Fraser Speirs (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} fraserspeirs) wrote,@ 2005-12-03 11:52:00 |
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More thoughts on Aperture
Ok, so 24 hours with Aperture now and I am loving this app. I borrowedlorna_babes PowerBook overnight and twiddled away into the night. Here are some more observations:
User Interface
On a 15" screen, the UI feels a litte cramped - particularly vertically. My main complaint in this regard is that it is apparently not possible to completely close the Metadata part of the inspector panel. It would be nice to be able to get rid of that entirely in order to see more adjustments.
Related to my earlier mention of making some mode errors, I found that switching the workspaces can occasionally lead to confusion. I can't even explain properly what I did, but I ended up having one kind of browser showing and a viewer for a completely unrelated object (I think a Light Table). Fortunately a button appeared which did something like "Show Viewer for this Browser" and I recovered. Again, probably an element of beginner error there.
On a screen 20" or bigger, the Aperture UI just sings beautifully. If this app doesn't cause a spike in sales of 30" screens, I'll be surprised - it completely justifies it.
Speaking of 30" screens, I was interested in the concept of HUDs as a solution to the problem of gigantic screens. In a sense, Aperture's HUDs are really just what we've always had in Inspectors, but with a sleek smoked-glass look. I think it would be really interesting if HUDs could be made to track the mouse location (or close by it). Obviously, they can't slavishly follow the mouse because then it would be impossible to click in the HUD, but maybe if there was a keystroke that would do an Exposé-style thing where the HUDs could sort of spring outwards from the mouse location, be used and then either collapse back again or stay where they were placed. This is hard to explain in writing. Maybe I'll write a demo app.
Performance
I'm blown away by Aperture's performance. The machine I'm using it on is the very lowest-end supported configuration for Aperture, but it's very snappy indeed - much better than iPhoto on the same hardware. The only time I've managed to really make it obviously wheeze is by using the Lift and Stamp tool, lifting a White Balance from one image and applying it to six or eight images simultaneously with a shift-click. I can imagine that the whole thing would fly on one of the high-end G5 configs. Admittedly, I am using my library of JPEGs instead of RAW files, which brings me on to my next point.....
That issue with the 350D RAW files
It is, however, disappointing that the Aperture installer doesn't attempt to fix the lack of support for EOS 350D RAW files. I know that this is an OS-level bug, but I'm still quite surprised that there hasn't been a quick fix for something that will bite every prosumer Aperture user outside of North America. After all, that first-class RAW support is Aperture's #1 reason for being. Maybe in 10.4.4......
Ok, so 24 hours with Aperture now and I am loving this app. I borrowed
lorna_babes PowerBook overnight and twiddled away into the night. Here are some more observations:User Interface
On a 15" screen, the UI feels a litte cramped - particularly vertically. My main complaint in this regard is that it is apparently not possible to completely close the Metadata part of the inspector panel. It would be nice to be able to get rid of that entirely in order to see more adjustments.
Related to my earlier mention of making some mode errors, I found that switching the workspaces can occasionally lead to confusion. I can't even explain properly what I did, but I ended up having one kind of browser showing and a viewer for a completely unrelated object (I think a Light Table). Fortunately a button appeared which did something like "Show Viewer for this Browser" and I recovered. Again, probably an element of beginner error there.
On a screen 20" or bigger, the Aperture UI just sings beautifully. If this app doesn't cause a spike in sales of 30" screens, I'll be surprised - it completely justifies it.
Speaking of 30" screens, I was interested in the concept of HUDs as a solution to the problem of gigantic screens. In a sense, Aperture's HUDs are really just what we've always had in Inspectors, but with a sleek smoked-glass look. I think it would be really interesting if HUDs could be made to track the mouse location (or close by it). Obviously, they can't slavishly follow the mouse because then it would be impossible to click in the HUD, but maybe if there was a keystroke that would do an Exposé-style thing where the HUDs could sort of spring outwards from the mouse location, be used and then either collapse back again or stay where they were placed. This is hard to explain in writing. Maybe I'll write a demo app.
Performance
I'm blown away by Aperture's performance. The machine I'm using it on is the very lowest-end supported configuration for Aperture, but it's very snappy indeed - much better than iPhoto on the same hardware. The only time I've managed to really make it obviously wheeze is by using the Lift and Stamp tool, lifting a White Balance from one image and applying it to six or eight images simultaneously with a shift-click. I can imagine that the whole thing would fly on one of the high-end G5 configs. Admittedly, I am using my library of JPEGs instead of RAW files, which brings me on to my next point.....
That issue with the 350D RAW files
It is, however, disappointing that the Aperture installer doesn't attempt to fix the lack of support for EOS 350D RAW files. I know that this is an OS-level bug, but I'm still quite surprised that there hasn't been a quick fix for something that will bite every prosumer Aperture user outside of North America. After all, that first-class RAW support is Aperture's #1 reason for being. Maybe in 10.4.4......
