Aperture 3 is here

[Eoin]

I down loaded the trial and rather foolishly while I was waiting for the download to complete I ordered the upgrade version from the Apple website. Now I'm stuck in trial mode 'till the box arrives rather than getting an actuation license over the net by buying directly from within the Aperture 3 trial. Live and learn

Some nice features / improvements for sure, and a serious performance boost on my Mac Pro. I haven't really looked at printing, but some changes in the layouts and printer colour management control which will need some exploring.

One thing I've noticed is halos / posterizing or what ever you want to call them, but mainly in blown highlights in this part of a street lit image, I've noticed this more in OOF lights in night shots where the globes seem to get inner rings.

Here are 2 crops of unprocessed raws from A2 and A3, I know it's a small point but may be of interest to night shooters. It's just the initial release and I'm sure things will be adjusted in time.

Other than that, "I'm lovin' it"

 

[jonoslack]

At least, that's what my computer is saying. It's finding some difficulty in upgrading my 90Gb Aperture library (and that's just the library you understand, all 30,000 pictures are external to the library). I started it last night, and it'd run out of Application Memory space this morning. Now it's loaded, but it's 'upgrading', and it's very slow!

I think I'm gonna have to be patient here (I guess that adjustments and previews for 30,000 shots isn't a trivial issue :ROTFL

 

[kevinparis]

treat your GF1 to a special Valentines day gift with my GF1 to Aperture RAW convertor!!!

I have managed to fool Aperture 3 into reading GF1 RAW files.

available now at

http://facefullofbees.com

K

 

[Eoin]

It's finding some difficulty in upgrading my 90Gb Aperture library (and that's just the library you understand, all 30,000 pictures are external to the library).

Well then the 90Gb is made up of thumbnails and previews, WOW!

It might be worth making a copy of your Library and open it in Aperture 2 and delete all previews for the library.Close Aperture 2, Then in spotlight under your copied library search for and delete all your AP.Minis, AP.Thumbnails, AP.Tinies.

Should decrease the Library size drastically as you don't need the thumbnails or previews any more since Aperture 3 is going to generate it's own versions anyway.

Remember to use the copy of your library to play with, not the original :lecture:

 

[kevinparis]

this is a useful article on managing the size of your library

http://www.apertureexpert.com/tips/2010/1/20/reducing-library-sizedramatically.html


cheers


K

 

[jonoslack]

Eoin, Kevin Thank you.
Right - I'm starting again - it was doing the update . . . but all adjustments were lost It just said 'this RAW file was processed with a previous version of Aperture - Reprocess?' As it loaded the preview, it looked right, then all crop / WB / Exposure / spotting changes I'd made disappeared in front of my eyes . . . horrible!
Fortunately everything is properly backed up, so I can try this several different ways.

Please just confirm to me that all the adjustments I'd made on previous raw files should be there (pretty please )

all the best

 

[Eoin]

Sorry Jono I can't confirm that until I get a proper license code and try converting a full Library rather than importing.

However, looking at the v3 library, there is a fundamental change in the structure compared to v 2. In the past, all library updates left images converted in prior versions intact. IE the decode engine was not changed from the old to new version by default. I'm seeing the same in v3 which in a sense is different. You need to hit the reprocess button added under the raw fine tuning brick for an individual master or by selecting all images and under menu item photos, reprocess masters. Here you'll get a menu selection to process all photos, photos with adjustments only, or photos without adjustments.

Another interesting feature is when selecting menu items if you hold the option key (alt) the items change to force generate rather than update.

Coming back to your original question, in my trial any images that had adjustments retained those through the export project from 2 to import project into 3.

 

[jonoslack]

HI There Eoin / Kevin
Interesting.
I first deleted all previews (as per the apertureexpert instructions)
My 90 Gb library went down to 72 Gb
Then I deleted the AP.tiny AP.mini AP.thumbnails (as per Eoin's post)
My 72Gb library went down to 28Gb.

Now I've restarted Aperture3, and it's starting to update the library again.
I'll report back sometime next week:ROTFL::sleep006::sleep006:

Incidentally, everything is VERY backed up

all the best

 

[Eoin]

Jono, just one more thing..... I would recommend rebooting your mac and go straight into Aperture after restart to do any heavy import work, it seems the inactive memory still is never released back to aperture for some reason.

 

[jonoslack]

Jono, just one more thing..... I would recommend rebooting your mac and go straight into Aperture after restart to do any heavy import work, it seems the inactive memory still is never released back to aperture for some reason.

HI Eoin
thanks for that - I've already done it, after last night's attempt at the update, I've switched off all screens savers/power management etc. emptied the trash, restarted the computer and begun the update process again.

Let's hope it works this time (4% completed).

 

[Terry]

OK,
I've got Kevin's GF1 fix working! Now I just need to understand Aperture libraries before making a fatal error in my set-up.

 

[jonoslack]

OK,
I've got Kevin's GF1 fix working! Now I just need to understand Aperture libraries before making a fatal error in my set-up.

Hi There Terry
I would make sure that you keep the files external rather than importing to the Aperture Library (you can still get at them, but it's a real bother).

all the best

 

[Godfrey]

As I wrote on Photo.net:

Personally, I've never liked Aperture's UI very much, but that's not what's stopped me from relying upon it. The lack of support for many raw file formats, the slow development and unresponsive nature of communicating with the Aperture development team are the big turn-offs for me.

I also have used Lightroom, and Photoshop with Camera Raw before that, since they came on the market. Adobe has always been responsive to my queries, they've issued updates on a regular basis, and they support every single camera of note in the marketplace on a timely basis.

No matter how wonderful the latest features Aperture supports might be, for my work it is a far away lower priority over timely support and support team responsiveness. I do use Aperture ... I use its book-making facilities ... but I only import TIFF files that I finish in Lightroom and Photoshop into it. It's just not worth the hassle otherwise. And if Lightroom 3 includes the publish and bookmaking features that I need, well, I can always use a little more disk space from removing software I no longer need.

I keep an open mind about it, I try every new version. This one will have to wait until I buy new hardware as it doesn't run on PowerPC systems (yeah, I work with ancient hardware) or I'll add it to my Snow Leopard test drive that I boot a borrowed MacBook with at present. But the issue of Aperture's poor support scenario remains irksome and less than delightful for being productive, IMO.

 

[Terry]

Godfrey,
I wrote something similar in the Apple Support discussion. Essentially Apple had an opportunity to get it right on RAW support with the release of Aperture 3 (by having full on RAW support for current major cameras (missing A850 and most of the Sony lineup, the two Pen, GF1, and people keep adding to the list on my post)).

By coming out with a new version and essentially once again screwing up the RAW support it makes this look like a less serious effort and once again will hurt their product sales. This is so fundamental I can't believe what a mistake they made.

 

[jonoslack]

HI Godfrey - and Terry
I also find it hard to believe how crass they are about camera support. Putting basic support in for the EP1 wouldn't have taken more than a few minutes (on the basis of how well the E30 support works. They've had more than one M9 camera from Leica since September (apparently) and still nothing. As for the Sony 850 - surely that ought to be simple too. As for supporting the G1 . . . and not the GF1; one wonders whether this lot have their heads buried.

As you'll know Terry, I actually planned to move to LR when beta 3 arrived in the autumn, I spent nearly a month importing projects and re-processing files . . . but in the end I just don't like it as much as Aperture, the UI, but most importantly the image quality and the the heal/spot tool which is so superior in Aperture (at least, it is if your countryside is full of powerlines)

Basically, I'll stick with it unless 3 is a catastrophe, I really can't see me getting any new cameras in the near future (almost everything is done with my M9 these days), and the A900 and EP-1 are great for the rest. For the first time since digital began I'm feeling settled from a gear point of view (just don't talk about lenses)

 

[Eoin]

Jono,
I'm at home today so I've had a little time to play.

:deadhorse:Running on a Mac Pro 2.66 8 core 12Gb ram Std 1Tb boot drive (system & apps) and 3 x 300Gb velociraptor HDD in a Raid 0 config with a 128k stripe size for all data. GTX 285 Graphics card with 1Gb Ram. Snow Leopard 10.6.2:deadhorse:

I took one of my libraries with 2100 full size Sony a900 images each @ 36MB
All images are stored within the library none are referenced. Total size 70Gb.

In A2 (aperture 2.1.4) I removed all previews for each project, Library now 66Gb

In finder spotlight I deleted all ap.* files. Library now 64Gb.

Rebooted and started A3 Trial (aperture 3 Trial) and imported library. It took about 12 min to import the library and then it started to process the faces very slowly. I stopped A3, changed preferences to eliminate the face recognition and started from scratch with a fresh library. Again 12 min for the import and it started to process the previews and thumbnails. 30 min later all previews and thumbs were generated.

Opened the project to see all adjustments were still there but all images needed to be reprocessed to A3 engine. Went to the top library (now a blue folder under which all projects are listed for this library) right clicked and selected reprocess masters. Selected on the popup window , all photos and selected reprocess existing versions. Time about 50 seconds.

Opened the show activity and it was regenerating all previews and thumbnails about another 15 min.

All images still have adjustments applied. This was an import library into A3 trial library and not a conversion of an existing A2 library from A3.

New A3 Library size is 65Gb.

At no stage did A3 consume more than 2Gb of Real Memory
Virtual Memory reported as 7Gb
Max % CPU was 200%

And before anyone starts :cussing:, this is not a scientific test, just my observations :salute:

 

[kevinparis]

just curious... but has anybody tried importing an M9 file into Aperture 3... because I downloaded one and tried it and it seemed to work OK

K

 

[matmcdermott]

The M9 files I shot back in December seemed fine under Aperture 2, supported or not. Why would they be different under A3?

 

[cam]

They've had more than one M9 camera from Leica since September (apparently) and still nothing.

my guess is they probably aren't anxious to return them -- which they's have to do if they actually released the profile :ROTFL:

 

[Eoin]

.....For the first time since digital began I'm feeling settled from a gear point of view (just don't talk about lenses)

Amen Brother!, now if I could just kill off the MF curiosity that would be bliss.:ROTFL: