Tips

You read that right… Aperture 3 is available for just $79.99 on the band spanking new Mac App Store.

To get the new Store, you’ll have to run Software Update and bump up to Mac OS X 10.6.6. There’s not a whole lotta info on 10.6.6 itself, but here’s the kb article if you’re interested.

Once you’ve run the update, you’ll see a shiny new icon in your dock!

Launch that bad boy, search for Aperture, and check this out… 

Of course if you already have Aperture installed, you’ll see this…

With a multi-hundred-thousand image library staring you in the face, it can be a bit daunting looking for “that photo you know you took” all those years ago—especially if you aren’t (or at least, weren’t) diligent about adding keywords and other relavent metadata.

I just found an image I was looking for that I knew I had (but wasn’t easy to find), and I thought I’d share the process. Sometimes a little sleuthing can save you a ton of work.

The shot I was seeking is for a new eBook I’m writing on photography. In it I have a chapter on stabilizing the camera, and I am talking about the Joby Gorillapod. I knew that years ago on a trip to Hawaii I’d wrapped my dSLR around a stalk of wet bamboo for a long exposure, and I knew I’d taken a photo of that. So, off to find it.

Search by Name

First, I searched the Library for “Hawaii”. One thing I do well is name my projects, and I was quite sure that whenever that trip was, chances were I’d included “Hawaii” in the project name.

I knew the shot wasn’t in a helicopter (so the “2007-03-04 | Oahu Hawaii Helo flight” wasn’t going to have it), and it couldn’t have been in 2000 because that pre-dates the Gorillapod, but there was a collection of 1,046 photos labeled “2007-02-25~03-03 Hawaii, Maui & Oahu” that was promising. As you can see from the screenshot above, there are a series of Albums in there, and I scanned those names but none sounded right. I ended up just looking at the whole project, and found something promising.

Apple has just released the Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update 3.5, adding RAW image support for a handful of new cameras to Aperture 3 and iPhoto ‘11. The camera list includes:

I can hear the collective sigh if relief; feel the exhale on the back of my neck of all Aperture + iLife users plagued by the browsing problems introduced by Aperture 3.1—an absolutely fantastic release for many reasons, but undeniably hindered by a serious iLife compatibility issue.

Aperture 3.1.1 sets out to resolve those problems. Sound off in the comments if this update fixes your woes—or if not. Let’s hope for no “not!” remarks down below.