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Aperture 2.0 Interface Changes
Aperture 2.0 features some major interface changes that make for a much more streamlined, fluid experience than previous versions of the program. Apple has redesigned Aperture's main window, and added some new keyboard shortcuts that make navigation much easier.
If you're worried that switching to the program will mean a productivity hit as you learn the new interface, you can set these concerns aside. The changes Apple has made work so well, that you should find very little learning curve. In fact, with all of the changes, you'll probably find yourself thinking "why didn't they do it this way all along?"
The main change to Aperture's interface is the elimination of the inspector panes on the right side of the screen. The Adjustments and Metadata inspectors now sit in their own tabs, alongside the Library inspector on the left side of the screen. The Library, Metadata, and Adjustments controls remain the same, (except for the addition of new adjustments, of course) you just access them in this new location.
If tabbed panes make you worry that you'll now suffer more mousing, don't despair. Pressing the W key cycles you through each of the panes, meaning you're never more than two keypresses away from the controls you need.
Removing the inspectors from the right side of the window frees up a good amount of screen real estate, especially if you're working on a laptop. It's difficult to explain, but the change makes Aperture's interface seem less "claustrophobic" somehow.
Originally, Aperture provided a mechanism for switching between different window layouts, a feature that didn't prove to be especially useful. In version 2, Apple has removed the last vestiges of this capability and implemented something much cooler. Now, you can cycle through three different window layouts by repeatedly pressing the V key. There's the "standard" layout, which shows a preview pane, browser, and inspector pane. Next there's a layout that eliminates the browser, giving you a nice big preview pane, and a third that does the opposite - give you a full-height browser, with no viewer.
You can toggle the inspector panes by pressing I, to free up more space.
To ease your thumbnail viewing, the Browser pane has an important new option. In addition to the grid view and list view provided in previous versions, the new Filmstrip view shows you a single row of thumbnails that scroll left to right. As with Grid view, you can scroll the Filmstrip view from the keyboard by using J, K and L.
You should find scrolling the filmstrip to be easier than scrolling the grid because you don't have to worry about thumbnails being partially displayed.
One of Aperture 2.0's most important interface changes is in Full Screen mode. The combined Projects, Metadata, and Adjustments inspectors that appear in normal mode are also implemented as a HUD in Full Screen mode. When in Full Screen mode, press H, to bring up the Inspector HUD, which gives you access to one HUD that contains all three inspectors. The practical upshot of this is that if you're a fan of Full Screen mode, you can now stay there all the time! Because you can navigate projects, edit metadata, and make adjustments all from the Inspectors HUD, there's really nothing you can't do in Full Screen mode.
Finally, Aperture has an important under-the-hood change that isn't technically an interface issue, but that might greatly speed your workflow: outputting images now happens in the background. This means that when you go to export you'll no longer see a modal export dialog. Rather, Aperture will let you keep working, and move exporting into the background, just as it does with importing. If you need to monitor or cancel the export, choose Window > Show Activity to view the Activity inspector.
As far as learning Aperture 2.0's interface, the only difficulty you'll face is if you have to go back to 1.5. You'll be surprised at how quickly you get used to cycling views with the V key, and cycling inspectors with the W key.
Comments (13)
Tumuktu?
I really need the tether feature to work with my Nikon D300. But it is a no go. Apple's support page for supported cameras is also a no show. Anyone know if or how this works with the D300? I have tried everything I can think of.
Unfortunately, there is no codified standard protocol for tethering, which means every vendor does it differently. Some camera makers publish an API for external tethering support, and some don't. This means that Apple can only provide tethering support for cameras that have an API, or for which they can reverse-engineer support. Further complicating this is that some vendors provide APIs for some models of cameras, but not others. So, until there is an accepted protocol standard for tethering, there's no guarantee that Aperture will support your chosen camera.
Is keyword hierarchy now finally supported ?
Meaning, from the keyword HUD I pull a low level keyword and Aperture will actually pull all the keywords in the hierarchy over to the picure(s) and embed it ?
Thanks,
chris
Although I won't be moving to 2.0, it seems a really solid upgrade, esp. for the price asked.
Chris: I believe that indeed, even in 1.5, the keyword hierarchy is there and works as described. On my setup, if I apply Woman (under People>adults>Woman), if I do a search for People that picture will come up, even if it's not "specifically" tagged with "People."
What do you experience?
I ran the additional Pro-ap updates and now the tethering is working with the Nikon D300. Before Aperture didn't see the camera attached except for downloading from the inserted card. Well this update has already paid for itself, I don't have to buy Nikon's Control program. Also hearing that the D3 is working for others. Thank you.
What does Aperture 2.0 have for users with dual monitors?
I was about to give up on Aperture but after playing with the trial all day long I must say that I will reconsider it.... Well, I am done.... Is not a LR killer but they fixed it so I can be happy again using Aperture.
Well done!
What about the performance? Is your CPU pegged for 10 seconds just when doing a keyword search or have they finally fixed that?
The lens ID seems to be a field the user has to fill in rather than one which displays the lens details automatically. This seems very feeble as I already use the excellent applescript to extract lens ID data in Aperture 1.56. My camera is a Nikon 200 so hardly new enough for the maker notes stuill to be a mystery.
Update on the Lens ID thing. The second of the two Pro Applications software updates seems to have fixd this - the maker's note for the ID is now picked up and shown instead of a "fill-in-the-blank" field.
OK, since nobody else has answered this any place on the web, I decided to buy the upgrade to see for myself.
The answer to the "is the meta data searching fast enough" the answer is Yes! Finally, they have improved the performance of meta data searching to the point that it is acceptable.
Full text searches and/or keyword searches on a 12k photo library that used to take 10 seconds or more are now basically instantaneous.
The other main performance gain is that they no longer create thumbnails for all 12k photos, if your current search results in that many. Instead, they do it all on demand, as they should have in the first place.
The fact that the upgrade was $99 AND the fact that they gave me an Apple store voucher for more than that a few years ago when I first bought the original version of Aperture makes me feel ... OK. It is now performing as it should have all this time.
Definitely upgrade. Do not hesitate.
RE: Keyword Hierarchy
>Is keyword hierarchy now finally supported ?
>Meaning, from the keyword HUD I pull a low level >keyword and Aperture will actually pull all the >keywords in the hierarchy over to the picure(s) and >embed it ?
-Chris: I believe that indeed, even in 1.5, the -keyword hierarchy is there and works as described. -On my setup, if I apply Woman (under -People>adults>Woman), if I do a search for People -that picture will come up, even if it's not -"specifically" tagged with "People."
Quite right, what Aperture 2.0 doesn't do if you apply the keyword 'woman' is also apply 'adults' and 'people' keywords. Even though Aperture search will respect the higher level keywords, any exported image will only contain the keyword 'woman'.
This behaviour hasn't changed from 1.5.x which is disappointing. I've been begging Apple for the option to apply ALL the keywords in the hierarchy to an image. I shoot a lot of nature and have a keyword structure that matches the animal's taxonomical hierarchy. It would be so nice to just search the Keyword HUD for say 'frog' which is at say, animal>vertebrate>amphibian>frog and then by dragging 'frog' onto the image to have 'animal' 'vertebrate' and 'amphibian' applied too. If anyone knows a workaround or I'm missing a special Command/Option keystroke please write.
Keyword searches have been improved though. In 1.5.x partial string searches would only find matches if the beginning of the keyword matched the partial string, whereas in 2.0 it seems that partial string searches now parse the entire keyword.
For example: an image with the keyword 'greentreefrog' in 1.5.x would be found by a search for 'gree' but NOT be found by a search for 'frog'. Now in 2.0 either search will find the image. hurrah.