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MacBook Pro with Retina Display; the ApertureExpert Review (part 3 of 3)

PhotoJoseph's picture
November 19, 2012 - 1:00am

Part 3 of 3 [part 1] [part 2]
A joint first-hand, hands-on review of the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display
by photographers and ApertureExperts Thomas Boyd & Joseph Linaschke

Aperture plug-ins and other non-Retina apps

There’s something else to mention, and that’s the problem with non-Retina photography-centric applications. I knew that my favorite plugins from Nik Software were not yet Retina. Which is a bummer, but hey, it’s just the interface, so it’s not a big deal, right? Wrong. It is a big deal, because it’s not just the interface. As far as I can tell, this goes for any non-Retina photo-centric app. Even Photoshop is rubbish on the Retina Mac. Here’s why.

It’s not just that your sliders and buttons are pixel-doubled. Your photos are pixel-doubled. I found it virtually impossible to do any accurate pixel-peeping adjustments in Nik plugins, and everything looked so awful in Photoshop that I just stopped using it entirely. I had to do some text layout in Illustrator on the road, and my eyes bled. But back to my favorite plug-in, I didn’t do any B&W conversions on the road because it just wasn’t enjoyable making adjustments to a blocky image, then having to render that back to Aperture to see what it really looked like. Remember non-Retina iPhone apps on your new iPhone 4? Yeah, it’s that problem all over again.

Here’s a few screenshots to illustrate the problem. These screenshots and photos were gracefully provided by Paul Fletcher paulfeltcher.me and are of the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, NV. Thanks Paul![more]

Close-up of Photoshop UI (non-Retina) on Retina display — notice all elements are pixel-doubled

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MacBook Pro with Retina Display; the ApertureExpert Review (part 2 of 3)

PhotoJoseph's picture
November 18, 2012 - 1:00am

Part 2 of 3 [part 1] [part 3]
A joint first-hand, hands-on review of the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display
by photographers and ApertureExperts Thomas Boyd & Joseph Linaschke

UPDATED 11/17/2012 12:35pm PST: USB 3 vs FW800 speed correction

Other advantages

[JLI want to talk about some non-photo, non-Aperture related things on this beauty, too. Obviously, it’s thinner and lighter than it’s predecessor, which is always a Good Thing™. When it comes to the laptop that you carry in addition to the camera bodies and lenses however, I’ve always taken the thinner/lighter thing with a grain of salt, because shaving a pound or two off of 50 lbs of other gear really isn’t going to do much for me. But regardless of any weight savings, this MacBook Pro does feel amazing in your hands. It’s as solid as can be, and looks sexy as hell. And of course if that’s all you’re carrying, then that weight loss does make a difference. The SSD drive makes everything snappy and bootup is very fast; wake from sleep is virtually instantaneous (same experience as with my MacBook Air). The iSight camera for video chat is excellent, and made video chats back home even from a low-light hotel room better than what I’m used to on the Air. The Power Nap feature (where the computer pseudo-wakes up to get email, download software updates, etc. even when the lid is closed) is ridiculously cool. The first time I opened the lid after a night of sleeping and my mail was already waiting for me was a very pleasant surprise indeed. The built-in HDMI port is perfect for presentations. I was able to plug into an LCD TV screen for an Aperture demo with no adapters (so that’s one less adapter to carry, probably offset by others though; discussed later in this article) which was fantastic. Working the Photokina trade show where I was presenting at four different theaters, being able to just plug HDMI in and get a perfect 1080p mirror on the projector or flatscreen was a true joy. I’ve been plugging laptops into projectors since the mid 90s (nearly 20 years, goodness) and it’s never been this simple and clean. Plus, on a side-side note, when you plug into a projector, the Mountain Lion Notifications automatically get disabled — talk about attention to detail! [more]

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MacBook Pro with Retina Display; the ApertureExpert Review (part 1 of 3)

Thomas Boyd's picture
November 17, 2012 - 1:00am

Part 1 of 3 [part 2] [part 3]
A joint first-hand, hands-on review of the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display
by photographers and ApertureExperts Thomas Boyd & Joseph Linaschke

Seeing a photo with deep shadows and strong colors absolutely pops on a Retina display.

[Thomas Boyd] Apple let me test drive a MacBook Pro 15-inch, 2.3Ghz with Retina display. 

[Joseph Linaschke] Same here. I begged to keep mine a little longer so I could use it for presentations as well as photography. I’ll talk about both uses here.

[TBBefore I started using it, I questioned how much better it could actually be. My current MacBook Pro (MBP) looks pretty darn good and it’s quite fast. I have no complaints.

[JL] I think I was a little more excited about it, given that my current mobile solution is a MacBook Air 11-inch. I bought the Air because I was doing the majority of my photo editing at home (and still do) where I enjoyed the increased performance and screen size of the 27-inch iMac, and I bought the 11-inch Air specifically for writing while sitting in economy class. (Yeah, I travel that much.) But while the Air is adequate for Aperture use on the road, I certainly wouldn’t call it a performance king. [more]

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Is Aperture Quitting After 3.4.2 or 3.4.3 Update? Here’s the Fix.

PhotoJoseph's picture
November 15, 2012 - 4:39pm

There have been reports of Aperture quitting after an update via the Mac App Store, and it turns out that Apple posted a KB (Knowledge Base) article about it a few days ago.

In a nutshell, if you are quitting on launch, then just throw away the Aperture app itself (not your Library!), and re-download from the App Store.

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Aperture 3.4.3 Update

PhotoJoseph's picture
November 13, 2012 - 9:05am

You know it’s slow in Aperture-land when the last two posts were software updates!

Aperture 3.4.3 appears to only address an issue I’d warrant most of us haven’t seen, since I haven’t seen any discussion of this in the forums. The only listed fix is “Addresses an issue that could cause a licensed copy of Aperture to prompt for a serial number with each launch”.

If you notice any undocumented changes, let us know in the comments. I can’t imagine this release not including other fixes, too!

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Aperture 3.4.2 Update

PhotoJoseph's picture
November 2, 2012 - 7:15am

Hit the software update (or if it’s not showing up yet, like it isn’t for me, you can download from apple.com directly) for an update to Aperture, weighing in at 3.4.2. Here’s the change list, and of course let us know how it works out for you in the comments!

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iOS 6 Workshop

(for previous version)

Note: This training is for iOS 6! Learn what you need to know to maximize your investment in your iOS device. If you use an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, you may be surprised at just how many features are lurking beneath the surface.

Duration: 05:15 hr
$4.99
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New “Jagged” Thumbnail for Über-wide Cropped images

PhotoJoseph's picture
October 27, 2012 - 12:00am

A small change to the interface for extremely wide (or tall) cropped images showed up in a recent update. I think this was in 3.4, but I could be wrong — I didn’t spot it right away.

If you crop an image extremely wide, like this:

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What is This in the New Apple Macbook Pro Ad “Colors”?

PhotoJoseph's picture
October 26, 2012 - 4:24am

At around 11 seconds into the new MacBook Pro ad “Colors”, you see an image being dragged into what is clearly (now that I can see it in HD) a website. (In yesterday’s post I said it might be iBooks Author or Pages). Last I checked most websites don’t work that way!

Maybe it’s just artistic license, but of course it’s got a few of us curious just what is going on.

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