Apple Aperture 3.0 Awesomeness

I’m usually a flag waver for artistic vision rather than gear or the tools of our craft, but this calls for an exception: just minutes ago Apple announced the much anticipated Aperture 3.0. And it’s the bomb. I’m lucky enough to have been using it for several months now.

There’s few things I think photographers will want to know about this new release. First, and most importantly, driving this software feels like you’re driving a German sports car. Aperture 3.0 has the power and grace that we’ve come to expect from Apple. Second, it’s got new features for days…

My favorites off the top of my head:

_Brushable, scalable, adjustments. Yep. They nailed it. Full selective controls on every adjustment you want.

_Video. Apple nailed this too. Aperture 3.0 has full multi-media capabilities. That’s right. Finally something that handles all those video files from your HD dSLR. Import, rate, scrub video, trim your clips. Add audio. Make a full-on MOVIE within Aperture or export to Final Cut Pro. Insanely cool. (Update: FYI it supports Nikon D300s files, D3 files, Canon 7d and 5d files, you name it, and a range of audio files from all manufactures as well.)

_Adjustment presets on import. Also seriously cool. Fast. Shoot tethered in your studio and want the photos to look sexy before the model or art director can see the RAW file? No problem. This kicks ass.

_Customizable. I’m a whiner when I can’t configure my software the way I want it. No worries, here. Fully customizable.

_Best little hidden nugget you wouldn’t know? The skin smoothing feature is absolutely unbelievable. When we need to smooth the skin of a model, it’s usually quite a process. Now it’s so damn easy, I’ll probably even smooth my skin up before I send pictures to my mom.

For the full kahuna, check out Apple’s Aperture page here. Since I’ve been using this software for a while, I’ve got a cameo video at Apple.com that features my Songs For Eating and Drinking series. Check it out if you’ve got time today. And of course, holler at me with questions or comments. I had a blast playing with this stuff, and I’m not shy on opinions.

Aperture is available today for $200 for the full version, or $100 to upgrade, with a 30-day free trial here.

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34 replies on:
Apple Aperture 3.0 Awesomeness

  1. Pingback: Adobe Lightroom 4 Beta ist da. Ein Vergleich zu Apple Aperture? | fkspnkt.

  2. Thank for the info.. I have the same library on MBP & my mac mini. So I can use the MBP in the filed and just export that project over to the mini. That way I have two copies of the same library on two different system, and use my drobo to backup the mac mini library.

    thanks again for the help

  3. Chase, do you knwo if the following process is possible in A3?
    – shoot tethered
    – Have the image copy to TWO folders
    – One as a back up
    – The other as the working file displayed on screen
    – And as the copy imports to the display, automatically apply a preset/action (Nik software)
    – All in fullscreen, with the copy dumping in the background (i.e. no onscreen file progress window etc)

    Are you able to give a bit more of run down on your tethered shooting and what goes on in the 1490 box?

    Cheers
    M

  4. What is the ChaseJarvis house’s set list for getting 5D movies imported into Aperture 3 into FCP? iMovie makes it drag and drop simple. Is the FCP workflow export, mpegstreamclip, convert, place in file folder, import into FCP?
    Many thanks for your suggestion on this!

    1. You’ve got the basic jist of it. When we import things into Aperture, we leave them in folders, ie the files are NOT stored in the Aperture library. Since we do that we can just point compressor [mpegstreamclip] at the folder and transcode ProRES files for use in FCP.

  5. I used Aperture since it first came out, but let’s be honest, version 3 has been SUPER BUGGY since it was RUSHED PREMATURELY to market. Even many months after its release, it’s still SUPER unstable. In fact, It CRASHES NUMEROUS TIMES when shooting TETHERED, which is SUPER EMBARRASSING, especially when the client has to watch you FORCE QUIT and RESTART the application five times during a shoot. It’s super annoying. I don’t have an alternative, which is why I started shooting non-tethered, because the problems outweigh the convenience of having the images show up on my MacBook Pro. I just simply cannot have it freeze every ten captures. Come on.

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