Aperture 3 Finally usable: Aperture 3.0.2 Update

Posted on March 28, 2010

by konrad

You might recall that I mentioned in my previous blog article I would be moving away from Aperture 3 and I promised to tell you why. Well, things have changed in the past week and they’ve changed quite dramatically, but in a good sense. Apple released update to Aperture 3 with the number 3.0.2 on 25 March 2010. Although, this update number looks insignificant, it includes many crucial updates and fixes (at least for the most part) what was bothering me the most: extremely low performance of Aperture 3. The detailed description of the fixes in Aperture 3.0.2 update are provided on Apple’s website here.

I spent few hours yesterday testing Aperture 3.0.2 and I have to say I was positively surprised. This update makes Aperture 3 finally usable or as Scott Bourne from PhotoFocus.com wrote: “Aperture 3.0.2 “ FINALLY Finally Ready For Prime Time”. It’s true (and many photographers confirm that) that Apple’s first public major releases (like Aperture 3.0) are in fact full of glitches and bugs. Therefore, they should be seen by the end users as ‘unofficial’ public betas and not final products. Only after few updates (just like in case of Aperture 3), these products become usable. I myself didn’t use Aperture 3 and I waited for the first update of 3.0.1 but even then, the product was not operational, unusable and buggy. I’m a little surprised and even disappointed that Apple acts the way it does with its products towards the customers. Maybe they will learn the lesson, especially after such a sound criticism about buggy Aperture 3. Sometimes it’s good to learn from competitors Apple!

Having said that, I will probably stay with Aperture 3 (well, actually Aperture 3.0.2) as it seems to work fine (more or less at least). I’ve tested about 75%-80% of the features and performance of its 3.0.2 update and it works much MUCH better than the previous version.

Article Picture: Some of you might be familiar with it: it’s theÂ Atomium in Brussels (Bruxelles), Belgium (see map) or at least a part of it.

11 Comments for Aperture 3 Finally usable: Aperture 3.0.2 Update

Another report on the success of Aperture 3 update 3.02 | Aperture Users Network

[...] Boyd 0 commentsKonrad Dwojak explains why he’ll stay with Aperture 3 after the 3.02 Update.http://www.konraddwojak.com/2010/03/aperture-3-finally-usable-aperture-3-0-2-update/ Read why here: [...]

Vincent IÃ&pl

I'm glad to hear that the bugs are gone. I'm going to make the switch from Lightroom 2 to Aperture 3 in a few weeks.

Rockaway

Both Aperture and Lightroom are now so good that I'm having trouble picking a winner. Unless you're dealing with very high ISO files (above 6400) both apps are now rendering files that print great up to poster size. I have to give Lr the nod for high ISO work — their new noise reduction is really great.

Apple still has some work to do in the performance arena with A3, though. 3.0.2 is a major performance improvement from earlier versions, but it still tends to bog down when using the brushes – especially in 100% view.

Konrad Dwojak

I agree but for me A3 and Lr2 (not sure about Lr3 beta) are more or less equal. But what is particularly important for me is the 'learning curve' – I don't have too much time to learn new software Call it laziness if you want

Michael

I don't like switching between such products often as well. I've been using Aperture 2 for few months and I test-drived Lr2 as well and although Lr2 seems more powerful than Aperture 2, I decided to stay with A2.

Rockaway

I had a few spare moments the other day after completing a print job and decided to run a comparo of Lr3beta2 vs. A302 printed output.

My config: Monitor calibrated with Eye One Match. Same custom printer profile used for both Lr and A3. 10.6.3 on a MBP. Latest Canon drivers for the 60" iPF9000s.

The test: Same RAW file from Canon 7D. Twiddled with settings in both to achieve virtually identical on screen appearance. Mainly black point, recover highlights, expand a shadow, no brush work in either.

The result: A3 was wildly different from the desired result. Lr3 was as accurate. Duplicated the results with two more RAWs — same results. Can't figure out why A3 is not printing as expected.

Printed the same image from both apps. Used the sam

Konrad Dwojak

Thanks for sharing this amazing comparison! I've been wondering why there is such a difference and why Aperture gives weird results.

MarkSpizer

great post as usual!

Steve

Nick Ryder

I am not Mr Tech Guy or anything close to that. I’ve been using the basics and brushes on Aperture 3.0.1 , often times it freezes up or the retouch will not function, the brush size suddenly increases for no apparent reason, it seems to stick at times. I am mostly shooting girls and I just am seeking to do minor adjustments. Am I doing something to provoke these malfunctions, my computer us a 17 inch Mac Book Pro, my camera is a D-70 Nikon. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanking you in advance for your time and consideration. Kindest Regards, Nick Ryder

konrad

Hi Nick and thank you for comment and question. Although the tone of the article I wrote about update to 3.0.2 is quite positive, I discovered that Aperture 3 was way far from satisfactory for me after further tests. I work myself on a MacBook Pro with a decent GPU and 4 GB RAM, which should be enough for Aperture 3 to work smoothly… however it didn’t. I was really frustrated with Aperture 3 and I gave a try to Adobe Lightroom 3 (although I was never a huge fan of Adobe). I have to admit that I was blown away with this product – very smooth workflow, excellent performance and it took me just couple of hours to get use to working with it. My suggestion for you would be to try Lightroom, just like I did.