jimrichardson's posterous

Aperture 3.0 Alert (and a bit of shameless self promotion)

Screen_shot_2010-02-09_at_6

If you didn't already know I'm a big fan of Apple's Aperture. This powerhouse imaging program gets heavy use everyday at the Small World picture ranch. 

So I'm juiced that the new upgrade, Aperture 3.0 has been announced with a host of new features and a huge increase in functionality in virtually every area that working photographers need. I've been using the beta version for several months now and I can tell you the program is loaded with some great stuff. Besides all the things photographers have been asking for, the guys at Apple have thrown in a whole raft of features no one expected.

The Aperture site has a good page on what's new, with a raft of nice videos. Check out Bill Frakes video from the Hold County Fair in Nebraska.

One of those additions was really robust support for GPS geotagged images. When they first showed me what Aperture could do with geotagged images I was just blown away. I remember telling them "This is going to change everything."  I had a really good chance to put Aperture to the test and see what it could do when we went up to Nova Scotia for a shoot.  And now you can see the excellent video the Apple folks produced on this outing on the Aperture web site.  Take a look here: http://www.apple.com/aperture/

Screen_shot_2010-02-09_at_6

Besides the GPS integration there are several other standout features that working photographers will find welcome.  

  • Brushes allow you to paint in virtually any adjustment. And then you can fine tune the adjustment as well.
  • Slide Shows has become a really, really powerful tool. Video, sound, music, audio, movement, all integrated seamlessly inside Aperture for stunningly beautiful slide shows that can be export in a whole range of formats. Wow!
  • Adjustment Presets give you great power to make your pictures suit your style. I'm making custom presets for each of my cameras so my pictures look just the way I want them to on import, automatically. 

And (as they say) there's more. If you really want a full rundown I'd take a look at David Schloss' excellent roundup of whats new and improved.  Go to the Aperture page on MacCreate, here:  http://aperture.maccreate.com/2010/02/09/aperture-3-overview/

So I probably sound like a fanboy, but I like the software and what it does for my workflow. But what really impresses me is that the guys at Apple really spend a lot of time listening to working photographers. And the results show it.