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Import & Browse Test: Aperture vs Lightroom vs Photo Mechanic

By Thomas Boyd

June 20, 2012 - 10:00am

Thomas and I discussed this post at length, before he even ran the tests. Should we do it, or shouldn’t we? This site is not in the business of proving Aperture is better or worse than anything else; it’s here to teach Aperture users how to get the most from Aperture, and that’s it. However given what a critical piece of the workflow this is for professional photographers (fast imports), and that this is a significant feature improvement in Aperture 3.3 (even if Apple isn’t marketing it as such), we decided to do it. And once you’re comparing Aperture 3.2 to 3.3, you have to compare to Photo Mechanic as well, which has long been regarded as the gold standard for speedy imports and selects. And once you add Photo Mechanic, you can’t ignore the 300 pound gorilla in the room, Lightroom. So, we decided to compare them all. And as you’ll see, we even gave Lightroom a more than fair shake, trying to improve its result based off feedback from former Lightroom users.

Devignette vs Negative Vignette in Aperture 3.3

By PhotoJoseph

June 18, 2012 - 6:00am

One of the enhancements in Aperture 3.3 is that the Vignette adjustment can now can go negative, effectively devignetting an image. However there’s an important difference between the pre-existing Devignette adjustment and the new negative Vignette ability.

Devignette

Devignette is applied to the image pre-crop. The purpose of devignette is to remove a shadow (vignette) around the outer edges of a photo caused by either a lens shade or even the lens barrel itself on some extremely wide angle lenses. While we will often add a vignette to our photos as an effect, if you need to crop your image, then the natural vignette may not be your friend.

Original image with clear shadowing from the lens hood (tap to view larger)

In the photo above, you can clearly see a natural vignette appearing on the image. The only adjustment made thus far is curves, which has actually amplified the shadow. In the screenshot below, the Devignette adjustment has been applied, and turned up quite high (too high, really, but I wanted it to be clear here).

Restoring a pre-Aperture 3.3 Vault into Aperture 3.3

By PhotoJoseph

June 18, 2012 - 2:00am

A great question came up on the site where reader Dave T. asks “Are earlier vaults consumable by Aperture 3.3 if one has to restore?”. The answer was certainly “I should hope so!” but I ran a little test anyway.

Short answer is, it works. However there is a scary dialog that pops up that I think could be better written.

The Vault restore process

For my test, I created a new library in Aperture 3.2.4, added a few photos to it, and created a Vault. Then I copied the Vault to my system with Aperture 3.3, created a new Library there, and restored from the 3.2.4 Vault. At the end of the process, I got this scary dialog:

A poorly written and scary “unable to restore” message… but it’s OK, really!

“Unable to Restore” made my heart skip a beat, for sure. However reading the fine print, it says “Relaunch is required for the library restore to take effect”. I hit OK, and expected Aperture to automatically relaunch, which it did not. So I manually quit, then launched Aperture again, and got this dialog:

Understanding the iPhoto 9.3 and Aperture 3.3 Unified Library

By PhotoJoseph

June 17, 2012 - 5:00am

There has been some confusion in the comments and forum here about the meaning of the “Unified Library”, one of Aperture 3.3’s top new features. I believe the confusion is coming from, quite frankly, over-thinking this. It’s quite straight forward, so I’ll try to explain it here.

Workaround for Creating Crop Presets in Aperture 3.3

By Thomas Boyd

June 16, 2012 - 11:00am

ApertureExpert reader Tim Biddle has a common need. He wants to create a crop preset for a specific purpose. In this case, he wants a preset for the Facebook cover photo. Currently, there is no way to create a “crop preset” in Aperture 3. This means a user would have to enter the same numbers in the crop tool every single time. Not on my watch! I have a solution!

Enter the Numbers You Need in the Crop Tool

This is where you add the dimensions for the crop.

Create a Duplicate Version of a photo. It can be any photo. Then, “Revert to Original” on the image. In this case, I’ll enter the Facebook cover dimensions of 851 for width and 315 for height. Remember that this is essentially just an aspect ratio. It doesn’t actually resize a photo. You’ll have to create a specific export preset with this size if you want the exported image to be precisely that dimension and crop the photo.

Creating New Auto Effects in Aperture 3.3

By PhotoJoseph

June 15, 2012 - 10:00am

As pointed out in the Aperture 3.3: ApertureExpert Review article, the new “Auto Enhance” feature is actually an application of up to five auto adjustments, including:

White Balance
Exposure
Enhance (*)
Curves
Highlights & Shadows (*)

This is what makes up the Auto Enhance feature

If you look closely though, the effects with the (*) don’t actually have an Auto button in the Aperture interface. However that won’t stop you from creating your own Auto presets, using just one (or more) of those Adjustments.

Build your own Auto Effect Presets

All you need to do is duplicate the built-in “Auto Enhance” preset, and remove the other effects. To do that, select “Auto Enhance”, click on the gear menu, and choose Duplicate Preset. Then, simply click the (−) icon next to all the other adjustments and rename your new preset appropriately. See below how I’ve created a custom “Highlights & Shadows (auto)” preset, like this:

Aperture 3.3 Update Improves Locate Referenced Files Behavior

By Thomas Boyd

June 15, 2012 - 3:00am

As I suspected, we would find little undocumented improvements in this update. For some reason, they improve things without listing them in the documentation. Perhaps they are considered too minor to list.

Aperture 3.3: The ApertureExpert Review

By PhotoJoseph

June 14, 2012 - 5:00pm

While ApertureExpert.com is already full of posts and tips on specific features in Aperture and the new Aperture 3.3, I also wanted to write a more standard review of the upgrade, to discuss not only what’s been added or changed, but also to address many of the comments and concerns I’m reading online. I’ve seen it referred to as “no longer pro” and as a step towards a forced iPhoto migration (to iPhoto, not from), a C|NET article called the most significant feature “support for AVCHD”, and one particularly well known photographer made a high profile exodus to Lightroom immediately following the 3.3 announcement. These observations are not only completely wrong, but frankly, bad journalism. Let’s get started.

How to Put RAW Fine Tuning Back in Aperture 3.3

By PhotoJoseph

June 14, 2012 - 1:00pm

There have been some complaints that Aperture 3.3 removed the “RAW Fine Tuning” adjustment panel from the default set. I’m sure it was removed because most people don’t use it, but if you want it to show up on every image, all you have to do is add it back to the default set.

First, add the RAW Fine Tuning adjustment in from the Add Adjustment menu.

ApertureExpert Live Training Session 021: Aperture 3.3 SPECIAL Now Available

By PhotoJoseph

June 14, 2012 - 3:32am

The high quality video of Live Training Session 021: Aperture 3.3 SPECIAL is now available. This is a 2+ hour session that took a lot of prep to get going so quickly after launch, so I hope you’ll forgive the price jump on this one to $4. The full video is avaialble for free however on YouTube, also embedded below, at lower quality.

Download the high quality video here!

Or, watch it free:

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Import & Browse Test: Aperture vs Lightroom vs Photo Mechanic