Aperture & DxO

Can DxO be used either as an external editor or a plug in with Aperture? Currently have AP v3.5 and OS Mavericks

I don't understand Raw Convertors, or the procedural steps for using AP & Catapult & DxO.
Does AP do nothing as far as adjustments, but only logging in the DxO conversion after it has converted to a Tiff?
Or, is DxO supplemental to AP?
Thanks,
Gary

Similar Messages

DxO Optics Pro and Apple Aperture workflow?

I'm wondering if anyone here has workflow suggestions for using DxO Optics Pro and Apple Aperture?
I've been using DOP for a couple of years now and love it, of course. I am just starting to use Aperture to catalog, sort and arrange a large collection of images. I would like to be able to import images on my drive into Aperture and keep them in Aperture's library, and get DOP to do its work in small batches when needed (essentially the "Scenario 2" workflow that is suggested in DxO's support section for using Adobe Lightroom.) But is that even possible with Aperture? Needless to say, I don't want to lose (during import into Aperture or export to DOP) the photo file information that DOP uses to do optics corrections.
If the workflow above isn't possible, I'm open to suggestions. If I must process ALL my images with DOP first, before importing them into Aperture, I can live with that, but it would be good to hear from some experienced users before I just assume I have to do that.
Thanks!
(By the way, I did read the other thread on here about DOP & Aperture, and it doesn't really go anywhere toward suggesting workflows. It just ends up discussion DNG files a bit, but that's about it.)

Hello All,
I've been working on getting this one figured out with DxO for the last week or so.
While I can't report that I have figured out the secret of the mysterious DxO OP & Aperture workflow (there doesn't appear to be one), I have figured out some key info that I needed to know to get started with Aperture, and continue using DxO OP.
First, the main thing that I became curious about... What EXIF information is lost when importing into & exporting from Aperture. I especially wanted to know what EXIF information that DxO OP needed to do its processing would be lost. (I know there are EXIF info viewers that I could use to check the info for myself, but I wanted to here conclusions from the source.)
The tests were done with the very helpful tech support folks at DxO. We ran 4 files through their fine tooth combs. Two files were straight from the camera, one file was imported (not referenced) into Aperture then I "dug" for it within Aperture's Library using "Show Package Contents", and the fourth was imported into Aperture's Library then I did a File > Export... > Export Master. (As Hud46/Dave guessed above) All EXIF was identical for all 4 files, so DxO could do its complete processing on any of them.
Many of you may have known this already, but I wanted to be sure.
Now, on the topic of a usable workflow for Aperture & DxO, I'm still working on that on. I'm guessing that I'll be finding out pretty much the same that you guys have mentioned here, that they don't play well (enough) together yet.
Allen, I agree that DxO does need to work on their compatibility with Aperture (as they seem to have done with Lightroom) so any feedback to them about that would be a good thing. Having been in touch with them a fair bit on this topic though, I have found that DxO sees Aperture as something of a "closed" system. I don't know what's up with politics of all this, so I'm just going to keep asking for the compatibility and let them sort it out.
Jack, Thank you very much for your workflow suggestion. I will give it a try and see how it works for me.
For what it's worth, I did just do a shoot for a client and used Aperture & DxO OP together. At first glance it looks something like what you did Jack. What I did, simply, was:
1) Downloaded images from the camera using Image Capture (I had already done this step actually) and put them in a folder.
2) Imported the images into an Aperture Library (for just this project) as Referenced Masters.
3) Sorted & rated them. Selected my Picks.
4) Exported those Picks as Masters.
5) Ran DxO Optics Pro on the Picks & saved the output.
6) Delivered to the client, then archived that Aperture Library, DxO's sidecars & output to Hard Drive & DVD.
7) Deleted all of it from my hard drive. (Why keep toting around, and having Aperture deal with in some way, 6+ GB of originals & thumbnails, etc when I likely won't need them all in that incarnation again? Hard drive may be getting bigger and bigger, but I can easily outshoot them.) Now, of course if I need to work with that shoot's Aperture Library in the future, I can't just work with in on the DVD, but at least I won't have to do my rating all over again.
Just thought I'd share that workflow in case it helps someone out with a similar situation.
Onward with the testing... I still have to figure out which way I should import my own main collection of images.
-Neil

DxO Optics Pro - Aperture plug-in?

Hi,
The Apple list of plug-ins includes DXO Optics Pro. I've got a trial version of v9.0 & have it running fine as a image editor. Anyone know how to install it as a plug-in?
Have searched several places & mostly found that it does not work as a plug-in. Also found a plug-in called Catapult that's used to shuffle finles back & forth between Aperture & DxO. Tried dropping the application into Liobrary>Application Support>Aperture>Plug-ins but no luck. Now I can't remove the alias out of the Library folder.
So can it really be used as a plug-in?
Thanks much!

Here's a follow up for anyone who finds this thread in the future. I may have answered my own question but since I'm still learning OP9, there may be another feature yet to be discovered. Optics Pro 9 has a new feature, Export to Application, that might be stretched to consider it a plug-in. You don't install it as a plug-in or even select it as an external editor from Aperture- it seems designed to be a stand alone preprocessor for your RAW files.
If you wish to continue using Aperture for DAM, you'd launch OP9 after importing your RAW files into Aperture. The OP9 Organize tab shows the complete folder structure on your storage drive including all the folders w/in the Aperture container. Folder names are the cryptic number system used by Aperture so navigating could be a challenge in a large library. Anyway, this gives you complete access to all your original files so they can be opened in OP9 using its RAW converter for further processing. Several of OP9 tools such as Prime noise reduction can only be applied to the original RAW file. After processing is complete, you Export to Application & choose Aperture. After you've chosen a file format, OP9 will place the file back into the Aperture container as an untitled project & the file will have "_openwith" at the end of the name. Within Aperture, you can then move the file to any project or folder you wish.
This certainly makes round tripping easier but not as convent as say NIK plugins or what the plug-in Catapult apparently does - put the file back into a stack w/ the parent file.

HT4007 DxO plug-ins in Aperture

in previous versions of Aperture and DxO, I had the use of the DxO software through a plug-in in Aperture. It has disappeared and I can't find any infpormation relating to how I might get it back.
Any experiences out there?

Check the version of the plug-in you have, if it is compatible with the latest Aperture version. With Aperture 3.4.3 and Mt. Lion all plug-ins must be sand-boxed, see: Aperture 3.4 and later: Some third-party plug-ins are no longer compatible
If your plug-in is compatible with Aperture 3.4, it should be installed in the Applications Support folder in your User Library or System Library:
/Library/Application Support/Aperture/Plug-Ins/
either in the sub folders "Export" or "Edit".
Regards
Léonie

Aperture and Dxo - usefull workflow?

Hello all,
I have the following question: I'm using DxO as my RAW converter, as it produces wonderful results even with full automatic settings. That is absolutely what I need because of shortage of time
But still I want to use Aperture for all the rest of my task. So does anybody here have also DxO and Aperture playing together?
How do you handle your workflo? Converting the RAW pictures and then let Aperture handle the TIFF pictures?
Unfortunately Aperture can't handle (at least at the moment) the linear DNG-output from DxO.
Does anybody here have any other idea how to combine both programs to get best results?
Thanks a lot for any help,
Greetings from Germany,
Oli

I have not got an answer to your question, but am quite interested in what others might offer and so have added this note.
There seems to be a problem with Aperture handling DNG files from DxO - they only come through as large thumbnail size. I experimented and then tried a JPEG export from Aperture from one of these DxO-generated DNG files, and the JPEG was also a small (200x300 pixel) image.
I then had DxO create TIF files (from the same D200 RAW images) but for some reason Aperture did not allow me to import them - the TIF files were not visibile in the import window at all even though the RAW, DNG and TIF were all in the same directory. So I discovered another post on this that spoke of the "Aperture Hot Folder". I downloaded and used this utility - creating a second folder into which I moved the TIFs and Aperture automatically imported those.
Obviously none of this is ideal - if only Aperture could handle DxO DNG files directly then things would be much simpler. But again, perhaps someone else here will be able to offer some thoughts...
MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.8) 23" Cinema Display

Aperture and DxO

I heard that DxO currently makes a product for Lens Distortion to work with Aperture. Until now, users were told that only PTLens would do the job.
What is the current status?

The viewpoint plugin does not work quite as flawlessy as you might expect from my earlier posting, or other psotings here. I have submitted the following trouble report to DxO:
++++++++++++++++
Aperture 3.4.5, OASX 10.8.5, Plugin 2.1.6, Non=Admin account. The file which could not be accessed was a JPG.
++++++++++++++++
When I open a file with the DxO viewpoint 2 Plugin from Aperture 3.4.5, and then attempt to use automatic distortion correction from DxO, when DxO asks me to to open the original file, and I click on "OK", there is a considerable wait, there is no menu to open the original file, and eventually the option window disappears, no distortion correction occurs. I note that in OSX console, I get the following messages, which IMO explains all:
2014-06-04 6:07:32.886 PM Aperture[1496]: Launched app: /Library/Application Support/DxO Labs/dvpv2/DxO ViewPoint 2.app/Contents/MacOS/DxOViewPoint2
2014-06-04 6:07:34.659 PM Aperture[1496]: Editable version file path: /Users/ev/Pictures/Photos/2013 G5/P1010475.tiff
2014-06-04 6:07:34.660 PM Aperture[1496]: new task is staring
2014-06-04 6:07:49.826 PM com.apple.security.pboxd[1511]: Sandboxed client (1505) is attempting to use an NSOpenPanel without either the com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-only or com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-write entitlement. Denying.
2014-06-04 6:07:59.756 PM DxOViewPoint2[1505]: RVS:__54-[NSRemoteSavePanel _runOrderingOperationWithContext:]_block_invoke_0319 : Timeout occured while waiting for the window
The OSX sandbox is preventing the DxO Viewpoint Plugin from opening files.
Is there a work around, can I run a terminal command to fix this?
I note that DxO Viewpoint Standalone works correctly for the same image file.
++++++++++++++++++
I ahd never noticed this before, as I was using DxO viewpoint to correct for a manual (non-electronic) lens attacged to a Panasonic G5, there was no lens information atatched to the file. I will report back with any reply from DxO.

What is the difference between regular Aperture software and the app? If I were to buy an app or a software as a hobbyist, what should I buy??? Little confused between the two...Please advise.

Dear All,
I am a newbie to MAC world. Being an ex-PC guy, I am used to CDs and traditional software. I want to buy Aperture as my main photo editing software. I have been using DXO and Photoshop in the past. I downloaded Apeture trial version and I am comfortable with it. If I were to buy it, should I buy an app or traditional software CD. I edit approx. 4-5 pictures a day, just for personal use though. Please advise.
Regards,
Gurpreet.

That's a function of your Credit Card not of the Software
But you're right, I was vague. Whether you buy from the App Store or the Disk makes no difference to the functionality of the software. It's the same.
Regards
TD

Should I buy Aperture in July 2014 even though it's EOLing?

I appreciate this may seem a bit like asking 'should I buy a house when the government has just announced the new freeway is going to run through the back garden', but…..
I'm not a professional, just a hobbyist with a bit iPhoto library and some Photoshop knowledge. I was planning to buy Aperture when Apple next updated it because I liked the idea of being able to do more sophisticated Photoshop-esque tweaking of levels, curves, filters etc whilst still only having one unified photo library for iPhoto and Aperture. It's important in my household to have photos accessible in iPhoto too.
But then Apple announces that instead of updating Aperture, it's ceasing development. So now I'm torn.
So should I buy Aperture now - seems like there will be one more update for Yosemite - because it will still do what I want it to do? Or should I adopt Lightroom on the grounds that at some point in the future, as with FCP 6, later versions of OS X will stop supporting old apps like Aperture and I'll be forced to switch to Lightroom or find another solution anyway.
Better to do this now than before I learn the new app and have a ton of images with changes that won't cross over.
Thanks for any advice/insight.
Andy

Have a look at Capture One Pro as well - IMO it is the most Aperture like tool out there, it doesn't have as big a feature set as Aperture, but what it does have is very good quality some of it better than Aperture. There is a free trial avaialble, and its on for half price right now.
There are a number of comparisons recommending the quality ofCapture One's raw convertor; I personally like it much better than Aperture's raw convertor (admittedly only checked with my own Panasonic raw files). I also like its gradient brush, the ability to copy masks between edits (and invert them), and the ability to assign multiple edit functions to the same mask. (I miss the ability to control levels, curves, highlight and shadow modification with a brush or mask)
After a week of evaluation I purchased a copy - I'm tired of waiting for feature upgrades, and don't like using a market trailing raw convertor on every image. I have a choice (not made yet) of doing some of my work, mostly organization and sorting, in Aperture, and RAW conversion in Capture One, or of making a clean break and doing everything from here on in Capture One.
But one thing is clear - I'll have to wait an uncertainly long time (but at least 6 months) before I get new or improved editing features or an improved RAW convertor for Aperture replacement (and then I'll be faced with an undefined cost to transition my images from Aperture to Photos), whereas companies like Capture One, DxO and Adobe can provide those improvements today, and are continuously providing more improvements to customers.
IMOthose other companies will see their revenues and R&D budget pickup as they acquire new users from the Aperture diaspora.

Image quality of slide shows using Aperture 3 seems inferior to iPhoto '08

I haven't previously used Aperture. I've been using a copy of iPhoto '08 for several years. I've shot everything in RAW for the last several years and process it in
DXO on my Mac Pro (3 1/2 years old with 7 gigs of RAM). I then load the jpegs into iPhoto '08.
I downloaded Aperture 3 yesterday, and it certainly is impressive in what it can do for improving existing jpegs. I think I could do most touch-ups with Aperture
instead of Photoshop 3. Because of some glitch, I couldn't load or link to my 37,000 images from iPhoto but I did export about 4000 images as full jpegs into
a separate file and then imported these images into Aperture. Touch-ups are an order of magnitude better that trying to use iPhoto to do the same.
I'm an amateur and aside from a fair amount of print making and a few thousand images uploaded to a new Picasa account
http://picasaweb.google.com/jamesn88888
I enjoy a lot of my images via slide shows on my 23" Apple monitor, usually sequenced at 3 seconds per slide.
Comparing slide shows of identical jpegs run with iPhoto '08 and then with the files uploaded to Aperture 3 there is a very subtle loss of definition with Aperture. It's not so
obvious when viewing relatively large detail but is is very noticeable when running slides containing small detail. When both of these programs are just used to display static images full screen I note no difference in readability. Someone suggested that I check the preferences for preview displays. Sure enough, it was set for relatively low quality. I decided to re-do all 4000 images maximum preview display quality.
Using the import settings that came already selected on the trial software, the total size of my
Aperture 3 trial library was a little over 25 GB. The quality of the slide shows did not approximate
the quality of the slide shows of the identical jpegs included in my iPhoto '08 library.
I therefore re-processed all of the previews to the "don't limit" in the photo preferences. The total size of my Aperture 3 trial library grew from 25GB to 41.37GB, an increase of 17 GB. With 3926 jpegs in the library that means the average additional size added to each preview image was 4.33 Megabytes. Inasmuch as the original jpeg images that I imported into Aperture 3 were more in the neighborhood of 1.7 to 3.5 Megabytes each (I have DXO output most jpegs @ 90% quality- fine for my purposes), this is an extreme measure to take in order to be able to use Aperture 3 the same way that I used iPhoto '08. In comparing slide shows between the two applications I still get the feeling that there is a very slight loss in acutance when viewing the slide shows. iPhoto still wins out.
I think that I'm better off staying with iPhoto and continuing to do the RAW processing with DXO and slight file modifications with iPhoto. More elaborate changes can continue to be done using Photoshop 3 and Viveza. It's a shame, because I really like the image processing abilities that are contained in the new Aperture.
Have any of you compared slide show views on your computer between Aperture and iPhoto?
Is there any workaround for best slide show viewing- importing or referencing my existing iPhoto library of 37,000 images does not work for me. My copy of iPhoto 7.1.5 get the message that Aperture cannot import or link to iPhoto earlier than 7.1.5 (?)

I think I've solved my problem with a Google Search. I came across a free slide show generator
(contributions requested) that shows much higher quality slide shows than either iPhoto or Aperture 3.
You click on a folder of jpegs and it almost immediately generates thumbnails and within a few seconds
I can be viewing a full screen, tack sharp, slideshow of all of the files in the folder. Much sharper than
I'm used to seeing.
I think I'll keep the Aperture 3 and use if for the purpose it's intended for in the future. I'll also redo the
image preview files to the small size it started with and then I'll copy all of the files I'm interested in from
iPhoto into a separate folder on another disk. I'll use Aperture to catalog and to perform image manipulations
on but I won't try to use it as an iPhoto replacement. I don't think I'll be using iPhoto much as an image
viewer in the future either after I finish moving my favorite pictures to the Phoenix Slides folder.
The name of the free program is Phoenix Slides. It's free to download and try, free to keep (though I
think you'd want to pay the small amount requested) and fast. My pictures have never looked so good
before.
http://blyt.net/phxslides/
Message was edited by: Jimbo2001

ACR 6.1 vs DXO Lens Correction?

I have been experimenting with the lens correction module in ACR 6.1, which has profiles for two lenses I own, the Nikkor AF-S 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 G and the Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 G IF-ED VR, and am quite pleased with the results. The 18-70 lens is a decent consumer grade zoom that has good resolution and little chromatic aberration, but which suffers from distortion at the wide end and vignetting at large apertures. From visual onscreen editing, the vignetting is completely removed from the images and the barrel distortion at wide angle settings is sufficiently well controlled that thus far I have seen no need for manual touching up of the distortion correction.
DxO (an Adobe rival) has criticized the ACR module as offering undercorrection of distortion and vignetting under some conditions, suggesting that the Adobe profiling procedures are not sufficiently rigorous. That may be so, but thus far I have seen no major defects and they gave no examples and I am wondering what the experience of other ACR users might be.
http://www.dpreview.com/news/1005/10052001adobedxoensprofile.asp
The 70-200 zoom was highly regarded for use with APS sized sensors, but full frame users have noted an alarming degree of softenss in the corners of the image. With ACR, one could attempt to provide extra sharpening at the edges of the image with an adjustment brush, but DXO claims to automatically correct for uneven sharpness across the image field. They don't say how this is achieved, but the web site explanation hints at something more sophisticated than a variable unsharp mask (perhaps a variable deconvoluiton algorithm) and I would be interested how this works out in practice.

I hardly know where to start!
Anyway, looking at the list of available lenses, the list for Photoshop Nikon optics is extensive, and also has at least one error. The list for ACR is far less, and my principal lens isn't present. The problem with that item is that, if you choose Custom and your lens isn't on the list, it reverts to the first lens on the list and corrects the image for that. In Auto, it tells you it isn't on the list, so I would urge the use of Auto at all times when operating with commercially available lenses.
In PSCS5, my basic lens also is not present; (18 to 105 mm), but there is a lens, 18 to 125 which is not in the Nikon line. This appears to be an error. Is this the 18 to 105?
I have serious reservations with the idea of "Photographer Empowerment" with respect to lens corrections. I hope that if you publish this data it is in it's own category to which I can ignore. Lens measurement, data collection and conclusions is an intense activity and is best left to the professionals as is photo editing software. DXO knows what they are doing. The concept of "Photographer Empowerment" indicates to me Adobe does not know what it is doing. This makes me very nervous, to say the least.
Let me give you an example. I ran an image from my 70 to 300mm lens, which is on the charts, through both DXO and ACR 6.1, then set one over the other in Layers. Switching back and forth showe a vast difference in the correction for barrel/pincushion and vignetting. Which is right?
FYI, I always have two sets of raw data when anticipating running the DXO corrections so that there is no preconditioning by either party when running such tests. Also, I use DXO only for lens correction activities. Their RAW converter, imo, cannot compare to even CS3, for reasons I won't go into here. There are cheaper programs for doing barrel, vignette and such, but DXO also provides corrections for other lens errors, which makes it well worth while.
To answer my own question is that, in architectural photos, DXO is on the money. The only way to tell for sure is an optical setup that is precise and repeatable.
Finally, here is a site that uses the DXO software to provide lens tests that are extensive and comprehensive, all for the practicing photographer. Using their data for inclusion in the ACR correction would be a good start, not Photographer Empowerment.
http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/index.php
I use them once I have narrowed down the field to a few lenses and haven't been disappointed.

Aperture 3 report card - any feedback on over all performance so far?

Looking to shift from iPhoto 11 to Aperture 3.
I use iMac (just bought a few months ago).
I have over 40,000 photos in current iPhoto.
Looking to get feedback on what you feel are the greatest benefis and drawbacks from moving.
Thanks all!

FWIW:
Aperture vs. iPhoto (listing pros and cons of Aperture based on my experience only):
Pros:
More advanced organization capabilities
Better and more extensive metadata functions (both reading and adding)
Better image adjustment tools (including brushes for local adjustments)
Greater control over export settings
RAW processing has some settings that can be adjusted in the RAW Fine Tuning brick
Cons:
Steeper learning curve
Can use a lot of disk space if you use the external editor function due to creation of TIFF or PSD files for sending to editor (especially true if your Master files are originally JPEG files)
Slow performance may be exhibited with images that need a lot of brushed adjustments applied
Other thoughts:
When Aperture is performing well, it really can't be beat for convenience and control in workflow. If it becomes sluggish, it can be frustrating for some users. As TD commented, the free trial is a great way to see if it both meets your needs and performs well on your hardware.
Since one of my lenses is a kit lense with significant distortion and chromatic abberation on a Nikon D80, I also use a program called DxO Optics Pro when I shoot with that lense. That program is basically designed to be a 'batch' program where you run the images through it and it processes the images for defects automatically (based on lab specs they include in a 'module' which you download for your specific camera body / lense combination) and outputs either JPEG or TIFF (depending on user settings). I really like the results from this process when used for that lense. A huge time saver for lense defect issues in post processing.
If you are looking for speed, that may be of interest if you like the results of the batch processing (which can be modified in pretty much any way). That one also has a free trial and they offer good discounts now and then on the program (which might fit with iPhoto for you if you find Aperture not a good fit).
Hope that helps in some way.

Lens Correction in Aperture?

Does Aperture have a database of every brand and lens? Or must a user designate the lenses he owns in the setup procedure.

I just downloaded the trial sample for PTLens. It will take a bit of learning to have confidence to work the adjustments. For instance, when finished with an adjustment of an image, do you hit the Return key on the Mac, or hit the Reset button in PT Lens?
At a cost of only $25, I am impressed. It is sad that I already own DxO, which cost $150. But, isn't that why God created eBay. :-)
I am more impressed reading the comparison of DxO and PT Lens in the DP Review website.
Just to be curious, what camera and lenses do you own? I have a modest collection, a Nikon D7000 (crop sensor) with 4 lenses and 3 flashes. When I was a photojournalist working in Tokyo, my company would buy Nikon equipment directly from the Factory. It is funny that, not until I got a DSLR did I ever use a zoom lens. Now I have two.
Thank you for the wonderful intro do PT Lens.
Gary - Santa Monica

Aperture RAW conversion and noise

I've been using Aperture for many years and have recently learned something useful about how to tweak the RAW conversion settings. Until recently I just left them at the default settings for my camera, a Panasonic GH2.
Anyhow I've not been entirely happy with shadow noise (otherwise I reckon it's a great camera). Many web sites say that a degree of shadow noise is normal for this camera, so I didn't figure mine was any different. I tried a variety of noise reduction approaches but none really made a worthwhile improvement.
Until a few days ago when I tried tweaking the 'Raw Fine Tuning' settings - and I found a way to make things *much* better.
Please note that the following comments may only be relevant to Panasonic RAW files, and maybe only for the GH2. I don't know if they apply to other cameras (though I think they may.
It turns out that for the GH2, the default 'Raw Fine Tuning' setting includes 'Sharpening' of 0.78 and 'Edges' of 0.79. This is fairly aggressive sharpening, but I didn't really realise what it was doing to noise until I discovered that was significantly increasing shadow noise -even at base ISO!
If I set these both the sharpening sliders in the Raw Fine Tuning section to '0', the 'grain' in the shadows is much smoother - a massive improvement.
But, of course, the image is a bit less 'sharp'. Well, this isn't much of a problem with 16+ megapixel cameras. Unless you are making huge enlargements from originals, and really look closely at the finest details at 100%, it makes very little difference if you give up this 'sharpness'. But the reduction in noise is actually very obvious indeed. It's much better!
Most of the sharpness I need on these less noisy images can easily be added by including the 'Edge Sharpen' adjustment, either at the defailt settings, or marginally toned down a bit. I'm currently using Intensity 0.7, Edges 0.3 and Falloff 0.4. This leaves most smooth areas untouched, so the 'noise' or 'grain' in smooth areas is as it comes from the sensor. By toggling the Edge Sharpen on and off, I can easily confirm no change in 100% or 200% loupe views.
That level of edge sharpening is a bit subtle, but actually achieves most of what I got from the Raw Fine Tuning sharpening sliders. It will be applied only to in-focus contrasty things like eyelashes or hairs or other defined edges, and very nicely.
So I'm sharing this in case other people also find it helpful. I strongly suggest removing the default sharpening entirely, and only using the Edge Sharpening slider in a cautious manner if you want to enhance sharpness.
Some related web pages:
http://www.jonroemer.com/blog/2011/01/aperture-3-too-sharp-tweak-the-default/
http://www.twin-pixels.com/raw-processors-review-aperture-bibble-capture-one-dxo -lightroom/
PS - there is a different issue with the default Raw Fine Tuning 'Boost' and 'Hue Boost' sliders, both of which are set to 1' by default. It turns out that these introduce a very large amount of contrast and exposure gain - turn them down to zero and the image goes quite dark and flat! The Aperture user guide says something about Hue Boost changing colours when Boost is set to '1' and this is the case. So I've experimented with turning them both to zero, and instead using a custom curves adjustment to achieve a similar level of exposure and contrast to the default conversion and the camera's default JPG image. By fine-tweaking the curves one can get better control of blown highlights and the overall contrast. I'm not sure if the colours are 'better', but I think so. I am fairly sure that I get smoother transitions in the mid-tonal ranges with this approach rather than just using Apple's default settings. Maybe they are a but strong for my liking. Certainly I can make curves that rarely require the 'Recovery' slider to fix over-boosted highlights. Anyhow, you may also find that this tweak helps a bit. Interestingly on a Canon RAW file the effect is not nearly as great in exposure terms, but there is also a definite colour change.
PSS - the end result is that I have set my camera preset for RAW fine tuning to zero settings for boost, hue boost, sharpening and edges. I then add contrast as needed using curves, and sharpen only with a little edge sharpening. I've then saved a few Presets with slightly different contrast curves and all with a little edge sharpening. I can very quickly select the level of contrast needed, and I am very confident that my results are quite a bit better, with better tonal gradations and much less noise.
Hope this helps
Chris.

Nice observations, Chris. I think the RAW Fine Tuning is often overlooked, even though it's a vital first step in RAW processing, and really the whole point of shooting RAW in the first place. Too much boost yields horrible skin tones in my experience. I have a default of .50 Boost and Hue Boost, Sharpening and Edges at .25, Moire .50, Radius 12.0 and Denoise .25. I've found these are "mid range" settings for the Canon 5Dii, and first make small adjustments to the Fine Tuning brick before moving on to exposure adjustments.

Aperture 3.4.5 EXIF Export (Lens information missing)

Hi, it seems this is not a new issue. But maybe there is a workaround. As Aperture 3.4.5 does not have tools for decent lens correction I was trying to establish a workflow with DxO Optics Pro 8.2. I prefer doing most of my adjustments with A3 based on Nikon NEF files (all Metadata is available). When I export the files (JPEG/TIFF) some of the Metadata gets lost, annoyingly enough incl. the lens type. Now this is a problem because DxO cannot work without this info. To do it the reverse (starting with DxO and the NEF) does not make sense to me. What should I do? PT Lens seems to work, but not as good as DxO. Apart from that, DxO has a nice noise reduction too. Any ideas how to handle that problem?

I use exiftool to add missing EXIF-tags, see these examples:
Modifying EXIF tags of Originals Using exiftool: camera, lens, gps
But I do not know of a graphical frontend for exiftool that works on a mac, so you would have to use the command line commands from the Terminal.

Switching from Lightroom 5 to Aperture 3.5? Seeking input from those who've done the same

Long and short, I love Mac as it streamlines every process I want to do and "just works". While iPhoto is a simple program, I found it largely effective in managing my photo library for years.
Then I had a baby and bought a DSLR... I went from a taking few hundred photos a year to a few hundred a week. Right now, I'm just importing the photos directly into Lightroom 5 (upgraded for free from Lightroom 4) and occasionally doing the "round trip" from Lightroom to Photoshop Elements and back. That said, I don't have a lot of versions.
I can't put my finger on it, but I just don't like Lightroom. I feel like I'm dumping pictures into a repository that's hard to view them in. It's rather anti-intuitive to use the various modules and I find that my photos aren't any better organized than simply being dumped into folders by date. I've found them difficult to browse. Maybe there's a better method, but I haven't found it yet. I miss the simplicity of iPhoto but could probably benefit from some pro offerings. Perhaps Aperture is that happy medium that I'm locking for?
My biggest want: Importing, sorting, tagging and most importantly, organizaing and viewing photos is a simple, streamlined process.
If I were to switch to Aperture, would I simply import my Lightroom folder(s) (it organizes by date in a very Windowsesque file structure - no library like iPhoto/Aperture)? I would love for Aperture to intelligently orgnize photos into Projects by their date/location (not all are GPS tagged). I'm not worried about losing updated file versions as any changes I've made have been very minor and few in total.
Also, I read that Aperature doesn't keep versions of files that have been edited in Aperture or Photoshop. Is that true?
Any help is much appreciated.

Yeah, I've nothing good to say about Lighroom's user interface. It was clumsy and unintuitive back in the pre-1.0 betas, and subsequent releases haven't improved the situation. Besides a vastly superior workflow, you'll also notice that Aperture makes far more efficient use of screen real estate.
Aperture's Smart Folders will let you view by date/location to your heart's content. See also Five Simple Rules. You really want to understand the different kinds of folders and how they relate to projects before you get going. Aperture will read metadata from XMP sidecars during import. See metadata mapping.
Likely the thing you'll miss most are noise reduction and lens/perspective correction. Aperture's noise control is laughable by today's standards. Do note that there's a noise slider in the raw adjustment brick of the adjustment HUD. But for anything serious you'll want to run through DxO. Same with lens/perspective correction outside of micro 4/3 lenses. Aperture now relies on Apple Maps for geotagging, the resolution of which is just awful in backcountry areas.

Aperture & DxO

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