Digitalopia

Nik Software recently updated their Color Efex Pro 3.0 software to provide support for Aperture 2.1+ though the addition of an edit plug-in. Note that the Aperture plug-in is not available with the Standard Edition of Color Efex Pro 3.0, only the Select and Complete Editions.

Color Efex Pro 3.0 provides a set of digital filters for colour correction, retouching and creative enhancements. They are analogous to traditional photographic filters, and some of the filter names will be familiar, such as Graduated Neutral Density and Skylight Filter.

Color Efex Pro 3.0 is available in three different versions at different price points and number of included filters. A 15 day free trial version is also available.

• Standard Edition - 15 Filters - $99.95 (Aperture plug-in not included)
• Select Edition - 35 Filters - $159.95
• Complete Edition - 52 Filters - $299.95

The filters provided with each edition are listed here.

After opening the plug-in with a selected photo, the plug-in interface is opened. The Complete Edition is shown in the screen shot below after the B/W Conversion plug-in has been applied.

The left side of the plug-in lists the available filters, grouped into a number of tabs; All, Traditional, Stylizing, Landscape or Portrait. Filters can also be added to a dedicated Favorites tab.

The center of the plug-in shows the selected photo. A number of different display modes are available.

• A single image is shown with the filter applied (a check-box can remove the preview, simply showing the image before the filter is applied.)
• Before and after photos are shown side-by-side (as shown in the screen shot above.) This is my preferred display mode, allowing to see the filter effects upon all parts of the photo.
• A single photo is shown split in two, the left side showing before and the right side showing after.

The right side of the plug-in shows the available options for the currently selected filter. A loupe is also provided that shows the before and after effects of the filter at the pixel level. The loupe displays the photo detail at the current mouse pointer location.

I will be adding some subsequent follow-up articles taking an example image and passing it through a number of the available filters to show the their effect and the filters available options.

Overall, Color Efex Pro 3.0 is a great Aperture plug-in and a valuable addition to your digital kit-bag. However, as the Aperture plug-in is only available with the Select and Complete Editions, which at $160 and $300 (minus that 5 cents!) respectively are quite expensive, it will only be popular with a select group of Aperture users. However, if you have not invested in Photoshop, a couple of Aperture plug-ins may be all you need to complete your digital workflow. I would definitely recommend using the free trial version to see if it offers enough features for the cost.

It seems that Amazon is currently offering Apple Aperture 2.0 for only $159.99, saving over $39 off the price it is available from other retailers, including the Apple store.

This offer is direct from Amazon and includes free shipping (Super Saver Shipping). Click here to head on over to Amazon.

PictureCode have announced the availability of the popular Noise Ninja noise and grain removal application as a Aperture Plug-in.

Noise Ninja has a wide following among professional photographers, and is popular when shooting in low light or fast moving conditions, as it can help to remove unwanted noise associated with shooting at a high ISO.

You can download the plug-in from from the Apple Web site. A license for the Noise Ninja plug-in costs $79.95 (Pro Bundle). Until the licence has been purchased, the plug-in will operate in trial mode, displaying a grid patterned watermark on all images processed.

If you have been following the Mac news over the last couple of months, you will have no doubt heard of Psystar. Their claim-to-fame is the release of a Mac-clone hardware platform bundled with a copy of Mac OS X Leopard. This is in breach of the Mac OS X EULA, that does not permit the installation of Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware.

Apple was very initially very quiet on the matter, but responded last week when they announced they would be suing Psystar. This is the obvious reply, as Apple will look to protect their brand, which could easily get soiled with a flood of poor quality and poorly supported clones.

Psystar have now responded by hiring a team of lawyers (Carr and Ferrell) to represent them in the case. They have not made any formal statements regarding their defense, but initial hints seem to indicate it will center on the perceived anti competitive nature of the Mac OS X EULA. Considering the cost of a team of lawyers (especially with the credibility of Carr and Ferrell), they will need very deep pockets to be able to keep the case moving along.

Personally, I do not think it is a very strong case to make against Apple. Apple have a small market share (only approx. 5%), hardly worthy of claiming they are being anti competitive. Also, Apple have developed the components of Mac OS X with pricing to reflect its target is only Apple hardware. It is hardly surprising that Microsoft need to charge many hundreds of dollars for Vista (especially the Premium and Ultimate editions), as they need to recoup their substantial development and testing costs. This may be a biased opinion as I do not think it will be good for Apple and the Mac community if Apple are forced to ‘open’ the Mac OS X operating system to other hardware vendors. Would this also apply to the iPhone, should Apple be forced to release it for Nokia and Symbian platforms !?! Perhaps that is being flippant, but the analogies are endless, and I assume Apple will also make similar analogies in any response.

This will be a very interesting case to follow. We hope to being you more news as the case progresses.

Not a major feature release for Aperture, but version 2.1.1 resolves general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues.

As with the previous updates to Apple iLife, support for the MobileMe service has been added.

The update is available here. The update is recommended to all users and is available as a 48MB download.

At the recent WWDC conference Apple released details (and an early developer build to attendees) of Mac OS X Snow Leopard, the next planned release of the OS X operating system.

Apple have also added a page to their Web site, giving some initial details of the new features of Snow Leopard.

• Microsoft Exchange Support - Snow Leopard will include support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 in the Mail, Address Book, and iCal applications. This is an interesting move and an important announcement as Apple is looking at the Mac moving more into the corporate enterprise,
• Multicore - With the advent of newer multicore processors, efficiently supporting multiple cores is becoming increasingly important for operating systems. Apple is including a new feature called ‘Grand Central’ that looks like a form of OS scheduler that can manage how applications leverage multiple cores. This may reduce the complexity for developers to write code specifically for multiple cores, leaving the complex task to the operating system,
• 64-bit - Whilst Leopard does provides 64-bit support, it looks like Apple will be added additional features to take full advantage of 64-bit computing,
• Media and Internet - Both QuickTime X (the iPhone implementation of QuickTime) and an update to JavaScript performance in Safari have been announced (note that it is expected that the Safari update may be released earlier than Snow Leopard),
• OpenCL - OpenCL is an interesting announcement. It was originally rumored that Apple would be supporting NVidia Cuda, a development API for tapping into the capabilities of modern GPUs (that are largely unused). However, Apple has announced OpenCL that appears to offer the same type of functionality. Perhaps this is because Apple wishes to support both NVidia and ATI graphics processors, and not be locked into a vendors’ proprietary technology.

At first glance this may seem to be a pretty limited set of features for a new OS X release, but there are a few clues and pointers as to where Apple may be heading with Snow Leopard.

The move from Leopard to Snow Leopard indicates a minor advance for OS X. Unless they have run out of wild cat names, by simply tagging Snow to the front of Leopard, Apple are hinting about the ‘minor’ update this release may represent. In fairness, I think they are saying it will be a minor update from a users perspective, in regards its appearance and feature set. However, most of the changes seem to be aimed at the core of OS X operating system.

With the release of the iPhone, Apple are starting to use the OS X platform on a wider range of devices. Microsoft previously tried this with Windows CE, Pocket PC, Windows Mobile, etc. However, Microsoft basically re-wrote the operating system to support these devices, causing a fork in their ongoing development strategy. Apple seem to be tackling the problem in a cleverer way. If they are looking at reducing the footprint of OS X Snow Leopard, allowing it to be run on lower powered devices (perhaps tablet or hand held computers) they will be able to have a single code base that can be deployed across a wider range of devices. This can represent a significant cost saving for Apple, allowing them to streamline their core OS X development and allow them to concentrate on adding functionality, rather than having to manage multiple operating systems. Microsoft is struggling with multiple versions of the Windows platforms, and with the increased size (read bloat) of Vista, you can see that unless Microsoft pulls off a miracle with Windows 7, they will continue to struggle to keep up with the faster release strategies of Apple and the open source Linux platform.

It will also be interesting how much Apple will charge for Snow Leopard. If the feature set is limited, many people may not see the value in upgrading.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard is currently scheduled for release in ‘about a year’, so we can expect a Q2/Q3 release in 2009.

Whilst I am not going to start (or restart) the ongoing discussion of the relative merits of Matte versus Glossy LCD screens, I will make a couple of observations.

Since the release of the new Aluminum 24″ iMac, there has been a lot of discussion regarding the lack of an option to specify a matte screen, leaving users wishing to purchase the top-of-the-range iMac the option of only the glossy screen. There was considerable buzz and expectation that Apple would listen to its photography user and make the matte screen an option on the new iMac. Unfortunately this is not the case.

Now, there may be technical reasons why a matte screen cannot be fitted. However, considering the Apple range of screens, together with just about every other manufacturer (including the high-end Eizo screens) provide matte screens, I rather doubt this would be a reason.

With the recent release of Aperture 2, shortly followed by Aperture 2.1 and the Plug-in SDK, Apple was starting to listen to the needs of digital photographers. Hopefully they will continue to do so, and this will only be a slight blip.

Automator provides a graphical interface with which to define complex workflows that use either Mac OS X actions (such as Core Image or Core Video) or application actions (such as Finder or Aperture). Automator allows you to develop workflows that span applications, where performing the same functions manually would require you to work with each application.

Automated is bundled with Mac OS X and has been updated in Leopard. The screenshot below shows a typical Automator workflow, and is the workflow that is built as part of this article.

Note that this article is equally applicable to iPhoto, and Automator also includes a number of actions for iPhoto. The Mac OS X workflow actions are installed as part of the Mac OS X installation, where the application workflow actions are installed as part of the application installation. I was particularly impressed with the number of actions added by Microsoft Office 2008, across the Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage applications. It seems that not all third-parties bundle actions with their applications, so it is good of Microsoft to provide such comprehensive support.

This article will guide you through a fairly basic workflow example, that will create a PDF contact sheet from a selected Aperture project. I have tried to demonstrate the core features of Automator, and provide a good starting point for you to explore further.

Automator can be used to streamline complex imaging workflows, automating the import, backup and export workflows associated with digital photography.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the coming weeks I will be publishing a rang of articles covering each of the available Mac hardware platforms and looking at their applicability to digital photography.

We cannot all afford Mac Pro’s, so I will be trying to aim the discussions towards the target market for that particular platform. So rather than give any bias towards the more expensive Apple models, I will try to provide the key strengths and weaknesses for that platform.

The main areas I will be focusing on are:

• Performance and Capacity - how well does the hardware manage with the more intensive requirements of applications such as Aperture and Photoshop
• Expandability - can the hardware be expanded to accommodate increased performance or storage requirements
• Screen Size and Quality - if a screen is provided, how well does it perform when editing photos

If you are currently looking for a new Apple, I hope we can help to provide some good arguments for and against the various options you have.