Ted Leung on the air: Open Source, Java, Python, and ...
At OSCON, I was asking James Duncan Davidson about photo processing software. He told me that he had tried most of the programs available for the Mac and that they were all inadequate. That was yesterday. Today Apple announced Aperture, which they describe as "the first all-in-one post-production tool for photographers". After watching the videos on the Aperture pages, all I can say is Wow.
I never really looked at Final Cut Pro (not even the web pages), because I'm not a video guy. But I am a budding photo guy, and I am really impressed with what I saw. I have tried to do many of the workflows that were demonstrated in the Aperture videos - they are painful or impossible in iPhoto. The user interface appears to be well thought out, and there are definitely features that will really be useful - stacks, picks, rejects, the light table, the management stuff, versions against a master RAW "negative". And it supports the Digital Rebel XT (finally). I haven't spent any time adjusting my photos, so I don't know if I really need Photoshop grade manipulation facilities. But I'm already drowning in lots of photos, trying to do selects, trying to do decent library management. I have all the problems that Aperture is trying to solve. I'm sure there will be bugs, and quirks. But on the whole, it looks like it will be very fun to use.
After I get the hardware, that is. My PowerBook just makes the cut for systems that can run Aperture. The hardware requirements are why it made (some) sense that Apple also announced their hardware speed bumps and price cuts today. When you are working with lots of RAWs, then it's easy to see the need for dual or even quad G5's. Doing image manipulations? Then you need fast GPU's for CoreImage. If you're using your computer to replace/simulate a light table, your thoughts start to stray to 30" Cinema Displays. And so it goes.
This is when it's painful to know that there's a product transition to Intel. I was already in pain waiting for the Intel gear. I have a feeling that Aperture is going to make that wait excruciating. At least Apple should be able to do the quad core thing on Intel as well. Only 10 more months of pain...
The Powerbooks maybe, because they're hurting so much right now, but Jobs has said that the Pro line will be the last thing to go.
Posted by Jay Parlar at Thu Oct 20 05:11:17 2005
My powerbook just meets the min requirements - meaning it will run slow as hell if I get it.
And I'm not prepared to make a significant investment for a 30" and a dual PowerMac when they will soon be deprecated.
I will try my best to completely forget about Aperture to avoid any pain in the year or so before I move over to a new setup. :)
Posted by Jorge at Thu Oct 20 06:44:56 2005
Posted by Pingback from Ted Leung on the air : Aperture induced ponderings at Thu Oct 20 09:55:42 2005
Posted by Ed at Thu Oct 20 13:57:06 2005
I think the real downside is that now Apple has a product segmentation between iPhoto and Aperture to reinforce and so some features that might help photo hobbyists out will never find their way into iPhoto because it might threaten Aperture.
Posted by eas at Thu Oct 20 15:04:21 2005
I was planning to hold out for a dual core PowerBook, and my best guess (which isn't worth much) is that something will definitely happen before 2007, especially since Intel said this week that they intend to make Merom pin compatible with Yonah.
Ed,
On the 499,ドル something like iView costs 199,ドル so yes, the price is a little steep. But at the moment time is a bigger premium for me than money (up to a point), and I was thinking about shelling out for Photoshop (which I may still have to do, but at a point further in the future), which would have been overkill for me.
Posted by Ted Leung at Thu Oct 20 23:05:54 2005
But hardware-accelerated RAW decoding and display is very sweet, as is the workflow. Adobe Bridge is an unalloyed piece of garbage. It crashes all the time, is bog-slow, and when I resave a 16-bit scan in 8-bit mode, it isn't updated because it saves the bit depth in XMP metadata and does not update it when downsampled to 8 bits (why should that information even be in XMP? At best it is redundant, at worst, like here, it is incorrect).
The asset management functionality looks good on paper, but I don't know if it will match Kavasoft Shoebox in set-oriented power.
Posted by Fazal Majid at Sat Oct 22 14:26:26 2005
I am very excited to see Seattle Mind Camp, the conference I am organizing, getting some attention across these here internets. A few people have been helping me out with the brunt of the planning, and it seems to be paying off. A bunch of people have been blogging about the event, which is doing just great at spreading the word. In fact, we only have about 25 spots left! Here are a few places you can read about the event from a point of view other than my own: http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2005/10/19/seattle_mind_camp_november_56.php…
Posted by Trackback from The Andru Edwards Weblog at Sat Oct 22 17:31:28 2005
Posted by Pingback from Ted Leung on the air : It's all about the workflow at Tue Oct 25 00:20:37 2005
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