With the release of Aperture 3 I think I am back to where I was quite a few years back with one application I am happy to use for all my Digital Asset Management.
Many moons ago I was a happy iViewMedia Pro user, and then between iView becoming a part of the Microsoft Expression Media suite, and not really supporting Mac any more, and me moving to a Raw shooting workflow, we had to part company. I had period where I was in transition with Bibble Pro doing my RAW conversion, and iView for the DAM, but I was lured by the release of Adobe Lightroom. At the time I looked at Aperture, but it was too expensive, and my machine at the time couldn’t run it because of the GPU demands.
Over the intervening period I have been happily shooting most of my images in Raw, and using Lightroom to manage them.
Recently though I have been carrying a little Panasonic Lumix or my iPhone around with me for those quick images, and holiday shots. It’s just too much gear to lug the SLR bag around on a day out with a toddler in tow. The little Lumix does the job admirably, and really impressed me on the recent trip to Disneyland Paris. Problem with this little camera is that it’s JPEG only, and Lightroom is not so hot working with JPEGs. I had taken to managing the stuff from it in iPhoto 09, and the Canon SLR in Lightroom, but the photo library was getting increasingly fragmented, and difficult to let the rest of the family see it.
With this latest revision of Aperture I think I have found the “One Ring”. I can store my Raw, JPEGS & Video in one application, which is happy enough to keep it all referenced from the NAS drive. It does a very capable job of organizing the library allowing me to have it the way I want it, and has powerful correction tools meaning fewer trips needed to Photoshop.
As a bonus I can sync stuff easily to the Apple TV to make it accessible to the rest of the family.
Without taking into account the integration of Places and Faces into the app I think we have a WINNER!