Apple Aperture 1.5 is an image-editing and management program designed for professional photographers. Unlike Adobe Photoshop and similar applications, Aperture eschews complex image manipulation and instead concentrates on a photographer's workflow.

Aperture works directly with the original data your camera captures, not a post-processed representation. It can work with other popular image formats as well, but its real strength lies in its native ability to work with RAW formats.

Aperture 1.0 had some limitations, most notably that it required the image library to be on a single hard drive. In addition, Aperture 1.0 managed workflow the way it wanted, not the way the user wanted. The library function in Aperture 1.5 is, comparatively, extremely flexible. You can have multiple libraries in multiple locations -- including network drives, CDs and DVDs -- with full control over their management.

As a workflow tool, Aperture uses a light table metaphor. You can drag images to one or more light tables and compare, rate or reject images. You can use the handy Loupe to zoom in on image for closer inspection, even while applying image adjustments. The Loupe can work on any image, even library thumbnail previews, so you can determine an image's strength or weakness without viewing it in the main viewer.

When working with RAW image formats, older systems may take a good deal of time to apply an adjustment to an image. Newer computers can handle RAW format changes without issue, as long as their graphics cards are fully supported by Aperture.

Aperture can adjust most image parameters. Changes are never applied to the original; instead, Aperture creates small incremental files that represent the edits. When you're satisfied with your changes, you can either commit to them by creating a new file that reflects all of the changes, or leave the image as is, with the original and all incremental files in place.

If you're a professional photographer or a dedicated hobbyist who shoots in RAW formats, Apple Aperture is well worth considering as a primary photo manipulation tool.


Pros: Intuitive, works directly with RAW format images, flexible photo library, provides complete control over image metadata, loupe tool is well designed
Cons: Needs prodigious computer power, graphics cards must support Apple's Core Image technology

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