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Aperture 3 : slow and buggy on Mac Book Pro

steflaurent974

Active member
Time of war : Capture One 5 special offers, LR3 and Aperture are out !!! Wich one to chose.

I was really enthousiast with this Aperture 3 update ; since a while I was reading posts here about this software. As an Apple addict I was near ready to switch from Lightroom to Aperture, but my recent try of Aperture was a really bad experience.

Yes Aperture is a really goog Apple experience and integration, yes beautiful diaporamas and books.
BUT , on my MBP 2,16ghz Intel with 3Go Ram and ATI x1600 128Mo : I experience very bad display bug... As other users report on the net, this mean my video card is not strong enough : pfffff ! (M8 M9 DNG Files)
And every adjustement made took about 5 to 20 seconds to display on screen.
This is quite incredible : this software has been developped by the very Apple Guys , and it's bigger , slower, and more buggy than Lightroom. And I cant read my PhaseOne files (P25+) : so bad !:mad::mad:

So I installed a Try version of LR3 : very fluid and speedy adjustments, no video cards problems.

So my choice is made : I'll keep Lightroom for developping and cataloging, and might use Aperture for diaporama and books, but for this iPhoto is still OK !

I suggest Aperture software a big diet to weight less and be more speedy, and maybe a little workshop at ADOBE's developping team for the Apple guys.

And : NO my MBP is not an old computer, it works perfectly with Adobe Productions. I won't go in a 2500€ new power blaster iMac just for using aperture.

So long Aperture, I miss you !

Stef.
 

emmawest72

New member
Stef,

Strange...

I'm using Aperture 3 on a black macbook 2,2ghz(2007) with 4 gb of ram without any major slowdowns. Files are either Raw from Fuji S5 or scanned files from 24x36,6x6 and 6x7 ( all scanned stuff is 16 bit - so quite heavy files). All files are referenced on external fw400 drive. This has been working fine for me using most adjustments. I just have to be careful of not having too many applications open at the same time.

Aperture 3 really remains a mystery - it seems to fly on some machines and be really slow on other machines ( even machines which are way more powerful than my little macbook...)

good luck with LR3.
 

steflaurent974

Active member
Really Strange William ; but I heard this is mainly a Video Card problem ; anyway it seems Apple is working on these kind of bugs.
Some reports are talking about problem with the Finder wich can slow down the machine.

we will see, but for now I stay with Adobe.
 

dougpeterson

Workshop Member
The disadvantage of integrating cataloging, printing, website making, bookmaking, image adjustment, archiving, and editing into one program is code-bloat.

That's one reason I was glad to see Phase One acquire Expression Media, but imply that they plan on keeping Capture One and Expression media as separate applications with integration rather than merging the two programs into one application.
 

Ralph Eisenberg

New member
The disadvantage of integrating cataloging, printing, website making, bookmaking, image adjustment, archiving, and editing into one program is code-bloat.

That's one reason I was glad to see Phase One acquire Expression Media, but imply that they plan on keeping Capture One and Expression media as separate applications with integration rather than merging the two programs into one application.
I hope that they are listening attentively.
 

LJL

New member
Not sure that is a fair assessment of Aperture, Doug. The app is actually written fairly leanly, but it does offer a lot of workflow advantages. I used to use all the various standalone apps for ingesting, cataloging, processing, retouching, exporting, etc., operations that are now all nicely managed within Aperture. Not interested in returning to the mish-mash of each app having its own UI to learn, and updates to tend to, and trying to keep track of all the output files, etc. When there were really significant differences in RAW development, it seemed the price one had to pay, but as Aperture and even Lightroom have significantly gotten better at conversion processing, it is now a real pleasure to be able to do so many different things from one spot. I have saved untold hours getting things done with a workflow that is pretty fully integrated, and has all the pieces updated when needed. With Aperture 3, I have pretty much moved entirely away from all the other bloated and sometimes obtusely configured apps. I can work images nicely, create almost any kind of output I want with respect to size, resolution, format, and can instantly send emails, create galleries, and yes, I do make a lot of books directly from the app. The books turn out to be one of the bigger sellers for my stuff, and have started to unleash different aspects of creativity in story telling, image placement, layering, etc. Are they top of the line as a custom handmade version? Of course not, but I can crank out stuff that clients love very quickly, and all from one powerful starting and ending point. There is something to be said for that.

Not knocking C1 or Express Media, as both are strong and useful apps. I just am not seeing any real downsides to something like Aperture. It delivers and lets me spend more time shooting and creating than fiddling with several apps that never seem to work together as marketed. I sincerely hope Phase is able to figure out how to integrate things for seamless utility, rather than just keeping things separated and not integrated. If one has a decent folder structure to start (and this goes way before Bridge, iView, and anything else) it is painless, and the possibilities to create new stuff and display things in new ways trumps fancy, expensive software the does really not do much more, and many times get in your way.

So, suggesting Aperture is part of your described "code bloat" seems very misplaced to me. If you were talking about Adobe stuff, like PS, I tend to agree, but LR and Aperture have been designed from the ground up, and are much leaner and more integrated. Just my opinion from having used just about everything out that at one time or another.

LJ
 

jonoslack

Active member
The disadvantage of integrating cataloging, printing, website making, bookmaking, image adjustment, archiving, and editing into one program is code-bloat.

That's one reason I was glad to see Phase One acquire Expression Media, but imply that they plan on keeping Capture One and Expression media as separate applications with integration rather than merging the two programs into one application.
I'm with LJ on this one - the amount of time I save keeping everything together is huge - and it's much less easy to make silly mistakes with variants of files as well.

I'm sorry you were having troubles Stef - I think that it probably likes 4Gb RAM - and putting in a 7200 500Gb internal drive seemed to help ( and costs very little) , but I'm running it on a humble 13" MBP (connected to an external monitor and with the images on an external FW800 drive, but with the library on the MBP) - I stopped using the beefier machine because it really works quickly enough, and it makes life so much more convenient.

I used Capture One most of last year, and it's a real relief to get back to an integrated package.

all the best
 

Eoin

Member
Stef, Aperture 3 with a 128Mb graphics card and 3Gb of ram will struggle.
Sorry, but it's been a fact of life since the initial release of Aperture v1, Graphics cards (GPU) are the single most important resource for a smooth running Aperture setup. Aperture relies on GPU not CPU for most of it's rendering routines. Adobe is more CPU focused.
 

simonclivehughes

Active member
I have an older MBP (2.33GHz Core 2 Duo/3GB/256MN VRAM/500GB 7200rpm
) with the ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics processor with 256 MB of GDDR3 video memory. Is this likely to be a bad platform for A3?

Cheers,
 
C

Coms37

Guest
I run Aperture trial-mode on my Mac-Mini, I think 2,26Mhz with 4gb it runs fast and smooth for me.
 

Eoin

Member
I have an older MBP (2.33GHz Core 2 Duo/3GB/256MN VRAM/500GB 7200rpm
) with the ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics processor with 256 MB of GDDR3 video memory. Is this likely to be a bad platform for A3?

Cheers,
I run a MBP 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 4Gb Ram, Nvidia Geforce 8600Gt with 256 Mb ram and a reasonably fast HDD. To be honest with the 35Mb Sony a900 files it does struggle from time to time when compared to my MacPro 2.66 8 core, 12Gb ram & Nvidia GTX 285 with 1Gb of ram.

But in saying that, providing I reboot the MBP and don't open any other apps or have anything running in the background it works without problems. The sliders are not as instant as they are on the MacPro and brushes if used on a zoomed image can be sluggish.

Keep the library small, use multiple working libraries rather than one 40,000+ library and if you wish to keep a master library on an external drive I suggest when you've completed working on a given library import it into your master Library.

There is a suggestion you should not update OSX beyond 10.6.3 at the moment, The 10.6.4 update seems to slowdown Aperture with reported bugs in the video drivers. Also from personal experience, download the latest trial from the apple website rather than store bought 3.0 media. I had repeatable issues installing from media and updating via software update. Only a delete of the App and fresh download saw the issues resolved.

And one last tip and perhaps the most important, make sure you find and install the Apple Prokit Update 5.1. This is the singular most important update to install on an ram constrained Aperture system IMO.

Other than that, download it, give it a whirl.
 
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