Is Aperture's future in question?

As a pro photographer I bought Aperture to give it a try. Here's what I've found.

Firstly, I batch processed 250 RAW files from a Canon 1 Ds MK II in Aperture and the same 250 RAW files in PhaseOne's Capture One Pro ( the workflow prog I've been using for years ) results? Well they both batch processed in about the same time. The difference? The Latest 3.7.4 sion of Capture One Pro's output was far superior in quality to Aperture 1.1.1.

Secondly, I took random shots from each batch into Photoshop CS2. Again, the Capture One Tiff shots needed less manipulation in Photoshop than the Aperture Output Tiffs.

Thirdly, I have concerns over Aperture's colour correction. I can't switch it off and I've looked pretty much everywhere for a box to tick to remove colour correction. I use a G5 Quad with 8GB RAM connected to an Eizo CG220 monitor. All my stuff is hardware colour calibrated so software colour correction knocks that off. As a result in Aperture if I print a shot from Aperture, the printed result looks nothing like the image I'm looking at on screen.

Whereas, if I print straight from Photoshop, what I get out of my Canon i9950 is as near as damn it to what I'm looking at on screen. (You'll never get an exact match from screen image to printed image, as the devices use different methods for attaining clour. Monitors use light, printers use a solid pigment so small differences will always occur)

I do like Aperture's interface and it's really handy for being able to show clients their results quickly and in one place, but that's about it.

Apple's much hyped "it's what pro photographer have been waiting for" is in my opinion a bit high of the mark. If indeed it was what pro photographers were waiting for, I would have the same or better output results in Aperture than I have been obtaining with Capture One Pro for years, but I don't. I admit Aperture has some good features but it certainly is not 'all that'

I paid the £349 price tag for something I rarely use, it certainly doesn't go to waste, but not worth the money (roll on getting my £130 rebate, 3 weeks on and still waiting! At least I'll have only wasted £219 instead of £349. I wonder why you can only spend your rebate in the AppleStore? Obviously Apple don't want you having your own money back to spend where you like? Bit of a sham really.

So in short the final scores are Aperture 0 PhaseOne Capture One Pro 10 and that's from a pro photographer (not a bunch of software vendors telling you it's what pro photographers are waiting for).

Is Aperture's future in question? Yes it is. Unless Apple aknowledge they have mislead pro users and offer a free upgrade to a program that fulfills their initial claims (with a decent high quality output), I for one will not be buying it again. I'll stick with PhaseOne, they at least know what they're doing when it comes to software and that's money well spent

I posted this on digg, but I might as well say it again.

The Think Secret article is about 90% correct, with two major mistakes: First off, "the bulk" of the development staff did not get fired. That's just ridiculous. It was more like some of the management staff, definitely not engineers. Secondly, this is old news. This "shakeup" happened right before the 1.0.1 update, nearly SIX MONTHS AGO, not the other day.

Aperture is not going anywhere. The Aperture team is stable.

I really hope this irresponsible "journalism" on Think Secret's part doesn't start flooding the web as "fact", since it could easily start impacting sales as it hits the masses. Aperture is a great 1.0/1.1 application and will only continue to get better with subsequent updates.

Don't ask how I know all this.

Hmmm... Seems to me that Apple and Adobe have got themselves a deal - Lightroom is probably on its way to "replace" Aperture...

Call me paranoid, but with 5 weeks until it ships to Australia, I've cancelled my Aperture order. I'll wait to see how this pans out I think :)

now, I'm not a professional photographer, but I've been using Aperture since 1.0 just for my own hobby purposes. I find it much easier and quicker to use than Adobe Photoshop for the sake of photo editing. Really, the workflow is what sells this software. For example, in my last trip through Europe, I could download say 60 pictures into Aperture, assign captions and file names, and do the proper edits and crops within 30-40 minutes. Almost that much time would be wasted opening and working with various files in photoshop, instead in Aperture I got it all done, and all files exported within a 30-40 minute time. I'm completely satisfied with the output to. I think my pictures look amazing.

Except that "existing copies" of 1.1 don't actually exist yet (5 week delivery estimate currently), and Apple is hiring people for the Aperture team...

If you physically buy a copy do you get 1.1 or 1.0 and then you update online? If you get 1.1 then the price drop can't be to shift stock.

I like this piece by Cringley.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20060427.html

He is pushing for an Apple purchase of Adobe and ties in the Aperture staff lay-offs as a clue.

I'd heard that Aperture was actually written by a team of Adobe engineers who were stolen/headhunted by Apple. And do you know what were they working on at Adobe before they moved? Lightroom......

This article has been the focus of much attention, but it seems the original news has been skewed as it went through the grapevine.

http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=184241&cid=15212201

It seems most of the team that was 'let go', was actually either promoted or sent back to their original teams (Shake, etc).