Aperture on Powerbooks

Question

I wanted to give those considering buying Aperture for use on Powerbooks a little information to make your purchase. I have a Powerbook G4 1.33 GHz with 1 GB RAM and a Radeon 9600 64MB VRAM. I installed and used Aperture today. In my project, I imported 30 RAW photos taken on my Canon 20D -- each RAW file is from 7MB-8MB. Here's my two primary thoughts:
1) Aperture is a very slick app, and after using iPhoto and Photoshop extensively, Aperture really is targeted at workflow. I'm probably not telling you anything new, but as a photo adjustment application, while the adjustment tools are cool, and give more precise control than iPhoto, it still isn't a replacement for Photoshop. Aperture seems to really be aimed at file / image organization, quick edits, and especially proofing. As a proofing app, I am guessing it probably is the best out there.
2) I can't speak for others' Powerbook configurations, so others may be having better experiences. For organization of RAW files, my hardware is just fine. But for working extensively with RAW files, my Powerbook renders photos too slowly, and attempting to adjust photos, especially using the loupe to set black, white, and gray midtones, its just miserably chunky and slow -- unusable for getting any serious work done.
My conclusion is kind of split-personality:
On one hand: as a photographer, I definitely want to use Aperture. I haven't been able to use Extensis Portfolio much beyond demos (and would like feedback if anyone wants to comment), but I'm guessing from what I have seen that Aperture is probably best of breed for the first part of digital workflow (import to proofing). I cannot speak for finishing yet.
On the other hand: I am questioning whether Aperture is really usable on Apple's mobile hardware right now. On mine, as much as I want to use it, I have to say no -- my realistic option at this point is to buy a new G5.
If there is someone with the highest end Powerbook out there having a different experience, I'd love to hear. But seeing what I've seen, if all I had were a Powerbook and I were unable to buy a new G5, knowing what I know now, I might hold off.
Don't get me wrong, Aperture is a really cool product.
Brad
Powerbook 17   Mac OS X (10.4.2)  

Answer 1

tselim,
Interesting. How is it trying to adjust black, gray, and white points with the loupe? On my machine it was just unbearable. I wouldn't move slowly, it would chunk an inch at a time across the screen. It appears the biggest difference between yours and my specs is the amount of VRAM and you have the next step up (9700, compared to my 9600) video card.
Glad its working out for you. I am pretty hugely disappointed -- if there was any way I could realistically use it and not go insane, I would. I spent about an hour today optimizing my machine in hopes that I'd gun the thing up today and have a different impression, but sadly, the same thing -- pretty much unusable to manage large numbers of photos.
The biggest bummer of the lot is a year after I purchased my Powerbook from CompUSA (will never do that again), I discovered that I had checked every spec on the machine when I bought it, except the VRAM, and the chip I had requested (128MB VRAM) wasn't there, I had gotten 64MB. Of course, CompUSA would hear nothing of it, so I called AppleCare (since my machine was under a 3-year plan) and discovered that there is absolutely no option for upgrading your Powerbook's video card. The Apple support person told me that you have to buy a new Powerbook to get a new video card. That's a real bummer. If anyone has ever heard of being able to upgrade your Powerbook's video card, let me know, I'll do it today.
I'll hopefully be able to spring for a G5 tower early next year. Let's just say that Adobe Bridge is looking pretty good right now!
Brad