Nontrivial Exercises

I’m an Aperture User!

As I commented on Chris’s MyAppleStuff blog in December, I put Apple’s Aperture on my 2007 Apple wish list. I haven’t written about it here, but I really have developed an interest in and a passion for photography, and I recently acquired a Nikon D50 digital SLR (which I love!).

I had been using iPhoto but had really outgrown what it could do for me. I started using the public beta of Adobe Lightroom and was ecstatic about all that it could do. For the first time I was able to shoot in RAW with my D50 and Lightroom provided some mind-blowing (to my unexperienced mind anyway) tools to process RAW photos. I really liked Lightroom and used it for the entire month of November.

I had heard of Aperture but never really looked into it much. After using Lightroom and becoming comfortable with all its features, I decided I would give Aperture a try and take advantage of the 30 day free trial Apple is offering.

Before I started the trial, however, I watched all the tutorial videos on the Aperture site and read several reviews about it. I then downloaded the trial and started using it. It took a few hours (spread out over several days - I have a day job ) to figure out a workflow and how Aperture really works, but then I was completely hooked.

Why do I like Aperture better than Lightroom? Perhaps I’ll write a more detailed review in the future, but in short, Aperture’s workflow model is more intuitive and powerful, there are more powerful tools for automation and the user interface is more advanced and “usable”.

I determined that the cost of Aperture was an investment in my photography and not just a luxury, so I just purchased a full license. More to come…