Opinion: Aperture will come up aces in the workflow category, but file-quality sticklers will stay with Photoshop to perfect their pictures.Now that digital has taken over the photo market, every shooter recognizes software as a tool of his trade. As the Raw format gains traction, the new question "What software to use?" is getting asked even more.
I'd say the query is kind of like "What clothes should I wear?" Answers involve both what you do and who you are. When it comes to evaluating photo software, there seems to be two equally subjective and important criteria, namely ease of workflow and file quality. Apple's new Aperture may be a one-size fits all solution, bringing a revolution in workflow and user-friendliness, but it won't satisfy all photographers. The devil is in the file quality.
Workflow and file quality are both subjective concepts, but every shooter will know what I'm talking about.
Workflow is all about moving files around quickly and easily. Pro shooters create hundreds of files a day. They need to label them with the essential metadata like the name of the model, sort through them to determine keepers, get them approved, retouch them, print them, file them in a place they can be found again, and generally earn their bacon with those captures.
Phase One's Capture One software pioneered the workflow for Raw files, but I believe that Apple's Aperture will soon dominate the market: Apple addresses all the filing, sorting and display needs of the pro, even though Photoshop remains essential for subtle retouching. To highlight Apple's amazing care in interface design, Aperture can automagically group shots in stacks, according to the interval between shutter clicks. Take five quick shots of five models who pose at a few minutes interval, and you'll get five cleanly separated stacks!
But what about file quality? Here the issue is much more complex. Nowadays, a pro's capture goes through at least two transformations. First, if it's a Raw file, it needs to be pushed through a Raw converter. Then it gets retouched, cropped and sharpened, and here Photoshop reigns supreme.
Raw conversion means turning the "raw" dump of camera sensor data into a TIFF or other standard image format by a process called demosaicing or deconvolution. Yup, to get this right you need to know a lot about the sensor—and each camera maker, be it Canon, Nikon or Sony, has his own secret sauce of anti-alias filter and electronics. In the end, the Raw converter's algorithms determine the subtlety of color and the degree of detail which is extracted from the captured imagery.
It's all about the "look" you wish to get. And a signature "look" is what defines a top-tier photographer. My own judgment is that Canon's DPP converts my 1DsII files with unmatched sharpness, yielding much greater detail than Adobe's ACR plugin. And Phase One's Capture One program, cited above, has a devoted fan base of users who love its color rendering and use of camera profiles. Other software packages such as Raw Shooter Essentials also have their proponents.
Of course, Aperture has a Raw converter built-in. In fact, it's using the Image Capture technology built into Mac OS X 10.4, aka Tiger. One advantage of this setup is that Aperture can decode new camera formats as soon as they're added to the operating system by a standard software update.
Adobe's policy regarding ACR is that the user upgrade to a recent version of Photoshop in order to read files from recent cameras. Note that an Aperture user has no compelling reason to upgrade to a new Photoshop version. But both companies can only decode images to the extent a camera maker cooperates. Indeed, there's a limit to how far a generalist decoder like Image Capture or ACR can be tailored to the specifics of any one camera maker's technology.
With the Raw image data transformed into a file, the shooter still needs to retouch. Here, almost every photographer on the planet uses Photoshop. Again, each shooter employs private recipes, which define his signature "look". Such recipes extend from the curves and sharpening applied, to techniques for smoothing skin while conserving texture. When I watched Stephen Eastwood retouch in his studio, it became clear that his unique images are the product of careful post-production work as much as of shooting technique.
Let me recap—photographers who are fanatical for detail will continue to run their favorite Raw converter next to Aperture. And they'll stay with Photoshop, or their favorite retouching app. For now, Aperture will remain the wrapper, not the core, of a perfectionist's workflow.
Edmund Ronald has a Ph.D. in applied mathematics, and he is currently on a sabbatical as a photographer in Paris.
Edmund Ronald's blog can be found at www.monitor-calibration.net.
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