Saturday, November 12, 2005
Friday, November 11, 2005
First of all, I know nothing more about Aperture than what's available to the public on the web. I don't work on it and I've never used it. Some info here may be wrong.
It's already been said that Aperture may be the biggest leap in digital photography since the digital SLR. If you haven't already seen them, I highly recommend the video tours of Aperture.
Aperture has incredible compare and select tools specifically designed to let photographers take many, many shots and easily and quickly sort and compare them to pick out the best takes. This is such a giant leap over opening multiple windows in photoshop side by side, try to zoom in and compare them in sync to pick out the shot you want.
Aperture also does native RAW editing. I think this is *huge* and where the real technological leap comes. The compare and select tools are innovations in workflow. Someone sat down and figured out the right way for a photographer to do those things, and they coded them. However, the RAW workflow is something else entirely.
I believe the key to working natively in RAW is Apple's huge support and adoption of GPU acceleration for as much as possible. In Photoshop you can open a RAW image, apply a filter, *wait* while the filter is applied, then save the image as a new file. You've lost the parameters for your adjustments, you've increased your disk requirements, organization is a mess, and it's a slow process. Now you want to tweak something a little more? Start all over.
With Aperture, all this is done in the GPU in real-time, non destructively. Basically you set the adjustments you want on the image. The RAW image is loaded into memory and uploaded to the graphics card. The GPU is then instructed to alter the image in some way (Core Image filters or other fragment programs) and display the image to the user. This is all done in real-time. That altered image is never saved, which is totally fine. You are always referring to the native RAW image on disk at all times. You can make multiple versions of the image with different adjustments, and it's still one RAW image and a list of parameters that were changed.
This is a really incredible change is workflow. What we've been doing for a little while now in audio and video in Logic, Soundtrack, and Final Cut Pro has finally made its way to photography as well.
Now, one might see the relatively high system requirements for Aperture and scoff. "Damn Apple, trying to sell me more hardware!" but actually, it's the high system requirements that make this all possible. Other applications like Photoshop are forced to support a wide range of machines. This limits innovation and they are confined to a small box of technology. Advancement is slowed to a snail's pace.
By breaking out of that box and using the latest and greatest graphics card power and other technologies, Apple is able to make software that is radically better, and "changes everything." And in a year or two, all computers will support these new technologies anyway, so what's the big deal? Just like with any other cutting edge technology, the early adopters can spend the money and get it now. And everyone else will get it later.
It's incredible to see how video games have improved in the past few years (I don't play games at all). Graphics cards have become incredibly more powerful (something like 200% increases each year!) and games are written to take full advantage of these cards. Hardcore gamers go out and spend $500 on a graphics card to play the latest game. Then the game companies put out even better games for those cards. It's a "great" cycle that really pushes technology much quicker than it otherwise would have progressed.
Companies like ATI, nVidia, IBM, and Intel pack some really powerful technology in their chips beyond "more MHz." It's great to see this technology being used, even if it means leaving the old systems behind.
It's already been said that Aperture may be the biggest leap in digital photography since the digital SLR. If you haven't already seen them, I highly recommend the video tours of Aperture.
Aperture has incredible compare and select tools specifically designed to let photographers take many, many shots and easily and quickly sort and compare them to pick out the best takes. This is such a giant leap over opening multiple windows in photoshop side by side, try to zoom in and compare them in sync to pick out the shot you want.
Aperture also does native RAW editing. I think this is *huge* and where the real technological leap comes. The compare and select tools are innovations in workflow. Someone sat down and figured out the right way for a photographer to do those things, and they coded them. However, the RAW workflow is something else entirely.
I believe the key to working natively in RAW is Apple's huge support and adoption of GPU acceleration for as much as possible. In Photoshop you can open a RAW image, apply a filter, *wait* while the filter is applied, then save the image as a new file. You've lost the parameters for your adjustments, you've increased your disk requirements, organization is a mess, and it's a slow process. Now you want to tweak something a little more? Start all over.
With Aperture, all this is done in the GPU in real-time, non destructively. Basically you set the adjustments you want on the image. The RAW image is loaded into memory and uploaded to the graphics card. The GPU is then instructed to alter the image in some way (Core Image filters or other fragment programs) and display the image to the user. This is all done in real-time. That altered image is never saved, which is totally fine. You are always referring to the native RAW image on disk at all times. You can make multiple versions of the image with different adjustments, and it's still one RAW image and a list of parameters that were changed.
This is a really incredible change is workflow. What we've been doing for a little while now in audio and video in Logic, Soundtrack, and Final Cut Pro has finally made its way to photography as well.
Now, one might see the relatively high system requirements for Aperture and scoff. "Damn Apple, trying to sell me more hardware!" but actually, it's the high system requirements that make this all possible. Other applications like Photoshop are forced to support a wide range of machines. This limits innovation and they are confined to a small box of technology. Advancement is slowed to a snail's pace.
By breaking out of that box and using the latest and greatest graphics card power and other technologies, Apple is able to make software that is radically better, and "changes everything." And in a year or two, all computers will support these new technologies anyway, so what's the big deal? Just like with any other cutting edge technology, the early adopters can spend the money and get it now. And everyone else will get it later.
It's incredible to see how video games have improved in the past few years (I don't play games at all). Graphics cards have become incredibly more powerful (something like 200% increases each year!) and games are written to take full advantage of these cards. Hardcore gamers go out and spend $500 on a graphics card to play the latest game. Then the game companies put out even better games for those cards. It's a "great" cycle that really pushes technology much quicker than it otherwise would have progressed.
Companies like ATI, nVidia, IBM, and Intel pack some really powerful technology in their chips beyond "more MHz." It's great to see this technology being used, even if it means leaving the old systems behind.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Today Apple announced we've sold 1 million videos through the music store! Sweet. I've got a few music videos already.
The content at iTunes Stanford is really, really good. Even better than I expected. I highly recommend:
Jeff Hawkins Discusses Entrepreneurship - Jeff discusses times he took the entrepreneurial route, and times when he passed on it. Do what's right for the product, not your wallet.
My Education in the Path of nonviolent - Arun Gandhi. Great stories of his grandfather, good ideas for the future.
NatureÂ’s Economy: Population, Consumption, and Sustainability - Some really interesting facts and ideas by really smart people. How we can sustain life on earth given the US's crazy energy consumption, and the increase in consumption by India and China.
Also good, but way too much content for 1 hour:
Leading the Good Life: Lessons from the Greeks - McCall is hilarious!
Post a comment if you have other recommendations
The content at iTunes Stanford is really, really good. Even better than I expected. I highly recommend:
Jeff Hawkins Discusses Entrepreneurship - Jeff discusses times he took the entrepreneurial route, and times when he passed on it. Do what's right for the product, not your wallet.
My Education in the Path of nonviolent - Arun Gandhi. Great stories of his grandfather, good ideas for the future.
NatureÂ’s Economy: Population, Consumption, and Sustainability - Some really interesting facts and ideas by really smart people. How we can sustain life on earth given the US's crazy energy consumption, and the increase in consumption by India and China.
Also good, but way too much content for 1 hour:
Leading the Good Life: Lessons from the Greeks - McCall is hilarious!
Post a comment if you have other recommendations