Does anyone elses viewer still turn black?

Question

Anyone? Am I the last person having this problem? When I upgraded to 1.5.2 a little while back it stopped. But it's come back with a vengance today. I can't work for more the half an hour before the dreaded black viewer rears its ugly head. After bringing a very small group of files (about 40) and doing a variety of editing task (crop, WB, exposure, highlight and shadow, etc.) it started giving problems. I've quit and restarted Aperture and rebooted my MAC. I don't even have a particulary large library yet, only about 2k files. I'm shooting a Canon 5D, mostly 12mp RAW format.
I've been all over this discussion group reading thread after thread about this issue and never found a definitive answer to the problem. Did I miss it? If so, please point me to it before I loose my mind. The only thing that I saw in common with some of the threads was a few people mentioned that they were doing a managed workflow (as am I). None of the machine configurations were identical. Could there be a difference in how Aperture operates when handling a managed as opposed to referenced workflow?
If it does turn out to be the graphics card that Aperture forced me buy that would really tick me off, since it's on Apples list of compatible cards.
Anyone else?
Any insight would be great, thanks.
Mike
Mac G5 1.8 Single Processor Mac OS X (10.4.8) 3 gig RAM, Aperture 1.5.2, ATI 9800 Pro 256meg

Answer 1

Mike I myself kinda work with the same set-up as you do and I know of the problem you speak of. I rarely have had that problem anymore but only because I've learned of a few ways to avoid it by reading some of the previous post of other people experience. One thing I learned was when I use the Highlights / Shadows, or Crop photos, it usually begins to start making my photos go completely black. So I use those edit options till the end of my workflow. I'm not a professional photographer but I do love to take all of my photos in RAW. Also I edit in Aperture in Maximize Viewer mode instead of full screen which I feel helps. I scroll the divider from the image itself and thumbnail views so the Aperture windows is divided nearly in half. I've realized the smaller the Image I am editing is in the Viewer, the faster Aperture responds without any delays. Once I am done with editing I will then inspect them in full screen if needed.
Only after all my adjustments are made will I then begin to Crop the photos if needed, with the same Maximize Viewer Mode. Only at this point do I sometimes begin to experience the black out of Images. I usually just quit Aperture and come back later to Crop images as I edit photos for myself, not for business purposes. . I hope this helps and I hope I made sense it is 3:15 am here and I am tired but I know what your going through and wanted to offer help. Like I said most of this info I found by searching the forums from other people with similar experiences. With the way I work in Aperture lately following what I mentioned It doesnt really get on my nerves anymore with the blackouts as before cause I've learned to work with Aperture since I do not have the best Hard Core Mac set-up.
Thanks,
Tony