Who remembers Aperture 1? Aperure 1 probably was one of the applications that raised high hopes with photographers and editors of small publishing companies alike. Unfortunately, many users found the approach inefficient and ineffective. Apple didn’t take long to adapt the program so it would meet photographers’ needs better, but Aperture 1.x remained second (or even third) choice.

For a long time, nothing happened with Aperture, and the world thought the giant that Apple is, had fallen asleep. But then Leopard was released and not so terribly long after, Aperture 2. And now we have Aperture 2.1 only weeks after version 2.0.1 was released. And the photographers’ world is cheering, and for a reason. Aperture 2.x is fast, its RAW 2 engine --Leopard’s really-- is excellent, giving near-perfect results when converting. Aperture 2.1 has an open architecture; developers can --and are-- creating plug-ins for Aperture 2.1.

Who could have thought a year ago the Aperture 2.1 would become almost a hype? Well, I for one couldn’t. I liked Aperture all along, but found other applications to be better, both in RAW decoding quality and in terms of management features. Aperture 2.1 is better than anything I’ve seen so far. Adobe Lightroom 2 beta has been released, but Lightroom 1 is light years behind on Aperture 2.1 and I am afraid Lightroom beta 2 is only marginally better than version 1.

But let’s concentrate on Aperture. The photo management system of Aperture 2.1 hasn’t changed that much. You can still opt for having your photos managed in a “package” library or by reference. The first option appeals the most to me, although I must admit that it is best to immediately make a secondary copy of the RAW files themselves --preferably to an offline medium such as a CD or DVD. The packaged library has one distinct advantage: it’s one file holding all of your assets. You can, however, create multiple libraries by selecting others in Aperture’s preferences.

Manage as You Like, but Keep it Orderly

Managing by reference is what DxO Optics Pro, Bibble, Capture One, Lightroom, and many others do: you simply leave the files where they are stored in the file system and create a link to them. All corrections and adjustments you apply to the photos, are stored as XML files in a folder somewhere on the file system. The RAW files --just as inside the packaged library-- aren’t touched. You can mix these two management options if you like with Aperture, without it becoming confusing.

Confusing is what Lightroom’s management options are: you create catalogues and collections, and make a real mess of your photographs. Aperture will allow you to do whatever you like, but you’ll have to be somewhat less sloppy in your thinking. If you want to be your chaotic self, Aperture is not really for you. However, if photography is part of your workflow, or your livelihood, my guess is that Aperture is better at managing and therefore securing your assets.

Also, I wouldn’t be too surprised when Apple releases version 3, to see an equivalent to Final Cut Server, for Aperture. In a sense, such a heavy-weight digital asset management isn’t necessary with Aperture, as you can upload your files to a file server and manage them from there, but you wouldn’t have the versioning and locking features necessary to not end up with dozens of different versions of the same RAW file --something that magazine editors for example, wouldn’t appreciate much.

Enough said about Aperture DAM capabilities. Let’s move on to its interface. The interface has become vastly more streamlined. What I noticed immediately when using Aperture 2 for the first time, was that thumbnails and previews load instantly. The main reason why anyone with anything less than the latest Intel Mac would hold back from using Aperture 1 was undoubtedly the lack of performance in the area of screen refresh. That’s been fixed with a dramatic speed boost. Now, on my Power Mac G5 dual 1.8GHz processor, Aperture still isn’t a speed demon, but it’s not slower than any other photo asset management and conversion software, so that’s good news.

The interface has also been made a lot more simple. For example, the many different HUDs and Inspectors have made place for one single HUD that contains all you need to handle your photos. The views themselves are also more streamlined, with the possibility to have a filmstrip at the bottom of the screen and the main area dedicated to the image. Full screen views immediately show the toolbar in a slimmed down version. If you have two monitors, you can have a full screen view on the one and the “ordinary” interface on the other. Both views will give you access to the available tools.

All Projects View

The All Projects view lets you see all of your projects in a view that closely resembles that of iPhoto and iMovie 7.x (the latest versions). You can set a “Key Photo” --the equivalent of setting a poster frame in iMovie. Moving the mouse from left to right over the key photo will scroll through the photos in the project on show. Very nice.

The toolbar can move out of the way in full screen mode, just as the filmstrip can. Aperture 2 has more control over shortcut keys as well. Just as with Final Cut Pro, you can now completely change the keyboard shortcuts using an on-screen keyboard representation, save those commands to a preset and load them at will.

The ability to handle non-destructively Camera RAW files was Aperture 1’s main selling point, but there were few RAW formats the application understood. What I always found disturbing was that Aperture was positioned as a professional tool, without support for Hasselblad RAW --you can hardly find a more “professional” camera than a Hasselblad in my opinion. We had to wait for Aperture 2.1 to see the program gain support for Hasselblad 3HD camera RAW files.

The good part of the wait has been that Apple shows how fast it now actually can update its support for new RAW formats and versions. Although the RAW support is not handled by Aperture, but on a system level, the updates to the Leopard OS happen frequently enough to be guaranteed of an almost continuous stream of improvements and additions in that area.