The it one thing me would be somehow syncing between my master library and what I am using on my laptop. To have my laptop library sync in the same way I can sync my iPod, to have versions of selected projects or Masters sank to my laptop and then if I am added a project sync it back to my master library.
A neutral gradient filter brick.
Though people will argue that the plug-in architecture now is nondestructive I would agree that I would like the plug-ins to live as bricks in the adjustment panel that could be turned on and off and interact with other adjustments found in Aperture.
Read smart layers from Photoshop.
Preset print templates for picture package. I will you can lay things out as a lightable or as a book page but it should not be that hard to add a print template along with books and lightables.

And finally I know that somehow this works in some form in this version I would like that if I make a change in Aperture the information would update in say Keynote, in design.

Expanding into a full multimedia application? Dear lord, I hope not. So much of Aperture is photo-specific, I really fear what would happen if they tried to generalize it. now a multimedia app that was designed using the lessons learned from Aperture and with tight integration with Aperture - that I could see...

Personally, big on my wishlist is much more transparent tools for examining and working with previews. You can also sign me up under the non-destructive plugin wish as well. Some more advanced web tool for those of us who don't want to pay the MobileMe tithe would be nice as well (though I'm not holding my breath). On a more boring note, I'd hope that performance continues to improve - I have a first gen MBP and even in Aperture 2 I sometimes have poor performance. And along those same lines, dual monitor support is great, but it can be a little flakey for me (especially when I'm using my 30" monitor).

Support for clipping paths from photoshop. I shoot lots of product photography and have yet to have Aperture hold the clipping path when exporting. When I open it back in Photoshop it still has it, why must it flatten and discard the path. Oh and non-destructive plug-ins.

Speed, more speed. Aperture 2 is still slow...

Hi, agree with non-destructive plug-ins, especially from the "big ones" (nik etc.). As far as your wish to integrate Multimedia-Files go, I am a bit divided. Whilst I would like something to let me organize Video Clips from compact digital cameras (or future DSLR, such as the Nikon D90), I believe Apple's answer to that is Final Cut Server (I know iPhoto can take small clips though). For music - no - simply because the whole tagging system would go nuts after a while, it would become very cluttered, all of a sudden searching by tempo, audio resolution, type, instruments, nah thanks. I can manage my personal music library in iTunes just fine, everything else (loops, tracks, recordings, audio effects) lives in/through Apple Logic. What you are aiming at here is probably more like "Adobe Bridge" (as I've got Aperture whichI not only use for my personal image library but also to store all sorts of other business images or logos used in presentations etc., so I never used Adobe Bridge).

More speed? Yes, always welcome. Although currently no problems in that regard (Mac Pro Early 2008 with 10 GB and 8800GT... runs quite nicely) ;-)

You just gave me a great thought... why not use iTunes to manage my audio and video clips?! Hmph... it might be just what I need!

-m

Foveon support. That's all I want.

XMP metadata, please!

Micah, you'll love the LX3.

Beyond what has been said above, in terms of Aperture synching, it would be great if beyond content, the application would easily and transparently synch Aperture config files, like keywords, presets, etc. I do a lot of keywording on the road, and I struggle to keep my keyword structure consistent. Same for presets of various kinds.

I would love to go back to using Aperture. For me, they would have to support ALL the functions of Nikon and Canon's professional cameras, not just some of the functions. There are other programs that do support things like audio, sRAW, masking; and when Aperture gets serious about supporting current top of the line camera systems, I will start using it again in a heartbeat. But alas, I became tired of waiting for Aperture to catch up, and converted to another vendor.

I too agree with non-destructive editing although I'll confess that my use of such tools is very limited. As for multi-media, handling video as part of the work flow would be very nice. I don't use final cut, so what I would like is a place to keep track: a single point of control. But I agree with others that suggest we shouldn't over load Aperture with a lot of additional functionality. May be the answer lies in integrating work flows among the various products, such as iMovie, Final Cut, iTunes. Captured video is imported by Aperture and handed off to iMovie or Final Cut for processing, for example.

Interesting Thoughts Micah,

I wonder what will bring next week with RED announcing its overhauled Scarlet. It looks indeed as still an animated imagery is starting to merge (soon, how soon?) and personally I think this is a welcome step.

Thus I would love to see some (all!) of the amazing Vector Scopes from Apple Color in Aperture, which makes the Histogram look like its poor brother...

I will definetely second you for a more integrated Plugin architecture. Aperture 2 was a great step forward, but I think, Apple didn't a job up to their standards integrating.

Another big gripe I have with Aperture concerns the organizations of Projects. I don't know about you, but the idea of having Projects declared as Favorites (or Recent) is just a first step. I decided to have a single Library in which I wear o lot of hats. And I would love to define these hats and to display these selectively. So why not doing a kind of criteria list for Projects, which can be turned on (Maybe the same Kind of Popup) and of by criteria (such as Private, Client A, Client B, Reference, Travels, Girlfriends). And don't forget to ripple this in the "All Projects View", because as wonderful it is, this could be the source of some trouble...

IPTC Core is a must. Don't run after standards...

Bernt

Please please add exporting projects as a quicktime movie (the architecture is built into quicktime already so it cant be that hard)

also scanning a local disk and adding images into corresponding projects. I use aperture with all referenced files organized into folders, it would be so great if i added images into the folders and somehow was able to tell aperture to scan the corresponding folders and add images to the projects that they reference. I work a lot with scanned images and its pretty time consuming to file and add individual images.

If it had a button to scan for new images that would be so great for me.

Also a stitching plugin. I would love to have a panoramic assembling plugin within aperture.

Non-Destructive Plugin Architecture:
You can get their half-way, ie, the plugin can be non-destructive but it still has to write out a TIFF for Aperture to use further. But inside the plugin can be non-destructive already:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-9308-9356
"Third, an image editing plug-in's developer can choose to embed, inside a private tag in the picture file, metadata that describes the plug-in settings used to process the picture. These settings can be subsequently loaded back into the plug-in."

Even if the TIFF write-out would not be required, the plugin writers still have to embrace it (which they have not done so far with any product for Aperture or PS). Second thing is performance, imagine Aperture slowed down by a plugin which takes five seconds to render an image.

I would really like to reduce the round-tripping to other apps. There are a few features that were added to Aperture such as localised retouching, but the performance is too slow to use them. However, many performance issues when making adjustments are caused by having multiple effects selected, so that each time another adjustment is made higher up the pipeline, all of the subsequent effects have to be reapplied. One trick they could use is a check-box for "I'm going to be making adjustments in this brick, temporarily disable all the other bricks!".

However, non-destructive plugins would clearly be utopia for aperture. One of the great problems with going to external apps is that you can only have one defined at a time. So if you need to use a different format to round-trip to another app, you have to change the settings and then change them back again. In contrast, all of the editing plugins are available all of the time.

Aperture runs the risk of falling behind lightroom if the lightroom-photoshop integration grows stronger. Eventually it could get to the point where you can't actually tell whether you're in lightroom or photoshop as it could use the relevant modules transparently. Aperture will never have that ability, so they either have to add all of the tools into Aperture natively, or enable the non-destructive plugins.

I wouldn't object to video clips being managed by Aperture as clearly many people will be getting them from the same memory card as photos. But adding video editing features, timelines, scrubbing etc will overload the interface.

1) Sort projects by descending date, as DEFAULT!
2) 'Skimming' on projects, albums etc. EVERYWHERE (not just in 'all projects' view, but also on a folder containing projects etc.)

The ability to send images to Photoshop as PhotoPro 16 bits PSD
The ability to send images to Photoshop as Smart Object
The ability to send several images to Photoshop as layers and for panorama.

Even better performance.

I do not know about ND Nik or OnOne plugins... I don't think that would happen, but it would be nice that whatever effects are created in one of the Nik or OnOne Software plugin can remain as a layer that if we go back to the same plugin we can re-adjust the layer effect (same as we went to PS). think that would be the next best thing.

That the "plugin" that came with Aperture, the Dodge/Burn can be done non-destructive.

1. True non destructive editing. The brush and ND Grad. available in LR 2.0 is fantastic in principal (pity the performance is so lame), but a high performance version in Ap 3.0 would limit trips to PS to just a trickle.

2. Full Smart Object integration.

3. Lab colour space support.

4. 16 Bit PSD support.

5. Fully integrated Panoramic and HDR support with PS.

6. No more insanely expensive Plug - Ins from Nik. As excellent as they may be, they are far too expensive. Actually, with improved non-destructive editing, Viveza would be no longer required at all.

7. Improved tethering. Ability to control the camera to a greater degree would really take this mode to a very high level.

Thats all I want at the moment, with perhaps much quicker RAW support for new cameras. The wait to support my D700 was very frustrating!

My wishlist:

1) Chromatic aberration correction
2) Non-destructive localized correction tools
3) Better output sharpening control
4) Maintain keyword hierarchies without duplications (try importing a keyworded photo and watch the keywords pile up at the root level, duplicating what's already there)
5) Fix the ongoing performance issues (still a processor hog, regular SBOD)
6) Zoom to better than 1:1 without the loupe (and do it fast)

I still love Aperture's supremely flexible workflow, but some of these gaps (particularly 1, 3, 5, 6) have me looking very hard indeed at LR2.1.

1) Curves please!!!. I can't understand it's not there already
2) Zoom in fulscreen: fit, 25%,50%,75% and 100%
3) Export versions with custom sharpness (as in print dialog)
4) Custom ordering of project list
5) Color taging of projects (i would use it to differantiate finished, work in progress, captioned, uncaptioned etc...)
6) Albums not taking all stack when selected image is stacked
7) Better Library managenet. Library list, Possibility to switch library without restart, merge/split library.
8) as Nick Green, Lab colour space support on psd files
9) better sharpening and noise control

I completely agree in every way, and on all items. Multimedia integration is only logical, considering Apple happens to make an entire suite of "pro apps" that all integrate with one another in wonderful ways, except for, of course, Aperture, which somehow manages to only really integrate with comparatively consumer apps, like iworks and iphoto, etc. Those are useful, of course, but limited to the audience I believe they're aiming for. More integration with professional applications only means less reason to use Lightroom for people working in mixed media (let's see... do I want my RAW editor/organizer to play better with Photoshop/Illustrator, or Final Cut/Motion/Soundtrack...) With the convergence of still and video (ahem, 5D2), this will only become more vital.

One thing I would add to general library syncing is an option to create smaller vaults that do not archive entire libraries, but rather specific selected projects, smart folders, etc. I have my photos all backed up on one external drive (it's all I can afford for now), but I have several other hard drives much smaller than my total library. I would really like to tell Aperture to sync only my 5-star images to these drives (or to an online solution) and as such make my most vital work redundant much more fluidly, rather than just exporting masters and versions of them and putting them in an old-fashioned folder.

Thnx for the info :)

First of all: Improved performance!
I do a lot of advanced, multilayerd stuff in Photoshop CS3 without any performance issues. Not to mention CameraRaw. In Aperture 2 I can get performance issues just by adjusting levels.

Secondly: Improved performance!

Third: Brush or selective editing!
This would really kill the use of Photoshop.

Fourth: Non destructive plugin editing!
I like the plugin posibilities in Aperture. Viveza for example is awsome. But for the cost of some plugins I get Photoshop which can do basically everything. There are no real advantage today. But if I got the possibilty to use a plugin directly on the RAW-file (Master) or being able to edit the plugin adjustment on an image, then we are talking...

Fifth: Curves!
In conjunction with selective editing. Need I say more?

Aperture server! Remote management of images would be great. If we could import projects on an as you need basis we could save a lot of hassle.

Here are a couple of things that have bugged the crap out of me since like V1 - not that there is anything better at the moment.

-Checkbox to export all keywords in the hierarchy when exporting images - come on, who the heck hasn't asked for this since day one.

-I am an Aperture books addict - Now how about the ability to really save a custom layout with the pages you want, with the layouts you want, how about changing the text styles so that they change everywhere for that theme, this stuff is not a major architecture change, it's piddly stuff that would save me a ton of time - please don't tell me about workarounds I know them, I just want it built in.

-Real DNG support - How about just using the Adobe stuff so we can have/make camera profiles? Would that be to much not invented here kind of thing to embrace? Better yet while we are on the subject of impossible stuff - how about a RAW processing plugin API as the core architecture and let users choose the manufacturer.

-Maybe printing that isn't hopelessly screwy depending on how the planets are aligned? Yea I can fix it - I have had to on many occasions and I have my recipe for fixing dorked printing but why oh why does this happen?

-How about selecting multiple projects/objects in the freaking inspector so that you can move them around more than one at a time. Yea I know it's dangerous but hey give me a preference or something. I feel like a windoze user with the thing trying to protect me "yea I am sure, yup really sure, yep you can go ahead and do what I asked you to do now, click, click, click, next, next, GD next..) - ooops sorry for that

-Keyword synonyms anyone? This is a truly useful thing that LR2 has come up with. Not that I would switch for that but keyword features have not really seen anything since V!

RB

Wow, I always knew everyone had a different wishlist, but this makes it real and it's scary. Arbitrating the evolution of AP must a major challenge for the team, and probably frustrating considering what's feasible VS all the world's desire.

I'd limit myself to correction of chroma aberration and geometry, and library synching between 2 macs such as this: A to B, B to A, merge both.

I could wish for a million things more, as anyone who uses AP hours everyday... but what's the point.

My other wish would be that higher management at Apple continues to believe in the program, so that the AP team gets continued or (better) slightly improved development funding.

my 2 cents.

Max-Pol

1. higher quality book printing options. Wedding photographers want this bad!!!!

2. improved speed.

3. non destructive dodge and burn tool!!!

everything else is bonus for me but those things are very important.

1. Curves
2. Curves
3. Curves
4. Curves
5. Curves
I tried, I really tried, but Aperture's Exposure and Level bricks are so unwieldy and unresponsive on my 4GB, 2.8GHz iMac, that I have taken to exporting as PSDs to do one final curves adjustment before printing, which defeats the whole purpose of non-destructive editing. As far as I am concerned, Aperture is superior to LR in every way except this. But if Aperture 3 still does not have curves, I don't know how long I can hang on :-(

Please ask Santa to allow me to flop (RH to LH for example) a pic without having to go to PS.

Oh yes, I'm in China right now and my vv old PB (500MHz G4) doesn't run Aperture, so pleeeeeease let me find my shiny new PowerShot G10 on the RAW support list when I get back on Friday ;-)

"Please ask Santa to allow me to flop (RH to LH for example) a pic without having to go to PS."

Use the plus button at the top of the adjustments pane to add a 'Flip' brick. This was added in Aperture 2 sometime early this year.

Ian

5 things, huh? OK:
1. The ability to work (edit) on layered PSDs in Aperture without destroying the layer set (if you open a layered PSD in Photoshop after you've done some Aperture tweaks, your layers are gone!) This is tantamount to an "Open As Smart Object" feature.

2. Ability to make changes to an image or set of images say in the Book Creator (sorry, forgot the right term), or a Light Table so that it ONLY changes it in that "mode". Currently, if I tweak an image while creating a book ( to look better next to another image of or in a books theme), it changes the image everywhere else it is (Folders/Projects, etc.)

3. Ability to work with Apple's "Gestures" feature on new MacBooks/Pros trackpads

4. Ability to work with ANY external editor of choice so that if an image is "re-opened" in that editor later (even after more work in Aperture is done), all the settings from the editor are available too (this is probably a cooperative hand-in-hand with other companies to be totally "non-destructive" with their features as well... tall order!)

5. Ability to arrange folders/( sub-folders) by hand: Currently I create a Project/ Create a Folder (brown folder) inside the Project/ Create more Folders (also brown) inside the Parent folder. These subfolders are arranged alphabetically, and don't allow me to sort them manually. Due to my chosen naming convention, I need this feature.

For those requesting a 'Curves Adjustment' feature, read this informative article:
http://www.apertureprofessional.com/showthread.php?t=12060

Trace

> For those requesting a 'Curves Adjustment' feature, read this informative article:
> http://www.apertureprofessional.com/showthread.php?t=12060

Been there, done that. That's what I meant by "I tried". It's clunky, it's cumbersome, while it is better than Photoshop's Levels, it is a far cry from Curves. Case in point, it takes four drags instead of two to do a simple S-curve on Aperture's Levels, because you have to move both the top and bottom quarter triangles closer to the side. And every time you have to make a slight adjustment, you have to move BOTH the top and bottom ones. I don't know about your Mac, but on my 4GB 2.8GHz iMac, it is a very, very sluggish process.

Give me some credit. I am not unaware of all those workarounds, but they are just that: workarounds.

Reminds me of the time before Nikon came out with the D3 and Canon had the 5D. I have lost track of how many posts, blogs, and articles from Nikonites that I have read, that says, "there is no need for full frame", "crop frame is just as good", etc. Can you say, "sour grape"?

Things I would like to see improved in Aperture - speed, stability, testing of camera raw updates before release. Far too many things are broken that should have been picked up before release, then it is left to the users to discuss workarounds until eventually a further update comes out that fixes one problem but adds another 2.

New features like non destructive plug-in editors and CA correction are also a must.

Export as 16 bit .png.

Count me in on the project syncing. I'd love to see something that's serverless for folks like me that don't need/want extra hardware. But, if something like Final Cut Server is for Aperture I'd get it.

Please don't add other multimedia stuff. I loved iTunes before it became bloated, now I can't recall the last time I loaded it up. I like the Unix philosophy here "Write programs that do one thing and do it well."

Localized edits like the Lightroom 2 brush would be wonderful.

As mentioned before plugins implemented as adjustment bricks please. I don't understand why they weren't implemented this way to begin with. SQLite allows for arbitrary amounts of data. Aperture: "plugin do your thing with ". being what the plugin told Aperture to save off, so it should know how to read it. Plugin: "Aperture save "

For those that want to order projects by date or whatever - please allow them to be sorted alphabetically as well, it's much easier for me to find them that way.

As mentioned before Extend "Add to Favorites" to something like "Add to user defined collection 1[..n]". As it stands I'd have to add and remove projects many times to make favorites useful.

Some way to tell if you're in Quick View mode when you're running full screen with everything hidden. Maybe it's bad practice on my part but when I import images I turn on Quick View to quickly rate them. If there is an image that I see that would look better with a tighter crop I turn off Quick View, make the crop, then forget to turn on Quick View again then Aperture lags when I try to quickly rate several images loading up RAW. Maybe add Quick Edit, so I can still be in Quick View, click Quick Edit, make my changes, then when I move to another image I'm in Quick View again?

Anyway - I love Aperture and love where Apple has gone with it. It's still an infant program.

This post was on the 7th, coming from a devotee I take it Aperture 3 is due some time next year Q2? Well I have a few things to add:

1. More in depth metadata sorting options, there is a great extension that will add more power to Aperture called Aperture Assistant (http://www.aperturepluggedin.com/2008/06/13/aperture-assistant/), that's what the plug-in architechture is for I suppose. However its a little limited right now, for example I can't add any plug-ins as icons on my top bar, all plug-ins must be accessed via the right click menu, so more integration there for 3rd parties would be nice. Sticking with the issue of metadata and switching to XMP I spent a long time using Phil Harvey's ExifTool to convert my 20k image library from XMP to IPTC (switching to Mac) and made a video here:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HLYuHkhin9w

2. Never mind handling RAW support, let the big guys find common ground instead of developing propriatory RAW formats. What about support for PNG and GIF files and the transparency in those that gets lost. Oh yes, I see a system free from folder chock full of gifs and pngs and other things, a system built on metadata (GIF and PNG do not accept metadata) and so using database apps like Aperture to keep a system tidy is whats needed. Yes I know the files are stored in folders in the picture folder, but thats hidden away and metadata allows for more flexibility.

3. Backing up to TimeMachine, bye bye Vaults, silly old technology. I need to restore images on the fly.

4. People on MacBooks use Aperture and I dont get caught out by it but some of the menus get clipped at the bottom because of my screen size (especially with 128x128 icons in my dock pushing things up). Well I think it runs fine, just wish they though about us MacBook users too.

5. A little more 3D perhaps, there must be a way to get more images on a screen than 4x5 tiles. Apple are expert at introducing 3D, login switcher, iChat 3-way-talk... so here, as these apps are already tested for eventual OS UI changes anyway, would be a good time to try some 3D visuals.

6. This is just an extra... I was talking to the guy who does the FlickrExport plug-in and requested he implement a feature to allow for superimposing comments onto images/photos all ready for uploading to sites like Flickr.. wouldn't that be good. How many people find that websites have specific features that images can't keep once downloaded from. But its at the end of his long to-do list

Oh and I forgot, filtering upon import - I hate importing PDF's thinking their images, how silly is that!

"Aperture Server" sounds like what I need. A multi-user enviroment. Our shop has 4 photographers who do post production on what ever job is in next in line when they have time between assignments. We have 3 workstations. So far as I know, Aperture (or LightRoom for that matter) doesn't support a centeralized database and until one or the other of them do we can't make use of the sensational features in our workflow and that limitation makes me crazy.

Definitely go for the Panny LX3. I did even though Aperture doesn't have the RAW support yet. But, I'm reasonably confident that it will since Aperture supports the LX2 RAW format. I just shoot RAW+JPG which this little pocket wonder does. In capable hands, this little shooter will bring home great images when you don't have your dSLR on hand. The video mode is pretty decent too when compared to my Sony HD Camcorder.

Did anybody mention download able presets? Aperture really need user made presets.

Well,

In my list I would prefer:
1) Performance... maybe expand files over several DB files although it really is one library)
2) Work Flow of moving files to ad from MacPro to a MacBookPro. A sort of view from a master DB.
3) Ability to duplicate RAW files for Non Destructive WFlow (Duplicate and open RAW in Xyz.App like Photomatix or Canon DPP)
4) Non AppleScript based metadata Management. Image select and change Metadata.... that has to be really easy.
5) Better file management
.
.
.
.
10) An explanation of what "·%$$%· is light table for? ;^)
And that is what I thing about that!

My wish that face recognition framework should be used as complementary to existing meta data.

Cropping! I am so frustrated with the limitations of cropping. I would like to make my own presets. I crop 50% of my 20,000 images to 4x8, since it is not a preset I have to manually type in: 4 (tab) 8 (tab) enter. Too much work.

Here we are in July 2009 and still not a peep from Apple.
Why am I not surprised?
Because Apple delights in making people guess what's coming next.

That's dandy in the consumer space, but the Pro Wants to Know.

Well, having waited in vain for months with not so much as a glimmer of hope I got Lightroom.
Everything Aperture should have been and more, except it's a piece of cake to learn. I can go back to a photo I processed a year ago and redo it, apply another filter, tweak it and make virtual copies- all nondestructively.
Ok, so as a photo organizer it's rubbish, and it's as ugly as any UI can be on the Mac, but I can refine an entire wedding in 3 hours. You want to try importing 1350 images into Aperture?!?

APPLE--- ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?
Adobe is cleaning your clock in a field you should be outright dominating.

But enough negativity!

Things I want to see in Aperture 3:

A shockingly blatant rip off of Lr but with Apple's sublime UI and organization and mind-blowing multi-core speed.
I'm a picky pro and I give my loyalty to the best product.
But I'm also a Mac fan.
If Apple can make something better than Lr and I'll buy it.

Adobe is working on Lr 3 right now. Aperture 3 had better be something special.