Aperture 3 reviews round-up

Apple released Aperture 3 about a month ago now. So what’s been the reception among software reviewers? Photocine News went a-hunting to find a cross-section of reaction.

One noticeable thing about Aperture 3 is its increased consumer-friendliness. Features that started life in iPhoto, such as Faces, Places, and direct posting to Facebook and Flickr, have now appeared in the pro software.

At MacWorld, Russ Juskalian is delighted with the new curves adjustment feature:

“It can punch up colors, put contrast in the right places, and add pop to even the most stubborn of shots. Better yet, Apple’s implementation of it here is brilliant, with the ability to focus in on the shadow part of the range, zoom out to an expanded view, and even create multiple curves adjustments for a single image.”

For USA Today, Jefferson Graham says it straight:

“In many ways, Aperture is superior to Lightroom. Lightroom doesn’t support video clips – which is odd, since shooting high-def video on digital SLRs is one of the hottest trends in photography right now. Aperture does. Aperture’s slideshow feature is fantastic. You can mix video and stills (are you reading this Adobe?) with multiple soundtracks, and export them as QuickTime videos for sharing on the web or burning to DVD.”

Long-term Lightroom user Jason Lau comments:

“The biggest difference I felt with Aperture was that it was SLOW… way slower than Lightroom in load times and waiting for editing changes to be made, especially with the skin smoothing tool. I even managed to crash it a couple of times in the first day of use.”

Over at The Digital Story, my old chum Derrick Story writes:

“It still doesn’t address a couple of things on my list. One complaint I have is that exporting is slower on my MBP 2.5 GHz than it was before. But the problem that drives me crazy is that my IPTC metadata doesn’t display properly in Photoshop after an export from Aperture.”

Steve Paris at Macworld UK says of the new RAW 3 engine:

“But this new engine offers a lot more versatility than before, like the inclusion of support for lens correction adjustments that would not have been possible without it. It will also enable the program’s support for the new Micro 4 Third cameras in the near future.”

Curtis Joe Walker at Photography Review also compares Aperture with Lightroom and concludes:

“Aperture is a very solid update for people already familiar with the app. It catches up to Adobe’s Lightroom in every important way and raises the bar with its unique features.”