
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List Price: Category: Software See more product details and other editions |
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Software Reviews of Apple Aperture 2.1.1
Customer Review: A worthwhile photo editing program, but could use some tweaks
Summary: 4 Stars
Like a lot of amateur photographers, I was wondering whether to make the leap and use RAW files or not. I decided to try RAW out, and in order to take advantage of RAW formats I got Aperture.
So far, I've found this to be a useful photo-processing program - certainly an improvement over iPhoto. Here are some of the highlights for me:
1) Easy to use adjustment tools. If you've used iPhoto or any basic program, you can probably open Aperture and figure out how to use everything in 10 minutes. I remember years ago struggling with Adobe Photoshop and being confused out of my mind.
2) Good range of color adjustments available. I love being able to change the saturation of individual colors. The range doesn't quite cover the entire rainbow (orange is missing), but it is great when you want to adjust one color and not the others.
3) Aperture allows you to organize similar photos in stacks for easy access. Often, I take a series of photos of the same subject, changing shutter speed or f-stop slightly, to see which composition or exposure I like best. Stacks keeps all of these photos in a group so I can easily compare them later.
Now, for the drawbacks:
1) The magnification tool ("loupe") is not as useful as the magnification in iPhoto or other programs. First of all, it slows down the program quite a bit and every time I use it I have to wait about 20 seconds before I can continue using the program. Second, its minimum magnification is 50x, which isn't always useful (particularly if I want to see how a picture would look if cropped). By contrast, iPhoto simply has a useful sliding bar that allows you to zoom in or out quickly.
2) Aperture, like many advanced photoshop programs, uses a lot of memory on your hard drive (~1 GB) and ram. Using it slows your computer down. It has already crashed twice on me over the course of 24 hours. This certainly isn't a reason not to get it - I would just warn you against getting it and storing it on your computer if you don't expect to seriously use it.
3) No full-screen editing mode.
Customer Review: Disappointed
Summary: 2 Stars
i did receive the item quick I thought for the price I would get a new CD only to find the one sent scratched.Customer Review: Much Easier than Photoshop Anything
Summary: 5 Stars
As an ex Leica man and former Nikon SLR users this is my first venture into the world of DSLR. I have a Canon pocket digital that I used in conjunction with IPhoto and Photoshop elements for little family outings and such. However, I never ventured past iPhoto or Photoshop Elements with the little Canon pocket. I was still into Leica M (rangefinder). That is over.
Two weeks ago I purchased a new NIkon D90 and 24mm-70mm lens. All of my photos are shot in RAW that generates large files. Once I learned the Apple had a software program called Aperture, I went to their web-site and looked at their tutorials. They were a Godsend. It is easy to toggle back from the tutorials or Aperture if you have a question when working in Aperture. Also, I purchased a book on Aperture and took the Apple one-to-one (available from Apple for $100 for a year's worth of sessions) on this program. There are two things about this program. First, is what you need to know. Second, is the potential of the program and what you can know. Between the on-line Apple tutorials, one-to one and the book (Apple Aperture 2: A workflow guide for digital photographers - book fair) I did OK in what I need to know. Still, I am learning the potential of the program.
What astonished me is that there is not way I could have exercised the control of film pictures as I can with Aperture. There are a myriad of choices, or if you elected to make simple changes then it is easy to do. Complicated changes are not that difficult. Nevertheless, it takes a little practice. It is in another universe. The results are sensational. And I shot with Leica. Those lenses are outstanding. Yet, I never could control the processing. Now, can control the final results.
Comparing this to Photoshop Elements or Photoshop, in my judgment, there is no comparison. This is considerably easier for me. Ease of use is a major factor in my evaluating anything. Aperture gets a five star rating. Admittedly, I am a huge Apple fan and used Aperture with the iMac 3.06 with 4 gigs of RAM. By the way I used a SanDisk 8 GB extreme (30mb/second) card and a Lexar USB card reader. Both, highly recommended.
Unless you are a pro photographer and want some of the very, very advanced features of PhotoShop I would go with Aperture. If you own an Apple Computer, in my opinion there is no contest. This is a no-brainer.
Customer Review: Aperture great until it gets corrupted (easy to do)
Summary: 2 Stars
I was very happy with Aperture 2 and would have rated it 5 stars until it got corrupted while saving my 10,000+ photos to the vault which I do every week. There was no warning of a problem, it just crashed and has never worked since then. I have reinstalled it several times but with no luck. Where are all my photos? Who knows. Apple is totally unresponsive to my queries. When it crashes it gives a series of error messages in the report to Apple that it automatically sends. Each time the report is a little different. So the problem appears to be a moving target. I would now rate it as one-star, but a tiny voice in my head still holds out for a fix. FYI, besides the main photo file, I have it backed up to 2 vaults on 2 different hard drives. Aperture will not start, let alone access any of the main files, or the vaults.
A search of the Web shows that this problem is not unique to me.
Customer Review: Instant Image Enhancement Success
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm new to Apple (MacBook Pro). This could make working with photo image software daunting. However, Aperture provides instant success! I've muddled through several simple Windows off the shelf photo software with marginal output. Aperture loaded 8GB of vacation photos with ease and very quickly (less than 30 seconds or so). Prior practice with sample images had provided sufficient guidance for workspace management. I successfully created Projects as a way to sort out the kinds of photos I had taken. The enhancement adjustments (level horizon, sharpening, color definition) for individual shots were straight forward and could be viewed full screen. Output for print to my local photo shop worked fine (my print shop was a tad surprised at the pixel size, but the 300 dpi and jpeg requirements met their specifications). Most importantly in all this, the original image files were in Canon's 5D Mark II CR2 format, with customary resolution of around 5616 X 3744 (21.1 Megapixels). Aperture functioned with ease. All click and slide adjustments worked without a hitch. The Aperture software is a great platform for anyone, even Apple/MackBook Pro newcomers.