Expecting Aperture Tomorrow, Queries...

Heya folks, im expecting my copy of Aperture 2 tomorrow, and just had a few queries before i open it. I bought it to use as better way of organizing my images, and a editor, for things like increasing or decreasing the size of an image, increasing resolution etc. Are these things possible? or do i need to return it and get Photoshop?
Cheers.
Rowan

rowan57 wrote:
A quick query folks, in Aperture i dont get the option to quit. i.e. i dont get the little red x top left, its greyed out, im not carrying out any processes, and i have to quit manually by right clicking in the dock.
Any ideas?
Just a side note... I believe you should get used to using COMMAND-Q to close programs, not clicking on the red X. As noted earlier, the red X just closes the window and doesn't necessarily end the program. Some do end this way, but most don't.
Nothing critical... just pointing out something you might not be aware of.

Similar Messages

Aperture tomorrow's application available today

On these boards there seems to be a lot of complaints regarding the performance of Aperture. I think a lot of it is due to the fact that people do not realize how ahead of its time the application really is. Aperture is the fist imaging application to leverage the power of a graphics card to perform its RAW conversion and image processing. In fact it is surprising that no one has done this as yet.
Image processing is one of the few computational tasks that lends itself to highly parallel processing ie; the image can be broken up into small pieces, each piece processed individually and the recombined for the final result. Not surprisingly graphics cards are highly optimized for this type of processing with each card being able to process several of these little pieces simultaneously. The number of pieces that a card can process is defined by the number of “pixel pipelines” the card has. The fastest card to date the ATI X1900 has 48 of these pixels pipelines compared to the hot card last year at this time the 9800 Pro which only has 8 pixel pipelines. If this processing was not done by the graphics card the maximum number of simultaneous processes would be 2 on a dual core or perhaps 4 on a quad.
As a result of leveraging the power of the graphics card Aperture is able to do RAW conversion and image processing in Real Time. This is a quantum leap in image processing. All the other applications allow you to make approximate adjustments on a low-res version or on a portion of the image. Once you have picked the adjustment the application then goes off and processes the whole image at full resolution while you wait. Aperture does the whole image, at full resolution in Real Time.
The other major change is that with such fast processing Aperture is able to make all adjustments to the original RAW image. There is never any destructive processing on the image. Eg. Prior to Aperture one of the golden rules was always perform sharpening last. This was due to the fact that sharpening is destructive to the image and if you wanted to make a change after sharpening you would have to hope that you had saved the version prior so that you could go back. With Aperture all these rules are out the window. You can sharpen first, then adjust shadow highlight and then exposure as all adjustments are recalculated from the original RAW each time a change is made…in Real Time. Sharpening is not the only destructive process that is done to an image. In Photoshop you can use ‘Adjustment layers’ for some changes that are non destructive but any change that is not available as an ‘adjustment layer’ you can assume is destructive.
Prior to Aperture besides the odd game there really were no applications that took advantage of the processing power of the graphics card. As a result, in general, Macs were equipped with relatively low end video cards. The chart below shows the approximate performance of some common video cards. All performance numbers are from PC testing and are only approximates as not all on same motherboard.
Card...................Memory................Pixel................3DMark 2005
......................Bandwidth (GB).........Pipelines ..........1024 x 768 (Approx)
9600............... 6.4...............................4....................1800
6600(LE)...........16.............................. 8.....................2000
6600GT............16...............................8.....................3000
9800Pro ...........21.............................. 8.....................2600
X1600..............12...............................12...................5000
X800XT.............32.............................16....................6000
X1800XT...........48.............................16....................8000
7800GT.............38.............................20....................7000
X1900.................?..............................48..................10000
As can be seen the standard card that Apple provides even in the PowerMac G5 the 6600 is relatively low end. However it appears things are changing as the new Intel iMacs (consumer grade machines) have the X1600 which is no slouch.
The other thing to note is that last year this time the hottest cards were the 6600GT and the 9800Pro. As can be seen in only 1 year their performance has been eclipsed. We can assume that ATI and NVIDIA will keep on pushing the envelope which will result in cards getting not only faster but cheaper. Currently the biggest demand for these high end cards is PC gamers, 3D animation and some CAD, however with the release of Vista the demand should greatly increase as the minimum recommended card for the full Aero experience is high end with at least 512MB. The increase in card production for Vista should greatly assist in driving down prices. At least we can be thankful to uncle Bill for one thing
As we can see Apple is poised with an application that takes advantage of the cutting edge in technology. So while it may seem a lot today to spend $300 to purchase an Aperture optimum card if you hold on that same card will be $200 in six months and probably $100 in a year. Also in a year should you feel you need a boost in Aperture performance you do not need to purchase a whole new computer. Simply an upgrade to the latest video card should result in a significant performance increase.
While Aperture is the first application to see graphic card based optimization I would not be surprised to see other applications following suit. My guess is if not Lightroom or CS3, CS4 will have at least some filters graphics card optimized. I am also sure this same technology will be used in Final Cut to make more transitions real time.
Comments welcome.

<...>
Let's take a specific example. Open a 12MB Canon 5D
RAW file in both applications and apply Shadows &
Highlights, then immediately scroll around the image
fully zoomed to see the effects (check for noise,
etc.). This is a fairly typical digital darkroom
task that works fine in Photoshop after the initial
few-second hit while it computes the final image.
Smooth scrolling after that. Aperture? A spinning
beachball o' death -- for 90+ percent of current
users. This is NOT the "application of the future",
but rather the "doorstop of today".
Not for me, and I have an older computer.
To more exactly recreate your scenario I downloaded a 5D RAW from here:
http://www.jirvana.com/rawlarge/canon5d
And used that. Granted both Shadows/Highlights were a bit jumpier than I normally see (as I work with imported TIFF files) as was scrolling - but not once did I see the beachball at all.
Lightroom by comparison (same file) felt a little faster adjusting, but it's kind of a pointless comparison since it also decreased the image resolution by a factor of four while doing so making live preview less useful as a feature since I had to wait for the image to clear up before I could really see what happened. Scrolling was smoother but still jerky.
Look down there at my specs and tell me they are so unreasonable to be working with a really large RAW file. I don't even think I'm in that upper 10% of Mac users right now.
And exactly which piece of information from Apple was
supposed to make it possible for people to stand a
chance at "realizing" this? Oh, that's right, those
"recommended" hardware specs. How silly of them to
trust the literature and the box.
I would say however the recommendations fail mostly for the 6600 - as I said some people are happy with Aperture on a 12" TiBooks. Some people like you are suffering using Aperture on a fairly powerful computer while at the same time some people struggle to find cracks so that the can install and use Aperture on computers that are below even the minimum specs, so it's a hard thing to say what should be on the list and what shouldn't since people buy the software for different needs.
<...>
For Quake 4, yes. For what Aperture's doing? No
freakin' way. I've done what Aperture's (or Core
Image, depending on how they broke it out) doing with
SIMD instructions and it works just fine.
You are underestimating what is going on there, and Aperture is trying to do it through a general purpose API, not hand tuned assembly. I am pretty sure there are some inefficiencies in all the layers there which will get baked off over time, Aperture is really the first app to make heavy use of Core Image.
Why should Aperture not suffer as greatly at the
hands
of a less dedicated processor?
My point exactly, thanks!
?? - I was actually saying that Aperture would downgrade just as much running on the CPU only as a video-card dependent game would, as it is equally dependent on the specialized features of the video card to perform well.
Have you ever heard about newer video cards
removing features?
Yes.
Not to the extent that API's cannot work around it. I'll admit that was hastily penned.
<...>
It'll suffer if Core Image has to start emulating
things.
So give us an example of something Core Image is doing that may have to be emulated in the future?
Although you walk a fine line complaining the CPU can easily do the same work while at the same time complaining that API performance will downgrade if the API has to switch to use the CPU...
It's not doing that in the case of the 6600 card.
Perhaps its speed-detection routines need
recalibration?
I think you'd see Aperture run an order of magnitude slower by running using only the CPU instead of the GPU.
Actually I think you could even test it. There may be debugging features in the dev kit (perhaps even the same profiler tools you were using) that let you disable use of the GPU by CoreImage and see how well it works.
<...>
Hmm. How big are your RAW files? Shadows &
Highlights is the worst one on the 6600 -- delays are
in the TENS of seconds. This is especially
problematic when trying to scroll around within an
image.
As I said I don't even see a beachball on the 5D files, it's just a little jerky. Normally I work with TIFF files directly which I'll grant are faster than working with RAW.
Any my card is roughly half again as slow as the x800XT card according to the only Core Image tests I've seen on both cards. I think I could say that working with 5D files using a x800XT would in fact be pretty reasonable.
I'm not sure how to note that some power users may
be not be
happy with some cards while other users will
Given this is a "professional" application, who
exactly would be a NON-power user? And trust me,
unless you do ZERO adjustments in Aperture you will
eventually be "unhappy" (understatement of the year)
with the performance on a 6600 card.
Actually I think the people using out-of-spec laptops (or perhaps any laptops) are using it for comparison features more than adjustments, until they get back to a desktop. For that use it would work well even with fairly poor video cards.
Not everyone uses Aperture for the same things.
I do think that card might be there just because
it's shipping
with the Powermacs
Oh, well, that makes it okay to mislead customers
then.
You seem to have missed how that was a critique on my part. I didn't say it was right, just what I thought might be going on there.
On the other hand as we noted your card should behave about as well as my card, I really don't understand what is going on there unless the 6600 drivers and/or CoreImage support is really, really poor.
<...>
But MY point (and the point of many disappointed
Aperture customers) is that HIS point is completely
specious and irrelevant. While Apple's goals are to
be lauded, and even appreciated in a "think tank"
type environment, they chose to unlease this product
upon WORKING PROFESSIONALS. They made promises and
created high expectations. They failed to fulfill
some very critical ones. That is ALL that matters
right now to most people.
<...>
I don't see your point as fully valid because it IS working for many people today, yes it's a subset of the Apple community but it's not as if everyone was let down. In your case you obviosuly were, but in other cases people got what they expected. I did. After seeing the previews I got exactly the software I was expecting.
Those defending Apple are blinded to seeing or even
acknowledging this point, much less conceding it.
Problems cannot be fixed until they are acknowledged
and Apple fan boys (not saying you are one!)
attacking people on for being unsatisfied with
Aperture and finding it unusable for one reason or
another are not helping the situation.
I sympathise with people in your situation, where you have a computer that really should be capible of running the software at full tilt but cannot.
However many such people don't just vent and move on. They must come and post EVERY time someone actually says they like the software. After about ten or twenty of the same comlaints for the same user, I have to say - we get the point. It's obvious the software is doing you no good. Get a refund, I think anyone who complains loudly enough to Apple can do so though they don't make it easy.
I don't know if that is the case for you as I don't really follow posting history. But I would say it's perfectly valid to correct posters that over-generalize problems and make people think that ALL users suffer from them when they do not. I only post corrections when I see that to be the case - if people want to complain about specific setups that's perfectly valid and helpful to potential purchasers. What is not helpful is making an x800XT user stay away from the software thinking the experience is going to be a nightmare when in fact it would be far better for them.
Similarly, telling these upset customers "See, you
just need to ignore your pain and appreciate how
GRAND AND WONDERFUL Apple is for "seeing" the future!
All hail Apple!" is also pointless. It may be
informative, but it doesn't take away any of the
sting and it doesn't get them a refund and (worst of
all) doesn't suddenly make Aperture usable.
It's not saying that at all. It's just saying that Apple put a lot of thought into the software and is really leaning heavily on some leading edge technology, so give them some slack and recognize that in just a year or two the performance concerns will not really be there for newer users and possibly for some older ones. It may not help now but it's pointing out these problems are more short-lived than they would appear, and that the approach is sound (which I still think it is). Some people seem to think that Aperture performance problems are simply unsoluable, and the original post addresses that.
<...>
Well, hopefully the PCI-X cards come soon. In the
meantime I'll just continue to disagree with the
assertion that the 6600 is a "low-end" card. I run
some REALLY SOPHISTICATED software on that card on my
Windows PC. There's no excuse why it can't handle
something like Aperture, which is CHILD'S PLAY by
comparison.
<...>
I'm not saying low-end either, more like mid-range. I consider my Radeon 9800 to be bit dated at this point as well and the 6600 is around the same level of performance.
I'm not saying they aren't. The wrong track they're
on is being lazy writing software -- the super-wazoo
card is NOT NECESSARY for Aperture. Heck, you even
say yourself that your lowly old ATI video card is
running it in realtime. I think the developers just
didn't test the application with the 6600 (and
probably several other cards).
I do wonder if that is the case (6600 testing). However I don't think they are being lazy exactly - I think they simply focused more effort in getting the Core Image API the way they wanted it and less on tuning actual cards.
Given the timeframe of software release I'll bet most of the developers were working with Quad G5's though, not the newer dual-core models... probably rectified by now although perhaps they just all jumped to prototype Intel Powermacs (or whatever they will be).
This is a shame,
since that's what they sell as the default in
Powermacs. On a positive note, this is why I expect
this problem to be fixed. Now that developers are
aware of the performance issues on the 6600, plus the
fact that they've sold a lot of them, leads me to
believe (hope) my performance issues will melt away
(like butter, even!) with the next point release.
Please, please, please...
I have the same hope. You'd think it would be a focus of Aperture though since as you say that card is default on all new Powermacs and they would seemingly want the software to shine there.
I wonder how much they are reliant on the nVidia driver performing well though, to that extent their hands may be somewhat tied.
<...>
So how about giving the application away for free
until it's good enough to be sold at retail? Why
does everybody cut Apple slack on this when it's an
EXPENSIVE and PROFESSIONAL application? Are those
same apologists as forgiving when they have to wait 6
months for updates to their favorite game to make it
playable? Of course not. So why are they THAT
demanding on a $40 application and yet so forgiving
on a $500 too? It makes absolutely no sense to me.
<...>
But the application is ready for prime time for some users. Some of the early bugs were glaring to be sure but it's definitely a very solid applciation at this point, especially when you look at Lightroom and use the two apps for any length of time. Aperture really is a finished product with a fair amount of polish to it when you look at all the little things it handles well and the detail that has gone into it.
That's the only option available to some people --
anyone with a PCI-X video card, for example. The
more interesting question is why do others choose to
attack these customers and defend Apple? Who screwed
who here, for goodness sake? Some people really need
to back off on their koolaid intake...
My goal is simply to clarify on what confgurations people may see problems - and where they may not.

Queries in advance of Infinity installation tomorr...

Received BT Home Hub 3 today for Infinity installation tomorrow (expected) and posing queries in advance:-
1)      What is on the BT Infinity CD?
2)      Are all the current modems being supplied by BT the same or are there variations?
3)      Will micro filters still be needed around the house?
4)      What is the Wireless pin number used for?
5)      What is the Admin password used for?

wunay wrote:
Received BT Home Hub 3 today for Infinity installation tomorrow (expected) and posing queries in advance:-
1)      What is on the BT Infinity CD?
It has a lot of rubbish to slow down your broadband connection/pc.
2)      Are all the current modems being supplied by BT the same or are there variations?
They're are two modems that they use which are HG612 and ECI, the one given to you will normally match the manufacturer of the cabinet. There is a 3rd but can't remember what it's called and it's hardly used anyway I believe...
3)      Will micro filters still be needed around the house?
No, he will install a filter on to your master socket.
4)      What is the Wireless pin number used for?
Not sure, never needed it as of yet.
5)      What is the Admin password used for?
Used to access your HomeHub settings, which you can see here.
If this helped you please click the Star beside my name.
If this answered your question please click "Mark as Accepted Solution" below.

Aperture 3.1.1 ignores color settings in Canon 7D .CR2 Raw files

hi there!
i have a problem with the import of pictures taken with my canon 7d.
when i take pictures using color presets e.g. black/white, aperture ignores those completely during import. even if i open them in preview.app the settings are not applied. if i open the same picture in photoshop cs4 it will be displayed correctly in b/w.
neither the updated of the raw processing (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3946) nor the 3.6 raw update solved this problem for me.
how can i fix this?
thanks,
paul

hmm, this behaviour of aperture is a bit odd.
i understand the approach but if i shot a few thousand images on a journey, i don't remember afterwards, which image was supposed to be b/w. this leads to a situation where i +have to post-process+ images. i would expect aperture asking me if i want to keep attached color settings instead of ignoring them!
and, yes, i'm sure that this image is a raw. photoshop interprets the color settings correctly.

New photographer, new camera, no support in Aperture: Have you been there?

So I can't ask when support for the EOS 450D (Canon EOS Rebel XSi) might mystically appear, because nobody ever talks about product release dates, I guess.
So let me ask the opposite question - how often have updates happened in the past? Every month? Every two months? Every six? Are they coming more frequently? If you had an unsupported camera, how long did you have to wait?
And when was the last update?
I went out and bought Aperture and the new XSi, and it never even crossed my mind to ask if it was a supported combination - I chose the camera based on the features I needed, and just assumed that Aperture would work with it.
I'm feeling a wee bit stupid, and a wee bit sore about it, especially since, par for course, I guess, it looks like it works just fine with Adobe's products.
And does anyone have any recommendations for what to do in the meantime? For now I'm using Aperture to pull in the photos, and then pulling stuff into Photomatix to do HDR (I have some lovely dreamy hallucination that maybe someday Photomatix will add a plugin for Aperture to the mix, but I guess it's not really that good of a UI fit)...
I suppose I could use hot folders to import via a tool which does the conversion externally, in the meantime - can anyone recommend what tools might be a good fit?
Ah well.

Adsy wrote:
The XSi (450D) is brand new. Adobe only just started supporting it a week or so ago. I expect Aperture will do so in the not too distant future.
In the meantime, you can use Adobe's free DNG converter program to convert the RAWs to DNG which can be imported into Aperture and work fine. The DNGs are still RAW, just a different format which Aperture can understand.
Agreed, but note that DNG is usually a "filter" of sorts to the true original RAW data, as is Aperture. Let's hope that Apple does indeed reduce the wait time for Aperture/RAW support for your camera. You may want to experiment with your camera vendor's free RAW converter as well.
Good luck!
-Allen Wicks

Aperture library suddenly won't open

OK, I've been putting off updating to the latest version of Aperture (3.4.3) because I had a sort of premonition about something bad happening to my library. But I finally got around to doing the upgrade, having felt this version had been around long enough to be stable. Big mistake. It worked OK initially, but suddenly today won't open my library, no matter what I do.
When I launch Aperture, it opens a little window with a spinning marker in it and the message "Opening Aperture Library". This is normal prior to the main window opening, but usually I see it for no more than a second or so. Now, it's all I see; the main window never appears.
Oddly, Apertur's menu structure seems to work OK while this 'loading' window is open. I can, for example, open the Activity window. However, it contains no useful information to say what's going on; the entries are just blank in this window. Also, I can quit Aperture normally (whereupon it says 'updating previews' as usual).
I've tried all three of the database-reparing options that Aperture offers if you hold down Option-Command when starting: repair permissions, repair database, rebuild database. In all three cases, it goes through the repair process and then just reverts to showing the little 'opening library' window and nothing has improved.
The upgrade to version 3.4.3 apparently went OK the other day, and I've opened and quit the software a few times since I upgraded it, and I thought everything was fine. The one thing that wasn't quite right (and I wonder if this has somethnig to do with my problem now) was Photo Stream. It didn't seem to be working properly. If I clicked the Photo Stream entry in the list at the left of the window, what I saw was just the 'welcome' message with buttons below it to sign in or turn off the service ("No, thanks" button). I didn't see any actual Photo Stream content. In this window, however, it *did* say that I was signed in with my usual Apple ID, so it wasn't very clear to me whether it was OK or not.
There's a photo I took on my iPhone which I was expecting Aperture 3.4.3 to download from Photo Stream, but it never did. I.e. just one shot that failed to download; all the previous ones had been downloaded by my previous version of Aperture. I couldn't see why the missing picture was failing to download, so I tried turning Photo Stream off and on again from within Aperture. I'm really not sure whether this worked or not; there didn't seem to be any meaningful feedback from the software.
Anyway, after having tried to launch Aperture today (and failed), I checked System Preferences and found that Photo Stream was turned off. So I turned it on again. Unfortunately it makes no difference: Aperture still won't load its library at all now.
I have tried all of following:
1. Rebooting my Mac
2. Verifying the disk contaning my Aperture library (it was fine)
3. All three of Aperture's database-repair options
4. Turning Photo Stream on in System Preferences
...and nothing makes any difference. Aperture simply will not open my library but just sits there, twiddling its spinner.
NB My library still appears to be OK, in that I can access its contents from other software successfully using the media browser.
What I haven't yet attempted is to create a blank new library and import my existing library into it. Failing any better ideas I'll try that next, but it's going to be a big operation that will take a lot of time and disk space, so I'd like to see if there are any better things to try first.
I must say I'm very disappointed that Aperture can apparently break so easily. I haven't lost any actual pictures because I'm paranoid and keep a separate copy of all my shots just in the Finder, external to any management software. But I've lost access to lots of photo books I've created over the years and various other resources, not to mention all the editing work I've done on thousands of shots within Aperture (which I haven't retained separately).
This is supposed to be professional level software. How can it seriously (a) break this easily and (b) not be able to retrieve itself via its database repair options?I'm very disappointed.

Thanks for that very helpful reply. I've followed your instructions and done some further digging too.
To answer your three points, first of all:
1. No, I haven't imported any images since upgrading my Aperture library for version 4.3.4; I did move photos between projects a couple of times, but mostly I just checked that everything appeared OK after the upgrade and tried to work out why PhotoStream didn't seem to be working properly.
2. I've attempted to create a new Aperture library. This didn't work! A library gets created on disk, but attempting to open it produces the same endless spinner as the main library.
3. I switched to a spare user account (a blank one called 'test', just as the system created it) and tried to launch Aperture and create a new library there. Same result: library is created but won't load in.
This is very strange, because I'm not aware of having changed anything substantial on my system recently. No new software that installed anything as a login item, system service or background process etc. that I'm aware of. (I'm actually quite wary of such software, and don't have much of it on my system.) The only substantial thing that I know has changed since I last successfully launched Aperture is the year, to 2013! And I hardly think that's the cause...!
I'm wondering if Aperture itself has become corrupted somehow, and whether I should trash it and reinstall it. But that's rather a pain because I've got the DVD version, not the one from the Mac App Store. Besides, I'm not sure what remnants it leaves on the system (sandbox files etc.).
I've verified my startup disk, on which Aperture resides, and repaired permissions, and no error was reported (nor did many permissions need to be fixed).
Now, the only other possible explanation I can come up with is that startup is being prevented by a misbehaving PhotoStream process, as I've just discovered that I'm having endless crashes from PhotoStreamAgent, as reported in Console. I'm getting the same series of messages popping up every few seconds:
01/01/2013 21:58:51.649 xpcd[4676]: PhotoStreamAgent[5540]: registration request failed: (0x11, 0x0) The file “com.apple.iLifeAssetManagement.agent.plist” couldn’t be saved in the folder “Preferences” because a file with the same name already exists.
01/01/2013 21:58:52.431 com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[473]: (com.apple.photostream-agent[5540]) Job appears to have crashed: Illegal instruction: 4
01/01/2013 21:58:52.431 com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[473]: (com.apple.photostream-agent) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
01/01/2013 21:58:52.615 ReportCrash[5531]: Saved crash report for PhotoStreamAgent[5540] version 2.7 (40.34) to /Users/rghallas/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/PhotoStreamAgent_2013-01-01-2158 52_Richard-Hallass-Mac-Pro.crash
01/01/2013 21:58:52.620 ReportCrash[5531]: Removing excessive log: file://localhost/Users/rghallas/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/PhotoStreamAgent _2013-01-01-215516_Richard-Hallass-Mac-Pro.crash
This is just repeating every 10 seconds, as suggested by the 'Will start in 10 seconds' message. Starts; crashes; loop.
Now, I've searched for a file called "com.apple.iLifeAssetManagement.agent.plist" and have found three instances: one each in the following places:
Aperture:
/Users/rghallas/Library/Containers/com.apple.Aperture/Data/Library/Preferences/c om.apple.iLifeAssetManagement.agent.plist
PhotoStream Agent:
/Users/rghallas/Library/Containers/com.apple.photostream-agent/Data/Library/Pref erences/com.apple.iLifeAssetManagement.agent.plist
iPhoto:
/Users/rghallas/Library/Containers/com.apple.iPhoto/Data/Library/Preferences/com .apple.iLifeAssetManagement.agent.plist
In all three cases, the file appears to be an alias that points to itself (i.e. original path is the same as the alias's path in each case). That seems weird but I hope it's right, given that it applies to all three (and the files alongside these plists in the folders in which they reside).
Anyway, the logs unfortunately don't make it clear exactly *which* Preferences folder is being referred to, and hence which com.apple.iLifeAssetManagement.agent.plist file is causing a problem. I imagine it's the one associated with PhotoStream Agent, since it's the Agent that's producing the ongoing crash reports. But either way I don't know what to do about it. I suppose I could try trashing this particular plist file, but I'm reluctant to do so as I don't want to break anything further.
NB Aperture itself doesn't appear to output any log messages to say what's happening while it's failing to load its library.

LR vs. Aperture

I've just started playing with the demo that is now available and I'm looking for reviews/and or opinions on LR vs. Aperture.
I posted in an older thread how I'm considering LR and is there any conversion software. For now the easiest approach for me (since I'm sill playing with it) is just export the masters out of aperture.
Here's some things I'm wondering if LR has
What I like about aperture
1. Stacks
2. easy rating system (I type 1, 2,3 etcs and the image is rated with 1 star, 2 stars, 3 stars etc.)
3. Smart albums.
4. lift & stamp tools
I'm not sure which package does a better job on sharpening and/or exposure. I use the lift & stamp tools quite a lot and I've not been able to mimc its ease of use in LR. I generally set the WB to a specific setting for a group of shots and its easy to just keep stamping in aperture. I don't know if there's any short cuts with LR, but I have to chose each image and then click on paste, a little more cumbersome.

There are a lot of Adobe insiders/loyalists on this board, so don't expect Aperture to get much love. I'll try to give a more balanced reaction, although bear in mind that as I'm not an Adobe insider, I've only been using the v1.0 Lightroom release since yesterday.
What I think you'll find is that overall, both programs offer ways to accomplish the same things. They both give you good tools for examining, comparing, and rating images. Both of them now let you make stacks and work with your existing file structure (Lightroom betas had no stacking, old versions of Aperture couldn't handle files in place.) You may find you prefer one way or the other, but you can get most jobs done in both. For example, Aperture has 'albums' and Lightroom has 'collections' -- they're a bit different from each other and each implementation has some minor advantages over the other, but both give you ways of arbitrarily grouping your images into various sets.
Of the two, Aperture probably will be a bit more daunting at first (unless you've previously used another Apple pro app such as Final Cut) because a lot of its power features are most easily invoked by keyboard shortcuts. Once you've used it enough to learn the shortcuts you need most, it's very, very slick and you can work quickly. Lightroom looks a bit more cluttered but also is a bit more approachable at first glance because most of its features have visible interface elements (although there are still a lot of shortcuts to speed things up.) Again, you'll probably prefer one interface over the other, but you can get your work done with either one.
Aperture's hardware requirements are somewhat taxing, especially for older machines -- although the latest 1.5.2 release seems better, and it should run fine on any current-model Mac. At the entry level, Lightroom seems to run better on lower-end machines -- although my own (limited) experience is that once you get a few thousand images in the database, that advantage disappears. Again, it'll probably come down to cases -- some operations will seem snappier on one than another, and which you prefer depends on which operations are the most important to you.
Aperture still offers a few key features that aren't available in the v1.0 release of Lightroom. Dual monitor support is one (although you won't care about that if you don't have two monitors.) I still think Aperture's loupe
tool is more useful than Lightroom's loupe
view. And if you often deal with groups of images (in layouts, for example) and need an easy, freeform way to see which ones work best together, Aperture's lightbox is a very intuitive way to do it. Lightroom's synchro-scrolling compare view (new in v1.0) is very, very nice and much appreciated, but doesn't do quite the same thing -- it's great for picking which image of three is best, but doesn't help with "how does this one look next to these two?" decisions.
On the other hand, I personally feel that Lightroom has better exposure controls, and that its printing options are more flexible and more useful (although Aperture's ability to generate and order presentation books is appealing; the books are beautiful, if a bit pricey.)
So I suspect that for most people, the choice will come down to individual "must have" or "can't stand" features. For example, I preferred just about everything about Aperture - the interface, the slick shortcuts, the easy ability to move editing projects from one machine to another - but its limited camera support was a deal-breaker for me. I'm a heavy user of an Epson R-D 1 camera, and there's just no way to get Aperture to recognize its raw files.
Apple rolls its own highly-optimized conversion code for the cameras it
does support, which is nice -- but that also means Apple probably never will be as responsive in adding support for new camera models as Adobe can be (Adobe has more incentive, since its libraries support not only for Lightroom but Photoshop, ACR, and Bridge.)
It's great that both programs offer 30-day trial versions, and they'll be similarly priced once Lightroom's introductory price goes away. So I think the only way to find out which is "better" is to give both trial versions a real workout, and see which one feels better to you. It's kind of like choosing Canon vs. Nikon -- they'll both get good shots, but one is going to feel better to you than the other.

Aperture (1.1 & 1.0.1) adjustments are chunky and slow

I know there are other threads on "performance is slow" and 1.1 success/failure opinions, but really wanted to just talk specifics here.
I wanted to hold my powder a bit until I had a chance to work the tools a little, and didn't want to post based on just 1.0.1. Anyway, you can see my specs below, I am running on a brand new G5 dual (core)-2.3Ghz, 4.5GB RAM, Nvidia 7800GT video. The images I am working with are roughly 8-9MB CR2 RAW files from a Canon 20D.
I can say definitively that overall Aperture performance is not good. Here's some examples:
1) RAW image loading: when I click between images, it takes about 3 seconds to load each image.
2) Rotation tool: unbelievably chunky. When I first put the rotation tool over an image and move the tool, it takes anywhere from 2-4 seconds before the image responds by rotating. After the image starts to rotate, moving the tool further results in intermittent smooth rotation and 1 second response time, making for a chunky, jumpy rotation.
3) Exposure, Saturation, Brightness, and Contrast sliders: drag the slider, it takes anywhere from 1-3 seconds before the slider responds and catches up with the mouse. After the initial slider movement, if you still have the mouse pressed, additional slider movement is smooth.
4) Crop tool bounding box: intermittent smooth drag/delayed response on changing the bounding box size.
5) Loupe tool: mostly smooth, but occasionally just stops and hangs for several seconds, then jumps to where the mouse is.
I've got brand new hardware, significant processing power, memory, and the on the top end of video card. I have dual SATA-250 drives underneath me, which aren't even half full, so I/O should be good.
Given that 1.1 is the improved-performance update, and I'm fairly tapped on hardware, I don't know how to conclude anything other than Aperture doesn't perform all that well. Am I missing something?
I would appreciate the experience others are having on their hardware -- please no "it performs well for me" responses. I appreciate your subjective opinion, but I don't really know what that means unless you can give feedback on the amount of time for tools to respond.
Thanks,
Brad

1) RAW image loading: when I click between images, it takes about 3 seconds to load each image.
How long does Photoshop take to load the same image? Come on now, it take 3 seconds or longer. Do you expect Aperture to preload your image? I don't get the 'instant' loading complaint when any program takes time to load a large file. 10D 6mp loading is one second. 5D 12mb files 3sec. Your expectations should be the same in Aperture or PS.
2) Rotation tool: unbelievably chunky. When I first put the rotation tool over an image and move the tool, it takes anywhere from 2-4 seconds before the image responds by rotating. After the image starts to rotate, moving the tool further results in intermittent smooth rotation and 1 second response time, making for a chunky, jumpy rotation.
This has depended on other programs open and what is going on in the background. We process only with Aperture open. Rendering takes power and time. That tool takes some skill because of a slight rendering time, but I can pretty much nail the rotation after using it for processing. Agree with the slight rendering/delay but it is not a huge concern. You can always go to the hud and rotate by numbers in increments.
3) Exposure, Saturation, Brightness, and Contrast sliders: drag the slider, it takes anywhere from 1-3 seconds before the slider responds and catches up with the mouse. After the initial slider movement, if you still have the mouse pressed, additional slider movement is smooth.
Again, click the arrow on the sliders. My sliders are real time, but I do prefer to use the arrow in the HUD and possible last adjust by slider. I know by number where I want the adjustment. That comes from experience. Aperture is wonderful for fine tuning. I suggest you go by numbers if the sliders are a bother.
4) Crop tool bounding box: intermittent smooth drag/delayed response on changing the bounding box size.
Smooth enough on our iMac?
<<<Am I missing something? >>>>
Patients for rendering times is what you are missing or so it seems?
The best thing for you is to not use the sliders until the last adjustment and use the arrow adjustments or type in your values. We have grown so used to instant reaction when a button is pushed. The brain says, hey, I clicked and I want it now. It was a frustration in 1.0 for us so we started using the arrows and just got used to that method. 1.1 is much faster and near real time but we are still using our learned arrow adjustments.

Can RAW images from Aperture library stored in an External HD?

I last night[I thought I did] stored projects from aperture library to an external Iomega Mac version HD.[Partitioned the Iomega into two One large225GB for Time Machine and small 125GB for just back up folders]
Then I have reinstalled my Mac OS.
Now I connect the HD to my Apple Mac Book Air and see the saved images on the external HD but not highlighted and not there for available to open in my Aperture Apps?
I also tried to import selectively the Aperture images from my Time Machine back up and that too failed.
I on opening the Aperture selected "Import photos form a Disk" but that failed too.
I have also saved to the same external HD some modified photos saves as JEPG and they open ok.
When I reinstalled the OS and registered in a different name, would that make any difference to importing Aperture projects saved on an external HD?
Can anybody suggest a way to open those Aperture project folders that I have stored on my External HD?
Regards

Projects are entirely maintained in the Aperture Library. You can use 'referenced masters', in which your masters don't reside inside the library (and the library merely keeps track of where you decided to keep them.)
When you import new photos, Aperture updates some information in the library so that it knows the photos exist, where they reside, what sort of changes you've made to them, etc. You can't just plop new images into an external folder and expect Aperture to notice them. Think of this as "formally introducing your photos to Aperture" -- via the import process. Aperture wont deal with any photo you haven't introduced to it.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the alarm bells and red flashing lights that went off as soon as I read you were keeping your photos on an external drive partitioned for Time Machine and backup folders. Bad bad bad.
There are two types of disks in the world: (1) Those that have failed, and (2) those that are going to fail. Sadly, even backup drives are not an exception to this rule.
Never keep the "working" copy of your data on the same physical drive as a "backup" copy of your data. When the drive fails (and someday it will) you'll just lose all your copies of your work -- so much for having a backup. Drives are very cheap these days. Just get another one and dedicate your backup disks just for backups.
As you have a MacBook Air (and thus only a single USB 2.0 port) you might want to look into "Network Attached Storage" (aka NAS). This way you don't have a tangled mess of a USB hub hanging off your Mac with several disk drives also hanging off the side of your Mac. The disks just live on the network - as though they're remote file servers. If the network is connected via Gigabit ethernet, the effective throughput to read/write those drives is about 3x faster than a locally attached USB 2.0 drive (no kidding!). You might think this is really expensive -- but you'd be surprised. I was checking prices at Other World Computing recently (an online store of products targeted to Mac owners) and noticed you can buy an empty NAS enclosure (meaning you buy the disk to go inside it) for as cheap as $25! An enclosure with 250GB disk pre-installed and Time-Machine compatible was about $120. To put this in perspective... I recently paid about $150 for a B+W Circular Polarizing filter. So all this technology costs less than one decent lens filter for my camera.

Aperture RAW Project to Facebook

Hi. I just got back from a trip and I decided to shoot in RAW (Nikon - NEF). I am going to place the photos in Aperture tomorrow. However, how do I go about uploading to Facebook from APerture? Do I need to go to JPEG first and upload that or will it automatically handle everything?
Thanks!

Aperture will automatically convert the photos to JPEG before uploading to Facebook. The Facebook exporter will take all selected photos from an album and upload them to a specific album on Facebook. You can then add photos whenever you want to the album in Aperture and it will automatically update the Facebook album.

Problem: textbox leave empty string("") instead of null

Hello, I have a problem with textboxes. By default, they always are initialized to null, but when I start entering and removing data from textboxes, many times they leave an empty string "" instead of null.
And, of course, it's not the same a null value as an empty string and thus, I haven't got the expected result in queries to database.
Thus, I always have to compare textbox values with "" and null. It's very tedious and not elegant solution. I would like to know if there is another way to get the values as null instead of empty strings.

Yes. Once you entered and remove the text it will evaluated as you told .
For ur case u can Try the condition as
if ( instance !=null && instance.length !=0)
be sure instance != null check b4 other wise u can get NullPointerException

Editing Plug In Workflow

This is a follow up to a previous question. Firstly i know it's not not possible to add new plug ins to the internal adjustments within aperture which is a shame.
So i've tried using an external plug in, specifically Magic Bullet Photo Looks because i use the video version as well and like the results.
However is it me, or just this plug in, or is plug in integration with aperture really lame? These are the issues i've encountered, if someone knows a way around or can tell me i'm wrong that would be great
- when you edit with a plug in a 14MB RAW file is first turned into an 80MB tiff file (and at 8 bit too)
- that generates a new master, and then that starts the adjustment workflow anew basically from an 8 bit source now.
- i make adjustments then leave the plug in
- if open the image again any information about those adjustments have gone, there doesn't seem to be any storage of meta information so i cannot tweak. Like wise i'd expect some of the aperture adjustments to happen before the plug in is applied because they're more to do with source RAW conversion.
In reality i'd expect a plug in filter to be applied within the adjustments chain. So that it's live and can be tweaked. I'd also expect aperture to be able to send a screen resolution preview to the plug in or at least the image data aperture is working with rather than create an intermediate huge file.
Is this just the way it is or am i doing something wrong (please!)
cheers
paul

Like wise i'd expect some of the aperture adjustments to happen before the plug in is applied because they're more to do with source RAW conversion
That's exactly how it works. When you send a file to an external editor or plugin Aperture creates a TIFF or PSD file with all your adjustments applied. You then work with this rendered file and save it back into Aperture with whatever plugin effect applied.
that generates a new master, and then that starts the adjustment workflow anew basically from an 8 bit source now.
Or 16-bit. This is a choice in preferences.
if open the image again any information about those adjustments have gone, there doesn't seem to be any storage of meta information so i cannot tweak
Not if you work with Photoshop. You can save layered PSD files and go back in to change things from Aperture.
In reality i'd expect a plug in filter to be applied within the adjustments chain
It would be great to keep everything non-destructive. But right now it's simply not possible. In any DAM.
I'd also expect aperture to be able to send a screen resolution preview to the plug in or at least the image data aperture is working with rather than create an intermediate huge file
If you send a screen resolution preview, you're working with a screen resolution preview - not good. And for Aperture to share its image data, third party apps would need to be able to understand it. What you see in Aperture isn't an image: it's a set of instructions within an xml file that are applied in realtime. This is not trivial. It's code, just like each app or plugin has its own code. It's not something that can easily be shared universally.
Your wishes are pretty much what we all wish. But it's not yet reality.

How to handle an unsupported RAW format (Canon EOS T2i/550D)

I just got the Canon EOS T2i Digital Rebel today. I wasn't expecting Aperture to support its RAW files yet and it doesn't. My plan is to shoot RAW + JPEG until RAW support arrives. I've noticed some strange things happening during import. At first only a few files showed up in the import window. Checking/unchecking the import duplicates box did nothing. Eventually somehow all the photos showed up. I couldn't tell you what I did that made any difference.
The camera writes separate CR2 and JPG files to the card. The first time I imported I set the RAW + JPEG Pairs setting to "Both (JPEG as Master)". For some reason only the CR2 was imported and as expected it showed the unsupported icon. I couldn't see any JPEGs. I did the import again and now all the files are there but the CR2 and JPEGs are not linked in any way. I guess I don't understand how this should work.
Does anyone have any experience with RAW+JPEG shooting?

On a retry, the import seems to be working correctly with RAW + JPEG pairs. The first time I tried this I was using an SD card formatted and used (with images on it) from a Canon EOS T1i. Maybe that was confusing Aperture.
I formatted the card with the T2i, reshot some images and re-imported with the setting of Both (JPEG as Master). The imported images have the "J" badge which means RAW + JPEG pairs with JPEG as master. If there was an "R" badge it means the RAW file is the master. When you right click the images there's a new menu entry for "Set RAW as master". Selecting that menu item shows the RAW file with the unsupported image icon.
Once Apple delivers RAW support for the T2i I can just select the "Set RAW as master" menu item to start using the RAW file.

Sap intv questions

Hi,
BW Guru's few questions below need answers.
1.wt type of issues do u handle in implementation and production support?
2.Tell me the procedure of process chains?
3.suppose 3 process chains r running if one got faieds then wt will u
do ?
4.does ODS stores only latest data?
5.by using Additive option cant it stroes historical data?
6.wt is diff b/w new data , active data,change log tables?
7.how do we activate an ods?
8.diff b/w update rule and transfer rule?
9.diff b/w uproutine and start routine?
10.what is structure why we use that?
11.variable types and processing types?
12.explain steps of generic extraction and LO?
13.wt is meant by line item dimension?
14.how we identify that this dim is a Line item dim?
15.wt is meant by Early delta initialization?
16.In ABAP from which tables have u done reports?
17.how do u gather requirements from user?
18.how many objects u have created and tell me tech names?
19.wt is the diff b/w diasplay attributes and navigational attribute?
20.how to create Infocube?
21.can we create function module in BW?

Hi Adrian,
Is there any documentation on the XML required to create your own
measures and filters at the universe level in a SAP BI universe?
[http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/boexir3/en/xi3_sap_olap_universes_en.pdf] has some guidelines.
SAP BW InfoCubes as data sources
- Remote InfoCube: While fully supported, building and deploying universes on remote InfoCubes is not recommended for ad-hoc query-, reporting-, and analysis-use scenarios. Such architecture is generally not expected to meet query performance expectations with interactive queries.
- MultiCubes and Multi-InfoProviders: Building and deploying a Business Objects universe on top of a MultiCube or Multi-InfoProvider is identical to building and deploying a universe on top of an InfoCube.
SAP BW Queries as recommended data sources
- Not all BW metadata features can be retrieved on an InfoCube level
- BW Queries offer a flexible extension to the data modeling environment.InfoCubes require more effort to change.
- BW Queries offer significant functionality to create customized data sources that meet end-user requirements.

Issues with limit/filter on outer join table in BQY

I'm converting a series of BQY's from Brio 6.6 to Hyperion 9.3. I have some questions about the "use ODBC outer join syntax on limits" option in the OCE. I sort of understand this option's purpose, but I don't completely understand the SQL I'm seeing. For example Brio 6.6 is generating the following SQL statement:
SELECT * FROM tblA AL1 LEFT OUTER JOIN tblB AL38 ON (AL38.ParentID=AL1.ChildID AND
AL38.Data='SomeData') WHERE ((NOT AL38.Action IS NULL))
Now, Hyperion 9.3 generated the SQL statement as follows:
SELECT * FROM tblA AL1 LEFT OUTER JOIN tblB AL38 ON (AL38.ParentID=AL1.ChildID AND
AL38.Data='SomeData') AND (NOT AL38.Response IS NULL))
My questions are:
1) Why isn't the "NOT AL38.Action IS NULL" statement included in the outer join in Brio? My limited understanding of the "use ODBC outer join syntax on limits" seems to indicate that it should end up there. I want the SQL to look like this, but I don't know why Brio generates this SQL.
2) How can I get Hyperion to generate the same SQL as Brio? And still use the OCE with "use ODBC outer join syntax on limits" selected?

Setting the Cardinality of Department > Employee role to OptionalOne
gives rise to cartesian join (which is a bigger issue).
Therefore, the Cardinality of Department > Employee role should remain as
OptionalMany (default).
This means, the outer join problem still remains unsolved. I have, therefore,
unmarked the above answer by me.
The question is - why has Report Builder been designed in such a way that the primary entity is always the child entity when attributes are selected from both parent and child entities?
Most people desire that all the rows of the parent entity be fetched irrespective of whether there are corresponding rows in the child entity or not. Report Builder tool should not dictate what the user wants to get, meaning it is not right to assume
that the focus of the report is Employee when attributes are selected from both Department and Employee. Report Builder should not make the child entity (i.e., Employee) as the primary entity when the user selects attributes from the child entity after
having selected attributes from the parent entity.
I am sorry to say that clients may not accept the Report Builder tool as this does not fetch the records as desired.
I hope there is someone who can suggest how the outer join problem can be solved by just tweaking the properties of the report model (SMDL).
Besides, the end users are business users and are not tech savvy. They are not expected to modify queries. They would simply drag and drop attributes from entities to create adhoc reports.

Expecting Aperture Tomorrow, Queries...

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