Filed under: Photography
The day has finally arrived, Apple has released their latest rendition of what they consider to be the best photo management program on the market. Boasting a generous amount of new features (100 to be exact) which basically come down to 3 main areas of improvement: performance, image quality and ease of use.
Being a user of Aperture 1.0, I was eager to try my hand at this new version. Here are some of the things that I was pleased with:
**Interface Clean-up:**
As seen in this image, they have listened to their customers and really developed a *solid* inspector panel. Using the much loved tabbing system they allow the user to shift between Projects, Metadata and Adjustments. I found this to be one of my favorite features, as it is intuitive and very well thought through.
You will also notice that the toolbar has been cleaned up. Gone are the days of 25 icons in the toolbar. When you first open Aperture you will be greeted with a mere 9 icons. That are well placed, well implemented and just work!
**Different Performance Modes:**
A big “huzzah!” to the Aperture team for listening and implementing the Quick Preview button. If you have to rummage through thousands of images, then simply hit quick preview and you will be streaming through loads of images in a heart beat (low quality mind you, but worth it for the speed increase).
**Image Editing:**
They decided that they would go with a more traditional format for the editing layout now. Taking a few pages from Lightroom. They implemented a “Definition” slider as well as adding in “Vibrancy”. They work the same as the Clarity and Vibrance sliders in Lightroom.
Some other improvements include the ability to change the hue via eyedropper tool in the “Color” portion of Adjustments. I am going to be testing this out more in the days to come.
**How does it stack up:**
So far I have been very impressed. It seems that Apple is listening (though slowly) to the critiques from its users. It has come a *LONG* way since the days of 1.0. The new interface has me smiling ear to ear when working with my images. Workflow wise it just works! I felt like I was in Lightroom and didn’t have to think about my workflow but it just happened.
How about Lightroom vs. Aperture now? It’s such a toss up now. Apple has really come out with a great new release and a price drop to boot. The interface is what I am really falling in love with, and I think that is going to be the feature that many people will find sways them. Lightroom has been constantly improving at a great speed and while I still love it, Apples implementation with the other Apple products and .Mac have me tipping Aperture 2.0 now.
Within the next 30 days we shall really see if Apple has what it takes to take the top spot. Of course you can test it out for yourself, if you have an Apple of course. Head over to Apple’s website and take the 30 day trial.
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