Apple: Aperture not a Photoshop competitor

In article , Randy
Howard wrote:

As to "burying photos in its own directory structure," well, they've
got to be copied SOMEWHERE from your camera, might as well let iPhoto
manage them -- it does a better job than you can.

I disagree. More importantly, it makes multiple copies (without
asking you), making it very difficult to keep track of which
version has your edits in it, and very difficult to get photos
back out of it once you give up on it.

It's easy to keep track of which version has your edits in it -- it's
the one that opens when you double-click it in iPhoto.

Getting the files out is fairly painless, just select all and drag to
whatever folder you want them in (by album if you like).

--
Jerry Kindall, Seattle, WA http://www.jerrykindall.com/

Send only plain text messages under 32K to the Reply-To address.
This mailbox is filtered aggressively to thwart spam and viruses.

srm wrote:
[snip]
I think the point is that it's not a RAW converter. With CS2/Bridge, you
can't do all that much with the file until you convert it from RAW to
another format. With Aperture, Apple has designed the entire workflow
around the RAW file - so it never actually gets converted until you have
to output it or send it somewhere. As all the changes are
non-destructive, you can go back and tweak any changes you've made based
on the original raw data. It looks an interesting idea, however...
[snip]

I disagree that with CS2/Bridge you can't do all that much the file
until you convert it. (I accept that Aperture has some good things I
would like to see in Bridge+ACR).

Look down the right hand side of:
http://www.apple.com/aperture/process/

Yes, I would like red-eye, spot, and patch. But I appear to have just
about all the rest in ACR 3.2. Plus curves, lens aberation correction,
and camera calibration. (All non-destructive). Nowadays, I typically do
my first A4 test print without doing any per-image work in Photoshop.
If only I can find a way of printing straight from Bridge+ACR...
(Perhaps I can?)

Aperture, and perhaps lightcrafts' LightZone, are good pointers to
future non-destructive raw editing. But I really like the ability to
keep all my extra metadata, and the ACR settings, in my DNG files
instead of elsewhere.

I would like a superset of Bridge+ACR and Aperture - running on
Windows!

--
Barry Pearson
http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/
http://www.birdsandanimals.info/

I think the point is that it's not a RAW converter. With CS2/Bridge,
you
can't do all that much with the file until you convert it from RAW to
another format. With Aperture, Apple has designed the entire workflow
around the RAW file - so it never actually gets converted until you
have
to output it or send it somewhere. As all the changes are
non-destructive, you can go back and tweak any changes you've made
based
on the original raw data. It looks an interesting idea, however...
====================

I believe you can do the same thing in Nikon Capture by saving the NEF
file. Also, I believe the latest ACR can save the adjustments into the
original file. Both of these are non-destructive since the picture
data isn't being changed, only the feature set that accompanies it.
Kind of like changing the Table of Contents or the Index without
changing the book itself.

Also, just about any editing can be done in Photoshop
non-destructively. It's called "layers."

But I'm glad for Apple's latest release, even though I'll never use it.
Anything that will make Photoshop and the other RAW converters take
notice can only be a good thing. Competition is cool.

Annika1980 wrote:

Also, just about any editing can be done in Photoshop
non-destructively. It's called "layers."

Not on RAW images. That said, if you want to go beyond Aperture's basic
set of image manipulation features, you're going to have to convert to
something like PSD or Tiff anyway, to do that work in PS.

Annika1980 wrote:
[snip]
I believe you can do the same thing in Nikon Capture by saving the NEF
file. Also, I believe the latest ACR can save the adjustments into the
original file. Both of these are non-destructive since the picture
data isn't being changed, only the feature set that accompanies it.
Kind of like changing the Table of Contents or the Index without
changing the book itself.
[snip]

True, except for a detail:

Yes, Nikon Capture can save settings to a NEF. Yes, ACR can save
settings - *but only to a DNG*. It wouldn't update a NEF, etc.

These raw converters are building up metadata that describes the
settings being made (plus other things like copyright, etc, in the case
of ACR). If they understand the format of the raw file sufficiently,
they may provide the option of saving the settings to the raw file.
Otherwise they save it elsewhere. Nikon understands NEF, and Adobe
understands DNG. In principle, Apple & Aperture (or anyone else) could
write back to DNGs where that is the raw format, because the format is
documented. (DNG for the file, XMP for the metadata) They appear to
have chosen not to.

--
Barry Pearson
http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/
http://www.birdsandanimals.info/

In comp.sys.mac.system Annika1980 wrote:

Also, just about any editing can be done in Photoshop
non-destructively. It's called "layers."

Well even Photoshop doesn't do what I would really like, which would be
to have a kind of object-based editing model. So you could have a range
of objects and parameters applied to them, non-destructively of course.
Filters shouldn't alter the original, but just provide different lenses
for it. This would be much more versatile than simple layering.

Photoshop has added some functionality like this, but it's not there yet.

--
/ http://www.fishpool.com/~setok/

Kristoffer Lawson wrote:
[snip]
Well even Photoshop doesn't do what I would really like, which would be
to have a kind of object-based editing model. So you could have a range
of objects and parameters applied to them, non-destructively of course.
Filters shouldn't alter the original, but just provide different lenses
for it. This would be much more versatile than simple layering.
[snip]

You are right, of course! I've just addressed this elsewhere. I'll
repeat some of what I said:

Here are two "paradigms" for holding photo-edits here. One is to hold
"instructions", the other is to hold "results".
[snip]
Once it is the instructions that are saved, there are some super
possibilities. Think about the way that lots of HTML web pages can all
use a single CSS file as their style sheet. Change that CSS, and all of
those pages change their rendition without changing their data. Imagine
lots of image all refering to a single instance (not multiple copies)
of metadata. Edit one of those images, that metadata changes, and all
of the images change simultaneously. This is the sort of thing that is
becoming necessary when handling 100s of raw images at a time. With
ACR, and probably with Aperture at the moment, you have to apply the
change to every image, perhaps by some sort of copying operation. But,
in future, by sharing metadata, changing one bit of data would change
them all. All the computer science concepts of OO, type hierarchies,
and inheritance, could be used to make the workflow easier.

--
Barry Pearson
http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/
http://www.birdsandanimals.info/

In article .com,
"Barry Pearson" wrote:

Kristoffer Lawson wrote:
[snip]
Well even Photoshop doesn't do what I would really like, which would be
to have a kind of object-based editing model. So you could have a range
of objects and parameters applied to them, non-destructively of course.
Filters shouldn't alter the original, but just provide different lenses
for it. This would be much more versatile than simple layering.
[snip]

You are right, of course! I've just addressed this elsewhere. I'll
repeat some of what I said:

Here are two "paradigms" for holding photo-edits here. One is to hold
"instructions", the other is to hold "results".
[snip]
Once it is the instructions that are saved, there are some super
possibilities. Think about the way that lots of HTML web pages can all
use a single CSS file as their style sheet. Change that CSS, and all of
those pages change their rendition without changing their data. Imagine
lots of image all refering to a single instance (not multiple copies)
of metadata. Edit one of those images, that metadata changes, and all
of the images change simultaneously. This is the sort of thing that is
becoming necessary when handling 100s of raw images at a time. With
ACR, and probably with Aperture at the moment, you have to apply the
change to every image, perhaps by some sort of copying operation. But,
in future, by sharing metadata, changing one bit of data would change
them all. All the computer science concepts of OO, type hierarchies,
and inheritance, could be used to make the workflow easier.

--
Barry Pearson
http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/
http://www.birdsandanimals.info/

I'm basically a video producer who lurks here to learn, but I'll note
that in Apple's Final Cut Pro, one of the most useful software designs
is the ability to globally cut and paste "attributes" across a range of
clips.

Essentially, if you filter a single clip to your taste, you can simply
COPY those filter attributes with a keystroke combo, then paste them to
any range of clips you select, including ALL. If you don't like the
result on some or all of the clips, you can use the "remove attributes"
command to pull some or all of those attributes from some or any of the
clips.

It's completely non-destructive, undo-able, save-able and exportable.

It sounds like precisely the kind of non-destructive meta-data changes
you're talking about here.

I suspect that the thinking behind this approach to image manipulation
that Apple already has successfully built into FCP and Motion will be a
part of the interface to Aperature as well.

It's been interesting to watch as Apple has applied their expertise to
my field (video production and editing) and truely re-invented a lot of
the traditional work flow for the better - making it more accessible and
arguably more powerful while maintaining manual control for those who
want to "dive deep" into the software.

If Aperature does for photo manipulation what FCP did for video
manipulation, I suspect it will be a pretty large success. Tho there
will be plenty of people who hate it because it makes quality photo
manipulation easier for the "average" user.

I always ignore that because it's never the tool that achieves
excellence - it's always the brain behind the tool. And if you have
excellent photographic and artistic skills, you should never be any more
threatened by this stuff than an outstanding piano player is by the
addition of more buttons on the latest fancy digital keyboard.

FWIW

Barry Pearson wrote:
Kristoffer Lawson wrote:
[snip]

Well even Photoshop doesn't do what I would really like, which would be
to have a kind of object-based editing model. So you could have a range
of objects and parameters applied to them, non-destructively of course.
Filters shouldn't alter the original, but just provide different lenses
for it. This would be much more versatile than simple layering.

[snip]

You are right, of course! I've just addressed this elsewhere. I'll
repeat some of what I said:

Here are two "paradigms" for holding photo-edits here. One is to hold
"instructions", the other is to hold "results".
[snip]
Once it is the instructions that are saved, there are some super
possibilities. Think about the way that lots of HTML web pages can all
use a single CSS file as their style sheet. Change that CSS, and all of
those pages change their rendition without changing their data. Imagine
lots of image all refering to a single instance (not multiple copies)
of metadata. Edit one of those images, that metadata changes, and all
of the images change simultaneously. This is the sort of thing that is
becoming necessary when handling 100s of raw images at a time. With
ACR, and probably with Aperture at the moment, you have to apply the
change to every image, perhaps by some sort of copying operation. But,
in future, by sharing metadata, changing one bit of data would change
them all. All the computer science concepts of OO, type hierarchies,
and inheritance, could be used to make the workflow easier.

--
Barry Pearson
http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/
http://www.birdsandanimals.info/



You might have forgotten that Photoshop has "HISTORY" and "ACTIONS"
features. It's a just a matter of fact for Adobe to incorporate them
with the original "untouched" file.

l e o wrote:
Barry Pearson wrote:
[snip]
Here are two "paradigms" for holding photo-edits here. One is to hold
"instructions", the other is to hold "results".
[snip]
Once it is the instructions that are saved, there are some super
possibilities. Think about the way that lots of HTML web pages can all
use a single CSS file as their style sheet. Change that CSS, and all of
those pages change their rendition without changing their data. Imagine
lots of image all refering to a single instance (not multiple copies)
of metadata. Edit one of those images, that metadata changes, and all
of the images change simultaneously. This is the sort of thing that is
becoming necessary when handling 100s of raw images at a time. With
ACR, and probably with Aperture at the moment, you have to apply the
change to every image, perhaps by some sort of copying operation. But,
in future, by sharing metadata, changing one bit of data would change
them all. All the computer science concepts of OO, type hierarchies,
and inheritance, could be used to make the workflow easier.
[snip]
You might have forgotten that Photoshop has "HISTORY" and "ACTIONS"
features. It's a just a matter of fact for Adobe to incorporate them
with the original "untouched" file.

No I haven't forgotten them. I use them just about every day. (I've
just been recording some more actions, trying, and so far failing, to
satisfactorily emulate some of the features in Aperture! Specifically
printing directly, instead of using Photoshop as a UI to the printer
driver each time. I often use batch actions from Bridge+ACR).

Actions and history are yet more ways of trying to get some of the
advantages of the "instructions" paradigm when you began software
development with the "results" paradigm. Whereas adjustment layers are
a relatively easy form of instructions, actions need special
invokation, and have lots of limitations. (Try doing "print with
preview" from an action and see the warnings you get). History is
getting close, and saving history could achieve some of the effects.

But Photoshop is simply the wrong starting point! If you are in
Photoshop, you have already converted from raw to RGB or CYMK or
whatever. You are no longer working with the "digital negative". Some
decisions got committed in the conversion from raw linear space to
converted gamma space.

Working with Aperture is like working with Bridge+ACR. You are still in
raw, linear, space, with no committed decisions such as WB or exposure,
etc. The maximum possible information from the camera is still
available.

--
Barry Pearson
http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/
http://www.birdsandanimals.info/