Aperture Users Network

>After much breathless anticipation, much debate and a good deal of speculation, Apple has taken the wraps off of a new version of Aperture. Aperture 2, announced today, is a significant update to the program and the list of improvements and additions is based on a large amount of feedback from photographers.

We know this because the AUN has been working actively with Apple since just after 1.5 launched, and have provided a good deal of feedback to developers and project managers—much of it directly from the members of the AUN who posted tirelessly to the website and gave us quite a lot to pass on at our events.

We’ve also spent considerable amounts of time talking to the Aperture team and have seen them sweating over the details of this update. This has been a huge endeavor carried on by a lot of people with serious passion for this application.

We’ve had the opportunity to work with Aperture 2 for several months now, and have been compiling tons of content on the update, which all starts with this overview.

Aperture 2.0 is a major revision to the program, even more significant than the 1.5 update that introduced the paradigm of referenced images. There are few aspects of the program that haven’t been improved upon, and some of the more sweeping changes will make Aperture easier to use and more powerful than ever.

Some things introduced in this update are extremely powerful, but the effects of that won’t be felt until they’re leveraged. For example, the new image editing plug-in architecture (covered more below) will allow programmers to create plug-ins for Aperture that can be used to do just about anything to an image. Think Alien Skin for Aperture and you get what we mean.

Other changes are more subtle, but equally powerful. The new interface tweaks, tethered camera support and background exporting abilities show that Apple’s really been listening to photographers.

Our series of articles covering the new program will delve into each of these (and for more you can sign up for one of our Road Tour or Aperture Intensive classes, will bring demonstrations and hands-on training to members around the globe) so here then is a guide to the newest features in Apple’s workflow application.


Speed Racer

If there were unified driving goal for the Aperture team, it would have been “make it faster!” In nearly every conversation with photographers we’ve had, the issue of speed has been the key concern to photographers. Aperture’s unique raw worfklow was groundbreaking enough with version 1.x, but for those who’ve spent decades working on deadline (and using programs like PhotoMechanic) the need for speed is obvious and paramount.

So Aperture 2.0 addresses speed issues in two ways. First, the team re-wrote the database that’s at the heart of Aperture, making it more efficient and significantly faster. This is obvious in all aspects of the program’s operations, where the new engine, (combined with optimization of the program’s code itself) just screams. This is in contrast to the spinning-beachball effect that many high-volume 1.x users were familiar with.

The second speed increase comes from the Quick Preview mode, a new metaphor for working with images that I’ve grown unable to live without. Here’s the idea: for most photographers the first edit is the most important. After importing your photos the first task is almost always to pick the key shots from the rejects. It’s not important to adjust your files, there’s no need to do extensive edits. You want to find the images that are composed well, and work with those.

Likewise, when reviewing a project full of images you want to be able to quickly move through thousands or tens-of-thousands of shots without anything slowing you down, until you find the image you’re looking for.

This is the beauty of Quick Preview mode. By hitting the “P” key, Aperture toggles to working only with the JPEG previews of the images. Scrolling through images is lighting-fast, it’s possible to do a first edit in a fraction of the time that it used to take. Even better (for those PhotoMechanic die hards) it’s easy to leave Quick Preview mode and work with the full resolution versions of the files, without having to leave the program. Simply press the “P” key and you’re back to Aperture’s full (now much optimized) raw workflow engine.

This can work in conjunction with the built-in JPEG previews that are written by every major camera while shooting in raw-only mode. You can tell Aperture (via a preferences setting) to utilize these preview images when available, which allows the program to forgo it’s own preview generation, making it even faster.

These improvements are enough to revolutionize working with Aperture, and they’ll also make it possible for users of “slower” systems to see tremendous speed boosts.


Nip and Tuck

Another of the key tasks the Apple programmers and designers tackled was to streamline the cluttered nature of Aperture’s interface. By design, Aperture 1.x packed a lot of power, but many of the features were hampered by ill-placed buttons or confusing interface elements.

Designers took a hard look at the way people use Aperture and made a number of changes to improve workflow, but none so important as the combination of the inspectors into a single panel. Instead of breaking Aperture down into three main columns—projects, viewer/browser, and adjustments/metadata—Aperture now combines these three into a single pane, both in the main viewer mode and in the HUD. By default this lives on the left of the screen (though you can toggle it to the other side) and the new set up takes vastly less space, but provides the same level of functionality. Pressing “w” toggles between tabs of the inspector, “i” hides it. The result is a workspace that’s vastly larger and more comfortable.

A nice side effect of this change is that there’s now a floating metadata inspector, simply cue up the Inspector HUD and leave it set to Metadata and this inspector will change with any image you click on.

A tremendously useful “filmstrip” view mode has been added to the browser, showing a single row of images that can be quickly scrolled with the scroll wheel. It’s supremely faster than using the old thumbnails for most tasks and it can be swapped with the older thumbnail mode with a click or key press.




There have also been major but sometimes subtle changes to the look of the program.

For example, the row of icons in the toolbar seem larger and more recognizable (although they’re the same size, the default is now to have icon + text), and all the “new” commands live under one drop down. Editing tools have moved under the viewer (since they’re only available when in viewer mode anyhow) and the browser has had enhancements to better identify stacks.

Aperture has also inherited a trick from iPhoto, allowing users to scroll through photos as “Events” by dragging the cursor over thumbnails of each shoot. Simply click on the new All Projects icon on the Projects tab and drag across the events.

Double clicking now moves between a full version of an image and the browser (it’s a great way to toggle modes) and the “Holy Blue Folders,” (my name for the default quick-select items under Library on the Projects menu) now look inside stacks by default, instead of ignoring images inside stacks. This is true for Smart Albums as well.

For those who really like customization, Aperture 2.0 allows for custom keyboard shortcuts to be created for any menu or keyboard command.

Finally, you can change the colors of the background in the browser and viewer to exact greyscale values, not just the quarter-tones in the previous version.

Raw Rewrite

Aperture 2.0 not only features speed improvements, but features quality improvements as well. Apple has spent a lot of time on their raw decoding engine, and are positively giddy at the results. I’ve always been a big fan of the 1.1 conversion engine, but the 2.0 seems even better. It also provides the ability for Aperture to do a lot more with adjustment tools (see The Right Tool for the Right Job below) which makes for greater creative and retouching possibilities.

One of the foremost principles of Aperture though is that you shouldn’t have to change the look of your images until you want to, so Aperture 2.0 retains the ability to work with images in either the 1.0 or 1.1 raw conversion engine. By default all old projects will stay in their original processing engine, which means they’ll all look the way they did when they were imported. The Migrate Project command will allow older projects to be converted to the 2.0 engine, and it’s possible to have Aperture create new versions (leaving a version of the original 1.0 or 1.1 converted file) and convert al images, only images with adjustments, or only images with no adjustments.

Cable Management


For users looking forward to real, live, tethered shooting, your time has come. Aperture 2.0 features a “Tethered” choice underneath the file menu. Simply select “Start Session” and the program will start a tether connection, importing images directly into Aperture without the need for any AppleScript monkeying around or intermediate steps. Each image appears directly in Aperture, and a new Tethering HUD can control the action.

DNG-In

Users of non-directly-supported cameras will be happy to know that Aperture 2.0 now supports DNG import. This means that any camera that can be converted into a DNG file by Adobe’s DNG Converter program can now be sucked into Aperture. (It also means that in the future when new cameras begin to ship it’ll be possible to start working with them as soon as DNG Converter can support them.

Plug-In Your Edits

I think it’s important to mention one of the greatest new features of Aperture 2.0, but the one that’s likely (at first) to be overlooked. Apple has added the ability to create editing plug-ins for Aperture, which will, over time, revolutionize the program. Having an edit plug-in interface means that Aperture users will be able to do just about anything to their images. It’ll be possible to create plug-ins that replicate film effects, add borders, allow for selective edits like dodging and burning—the possibilities are pretty endless. For the purist who only wants to focus on Aperture’s image editing tools, there’s no need to ever add a plug-in, but for those who have been hankering to extend the program’s capabilities—your wish has been granted.