Aperture, Photoshop, and Apple's possible direction for Image Editing

Question

All,
After using Aperture now for several days, and reading many different forum topics, in particular this one which speaks of desired enhancements to Aperture:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=253594&tstart=0
there is one thing that really sticks out on my mind. While all of us photographers have slightly different specifics to our workflow, in general they are very similar. And with respect to Aperture, there is one huge area where most of us seem to be hitting the brick wall: image adjustments, and by extension, image file management. Let me explain what I mean.
I think it is a fair generalization to say that the vast majority of serious digital photographers are using Photoshop (or some other image editing app, but I'm just going to refer to Photoshop for convenience) for post-processing of some kind. In using Aperture, and figuring out how to fit it into workflow, we've got this situation of how to move from organization and image library management to the full gamut of image adjusting functionality (photoshop) and back again to library management. The need to use photoshop then exposes the issue of how files are stored on the filesystem, etc. Stay with me here...
I have found myself thinking, and it is pretty clearly demonstrated in the forum topic mentioned above where folks are making suggestions for improvements to Aperture, that there's this barrel people are over in knowing whether Photoshop and Aperture should live in the workflow together, or whether Aperture should (or is intended to) replace Photoshop in the workflow. This got me to thinking about the fundamental question -- what is the intent, i.e. the vision for Aperture? Is it meant to replace Photoshop, or restated, is Aperture meant to be the app in which all image adjustments are to be made, OR is Aperture meant to just ease workflow, and is it intended not to be the primary app for image adjustments, but rather integrate with the primary image adjustment app?
The reason I bring this up is that the answer to this question makes all the difference in what enhancement requests and what people should expect from Aperture now, and in future versions. If Aperture is the primary place for image adjustment, then its obvious that there are some very significant additions that need to take place to Aperture, and likewise, the issue of putting images on the filesystem becomes much less important. However, if Aperture is a workflow-easer, then such image adjustment improvements are minimally important if at all, and filesystem / Photoshop / PSD file integration becomes paramount.
I know what Aperture does, what features it provides, etc. But I can't help but realize that its not really that clear (or I just don't understand yet) what the full scope of Aperture now and in the future is intended to be, and the forum topics are pretty decent documentation of the fact that the user base at this point is fairly cloudy on that too.
I can't help thinking that in the midst of the Apple pro line of tools, where we have tools that edit: video, audio, DVD creation, text effects, and now digital photography workflow, that there's one glaring hole: static image editing, i.e. a direct Photoshop competitor. I went through the Aperture video demos before Aperture shipped, and watched these photo pros talk incessantly about how "now there's an app that addresses how I work -- Aperture". That's great, but Apple has to know the role that Photoshop plays in present photography workflow -- for those pros too. So I'm sitting here thinking to myself, why would Apple roll out such a product with some clear workflow hurdles to common Photoshop usage.
Ok, here's the punchline: does anyone else here have a sneaking suspicion that Apple is not to far off from releasing their own image editing application that's a direct Photoshop competitor? I mean come on, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Sountrack, and by extension of the CEO to Pixar, Renderman. How can you not have a static image adjustment application entering the scene at some point?
I'm curious what others think. I'm just trying to make sense of how to fit the neat stuff I see in Aperture into a workflow that doesn't play very nicely with Aperture at some points (because I'm using Photoshop).
Brad
Powerbook G4-1.33GHz-17" / Powermac G4-1.4GHz   Mac OS X (10.4.2)   PB: 1GB RAM, Radeon 9600-64MB / PM: 1.25GB RAM, Radeon 9000Pro-128MB

Answer 1

So Apple adds curves adjustments,
we'll need noise reduction, greater sharpening
capability, etc., etc., and then when we have all
those features, surely we'll need masking and select
capability to perform those adjustments selectively,
etc. Where does it end?
Actually that could be a good cut-off point - add a few more/better 'global' adjustments but leave all mask, selection and layer based tasks to external editors. Personally, I used to swear by curves, but haven't really touched them in PS for a year since shooting more RAW and learning how to use the shadow/highlight adjustment properly. Sometimes for overall colour for JPEGs, but that bit can be done just as well in levels.
My workflow isn't particularly typical, but here goes.
Type of photography - stitched panoramas as a professional, plus general snapshots/nature/landscape as hobby. Single user with no network storage.
Currently I use a very organised folder structure in the Finder, along with aliases in DragThing docks for easy access to final stitched files, all with their own unique ID. RAW conversions are done in ACR/PSCS2, or Bibble if I'm in a hurry on the laptop. About 40% of the panos are shot in RAW, 40% are bracketed JPEG and the remaining 20% are 'single' JPEG. The panoramas go through quite a lot of post-processing in PS using a whole series of actions and AppleScripts.
I'm expecting my workflow to look something like this:
1) Download directly into Aperture, possibly with added help from Automator/Applescript when it comes to proper date-based names.
2) Divide download into a new album for each panorama.
2a) If it is a people pano there will be quite a lot of duplicate shots for each panohead position - make a stack for each position and choose picks - this bit will speed things up enormously by itself. Reorder stacks to fit correct order of images going around the scene.
3) Export to TIFF (sometimes JPEG) and stitch using PTMac (sometimes Realviz Stitcher). Oh, and any people who think Aperture is limited, buggy and bad value should go and look at Stitcher - it costs the same, has a far more limited feature set, is on version 5 and by comparison makes Aperture look bug-free.
4) Bring stitched panorama into Photoshop to adjust seams through layers if needed, flatten, final tone adjustments (usually using shadow/highlight), possibly some colour tweaks, sharpen. For bracketed shots I will blend together the three exposures at this point using a custom action - this kind of thing is unlikely ever to make it to Aperture.
5) Bring final print-ready file into Aperture for cataloguing/backup.
5a) If file is too big for Aperture, make a smaller version for cataloguing and store original file in Finder. This gives me a good file for 90% of purposes, with the huge file available with a bit more work.
Too big? I've found that Aperture gets sluggish with files over 18-20,000 pixels wide, and chokes totally somewhere between 25,000 and 32,000 pixels wide - 'image format unsupported'.
To summarise - organise and convert in Aperture, stitch in specialist software, do PS-specific stuff then bring final image back in to join the source images.
Ian