PS round trip

Question

Charles, Brad-
I thought I'd move this to a new topic as it's getting buried in that other mud slinging thread and I really want to explore it. A couple things to get out of the way:
- importing a layered psd file seemingly flattens the file. This has to be a bug. It's not necessarily destructive, in that Aperture creates a copy of the original file, but still bogus. What's interesting about this is that Aperture is actually not flattening the file, it's just not giving us any way of accessing the original layers once it's in a project. I dug around in the Aperture Library (show Contents, etc) after importing a layered .psd file and opened the file from the finder. Once open in PS, all layers are still intact. This gives me hope that this will be supported in the future. Still, I agree it's bogus.
- As for the notion that performing a Save is maliciously overwriting data, I guess I don't agree. I understand the logic that Aperture is supposed to only modify Versions not Masters. But really we're not in Aperture anymore at this point. I think it would be much more confusing if performing a Save actually performed a Save As. I save Early and Often, and I understand what I'm doing when I hit cmd-S, and it's not versioning.
- As for Aperture doing the RAW conversion, I guess I figured that's par for the course at this point. I'm in the camp of those who hasn't had a big issue with the RAW quality, but understand that others obviously have. I think having pref to "Open in ACR when opening Externally" would be great. That way if the user thought they could get a better result in ACR (or wherever) they could give it a shot. This would be slick (and I know it's been discussed ad-infinitum) Have you sent in a feature request to Apple? I will, and generally speaking the more requests they get the better.
- What is also strange is that if I do run Open in External (opening in PS, adding layers, saving, etc), then run Duplicate Version on this resulting file in Aperture, Aperture does seem to flatten the layers. So in essence we can't really version our PS versions. I'm not sure this was ever promised, but it would great to have.
So I guess my feature requests for Open in External boil down to this:
1. Allow Open in External via RAW converter of choice, understanding that whatever adjustments made in Aperture would be lost. Ces't la vie.
2. If a file layered .psd file is imported into Aperture, allow us to Open in External without automatically generating a Version if so desired, and keep layers intact.
3. Provide a way to version layered .psd files from within Aperture (I don't think this should happen when a save is performed in PS). I think this should be an explicitly user initiated function.
My guess, and it's only a guess, is that because some layered .psd functionality is present, Apple intends to expand on it. It makes sense. Your thoughts?
gary

Answer 1

Frank,
But Aperture breaks the ability to Save-As a version of the file on the fly when
working in Photoshop. Working with Aperture means that I HAVE to over
-write the file I'm working on. If I Save-As I'm instantly outside the Aperture
workflow
You hit on basically the thing that pushed me to the point of realizing I couldn't use Aperture quite yet in my workflow, and that Bridge/ACR/PS/Version Cue were still the better option at this point. There's been so much energy devoted to the RAW conversion issue, that the topic of working with an external editor with iterative development hasn't been discussed much. When Ian came up with the workaround for ACR conversion, I pondered going that route, and if that were the only issue, I would have. But as I did that, and realized that after getting past this, I was going to have to manually manage versions and my workflow (in a less efficient manner than before), it just wasn't a prudent decision for me.
I may be atypical (my guess is that I share these needs with others) but I essentially have different phases of the editing process. One phase deals specifically with the quality of the photograph itself. The other general phase is formatting for presentation, which can include rescaling, cropping, adding text, effects, borders, compositing, etc., depending on who the target is. It may sound benign, but removing the ability to do a "Save-As" is pretty painful. Having to revert back to Aperture to duplicate the version is also painful.
I had two question I pondered regarding this: 1) could it even be accomplished. 2) If it could be accomplished, was this improving my workflow. The answer for 1) was technically, yes, it could be done. My answer for 2) is no, rather it complicates workflow.
The ability to create a version from an external editor is pretty huge functionality, and it underscores again the question (rhetorical...please, not looking to debate it) of whether Aperture is supposed to replace Photoshop. There are differing opinions about this, so everyone can decide for themselves what is meant by "an all-in-one post production tool." The significance of the answer to this question is not for yet another debate on these forums, but to each user personally in what it means strategically for their business. Personally, if Apple views Aperture as a companion tool for Photoshop, integration is likely to converge -- but if it is viewed as a competitor, functionality is likely to diverge. This is why the Photoshop question is so huge. If you can't discard the editing features of Photoshop, there's no point in pursuing a competing tool. If they are made to be companions, then it makes sense to pursue it.
Its an interesting question. I'd guess the answer to this will become a lot more clear when Aperture V2.0 or CS3 hits, whichever comes first.
Brad
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