4 Comments on Aperture Philosophy

Ben Long on Mon, 6th Mar 2006 4:19 pm


Thanks Eric! I was talking to Joe Schorr (the Aperture product manager) earlier today and he said that most surveys show that the number 1 digital photography asset management tool in the world is…The Finder. Far more than iView or Portfolio or anything else, people manage their photos using Finder folders. He said if they could get Finder market share, they’d own the whole industry. I think that might explain partly why it’s very hard for people to let go of their Finder-centric idea of workflow.

Ben Long on Thu, 9th Mar 2006 1:07 am


Steve, I completely understand your space concern. In the short term, there are some things you can do, such as creating multiple (albeit separate) libraries, or creating symbolic links between volumes to create a library that spans multiple drives.

As for long term solutions, I think we simply have to trust that Apple is aware of this shortcoming, and that they will fix it. I know a lot of users are hesitant to a commit to a product with the idea of “well, I’ll trust that they’ll improve the things I want later.” However, Apple’s already showing some very good faith. The product is less than four months old and it sounds like the 1.1 upgrade has already addressed the program’s biggest shortcoming, it’s questionable raw quality.

Just as we’re all trusting that Adobe’s Lightroom will eventually have the essential features that it’s currently missing, I fear we simply have to trust that Apple will eventually add the essential capabilities that it currently lacks. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that Apple understands that eventually Aperture has to be able to deal with the trouble of limited disk space. In the meantime, this is a version 1 product, so we have to make do with keeping multiple libraries, or spanning the library across multiple drives.

So, if you want to use Aperture now, my advice would be to shuffle off older media when your drives fill up, and wait for the future version that will allow you to put all of that media back into some kind of comprehensive Aperture library.

Thanks for the feedback!

Richard Peterson on Thu, 9th Mar 2006 11:27 pm


Can’t wait to read your Aperture books. Based on your writing and upcoming updates, I decided to buy it and graphics card. Found Aperture for $269 on eBay the other day, and ATI has rebates on their Mac cards now.I love your explanation of the different philosopy incorporated by Aperture; it really gave me an understanding.

Greg on Sat, 11th Mar 2006 7:19 pm


Thanks for the comments. I’m on a G4 with IVMP and PS, but am exploring RAW and will upgrade computer towards the end of the year, so the time is good for me to sit on the sidelines and follow the Lightroom and Aperture discussions.

One question that arises from this article is related to one need I have and that is to be able to do digital slide shows from my secondary computer (curently a 12″ G4, but assuming I’m willing to upgrade it too for Aperture), can I (easily) do that. In other words, some how transfer “photos” and “the show” to the laptop and show it with Aperture or some other app.

Now using IVMP, I can export the (selected) photos to my laptop, copy over the catalog, relink the photos, select the catalog set, and I’m ready to show. I’m not saying this is “easy,” but it’s doable.

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