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 As with Apple's iPhoto software, you must first import your images from a memory card or from your hard drive. In the process, Aperture copies your original files and stores them in a separate folder. This takes time and a significant amount of storage space, a problem if you already have a ton of photos stored on your hard drive. But from this point on, all changes you make to the image in Aperture, including cropping and color enhancements, are stored as relatively small data files without actually changing your original image file. (This was a technique that made Live Picture software such a hit in the mid-1990s with photographers retouching large film scans and TIFF files.)
During import, you can set Aperture to change file names or even to tag images with extra data, including the photographer's name, shoot location, or job description. Then the real fun begins, as Aperture allows you to group and sort images in a number of unique ways.
Our favorite way to group and sort images-certainly a boon for sports photographers or anyone shooting in burst mode-is to use the Stacks control on the Light Table. This tool arranges images into groups based on the time each photo was taken (information supplied by each camera and stored in the image file's EXIF data). Stacked groups of images can then be represented by a single key photo of your choosing, saving you valuable space on your monitor. Or you can choose to sort images by a variety of other factors.
Other Aperture tools help you to rapidly compare and select images, and then print out composite sheets of your favorites or export them to the Web. You can also organize images into books, which one of Apple's online partners will print. Samples we saw included borderless, two-page panoramic spreads, a very nice touch. And the software includes a color-managed printing engine that lets you choose paper and printer profiles, generating results similar to those you would get from Adobe's Photoshop CS2.
While Aperture is not designed to compete with all of the image-enhancement tools found in Photoshop, it offers some quick and useful fixes. And once you get used to Aperture's rapid method of sorting and previewing all types of RAW images, Adobe's Bridge program may gather proverbial dust on your computer. Aperture lets you crop images, adjust white balance, and tweak contrast, although we wish it had a sharpening control built in.
For more advanced editing, you can can convert RAW images into JPEG, TIFF, and a variety of other files. Or you can open them automatically in the editing program of your choice-including Photoshop. However, the TIFF images we sent to Photoshop from Aperture only came in as 8-bit TIFF files, not 16-bit. That shortcoming is going to turn off a few photographers who like to work with the extra color and gradations afforded by 16-bit TIFF files. RAW images exported as native Photoshop PSD open in full 16-bit mode.
Sure, there are other image organizers and powerful DAM programs out there that cost less and run on slower machines, but nothing we've seen handles a RAW workflow like Aperture. In fact, there are so many customizable input, output, and browser settings that it could easily take a while to master this program. Fortunately, the company supplies a useful DVD tutorial that will get you going in no time.
Now, if only Apple made an iAperture version for those who can't afford its $499 price tag, or the many thousands it might cost to upgrade their compatible computer system.
What's Hot
• Awesome for organizing and viewing RAW files.
• Customizable for a variety of work flows.
What's Not
• Expensive software at $499.
• Only works on powerful Macs with latest OS X.
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