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| ![Apple Aperture 1.5 [Old Version]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41VnWjoFjGL._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | From: Apple
Category: Software
List Price: $299.00
Buy New: $189.97
You Save: $109.03 (36%)
New (4) Used (2) from $95.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 4205
Format: Cd-rom
Platforms: Mac Os X Intel, Mac Os X
Media: CD-ROM
Operating System: Mac OS X Intel
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 8.1 x 1.9
MPN: MA715Z/A
Model: MA715Z/A
UPC: 885909129942
EAN: 0885909129942
ASIN: B000J1CIT6
Release Date: September 28, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Better image management tools March 28, 2007
22 out of 22 found this review helpful
I've been working in both Apple Aperture and Adobe Lightroom, and though I really like Lightroom's simplicity and design, I have to say that Aperture wins out in terms of image file management, which is very important for me as a wedding photographer.
Aperture is a little harder to learn because it's more fully featured than Lightroom, at least for now it is. Both applications offer very similiar features, but the smart folder and keywording features of Aperture are for more useful than the Collection features of Lightroom.
Aperture is less linear than Lightroom. You can work in various different moduals without having to switch back and forth between gallery and digital development moduels like in Lightroom.
I also like what Apple is trying to do with the solutions workflow in Aperture. It's almost possible to complete an entire wedding project without having to leave out of Aperture, except to do additional enhancement work in Photoshop or for laying out an album. Aperture has an album layout and creation feature but its printed albums are not as high end as you find outside the program.
Both Aperture and Lightroom have their pros and cons, but for now Aperture is still head of the game in terms of digital asset management (or DAM, as it's popularly called.)
Great RAW Workflow Tool March 4, 2007
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
I've used just about all the tools out there and I have to say that this one is really, really great. Some people complain about the user interface, but it's the user interface that makes this a rock-star product to me. With no manual or instruction of any type, I was up and running with Aperture within hours of installing it and importing my 50+ gig worth of RAW photos. On my MacBook Pro (core duo), Aperture is acceptably speedy processing large RAW files from my Canon EOS 5D. I now take my laptop to the field with me and feel that my workflow has never been better or faster. I can't wait for version 2. It can only get better and better.
Completely disagree with orangekay March 2, 2007
6 out of 16 found this review helpful
This is a powerful program with FAR more pros than cons.
 It's just sad really February 23, 2007
16 out of 34 found this review helpful
I wanted to like this product. I really, really did. The quickie demo movies all made it seem like it was a breeze to use, but for me, the reality is very different.
Out of all the Pro apps, this one has the most ill-conceived user interface. Even if you are very highly experienced with other raw conversion software packages out there (and I've used pretty much all of them extensively), very little is obvious, and the button tooltips are sparse and non-descriptive. Granted, it's a complex product that does complex things, but I have a hard time believing anyone on the engineering team responsible for this heap has any professional photography or retouching experience whatsoever. Logic and Final Cut have even higher feature densities, and they still manage to put the controls where you expect them to be when you expect them to be there. The obvious difference of course is that Logic and Final Cut were both developed by someone other than Apple originally, and those people knew what they were doing.
It's also very, very slow. Think you're going to whiz through adjustments like they do in the demo movies? Unless you've got a top-of-the-line Intel system, think again. Even with the loupe view active, on my G5 I get nothing but beachball cursors for anywhere from 10-30 seconds every time I touch an adjustment slider, and frequently the image just plain fails to update at all.
Probably the single biggest Aperture flaw however is its arrogant solipsism. Even though everybody knows this is not supposed to be a Photoshop replacement, Apple seems to have gone out of its way to pretend that Photoshop doesn't exist. Aperture cannot read or display anything but the absolute simplest of Photoshop files, so if you need to do some localized adjustments non-destructively with layers, you can pretty much forget about round-tripping them back into Aperture. They'll either display as absolute garbage, or as a simple white square with a text message alerting you to the fact that "This layered Photoshop file was not saved with a composite image" in multiple languages.
And of course, it doesn't support DNG files, tethered shooting or medium format backs, either. Isn't this supposed to attract the pros?
I have no doubt that some people will love this app, but every time I launch it I find myself wincing. Lightroom is by no means a perfect product and I have a great many complaints about the way it does some things, too, but at the end of the day, it does let me get my work done pretty quickly. I cannot say the same about Aperture, and its price tag is frankly just ridiculous.
Excellent - fundamentally change the way you work with photos! January 30, 2007
23 out of 24 found this review helpful
I've been using Aperture for about three months now and can only say that the transition has been amazing. Aperture comes with a free training DVD (watch on your TV or computer) which really helps you learn how to get the most out of the software.
I've gone from someone who only rarely edited photos due to the hassle of making duplicate copies, firing up Photoshop, wasting extra hard drive space, etc. to someone who edits more than half of my photos. Aperture only saves the recipe used to create the changes to your photos, but doesn't make a copy when you edit - this means no wasted space, no wasted quality, and the changes are extremely easy to modify or revert later. The ease with which photos can be edited and organized in this program is phenomenal! Features such as stacks (groups of similar images with only the top one showing) and the vault (to backup your Aperture library with one click!) are wonderful. If you really want to use Photoshop, Aperture even lets you send files to it for editing with one click, and as soon as you save from Photoshop, they come right back into Aperture with the changes!
The only drawback of this software that I can see is the CPU and graphics horsepower it requires. I use it on a 1.5 GHz G4 PowerBook with 1.5 GB of RAM, and it works well enough on JPEG images; but feed it a bunch of RAW files from my 8 MP camera and it takes its sweet time! I'm sure this would run much better on a modern Intel based Mac. If your computer is any slower than mine, I wouldn't bother. But anything from mine on up should be fine.
Come on - order your copy today! ;-)
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