Apple Aperture Hardware Demands

I have read a lot about the slow speed of Aperture, as compared to Adobe Lightroom, especially on computers without significant ram or a super fast processor. But I also read one person's account several weeks ago that the cause of the slowness was only temporary, i.e. it was the process of making thumbnails and previews in the background after importing a substantial number of photos and once those were done, the speed was not a problem.

1. Anybody have any insight on that issue?

2. Has speed been an issue during your use of Aperture?

3. Anybody know when the next version of Aperture is coming out?

Speed was the main reason for not choosing Aperture over Lightroom. I tried it and just thought overall it was too slow. Lightroom is way faster, not to mention it is easier to use in my opinion. I can edit much quicker in LR than I could in Aperture. I really wanted Aperture to work...but it just didn't for me.

Jason
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A work in progress:
http://www.jshafferphotography.com

I use Aperture but it can be slow during some tasks.

I don't mind too much if it takes time to do batch type things. Loading in images, creating thumbnails, exporting images.

One thing I've learned using Aperture is that it is multi-threaded and it uses the graphics card to do the heavy lifting when making the adjustments to your images.

This means you'll be much better off with a dual processor or better yet a MacPro with quad core. Also, though I haven't been able to see this myself, using an upgraded graphics card should make the user interface more responsive.

I have a second gen Macbook pro 2 ghz 2 gig ram. While processor speed matters a good grapics card is key as is ram. I haven't had many slow downs, and if you consider that aperture is non-modular ( do anything at anytime) it is faster over all. I shoot nikon so noise is an issue with acr but final results from aperture IMO are only okay. I use it mainly for DAM and cropping. It really is a joy to use though.
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Anthony G.
Louisville, Ky.

To be yourself, and no one else, in a world that tries to make you like everyone else, is
to fight the greatest battle any man can fight and to never quit fighting.
e.e. cummings

http://www.PreludeImages.com

Aperture, is not slow but super slow. Its a big issue, and Apple replaced the whole dev team at one point. But it didn't help much.

By slow I don't just mean, slow in processing images or batches and so on, I do mean:

Slow in opening (1-2 minutes) and closing. Slow in showing an image (sometimes just halts and crunches the HD for 2 minutes). Slow in switching between folders/projects. Clogging down the whole computer (you can't do much with any other app while aperture is running). Very slow in exporting images (2 minutes for exporting 1 photo to a smaller web version).

New version - Apple just released an update last week if I am not wrong. is now version 1.5.4.

Ori

ChandlerKevin said:

I have read a lot about the slow speed of Aperture, as compared to
Adobe Lightroom, especially on computers without significant ram or a
super fast processor. But I also read one person's account several
weeks ago that the cause of the slowness was only temporary, i.e. it
was the process of making thumbnails and previews in the background
after importing a substantial number of photos and once those were
done, the speed was not a problem.

1. Anybody have any insight on that issue?

2. Has speed been an issue during your use of Aperture?

3. Anybody know when the next version of Aperture is coming out?

Click to expand...

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http://www.fotegrafik.com/user/ori

Aperture can be slow - depending on your hardware.

I run it on a Mac Pro with the X1900XT graphics card and it is perfectly acceptable. I realise this is top of the line hardware, but there are also reports of people being happy with it on iMacs, etc.

With Aperture, your graphics card is critical. It relies extensively on this. I would not try and run it full time on anything less than a MacBook Pro with a decent graphics card.

The times for opening, loading and exporting quoted above sound (to me) like it is being run on pretty underpowered equipment.

Yes it can be slow, especially when after importing a large batch of photos. However it is not unusable. Primary use is as DAM and global editing, which I find is more than enough for 99% of my photography. Photoshop has taken a semi back seat in my workflow.

Have run aperture on three different macs.

1) Last model G5 laptop ( 1.8 GHz and 1gig ram). SLOW, very slow. Just loading up already built libraries and working/displaying photos.

2) New Imac (Not the latest black version) ( 2.1 GHz and 1gig ram). Slow when importing 1500 new 8meg raw files and while building previews. Usable during and perfectly fine after that.

3) First gen Macbook Pro ( 2.1 Ghz and 2 gig ram). 2nd gig of ram made a significant difference and have put over 20K photos through in the last 1.5 years without issue. With larger libraries it is slowing down but I attribute this to the hard drive not aperture itself.

Have not used Lightroom since the beta version on an almost 4 year old laptop, so not a fair comparison.

Ed
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Can you tell? I picked my poison well.

I tried it on a 2GHz G5 iMac with 1.5GB RAM, and it was, frankly, unusable. Glad it was only a trial, so it wasn't an expensive experiment.

Stuart
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Lightroom doesn't get the winner of zippy award on the Mac either. I think lightroom actually got slower on a Mac with the release of 1.1.