gavin
Senior Member
Posts: 139
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Post by gavin on Oct 31, 2008 21:28:16 GMT
Hello chaps
I have been playing with Aperture over the last few days and am very impressed with its power. However, my attention has just been drawn to Lightroom 2 and its tool, the Adjustment Brush. I have to say that this may be the killer feature that makes me go with the Adobe product instead of the Apple one.
As an aside, is it just me or does anyone else prefer to have more control over the physical location of their files than either iPhoto or Aperture like to allow? I just cannot stand the sort of nannying, you don't need to know, but don't go looking at your images outside of this one application approach.
Cheers Gav (Currently held hostage by Hula Girls.)
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Post by timark_uk on Oct 31, 2008 21:58:42 GMT
, is it just me or does anyone else prefer to have more control over the physical location of their files than either iPhoto or Aperture like to allow? It's not just you. It's part of the reason I don't use iPhoto at all, and part of the reason I also use Lightroom (I'm still on version 1.whatever-it-is). Mark
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Post by HeatherKay on Nov 1, 2008 8:41:02 GMT
I adopted Aperture some months ago. When I started with digital photography, I was manually sorting and saving files. Which was fine when you only had a few. Then I discovered iPhoto, which let me actually find photos quickly. When I got the Canon DSLR, I switched to their own management software (probably because I'd also switched to RAW, and iPhoto didn't do it properly back then). However, the filing system, while readily accessible within the Finder, was awful, and it was taking me longer to locate images. Now, with Aperture, I've forced myself to keyword and rate images. I can find photos really quickly. Images I don't want in the actual Aperture library can be referenced from wherever they happen to be, so it doesn't have to be one huge library. Perhaps I'm just happy to let the computer to what computers are best at. I have drawers stuffed with prints and negs, but I haven't a clue what's in there now. I don't like the same thing happening for my digital stuff.
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gavin
Senior Member
Posts: 139
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Post by gavin on Nov 1, 2008 18:09:42 GMT
Images I don't want in the actual Aperture library can be referenced from wherever they happen to be, so it doesn't have to be one huge library. Can you expand on this a little bit please? What method do you use to get them to these other locations? When you import images from the camera do you bring them straight into Aperture and then transfer out the non-library ones afterwards; or do you use Image Capture first and then choose which ones to put in Aperture? A fair point. Maybe I just need to let myself be assimilated!
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Post by HeatherKay on Nov 2, 2008 9:04:38 GMT
Heh! I realise my reply was a bit confusing...
Aperture has two ways of dealing with images on your Mac: stuff you import using Aperture and which resides in the Aperture library, and stuff that is already on your Mac.
You, the user, can choose to let Aperture control it all or just let it know where your stuff is. (There's also a level of complexity in that Aperture can also read your iPhoto library, and vice versa.)
I've got three levels at the moment: There's the stuff I already had in iPhoto, stuff I "managed" with Canon's Digital Photo Professional app, and now stuff I have dowloaded and manage with Aperture.
All the images Before Aperture are currently "referenced" to their original and current hard drive locations, with directory structure and all. I can access them through the Aperture, edit, rate, keyword, etc, but the originals remain in place unless I decide to import them to Aperture's library. Which I will, eventually, once I've pruned out the ones I want to keep handy. The rest will be archived safely.
I haven't quite worked out the relationship between Aperture and iPhoto. I created a MobileMe gallery in Aperture a while back which actually includes images that are in the iPhoto library alone. This is done by calling up the iPhoto viewer within Aperture, and dragging and dropping images into the gallery. I assume these are purely referenced images, as they do not seem to be copied into Aperture.
I hope that makes a little more sense.
Incidentally, I know Mark hasn't upgraded to Lightroom 2. I understand there are some very cool editing features in the new version - there's one called the gradient filter or something, which looks amazing. I hope some of them will make there way in Aperture in an update or upgrade!
Oh, and there's a significant difference between the way iPhoto and Aperture/Lightroom handles files. When you edit an image in iPhoto, a copy of the original is saved and the edited version displayed. This bulks out your library quite quickly if you do a lot of edits. In Aperture and Lightroom, all edits are non-destructive - information about the edits you made are stored in XML form and read back in each time. So you only have one image at all times, even, I understand, when you make a version or copy within the application.
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gavin
Senior Member
Posts: 139
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Post by gavin on Nov 2, 2008 16:51:37 GMT
Thanks for the really nice reply, Heather, (and everyone else too) - much appreciated. This has to be one of the friendliest, most genuine forums around!
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Post by fullspecwarrior on Nov 4, 2008 11:13:52 GMT
For actually managing your photos I've yet to find anything better than Extensis' Portfolio. It doesn't look very fancy but it's highly configurable and fast.
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Post by derek anson on Nov 7, 2008 12:06:53 GMT
I'm using Aperture and I'm fairly pleased. Nothing is perfect but this is the best organizing & basic editing tool I've used. I've not used Lightroom 2, The only version i used was the Mac only beta, long time ago now. The only thing i don't like about Aperture is the plugins. They launch outside of Aperture and most have a really cheap look to them, I know it's cosmetic but it does bug me. Those from Nik perform well, look great but are pricey. Also the printed books are not that good... I've ordered another since the recent update to see if they have improved. You really do get what you pay for, so i shouldn't have expected too much.
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