Hm... not thrilled. I downloaded Viveza, installed it, and ran Aperture. I selected an image and opened it in Viveza (which took a bit to actually open). I added one control point and boosted the brightness of a fairly small area. I clicked done, and Aperture crashed.

I then re-opened Aperture to see a virtual copy of the image I edited in Viveza (I expected that, although I'm disappointed that I can't work on the RAW file), and noticed that the virtual copy was grainy and had a few artifacts not present in the original image.

Tried it again, this time with a TIF as output versus PSD, but the results are the same. Aperture crashes and the virtual copy is grainy with artifacts.

So, my conclusion... this isn't working well, doesn't impress me, and even introduces noise into the image. Maybe the Photoshop version works better, but this is lousy. Browsing Aperture Professional, it appears that others are having trouble as well. Thumbs down from me.

Ian, I don't doubt that you've had a negative experience with it. But I can honestly tell you that the Aperture plug-in of Viveza has never crashed for me - and I've used it a fair amount. I'm guessing that there might be an issue with certain Macs or configurations or perhaps even in the download process. Perhaps one of the Nik people will offer up some thoughts. The last thing anyone wants or needs is something that crashes.

After your comment about noise I rechecked my images at 100% magnification and I'm not seeing any noise or grain whatsoever. I don't know what's going wrong for you, but very clearly something is amiss.

Being a Nikon shooter I've been using Capture NX which uses this exact same technology (by Nik no less) and I have to say I'm a little underwhelmed with this plug-in considering the price they're asking. I tried it out because I was interested in the added benefit of staying within Aperture but other than the slicker interface, there's very little reason to use this instead of NX. If you have NX already launched the export takes exactly the same amount of time - and the workflow is the same as well. But NX gives you U-point AND brushes for blur, levels, curves, unsharp mask etc... as well as a whole complement of toning controls. And... it's $149.

I just couldn't believe how little there was in Viveza for $249. I agree with you on the technology: it's amazing. But try out NX - you'll get the same thing PLUS and save a hundred bucks.

I installed trial Viveza in PS3 and yesterday purchased the key for Aperture and both run fine, much better than in NikonNX.
If you are a NAPP member there is a discount on the price.
I find it a most useful tool.

I bought Viveza and am experiencing the same crashing problems on save. I've used Viveza in Photoshop and I think it's a great piece of software. Unfortunately, it's not usable in my Aperture workflow. I'm also still a bit upset plug-in edits (even from Apple) are destructive. I'm getting ready to jump ship to Lightroom. Please convince me otherwise.

I found the price of Viveza too high... I think that it costs more than Aperture!

i've played around with control points in Capture NX, and the theory is good. i mostly use aperture and try to stay away from NX as much as possible. if Viveza didn't create new tiffs i could see some value in it. but it seems crazy to charge that much and end up with a bloated library that stresses any backup system even more.

Ultimately I too hope that we see nondestructive plug-ins for Aperture. However right now in my mind I harken back to the days before Aperture when we kept the raw file and then we had to have a TIFF or PSD converted copy of each image we optimized in order to output anything. Aperture changed all that and greatly reduced the number of TIFF or PSD versions we need. Nondestructive plugins would be better from the end user standpoint BUT I still do most of my editing right in Aperture using the nondestructive tools. The plug-ins are for special cases only - such as wanting to improve the sky in this blog example. Ordinarily that would have meant round tripping to PS - which creates another file as well - and then considerable work there to even out or replace the sky. Viveza did the job much faster and more easily. Will I use it on every image? No. Aperture's adjustment tools work really well for most of my needs. And the selective color adjustments and the Shadow/Highlight controls often bypass the need for an adjustment made with a layer mask. But there are some things it can't do (yet) and the plug-ins we're seeing are designed to fill in some of the gaps. You have to decide which ones are worth the expense for you.

There's no doubt that $249.95 is steep - but if you're interested, check out the discount for NAPP members (thanks, Steven!)Realize that you get both the PS and Aperture version for that price. Viveza is not for everyone. But I stick by what I said initially - it really is a pretty amazing piece of software.

I haven't tried Viveza yet, but I really think they blew it by tying the Aperture plugin to the Photoshop plugin. I realize they might have wanted to get the Aperture version to their existing customers without charging for it, but there has to be a more elegant way of doing that than making everybody pay for the PS version, whether they want it or not.

I mean, Viveza is a tool that I'd be looking to in order to reduce my need to use Photoshop, so why do I have to buy the Photoshop version of the plugin? A separate Aperture version for $99-119 would have made a lot more sense, with a substantial price break for existing owners of the PS package (maybe even free). They could then do combined upgrades in the future for those that have both (say $99) or a cheaper upgrade for Aperture only ($49-59).

It turns out that Viveza is not responsible for the added noise and artifacts in my images, it is Aperture. No idea why, but the image in particular that I am having trouble with has several different adjustments applied to it (monochrome, enhancement, vignette, etc.). Whenever Aperture creates a PSD/TIF copy of my RAW image, the resulting file has added noise, artifacts (although only a few but that's still a few too many), and the brightness/contrast of the image changes ever so slightly.

My guess, although I don't know if I'm on the right track or not, is that there are enough non-destructive edits to this particular image that (1) Aperture spits out a trashed PSD/TIF copy, and (2) Viveza chokes on it when saving.

No matter the case, though, Viveza currently doesn't work for me. That being said, I won't buy the Aperture plugin of Viveza because I have no way to re-edit Viveza control points after committing them to the image. So, if I save and then change my mind or discover a slight error, I have to start all over again. I could see this being both time consuming/counter productive and even daunting if there were a number of control points. Trying to remember exactly where and how I placed each one might be an excercise in futility.

No thanks. This stuff is supposed to make the work easier and more productive, not more challenging.

For about a year I've gone back and forth and in-between Aperture and Lightroom. I am a Nikon shooter so I am also proficient in Capture NX. I've settled on Aperture because in spite of missing some useful lightroom features, it's a nice place to work. I even forked out for a new Nvidia graphics card so it would run properly on my Mac Pro(!). I was really looking forward the Viveza plug-in for Aperture. I've been using control points in NX for ages and have disciplined myself to only resort to them when Aperture doesn't do the job on its own. I am a reasonably proficient user of photoshop and I tried the Viveza trial inside of that and was impressed but not enough to pay the price since I already had NX. I was getting ready to pay up for Viveza in Aperture even at the very very expensive price they want for it (Apple had the good sense to drop the price of Aperture). But, unlike in NX the edits are destructive. As others have noted, once you hit save they are baked into the tif and you can't go back to the same control points and tweak or change your mind. You can in NX. So I am keeping my 249 Euros and my current workflow, which I had hoped the plug-in would have streamlined. The workflow: Do what you can with Aperture, if absolutely necessary show the image in finder, open in NX, use the great U point tech in the not so great UI that is NX, save the nef, save as a tif, back to Aperture, import the tif and stack with the original. Keyword the original so you know that its preview isn't showing you that it has been NXed. Use smart albums to distinguish.

Perhaps it is a smart tactical move from Apple (lets get some functionality that Aperture doesn't have innovated by talented people outside - coverflow was a good example of this. Anything that works well Apple could buy up and put inside Aperture. But in the meantime the not so good looking Lightroom is offering non-destructive selective editing and the ugly NX does a better job than the prettier, pricer Aperture plug-in version. And Viveza in Photoshop is non-destructive if you know what you are doing with smart objects. So if plug-ins are supposed to keep you inside of Aperture, then the Viveza Aperture plug-in achieves the opposite, at least for me.

Ellen, it is amazing. But it isn't any more efficient than what we've already got and it costs a whole lot more. Hopefully Nik will be reading comments like this that are common here and in the Aperture group in Apple discussions. Great Idea that needs work.

It crashed for me too. The reason? I had another plugin (DFT Light) installed before Viveza and that, for some unknown reason caused a conflict with Viveza that made Aperture crash after click "save".

I solved it by unistalling DFT Light and re-installing it again. Now Viveza works on all its glory. Nik softwre is aware of this and it is working on it.

It work very well. I too wish it would work non-destructive on the raw file. But still is nice not to have to go to PS for those occasion that I may need to do localize adjustments. At the moment you sill have to go to PS to do what Viveza does, so you still have to do a tiff or PSD, so no harm done.

I think is a step on the right direction and that it will be taken a step further in the near future and allow us to "do it in the raw".

Another thing that should be added are Global presets and the ability to batch process either on input or output. Imaging having Dfine for Aperture that you can batch process during out put.

I totally agree with David. If you have Capture NX you do not need to spend $250 on Viveza. Capture NX using U-Point gives you way more functionality than Viveza.

I do understand the reasons (I think..) for Apple plugin ways, but the problem I see is that because it has to create a second hugh file (Tiff) I am half way to PS, so why don't go all the way.

That is why non-destructive implementation on Capture NX as well as in the upcoming Lightroom 2 make so much sense.

Aperture 2.1 was indeed a step in the right direction, but will again prove to be too little too late? Would it keep a new exodus of Aperture users toward Lightroom 2?

It seems that Apple puts out some nice features only to be out shined by its competition in actual practical functionality. Is like Apple puts out the concept car and Adobe takes its and make it practical, real.

The more I think about it I am force to conclude that Aperture Plugins idea. because of its implementation, will prove dead on its tracks.

Agreed. I really, really like Aperture and want so badly to be able to use it, but Lightroom just seems to offer a more complete package. With Lightroom 2 around the corner, all I can hope is that Apple will do something amazing pretty soon (like editing features found within Lightroom 2 BETA), while improving other areas such as poor IPTC implementation and file naming tokens.

The plugin editing, while an exciting idea, has, in my opinion, turned out to be anti-climactic.

It would indeed be nice to see (somewhere) a few lines form the Viveza-people to the extent that they have in fact observed the problem and are working on a solution.

I'm just going to repeat the same as almost every single post here, and that's because i subscribe to david's comment: hopefully nik software people read user comments and will eventually do something about it.

imho, viveza is a great application: i downloaded the demo and found it extremely helpful for precise colour editing, had no crashing problems whatsoever and in fact was ready to buy it until i saw the price tag.

then i had to give up, because...

a) paying more for a plug-in than for the host application doesn't make sense to me (aperture = €199)
b) paying more for a plug-in that uses the same technology but lacks some features than a stand-alone application doesn't make sense to me (capture nx = €149)
c) paying for two plug-ins of which i'll use only one (aperture) doesn't make sense to me

so, when at least the price tag makes sense (i also find €99 reasonable) i could change my mind. unil then, it's unfortunately a no-no for me - and that's a pity, because i would REALLY like to have included in my workflow.

I can't speak for the Viveza people although I will pass your thoughts along in case they're not regularly checking this blog. A few days ago I used Viveza and the Dodge and Burn plug-in on an image. I can do a lot with the Dodge and Burn plug-in, and of course it's free. But with Viveza the changes were dramatic and took less than a minute whereas with Dodge and Burn it was a slower more work intensive process. But a plug-in that costs more than the app is hard to go for. It's such good technology that I hope we see some compromise so that it's available to most users.