Apple has released it’s second version of Aperture which sells for $199. Previous version owners can also upgrade to the new version for $99. If you’ve purchased Aperture 1.5 after January 1st of this year, the upgrade will cost you just $9.95 Aperture 2 page on Apple’s online store. Go here check out all of the over 100 new features.
It is yet to be determined for sure whether Apple “GOT IT” or not with this round of the product and included basics like develop presets. If they did this could be real competition for Lightroom which will be great. If not it’s basically just a new box that will get them nowhere with most pro’s. From what we can tell we see nothing the indicates any kind of image preset however. Wake up Apple!
To be fair, I think the presets you’ve talked about (because Aperture does have what it calls presets) seem to more important to you than most. It never comes up in the Apple forums, and I lurk there pretty regularly. Aperture has many strengths as an all in one tool – RAW processing, organization, database querying (great for stock shooters, or people that want to sell images they shot years ago, or need to find an exact image for a commercial client). We all have our preferences. For you, no presets is a deal-breaker. For others no dual monitor support and poor file management is a deal breaker. Doesn’t mean Apple and Adobe are asleep, or offering inadequate products. Count me as one that doesn’t find the presets as a deal-breaker issue. And I think it would be a great feature to add… but maybe there are other great features that are important, too. Perish forbid I go back to managing folders in the finder…
Presets are important to most photographers who need an efficient photo workflow, and for most pro’s I think it is a deal breaker. One big reason why LT has 76% market share, and Apurture has 7%
Again, I think if you read through Aperture’s forums, you’d get a different picture of what the big complaints of the program were – presets just isn’t one that comes up much, if at all. Again, not saying presets in a different vein wouldn’t be nice to have, I think it would. You can peruse them at your leisure and see for yourself.
Also, I think there are a whole host of reasons why LR (I think you meant LR, sorry) may have 76% share. Its part of the Adobe Photoshop family (kind of the market leader :smile:), its cross-platform, it was a bit simpler to learn than Ap 1.5, it ran faster on more affordable machines, LR has an impressive Develop module… I think all those factors might be a little bit more important to sales than presets 😉 In other words, do you really feel LR’s share would be a lot smaller if they never had presets? I think it would have been just as successful relative to the competition, for a lot of other reasons.
Aperture does do many things very, very well. I’m really not trying to convert anyone here. Nor is it a requirement to be evenhanded or fair in your assessments here or on your show – actually opinionated is good. But you do have message boards, so I thought I would share another view. Hope that’s okay.
Hey I’m great with a little debate. That’s what we;re here for I also would agree that’s it’s not aperture users who are complaining. Those that use aperture have never had presets and don’t know what their missing.
It’s true that adobe has a lot of market because of PS, but they both came out around the same time and both had a chance at this. Apple blew it and still has not fixed it from what I can see. I want them to compete. I like competition, and I like apple products but cmon guys get caught up. 😀
There is a less elegant but perfectly usable way to utilize image adjustment presets in Aperture.
-Create a project called ‘Presets’
-Add a photo(s) to the Presets project
-Make adjustments a(i.e., Levels, sharpening, color correction, anit-vignetting)
-Rename the version to represent the effect (i.e., “Sunny Day, Fantasy, Hawaiian, B&W)
-Repeat the process using new versions and/or new photo’s to satisfy your breadth of needs
To use the so-called preset,
-Open the preset project and find the photo and/or title that meets your need.
-Use the Lift tool to copy the adjustments
-Select the target photo and use the Stamp tool to paste the adjustments
Sharing presets is simple as exporting the project and sending it to a friend who will import the project in their Aperture library.
Actually Gav, I’d say Adobe blew it. Let’s see, its 2004, they have Lightroom in the lab, but they won’t get it to market because it will cannibalize Photoshop sales. Beancounters win. Apple sees a market for photographers away from all the graphic design bloatware features that pro photographers don’t need, release Aperture. Adobe freaks and rushes out Lightroom beta, for free, for almost 9 months. They release Lightroom for $199, later $299. But now Apple has a foot in the door. Sure, Aperture doesn’t have presets, but it misses the big point – Apple doesn’t go away. Take a look at FCP and how that has changed the video and film business.
Back to today – Aperture 2.1 was released. Apple announces Viveza, Noise Ninja, and others are working on plug-ins for Aperture. Personally, I use Photoshop primarily for Noiseware, Portraiture, and OnOne’s Skin Tune. All I really need is an HDR plug-in, and I can’t think of what I would use Photoshop for. Hmmm. Guess who I am emailing today to beg for Aperture support. Also, jpeg or tiff album export was added in 2.1, so now you can design your wedding albums, engagement books, etc. right from aperture and upload to any of those companies that couldn’t handle exported pdf files. So… what does an Aperture user need InDesign for?
Hey even if apple didn’t add presets until version 3 or 4, the big picture is Adobe has got to be more than a little nervous about this, at least in the photo market. How do they respond? They almost surely have to keep making Lightroom better for photographers, since Aperture is getting better. The problem for them is.. for $199? Count me as one of those that bought CS3 Studio, and now I’m starting to think I’m pretty sure I don’t need it anymore because now Aperture either does or will do most of the stuff I did in Photoshop and Indesign. I just don’t need all the graphic design and publishing stuff. That’s just bloatware for me that I had to spend an extra $700 on, using today’s pricing.
So, I understand why you think Aperture blew it. But there’s another side to it that you have to consider since Adobe could have addressed the needs of photographers before Aperture came out. The fact that there is even competition says a lot about how Adobe lost control of this market. Better for me as a consumer – I think competition is a good thing, as I have heard you say also.
Steve I think you have some good points. Adobe does have som compition to deal with, and Adobe misses things too! As I’ve said Adobe is getting too big for their briotches.
Apple Also shows arrogance though by not giving photogs what they want, and gives Adobe the chance to get ahead which they are doing. We have to remember that even though Adobe may have needed Apple to kick start them, they do have a root deep in the market. Apple should be doing anything they can to give photogs what they want since they are new to the game.
Another big issue is that APerture is Mac only, and until that changes they can never take over the market like Adobe can. I should say though that I do want to see Aperture improve. I hope Apple makes a PS killer too! Adobe need some solid competition too make them A BIT MORE HUMBLE.
Gav