Apple Aperture 1.0 (Mac DVD) [Old Version]

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Product Features

• All-in-one post-production tool for photographers
• Featuring a RAW-focused workflow, Aperture makes RAW editing as easy as JPEG
• Powerful organization and project management tools
• Preview and compare photos in a variety of useful ways
• Includes versatile Web and print output tools

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0007LW1RC
• Item model number: MA154Z/A
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 19, 2005
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #7,676 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

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Product Description

Amazon.com
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. Featuring a RAW-focused workflow, Aperture makes RAW as easy as JPEG, letting you import, edit, catalog, organize, retouch, publish, and archive your images more effectively and efficiently than ever before. From capture to output, you work directly with your RAW files, never having to first convert them into another format before viewing, adjusting, organizing, or printing them.

Fine-tuned to maximize the advantages offered by Macintosh hardware and Mac OS X Tiger, Aperture offers breakthrough speed and quality -- whether you're working with RAW, JPEG, or TIFF images.

And with the most powerful image processing in the world, Aperture is fast -- whether you're working with RAW, JPEG, or TIFF images. Aperture supports the RAW formats from all leading digital camera manufacturers (including Canon and Nikon) and provides optimized support for such market leading cameras as the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II, Canon EOS 20D, and Nikon D2x as well as the highly popular Canon Digital Rebel and Nikon D50. It also supports the Adobe DNG format.

Whether you're a fashion, wedding, sports, portrait, fine art, commercial, or editorial photographer, Aperture's color-managed workflow and flexible design tools will help you easily create stunning prints, customized contact sheets, elegant books, and web pages as beautiful as the images you capture.

Advanced RAW Workflow
As a photographer, you know all about the benefits of shooting RAW. With access to all the data your digital SLR can record, you're capturing images of startling quality, great dynamic range, and virtually no noise. And now, for the very first time, you have an application that provides you with more control of the final image than you've ever had before. One that actually makes working with RAW files as easy as working with JPEGs.

The tools -- including Levels, White Balance, Exposure, Sharpening, Noise Reduction and more -- afford you the freedom to experiment without having to worry about damaging your valuable original images. View larger.

Providing the very first all-in-one tool for your post-production needs, Aperture lets you work with RAW images through every step of the digital workflow without first having to convert your images into another format to make necessary image adjustments, eliminate red-eye, remove dust, crop, organize images, or print contact sheets.

Aperture provides you with the tools to do it all -- import, edit, catalog, organize, retouch, publish, and archive your photographs -- in a RAW-focused workflow that's the first of its kind. Rather than using another application to manage your images, Aperture offers built-in project management with robust and flexible tools that make it easy to handle thousands of projects.

They include a powerful suite of tools for editing a photo shoot. It's one of the most tedious jobs any photographer faces, and it's been particularly taxing when shooting RAW. But Aperture provides tools specifically designed to work with RAW files and to speed you through the process of sifting through thousands of images, culling the rejects, comparing the keepers, and identifying your absolutely finest photographs.

Nor do you have to convert your images in order to make needed adjustments. You can perfect them without having to leave Aperture, using a powerful suite of nondestructive image editing tools. The tools -- including Levels, White Balance, Exposure, Sharpening, Noise Reduction and more -- afford you the freedom to experiment without having to worry about damaging your valuable original images. That's because Aperture applies modifications only to "versions" of your images and never to the original "master" images themselves.

Professional Project Management
Aperture, the first all-in-one post-production tool for photographers, provides everything you need to manage your photo library: flexible organizational tools, comprehensive metadata support, and powerful search tools that let you find files instantly.

For easy organization and searching, Aperture comes with collections of associated Keyword Sets (and lets you create your own).

Aperture lets you import photos from a wide variety of sources and preserves the method you used to organize files when you drag folders from your hard drive and drop them into Aperture. In fact, because Aperture supports both AppleScript and Automator, you can streamline many aspects of your workflow by automating those day-in day-out tasks you repeatedly find yourself doing.

Organize a photo library with thousands of projects any way you want -- in Projects, Albums, Folders, or any combination thereof. Create multiple Albums of related images within a Project. Or nest folders inside a project to organize albums, books, web sites, and light tables. You can even have Aperture automatically group images together into Smart Albums based on defined criteria. With Aperture, you can work on multiple projects at once and freely copy or move photos among folders, projects, and albums.

Aperture lets you view, extract, and add metadata with unprecedented ease. On import, it automatically extracts all industry-standard EXIF and IPTC metadata. What's more, it lets you comprehensively add important metadata -- copyright, captions, keywords -- at the point of import.

As you work with images, you're never more than a keystroke away from seeing your metadata in, for example, the customizable Metadata Heads-Up Display, where you can customize the metadata to suit your needs. You can also choose what metadata Aperture displays with your images and what metadata to embed when you export images. And when it comes to keywords, Aperture significantly outshines other applications. It not only supports true, hierarchical keywording but also provides a number of intuitive ways to assign keywords to images.

For example, Aperture comes with collections of associated Keyword Sets (and lets you create your own). Call up the Wedding Set, for example, and you'll have a group of associated keywords -- bride, table shots, wedding party, vows, candids, limo, cake cutting -- any of which you can assign with a keystroke.

Using the Keyword Heads-Up Display, you can drag and drop keywords onto a single image or entire group of images at once. And, here's a real time-saver, once you've assigned a variety of keywords to an image, Aperture lets you "lift" them from one image and "stamp" them onto other images. Assigning and working with keywords has never been simpler or more rewarding.

Powerful Compare and Select Tools

Open any of the Heads-Up Displays (HUDs) available in Aperture to adjust levels, increase brightness, modify color temperature, assign keywords, straighten horizons, or make any other adjustments you'd like.

It's the biggest, most taxing job you have as a photographer. You've finished your shoot. You've taken thousands of photographs. Now you need to quickly edit the shoot, reviewing all of your photos and identifying your very best. Aperture helps you accomplish this with powerful and flexible tools designed specifically to address the needs of the professional photographer.

Aperture lets you view multiple photos side by side, offering a great way to evaluate similar images or multiple versions of the same image. View larger.

If you've shot transparencies, you're familiar with stacks. You've almost certainly created piles of similar images for fast comparison on your light table. In Aperture, you can employ the same technique with digital stacks. Aperture lets you create stacks manually, pulling images into Stacks from any album, project, or folder in your Library. Or you can have Aperture automatically create Stacks for you based on the time interval between shutter clicks (1 second to 1 minute). This provides a quick and easy way to compile a sequence of bracketed or sequentially shot images for review. To further aid image comparison, Aperture lets you quickly rate your images using a six-level rating system (1 to 5 stars plus "reject"). When you're finished, you can collapse the Stack to eliminate clutter from your workspace.

Of course, with that large, high-resolution screen right before your eyes, wouldn't it be great if you could take advantage of all that real estate and review your images full screen? With Aperture, you can. In fact, Aperture lets you view your images full screen as large as screen real estate permits. And if you have two displays, you can take advantage of Aperture's expansive full-screen mode on both of them to create an incomparable working environment.

Using the Filmstrip displayed along the bottom or side of your monitor, you can see thumbnails of all the images you're reviewing. You can navigate through them quickly and easily to find the images you want to see, even organizing them on the fly. Open any of the Heads-Up Displays (HUDs) available in Aperture to adjust levels, increase brightness, modify color temperature, assign keywords, straighten horizons, or make any other adjustments you'd like. Aperture also lets you view multiple photos side by side, offering a great way to evaluate similar images or multiple versions of the same image.

Nondestructive Image Processing
With Aperture, you never have to worry about retouching images or trying out different image adjustments because Aperture makes protecting your RAW images job one. Designed to protect your images from the moment they're imported, Aperture identifies your original images as digital "masters," and it has built-in safeguards to ensure that you can't accidentally overwrite or modify them. In fact, it's physically impossible to alter a single pixel of a digital master. Instead. Aperture takes a novel and completely nondestructive approach to image editing.

Thanks to Aperture's no-regrets retouching policy, you can experiment freely without fear or concern, creating as many "versions" as you'd like with different exposure settings, image croppings, color temperature modifications, level adjustments, or any combination thereof.

Thanks to Aperture's no-regrets retouching policy, you can experiment freely without fear or concern, creating as many "versions" as you'd like with different exposure settings, image croppings, color temperature modifications, level adjustments, or any combination thereof until you achieve the exact results you're after. And you don't have to worry about making a mistake. You can modify or delete any adjustment at any time and with no consequences.

Unlike the duplicate files you need to create in other applications, image "versions" take up virtually no storage space, so you don't pay an overhead penalty. And Aperture automatically keeps track of all your image versions for you, sequentially numbering them on the fly and connecting them to the "master" image as part of a Stack.

Offering native RAW image editing and breakthrough speed, Aperture puts the most essential adjustment tools at your immediate disposal via either the Adjustments Inspector or the Adjustments Heads-Up Display (HUD). Using these tools, you can fine-tune exposure, use a Histogram to check and adjust levels, set white balance, or modify highlight and shadows. If you need to crop, straighten horizons, reduce noise, correct red-eye, or eliminate dust, you'll find intuitive tools available to you. In fact, if you use any of the adjustment tools to modify or retouch an image, you can use Aperture's unique "Lift and Stamp" tool to apply those modifications to any number of additional images.

Versatile Printing and Publishing
Using Aperture, you can produce high-quality prints and contact sheets, design customized books, and create impressive web sites as beautiful as the photographs you take. Best of all, you can do it all with drag-and-drop ease.

Produce high-quality prints and contact sheets, design customized books, and create impressive web sites as beautiful as the photographs you take.

Once you select the profile for your printer, you're ready to take advantage of an Aperture feature you're going to use over and over again: Softproofing onscreen in the live Preview area of the application's robust and resizable Print dialog. If the image you see isn't perfect, fine-tune your output by making Gamma adjustments or by turning on black-point compensation.

If you've ever tried to print contact sheets using other photo applications, you're probably familiar with the expression, "there's gotta be a better way." Now there is. Aperture lets you print contact sheets more quickly and easily than you can using just about any other photo application available today.

There's more good Aperture printing news. In addition to helping you create your own color-correct prints, Aperture also provides an integrated print-ordering service that lets you order silver-halide prints directly from Kodak and Fuji at highly competitive pricing. Color managed for consistency, the prints assure predictable results and are available in standard sizes and large formats.

You can also depend on Aperture's built-in color management if you use a service bureau to print your photos. Aperture's Export Preset editor lets you simply select the ICC profile recommended by or obtained from your service bureau from a drop-down menu. Aperture embeds the profile in your files upon export, so you'll know what to expect when you get the photos in the mail. Beautiful, color-accurate prints.

Presenting prospective clients with a handsome, bound and printed Stock Book sends a powerful message. And Aperture makes the production of such high-quality bound books both simple and affordable. To help you put a unique stamp on them, Aperture includes a sophisticated book-layout engine that offers significant design flexibility.

Need to publish your photos to the Web fast? Aperture's WYSIWYG Web publishing tools make it easy. View larger.

Want your web site to be as beautiful as your photos? Aperture makes it drag-and-drop easy. No need to learn HTML or to use cumbersome wizard-based page generators. Aperture includes professionally designed Gallery and Journal templates to get you started. With the former, you can create pages of thumbnail galleries; with the latter, narrative-style web pages that mix photos with text and can include your own photos as custom headers.

Unlike other photo applications, Aperture templates aren't set in stone. Using the web gallery template, for example, you can decide how many rows and columns of images appear on each page, how large the thumbnails should be, and what metadata should accompany the images.

What's more -- and this is important -- Aperture's web-authoring environment is WYSIWYG. Any change you make happens on screen in real time, so you can see the effect right away. This offers a significant advantage over the many wizard-based applications that force you to step through one dialog after another. Cumbersome to use, they don't let you see the results of your changes until the very end. Aperture offers a welcome change, letting you see your site develop right before your eyes.


Product Description
Aperture is the all-in-one post-production tool for photographers. It's the first photo application designed from the ground up for professional photographers, combining photo management and advanced RAW image processing with professional-quality output to both print and the web. Aperture is designed to streamline every aspect of digital photo processing, enabling photographers to focus on their real passion—shooting great photos. Aperture delivers the tools photographers need to quickly organize, adjust, and publish their photos, extending the creativity they have behind the camera lens to their computer screen as well.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Aperture--Photoshop killer or Digital Workflow expert?, December 2, 2005

By	W. Reynolds (Topanga, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Okay--so I loaded Aperture in my dual 2 gig G5 and it certainly is chocked full of features designed for the professional photographer. Everything from loading native RAW files at breakneck speeds, to sorting and cataloging RAW master files using extremely comprehensive filing and search features, and last but not least, to the editing and processing of files for export to printers, slideshows, a built-in website and book publishing. It really is a program designed to cover a photographer's complete digital workflow.

As far as being a Photoshop killer...NO WAY! In fact Photoshop is actually integrated into Aperture's workflow, in case you need advanced editing or compositing features not included in Aperture. It really isn't even an Extensis Portfolio killer, although for non-professionals like me, it probably is. I, for one, won't be buying the upgraded version of Portfolio. However, there are certain cataloging features in Portfolio that assist you in retrieving archived files that do not reside on your available hardrives (i.e. files saved to CDs and DVDs). Aperture only deals with the files on storage units that are currently available to the program. Therefore, I think professionals that have thousands of archived files to sort through will still want to use Portfolio for advanced searches. Adobe Bridge, however, is completely unnecessary if you have Aperture, so I guess it is a Bridge Killer.

Besides the fact that you can do just about everything you want to a photo, without leaving the master RAW file, it also provides you with various sorting features that harken back to the days before digital--when photographers sorted their slides on light tables with a magnifying glass (usually an image viewer or lupe). According to Apple, the digital light table and lupe features were suggested by and tested on photographers who still shoot slides. Of course, there are many things that this program can do much quicker on the digital light table then a photographer could do in the past with slides on a real light table, such as instantaneously sort all the slides into piles according to subject, or sort automatically into piles based upon when or where the photos were taken, or, for that matter, by any other sorting criteria you could think to add as embedded metadata. And the digital lupe feature can be adjusted for both size and magnifying power.

For the majority of photo editing jobs, I don't think people will need to use Photoshop, since Aperture handles basic color correction, levels, cropping, rotating, etc. just like Photoshop. However, what Photoshop has that Aperture does not, is the ability to add in plug-ins that handle advanced Photographic effects...Nik filters being a perfect example. And Aperture does not include any advanced compositing features (i.e. masking, layers, etc.). It will be interesting to see if in future versions of Aperture, they build in a feature that will allow third-party plug-ins or advanced compositing, but for the moment those features are only available in programs like Photoshop and Painter. So while this program is not a Photoshop killer, some photographers who do not already own Photoshop (are there any??) may not find a need to buy Photoshop if they purchase Aperture first.

Aperture also seems to eliminate the need for me to use Nikon Capture (I have a Nikon D2X), since it seems (at least at first glance) to include all the RAW editing features available in that program. I hope so because Nikon Capture continues to freeze just about anytime that I try to use it for batch processing large amounts of files, and I hate using Adobe's "limited feature" RAW editing plug-in. And, of course, Aperture's main selling point (at least for me anyway) is its ability to allow pictures to be edited for printers, or other presentation mediums, without having to convert native RAW files (i.e. this is accomplished through the use of non-destructive templates much like a digital video editing program). Neither Photoshop nor Capture can do that at present, which is a real time-consuming pain in the ass if you shoot mostly in the RAW format like I do.

Overall, I think Aperture is everything I was looking for in an all-in-one program that can take you all the way through the digital workflow process without having to switch formats and software. The program also seems at first glance, to be a very easy program to use. Most importantly, like Final Cut Pro, it was designed by Apple for use exclusively by high-end Mac computers, so unlike other software manufacturers, like Adobe, who try to design their software to run just about the same on Macs and PCs, Aperture is designed to take advantage of the features unique to the Mac operating system. By designing programs that run exclusively on their own proprietary software, Apple always seems to end up with programs that are easier to learn how to use, as well as programs that operate faster and better.

So, after one evening's use, I would give Aperture five out of five stars. More importantly, I believe that it was worth the $499 I paid for it. Would I buy it if I didn't shoot in RAW--No. Would I buy it if I didn't have a 12.4 megapixel DSLR--maybe. But I do shoot in RAW, and I do have a camera that uses lots of memory, so I think this program is going to be a lifesaver.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Workflow Management . . . Not a Photoshop Replacement . . ., March 6, 2006

By	G. Griffin - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Aperture does not, nor did Apple advertise it to, be a replacement for Photoshop! Photoshop is the Emporor God of Pixel-oriented image editors (with a bit of object-oriented graphics thrown in). Giving the program a negative review for it not replacing Photoshop makes about as much sense as giving it a negative review for it not being a sports car! That being said, as a photographer, I end up opening all of my Canon Mark II ds 17 megabyte files in Photoshop to do minor tweeks and adjustments. You have to look at the whole, full resolution file in order to pick your good shots. So when deciding whether this is a good product (or for understanding the rather bizarre negative reviews that really miss the point) try opening 250 files from a photoshoot to do your first or second pass review using Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw . . . Not only does it take many hours, it takes hours of hands-on time. There is not a way to do this as batch processing because you have to make some minor decisions on how to open the files and it leaves 250 45 megabyte (or so) Photoshop files open at once. (Opening into Photoshop roughly triples the file size or so.)

I have a Dual Processor G5 with a new graphics card (more on this later) and 6 (yes 6!) gigs of memory. No way . . . the program will always crash with that many files open of that size, and there really is not way to do the kind of comparisons you want to do in order to decide which images you want to go ahead and print (or get ready for on-line resizing and optiminzation (an Image Read/Photoshop job for sure), composite, or any number of other things.

In addition, on a per file comparison, Aperture imports a single one of my large Canon Mark II files about 10 times faster than Adobe's camera raw. I don't know where the reviewers suggesting Aperture is slow are coming from, they cannot be comparing the import to Adobe's Camera Raw. And Camera Raw (like Aperture's Import function) is just plain wonderful! For example, it just about eliminates any White Balance issues . . . it just almost always "nails" a neutral whitebalance (or easily lets you leave it as is or warm it up, or cool it down as you open the file. Has saved me much time fussing with skin tones.

Aperture makes makes opening and comparing 250 large files in an hour doable. Rather than thinking of it as iPhoto on steroids, it is closer to say it is CS 2's Adobe Brdige on steroids, plus a bunch of extras . . . The interface is related to Apple's other pro applications like Soundtrack or Final Cut. iPhoto is an application for consumer level digital photography. Adobe has another program (Light Table) in late stage beta testing that looks like it will go toe to toe with Aperture. Aperture is also not a full digital asset management program, but if you are only working in photography, with some tweaks to your work flow and archiving system, you probably won't need one. Bridge--for photography--also is not needed.

About the file structure . . . The Aperture Library is the correlary to old-school negatives. This is one reason the file structure fixed and any adjustments are not made to the imported files. If you screw up your edits, you still have the original files. When I have a really good image (I am principally an art photographer), I may end up with five or six different Photoshop versions for different print sizes, printers, compositing and the like. Aperture (when I really get it integrated into my workflow) should greatly reduce the number of versions of files that I have, and imposes a structure helpful in keeping track and searching through files. When I have "lost" a file from a couple of years back, I have usually been able to find it with a couple of quick Boolean searches, without resorting to increasingly lengthy and bizarre file naming and path (folder) structures. Aperture really lived up to Apple's claims in this regards. Much better than Adobe's Bridge on this. Much, much, much better.

Aperture not allowing changes to the raw image files is similar to using an "Adjustment Layer" you toggle on and off on a Photoshop file. Limiting the types of file structure in the Aperture Library allowed the programmer magicians to make the thing work. Frankly, when looking at the advertisements Apple had, I wondered how much of this was hype . . . by forcing a specifc file sturcture in the library (aka database of raw images) the Apple guys were able to come up with a way to rapidly push around lots of pixels in and out of memory and on to and around the screen, with incredible speeds. If you are not working with lots of big files (if for example, you can use iPhoto without the program crashing), Aperture is not for you, it would be a waste of your time to learn the program (not trivial) and money.

About the system requirements: The program is hardware dependent. I did not imagine my one year old G5 dual processor tower with lots of memory, would have a problem running the program. However, I had to buy a new $300 graphics card, something I figured I didn't really need since I don't play lots of real time animated computer games. Or at least I thought I would be able to check the program out before I decided if it was worth it to buy a new graphics card. Forget it, you need one of the new graphics cards listed: the program will not even start up with an card that is two years old. Apple does not sell (or at least not many) graphics cards, except for the ones that come as original equipment with a Mac, so they have no vested interest in artificially pushing folks to buy new cards (from other manufacturers). Aperture apparently pushes lots and lots of tasks on to the graphics card in order to make all the magic work. Photoshop does not do this, so in that sense (in terms of managing your image files by inspecting them), Aperture makes much more efficient use of the latest and greatest equipment (than Adobe Bridge).

I also have a Powerbook 17" G4 that is about six months old. Yes it runs Aperture, but not really well. Sometimes it freezes on the Powerbook. I imagine that won't happen on the new Macbook Pro's with the dual core processors, but I haven't checked that out yet (and won't be in the near future . . .). Aperture also makes good use of my dual display set-up. I have a 23 inch Cinema Display (the older ADC ones) with a second 19" digital Nec flat panel. I keep the images on the Cinema Display (has better color calibration), and the other stuff and program windows (so I can surf while waiting for the library to load) on the NEC panel. Same (like lots of folks) when running Photoshop--Image on the large good Cinema Display, Palets and Dock on the Nec.)

Those are the good things, here are the things that are not quite there yet:
1) The Camera Raw importing function does not process quite as nicely as the Adobe Camera Raw. A really noisy low light image may not come out quite as nicely, so you might have to fix it a bit more using Photoshop. (It is only on the odd shots where this shows up, and they tend to be the kinds of shots where you almost always need to go use Photoshop anyway to clean up the noise or other oddities);
2) The basic set of Curves functions are pretty standard these days, Aperture should have 'em.
3) Photoshop's Camera Raw has a couple of additional importing function that Aperture does not have. There is only one I ever use though is the vignetting sliders. It is a quick way to "burn the corners" of your photographs and you can preview the effect before applying it. Burning the corners is often such an easy and good adjustment, this would be nice to have; and
4) Aperture should get with the standard for meta data. You might want to look at a file 20 years from now, with whatever program is around, so it will need to read the standard meta data (data about the image (time taken, date, size, photographer, equipment, etc. etc.) appropriately.
5) The integration with Photoshop (or some other standard editor) could be/should be, one key stroke.

A minor comment about the interface. Yep, I agree, I am kind of tired of the titanum-esque colors and current fonts on all of the pro applications. The functionality is elegant and powerful though. That it is standard across Apple Pro applications is a basic Apple design requirement, and has been since the LISA. Some of you whipersnappers don't remember the old days where every single program had a different interface for everything (like saving or printing). Apple upped the ante and by controlling the basic hardware and software, forced design standards on third parties that allow everyone (now) to open just about any program on any computer or operating system, and be able to find your way around. With the Pro applications, Apple has another level of standardization on the interface that speeds up the learning curve. What it is not is a Photoshop interface. At first I was disappointed in this since I've spent so many years learning Photoshop, but Aperture interface works better for what Aperture does (than trying to make it look on the surface like Photoshop).

Overall: I think this program will be stupendous for pros (or photo students) to work along with Photoshop, once a few fairly minor things are corrected. It is a professional program aimed at people who make their living with photography (or part of it), and is priced as such, not as a consumer product. (It is fun though, so I imagine many consumers will want to pay in learning curve time and money for it, but this will be the exception rather than the rule.) It will save me lots of time once I have fully integrated it into my work flow. It does have a significant learning curve. I only gave it four stars because of the minor issues I (and others) have identified; which I hope Apple will fix in the next major release (perhaps Aperture 1.5).

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Aperture Initial Thoughts, December 18, 2005

By	Scott Bourne "podcastingtricks.com" (Gig Harbor, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you buy this program, do yourself a favor and concentrate on what it DOES do, and not what it doesn't do.

It's NOT a Photoshop replacement. It's not even fair to compare it with Photoshop. Photoshop is a pixel editor. Photoshop isn't designed JUST for photographers. Aperture ISN'T a pixel editor. It WAS BUILT FROM THE GROUND up for photographers.

It's a workflow/image management solution.

You can replace Portfolio or iViewMultimedia Pro with Aperture and find yourself with the bonus of being able to do some minor image adjustment.

The real power of the program is in its ability to compare and select images, sort them, rank them, keyword them and store them.

The RAW converter is a little rough around the edges. The printing function worked perfectly for me and the color management was flawless. Slide show is cool but doesn't export. Web galleries are super easy to build and more valuable than Photoshop's web galleries.

The program NEEDS a fast Mac with lots of RAM and craves dual monitors.

This is only the first version. Photoshop isn't perfect and it's presently on version nine!

I hope (and expect) Apple will improve and update this program quickly and often as the professional photo community gives Apple feedback.

For now, if you want to compare and select and manage your images, this is a great way to do it. Otherwise, wait for version 1.5.

UPDATE: Apple provided a bug fix, version 1.01 that addresses many of my initial concerns. I think the program now does a much better job with white balance and image export. The overall performance is also improved. The RAW converter is still a little rough but it will be updated the next time Apple updates the Operating System. I'd add a half star now to my review if I could.