Customer Reviews

Aperture 3

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

Before I start the review I need to add a few caveats. The first is I have not really used Adobe Lightroom so I will not be comparing Aperture 3 to Lightroom. (Lightroom is the biggest competitor to Aperture and from what I have read owns the majority of the market). I have tried Lightroom 3 and I could not get past the restrictive module system and the small editing space. I thought I was going to have to slog through learning how to used Lightroom 3 when Apple surprised and delighted me by releasing Aperture 3. Also, I haven't really used iPhoto that much since I got Aperture 2. So I will only be making passing remarks about those programs. The other caveat is that this is a massive program with massive upgrades and there is no way I can cover everything so I will be covering how this program handles my workflow.

Bottom Line Up Front: Aperture 3 is an amazing Photographic Workflow System that fits all of my professional and personal needs. Apple has implemented so many amazing features into this program that it is an absolute must upgrade from Aperture 2. For anyone interested in taking their photography up from the casual (iPhoto) to enthusiast level, Aperture 3 is a great tool to help you accomplish that. For anyone using Lightroom who hates being restricted by what module you are in, Aperture 3 offers amazing new professional features especially concerning showcasing your work. (Still+Video slideshoes, GraphiSutdio, Queensberry, Leather Craftsmen, and Couture Books are just some of the outstanding new features.)

One thing you need to know up front is that Aperture 3 has some stability issues. I have been using Aperture 3 for about 16 hours and have had about 8 crashes. One thing to note is that because of how Aperture works you do not lose any work. You just need to restart the program. I am sure we will be seeing a patch released relatively quickly. Aperture 2 was always the crashiest program I own (most Apple programs never crash but Aperture 2 crashed about 1 time every 8 hours). Unfortunately it looks right now that Aperture 3 will continue that tradition. I will say that Aperture 3 plays a lot better with Snow Leopard than Aperture 2 did. For me these crashes are irritating and I hope they get worked out. However, this is still a truly amazing upgrade over Aperture 2.

My basic digital workflow is to Organize, Edit and Showcase so this is how I will structure the review.

Organize

For Aperture 3, apple has added 2 new ways to organize you photos; Faces and Places. I have read some people disregarding these features as amateurish (You can switch them off if you don't want to use them. Also, faces slows Aperture down right after import as it scans for faces). I, for one, use Aperture 3 for professional and personal purposes. So even if these features were not professionally useful, I still like them (I do find them useful professionally also). These features are nice for allowing photos to stay together in the group in which they were shot. I used to have to pull photos out, especially of people, to relocate to another folder or project. Or I would have to add the person's name as a key word. Either way it was tedious and often required a compromise. Now I can leave all of the photos from a shoot in one location and find a person. Or I don't have to remember when I was shooting at a particular location. I can go to the map and find the photos that way. I think this is awesome from an organizational standpoint. A note on the faces feature. It does a fantastic job finding even the blurriest or off angle faces in a photo. However, it is not as good at recognizing people as I think it should be as it asked me to name some in-focus straight-on shots of people I had already named. This is still a great feature just don't expect miracles.

Aperture 2 used to really bog down once your library got over 10,000 photos. For this reason, I started creating a new library every quarter of the year. I don't know if Aperture 3 has fixed this 10,000 photo slowdown but what they have done is make Library management much better. First off you can change libraries on the fly without having to restart the program. You can also merge and export libraries from inside the program. This library management was one of the biggest things on my Aperture 3 wish list. Aperture 3 is a native 64 bit program so on the newer machines with Snow Leopard I am sure the limit will be higher than 10,000. However, because of Aperture's free-form design and differences between hard drive memory and the relatively small physical memory your computer has there will still be a point where large Aperture libraries will bog your computer down.

The final thing I will talk about concerning Organize are color labels, flags and a new sort option; sort by Orientation. I was just about to go through and hand sort by orientation so this feature will save me a ton of time. You can flag a photo by clicking the top right of the photo. You assign color labels by hitting the option key and 0-7 or by right clicking and selecting the color. The flag and color labels give you more options to quickly organize your photos. As an example, I used to sort my photos according to people, scenic nature, and abstract. Now I can leave the photos in their imported projects and just assign purple to people, green to nature, and yellow to abstract. Then I can make a smart album that sorts for green or yellow, etc. Sweet. Many times I have transition photos as I am processing the photos. Those photos can get in the way. Now I can flag them. Also, externally edited photos return to Aperture as TIFFs. These files get huge (try 60 MB per photo--ouch). Unfortunately, Aperture does not have a file type converter so after I get finished with the TIFFs I export them out as JPEGs and then import them back in as JPEGs. Then I delete the TIFFs. A laborious process but the flags can be used to help me keep track of the TIFF photos so when I get to the export process I can easily find them.

Edit

There have been many many upgrades to the photo editing abilities of Aperture 3. The two major categories are Presets and Adjustments. The Presets are quick fixes, color, white balance, Black and White, and adjustments. You even have the option to create your own presets. These Presets allow you to make quick adjustments without having to fiddle with the sliders. For example if the white balance is not quite right on your photo and you know you shot in tungsten light then just pick that preset and it adjusts the white balance for you. From what I have seen so far this even works well on JPEGs. You can do similar things with exposure and other parameters.

The Adjustments section has far too much to cover here in this already lengthy review. However, the quick brushes are a powerful new feature that I will try to cover. One example of these brushes is Dodge. This used to be a plug-in in Aperture 2 now it is in the program (If you are used to this from Aperture, all of the brushes work in the same way). The reason this is significant is that all of the in Aperture edits are non-destructive. That means you can always go back to where you started. All plug-in changes, one, create a new copy and permanently change that copy and, two, are TIFFs which take up a tremendous amount of space. All of the quick brushes allow you to resize the brush, change the amount of fall off around the edges, and strength of the brush. Additionally, all of the brushes have an overlay to show you where you have applied the change. Some of the other brushes included are dodge, burn, saturate, reduce noise, sharpen, etc. This is an incredibly powerful editing tool that allows you to non-destructively enhance your photos in some dramatic ways.

I had quite a few plug-ins with Aperture 2. The good news is that they work with Aperture 3. The bad news is they are 32 bit while Aperture 3 is 64 bit. The way Aperture 3 handles this is to close and then reboot into a 32 bit mode. Slightly annoying but I am glad my plug-ins still work.

My favorite plug-ins for Aperture are the Nik Effects programs. Even the new Aperture 3 editing tools do not render those plug-ins obsolete. However, I like to layer 3 to 4 filters over a photo. Since Aperture exports the photo out to the plug-in I can only layer 1 at a time and that means more transition photographs. Aperture needs to allow plug-ins to work inside of Aperture for non-destructive edits.

Finally, Aperture needs and in-program file type converter. The export/import routine is crazy and it is made worse by the fact that you lose rating, key words, etc.

Showcase

This is another area where Aperture 3 has really made amazing improvements. When I first got Aperture 2, I had a book printed and to me it wasn't even acceptable for home use, let alone professional use. Well that has changed with Aperture 3. You can download plug-ins from GraphiSutdio, Queensberry, Leather Craftsmen, and Couture Books.(Note you need to be a partner photographer or verified business to get the Queensberry or Leather Craftsmen plug-ins). Take a look at these books and you will be astounded by the quality. (For home users, the price will probably astound you but now you can see why wedding albums cost so much.)

Aperture 3 has also added a slide show function. What is cool about this feature is the ability to use both still and video in the slide show. Many believe this hybrid style is the future of publishing. With cheap electronic paper only a short way off, the day of stills only is coming to a close. Overall, the slide show creator is very good but falls short in a few areas. The first is the limited number of Themes that come with Aperture 3. I know of 2 or 3 additional themes that iPhoto has that are not in Aperture. Second, there is no randomizer function for the photos. Sure you can move them by hand but if you are talking about 150+ photos then sometimes I want to start with a random group of photos and change from there. The last problem is that some of the themes have different proportion frames. That means that Aperture will put the photo in the center. If your subject is off to a side then it might end up getting cut off. Aperture needs to be smarter about what it puts into what frame and then flag the frame for you. Overall, it makes nice slideshows but you will probably still sometimes need to use iMovie or iPhoto for you slide shows. Also, if you are using the $.99 version of a song from iTune store in your slide show, Aperture will not let you export (e.g. output to burn onto a DVD or put on your iPhone) your slide show.

Overall

I have barely scratched the surface of what Aperture can do but as you can see it is an immensely powerful photography workflow program. It is not perfect and it currently has stability issues. However, none of this diminishes what you can accomplish with this program or how enjoyable it is to use.

Yes, Aperture 3 is very fast compared to Aperture 2 and 1, and it has a lot of wonderful features, but its instability on my system is a show-stopper. SGML: Sounds Good, Maybe Later!

I downloaded the trial version of Aperture 3 from Apple. It's the same as the standard version but requires a purchased serial number after 30 days. Unfortunately, only one hour was needed to determine that this software is not yet ready for prime time. It crashed 3 times during the first hour of use, and then I deleted it from my system (iMac 27" i5, 8 GB RAM).

Instead of buying Aperture 3 now, I'd recommend waiting until at least the first few patches are released by Apple. I'm sure these issues will be addressed sooner or later. Google "Aperture 3" and "crash" and "unstable" online to see what other photographer are saying right now.

If you're feeling lucky, here are a couple of tips that might save you from spending hours and hours of frustrating work:

1. Use IPTC tags for each shot so even if Aperture "goes away," the keywords, caption, photographer, copyright, etc. tags are preserved for each shot.

I've been using Aperture on a daily basis since version 1 was released, and still have Aperture 2.1.4 on my system. With both Aperture 1 and 2, I have experienced occasional "library" (database/catalog) corruption. I don't know if Aperture 3 has the same issues but given its current instability, I'd suggest erring on the side of caution.

Aperture has sometimes associated the wrong metadata (captions, keywords, etc.) with some of my shots, as well as the wrong thumbnails. The standard fixes include rebuilding the Aperture catalog by holding down the option and command keys while starting Aperture, and manually deleting the thumbnail files from library packages. Sometimes these methods have worked, sometimes not. When they haven't worked, I've lost many hours of time rebuilding the library and re-applying adjustments to thousands of shots.

Fortunately all the metadata for each of my shots is in IPTC format, embedded in the image files rather than just in Aperture's library, so I haven't lost any critical image information as a result of these problems. At least a couple of times per year I've had to delete a corrupted Aperture library, which means losing all the image adjustments, plus waiting while all the thumbnails get rebuilt.

2. Import your images into Aperture by reference, leaving them in their original folders. Don't allow Aperture to move your shots into its "package."

If Aperture crashes or corrupts its own library, you'll be happy that all you have to delete is the library, knowing your shots are safe and sound where you left them. Yes, you could probably extract them from an Aperture library package if necessary, but if the package is truly corrupted by Aperture, you'll have a much bigger job ahead of you. As a side benefit, if you use other software packages such as LightRoom or PhotoMechanic to manage or edit your shots, you can do that very easily if the shots are in their original folders.

I'm sorry to write this negative review. I've been waiting for Aperture 3 for a long time, but I won't buy it until Apple fixes it. I wish you better luck than I had with it.

At about $170-175, Aperture 3 is the best buy you can make in Mac-only photography software. In one package, you get great image editing tools and world-class organizational capabilities. That's all that most non-pros need.

Aperture is easy to learn and reasonably fast if you have a decent Mac, and its biggest strength is that it allows you to get away from the computer FAST. It doesn't take long at all to import, keyword, and rate my pics, and delete the garbage. From there, Aperture lets you edit your pics very quickly, even in bulk if you want, and it has all the exporting capabilities you could want, including ones for Facebook and Flickr.

Plus, the new brushes are awesome - especially the skin-moothing tool which can freshen up your friends skin in a jiffy. And of course, the much-needed preset feature is fun to play with. The slideshow feature has been enhanced as well, and basically sticks iMovie into Aperture with much-improved exporting options.

My main complaint is that Apple should have been more conservative in listing system requirements. Do not run Aperture 3 unless you have 2 gigs of RAM, and preferably 4. I'm getting by okay with 2, but only after I turn off other programs, widgets, etc. For this reason, I wanted to rate the product 4.5/5 stars but Amazon doesn't give that option.

I've also had nothing but good experiences in terms of customer service. I've gotten help with Aperture inside Apple stores and once even got to speak with an Apple engineer over the phone when the rep couldn't answer a technical question.

The majority of photography enthusiasts don't use 10% of Photoshop's capabilities, and are far better off with Aperture or Lightroom.

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Anybody who rates Aperture as comparable to Lightroom hasn't used Lightroom much. I have both, and use them both. In fact, the first thing I'll say is that it is possible to use Aperture in parallel with another photo manager, such as iPhoto or Lightroom, as Aperture allows you to add photos to the library while leaving them in their original location. So, if, after reading my review you're still interested in trying Aperture, you can feel safe doing so; you can always go back to your old program if you elect to import the photos to Aperture without copying them into Aperture.

The most glaring problem with Aperture is that it's incredibly slow. When you perform an edit, the edit is first done on a very low resolution version of the photo, and that often takes about a second. Then, many seconds later, you see the result on a high resolution version. Scrolling around your photo library is also much faster in Lightroom, where Aperture will stutter about and often leave you looking at blank placeholders while it loads previews. This is absolutely unacceptable in a program that purports to be "pro" level. Lightroom, by contrast, allows manipulations to be done in real time at what appears to be full resolution. Both program do nondestructive editing, so I can only presume that this may be a result of the fact that Adobe has been doing image manipulation software for decades while Aperture is a relatively new piece of software. Perhaps Adobe has learned a thing or two in the past 25 years about imaging.

The second area in which Aperture is objectively lacking is the quality of some of the filters. For example, the denoise filter in Lightroom is WAY ahead of Aperture's, as is the "heal" brush. In fact, I think the "heal" brush in Lightroom gives you the same magic available from the tool of the same name in Photoshop. In addition, Lightroom has a full database of lens corrections, including those for the iPhone cameras, which handles devignetting and distortion removal. It's very impressive, and nothing comparable is offered in Aperture, one of the many missing features which betrays Aperture as a pretender in the realm of professional photo software. Lightroom has automatic white balance (with better results than your camera probably offers), Aperture doesn't. Lightroom outputs slideshows using all the cores on your system; Aperture slugs along with one. Lightroom lets you do everything in parallel, such as output a slideshow video, while generating a web gallery, all while editing other pictures; Aperture leaves you stuck waiting for modal wait dialogs for each. All these little touches in Lightroom that are missing in Aperture become very glaring when you use them side by side, and Aperture begins to feel like nothing more than an upgraded version of iPhoto, not a truly serious tool.

Despite the poor quality and speed of Aperture relative to what Adobe offers, there are a few legitimate reasons why you might want to buy Aperture, and why I'll give it three stars instead of the one or two. First, it has a very nice interface, and if you're new to non-destructive photo editing software, it's an easier introduction than offered by Lightroom. Printing, for instance, is much more straightforward in Aperture. Second, it integrates with the Mac far better than Lightroom, especially if you use MobileMe. In particular, your Aperture photos and albums are available in any of the iLife programs via the media browser, making your photos more easily integrated into iMovie projects, for example. Similarly, Aperture also makes for much easier importing of media from your Mac, such as making anything in your iTunes library available for use as slideshow background music.

For these reasons, Aperture is potentially worth buying as a replacement for iPhoto. You retain the nice integration with iLife, but gain a lot of power. Just don't think you're getting a truly professional level package. Apple is a great company, and they do a lot of things right. But when it comes to image processing, they are no Adobe. If retaining your iPhoto library and having a relatively easy migration from iPhoto is more important than having the absolutely best image quality and power, then Aperture is worth looking at. If you're starting from scratch, or if output quality is what matters most, Lightroom is a better choice.

If there was one program that I would never recommend it would be Aperture 3. I have had heavy use with Aperture 3 and Lightroom 3 for those of you wondering.

1. Very unstable, even after several updates. This program crashed my computer countless times. From lock ups to not allowing my computer to reboot / go into sleep mode. One time it actually went into sleep mode, and when I came back 14 hours later the screen was on and the computer was too hot to touch (on the top). 3 weeks later I come to find I have image burn from the day it came out of sleep. It is faint, but now that I know it is there I can't stop looking at it. It's so irritating, after 2 hours, I decided to come here because of how upset I am. A replacement monitor for my IMac is not even available right now, and when it is off back-order I am looking to a price of roughly 400-600 if I want it fixed. 2 year old IMac 24".

2. It's made by apple which blows my mind how it operates so poorly. How come Lightroom 3 Beta operates better than Aperture 3 in its several since patched release? I switched from Lightroom 2 to Aperture 3 because of the huge improvements. Spent days converting my massive photo system into the Aperture 3 library structure. Lightroom 3 beta wasn't even released so I gave Aperture 3 a shot. Big mistake. Obvious now to my dismay, Aperture 3 shot itself out the door to try and nab Lightroom 2 customers like myself. I got suckered that's for sure.

3. The library has a hard time when you get over 50gigs of photos. I had to do frequent cleanings to optimize my file handling. This was one of the greater annoyances as well. Looking at photos should not be annoying, it should be pleasant. Noticeable speed decreases while browsing photos after a weeks time is not acceptable. Maybe once a month, but weekly file structure cleaning is just silly. Especially at the size my library is. And I'm not even a professional photographer. Tops 100 photos a day. For people who shoot weddings or are picture happy you are going to want to kill your computer after a week. The only alternative is to backup your files to another location ex. another harddrive. I'm sorry but this is not an acceptable answer.

The bottom line, this should have never been released when it was. Or even to this day (July 24, 2010). Buyer beware... I would wait another 6 months if you are that crazy about Aperture 3. If not scoot over to Lightroom 3. I'm not a fanboy, just someone who has used them both and knows how bad Aperture 3 is.

I've used just about every photo editing package on the market for both Windows and Mac, including Aperture, Photoshop and many of the lightweight cousins.

I like Aperture from a user experience point of view...it's an appealing user interface that's fairly responsive and easy to navigate. This is probably this high point of the product, and clearly Apple is very good at making usable products. It seems able to handle large libraries of photos and it remains fast even with huge, high-resolution images (except as noted below).

From a sheer capabilities point of view, Aperture is no replacement for Photoshop if you're a pro or if you want the ultimate in creative control. On the other hand, for 90% of all users, it's probably more than adequate. It can make basic edits with ease, and to someone who isn't willing to spend the hundreds of hours it takes to be fluent in Photoshop, it's probably all the power you need. The only app I've found that strikes a better balance between ease of use and functionality is Nik Software's Capture NX2. Still, some of the popular add-ons are starting to be available in Aperture versions, so it might well be possible to put together a fairly complete package of image manipulation tools using Aperture plus a few add-ons.

Then there's the bad news...

The version I tried was relatively unstable on my 27" i7 iMac. Not only did it crash repeatedly, it also seemed to corrupt a few of my prized images. I use Nikon cameras and the Nikon GPS add-on, only to find that Aperture couldn't seem to read the GPS coordinates correctly on any image I took in RAW mode (JPEG's were okay though). Worse, images I edited with other software (mostly Photoshop or Capture NX2) were often displayed incorrectly, and if I saved them in Aperture, they were corrupt to the point where they couldn't be opened again. Still, some of this could just be me or something unusual I'm doing, and I'm sure Apple will correct many of these problems over time - but for now I just can't recommend Aperture 3 for most uses. Crashing is one thing...damaging irreplaceable images is quite another.

One other nit-picky item is that Apple provides no built-in uninstall capabilities, and it seems that Aperture leaves stuff in a few unusual places on your computer. Took an email to Apple to figure out how to properly remove all of the components. I love my Mac, but there's no excuse for this these days.

Crossing my fingers that future versions fix these issues as I think Apple has done some good work here.

I use this app for my Canon T1i files. It handles the RAW files fine. I'm able to make adjustments easily and quickly on my 21" iMac (3.33Ghz Duo, 8MB RAM). Organizing my files is easy with Aperture 3. My only gripe is the Noise Reduction adjustment. It's not very powerful. I have to use the Canon DPP app to really make a difference in NR. Or, I might buy Noise Ninja or something similar. If the NR in Aperture 3 was more robust, it'd be perfect for my needs.

I bought both these programs for use on my macs.

I have an iMac 24" 2core duo at 2.16GHZ, 3GB RAM, 7200RPM; a MacBook Pro i5 2.53 GHZ, 4GB RAM, 7200RPM HD; and a iMac 27" i7 2.93GHZ, 8GB RAM, 7200RPM.

LR3 runs without any issue, it's light...as in only takes up about 90MB installed. Aperture was about 400MB installed. Since I'm just learning both programs...I don't have any allegiance to either.

That said. I'm noticing frequent crashes and freezes with Aperture on all three of my machines. Aperture is slow to launch, slow to quit, slow to import, slow to render. LR3 is very fast, haven't had a single crash. Has great archiving flexibility. Very powerful with a VAST amount of websites, vlogs, blog and podcast/videocasts that teach anything and everything about using LR3. LR3 also has great access to user posted presets.

Aperture still rules when making a slide show. LR3 not even close Aperture here. LR3 is extremely limited for crafting slide shows.

Overall, Aperture for slide shows. That said...the it's been frustrating to use an Apple program that doesn't run well on a Mac [at least any of my Macs].
LR3 for photo editing and archiving...I really have no complaints against it at all.

Do not buy it on Amazon unless they reduce the price. Apple reduced the price to $79 when the app store launched.

I am running this on Macbook Pro 2.5 core 2 duo with 4 Gb RAM on Snow leopard. I had all the versions of Aperture and Lightroom from their beginning. Recently tried Bible, but do not own it. I wrote a review on Apple website for Aperture, but it was never showed in the review list. What's more surprising (or not) is that the rating always remained 5 start on their website. One or two other ratings less than 5 were removed as well. A dirty trick on Apple's part. Below is my experience with Aperture. I use LR to edit and enhance and use the A3 for multimedia, like uploading to [...], video creation, slideshows, etc.

Pros:
Decent results with editing
iLife integration
Face detection and recognition
Easy sharing on Flickr & facebook
Paste GPS location to the metadata
Improved full screen mode
Brushes (local editing) is a welcome addition
Color monochrome is simple and useful feature (better on LR, with split toning)
Create slideshow videos
Handles videos
Library sync function is very useful and lets you carry a smaller portion or a shoot with you, edit on the go and bring it back to sync with the original library
Consolidate library: referenced pictures from multiple locations can be consolidated easily.
Easy comparison with the master by pressing m. ''

Many "Improvements" like "Sizes Displayed in Megapixels" (instead of 600 X 400, now it also displays 240, 000) are not really improvements. It's just marketing. I listed only things that are either new or special to Aperture, but not all of them. Many other features advertised as special and improvements should in-fact be standard in an application as Aperture and deserve no special mention.''

Cons:
Too slow. Disabling face detection didn't improve the speed much.
Too many crashes with only 57K referenced photos. This resolved subsequently without any reason.
Poor results with some auto adjustments. No auto WB.
Having to navigate menus to access presets defeats the purpose. Presents should be one click away. LR offers all presets one click away on an autohide panel.
I could not figure out how to use a preset on multiple pictures simultaneously.
Very limited undo function. In LR you have access to complete history of all the adjustments you've ever made. Undo is not limited in LR to one session.
Commonly used filters do not show up by default when you try to filter or search pictures. You have to add Date & EXIF data filters to the filter list every time you use.
You can only straighten the picture around it's center. Cropping and straightening functions work seamlessly in LR.
The lights off mode is superb in LR.
LR has Graduated filter - allows you to apply a gradual transitioning adjustment (exposure, brightness, etc) easily.
No split toning.