Aperture 3.0.2 Arrives – Major Update With Minor Version Number
Despite the minor seeming version name (3.0.2), Apple today has released a very impressive and important update to Aperture that addresses numerous issues, adds features requested by users and increases interoperability with other apps. Aperture 3, 3.0.2 is now available via Software Update. (And as a great bonus for people using the Aperture 3 trial, with this update you don’t need to re-download a new version of the trial, you can just grab it from Software Update.)
Normally pretty quiet about what’s been updated in their programs, Apple’s list for Aperture 3.0.2 has been very verbose. Unless you’re a software engineer you might not appreciate the real meaning of all the updated items. Luckily we’ve had the chance to look at this and decode it for you. If you’re interested in the full change list, see below.
Upgrading
For users migrating to Aperture 3, the program creates a duplicate copy of your Aperture 2 Library on import, protecting that Library lest a power outage or system freeze happen during import. This is freed up after the process is complete but many people asked for some sort of estimate of hard drive space needed. Aperture 3.0.2 adds this drive space estimate.
XMP and Photoshop/Photo Mechanic
There’s been a bit of a discussion about Aperture 3 and the exporting of metadata to applications like Photoshop or Photo Mechanic. On the surface it appeared that Aperture wasn’t exporting IPTC Core data, because when you look at it in CS4 or Photo Mechanic doesn’t display the info. We’ve been working with software guys and testers of CS5 on this, and the issue is actually how Photoshop and Photo Mechanic read the data when written according to spec (and only according to spec, which is the issue here.) Apple has changed the XMP output behavior of 3.0.2 to to now put this data in a location that allows Photoshop and Photo Mechanic to read the info if written to an XMP sidecar. (This doesn’t change how it’s written to a master file, since that is being written at the OS level and is written according to spec. We think CS5 and Photo Mechanic will likely work this out in the future.)
XMP Sidecars
Aperture 3 added the ability to import data from XMP sidecar files, but wasn’t able to read GPS data, color labels and ratings from programs like Lightroom. Aperture 3.0.2 changes this, all of this data is now imported automatically.
Printing Preferences
This is a massive change, and it’s incredibly welcome. Aperture 3 overhauled the Print dialog box adding presets to the Printing tools. This is of course great, but in 3.0.1 and earlier it was not possible to save printer settings (like paper size, Color Sync profiles, ink output, etc.) This has been added to 3.0.2 adding an Aperture 2 feature to the new Aperture 3 features and making Aperture 3 the most powerful printing tool around. Now you can create a preset for things like a four-up selection of 4×6 images to an HP 8850 on Photo Glossy paper at 1440 DPI.
Brush Processing
Apple has tweaked the behavior of Brushes in 3.0.2. Previously if a brushing action was paused Aperture would resume background processing of images, which could sometimes lead to some slowdown between brush strokes. This would happen when a user would start a stroke, pause and Aperture would process the stroke, right as the user would start the next stroke.
Now Aperture holds off on processing the strokes on the RAW file until the user deselects the brush. The preview will still update, of course, but Aperture won’t do any background processing during this action.
Folder Import
The Import>Folders as Projects… dialog now has a new feature, the ability to import Folders and Projects or Folders and Albums when importing a folder full of sub-folders. This new choice will be very handy for those migrating over to Aperture 3 from other workflows.
Scrolling
This is a little issue with big import – Aperture 3 removed the ability to scroll through images in the Viewer with a scroll wheel or Magic Mouse. 3.0.2 adds this ability again, and makes it a Preference for users who don’t want to scroll with their mouse wheel.
Activity Window
Aperture 3.0.2 changes the behavior of the Activity monitor to show the names of the files being processed. This is great if a corrupted image file is hanging in export or import—now it’s possible to see the name of the file causing any issues.
Aperture 3.0.2 Change List
Symptoms
Aperture 3.0.2 is an update for Aperture 3. Aperture 3 is a paid upgrade for Aperture.
Products Affected
Aperture 3.x
Resolution
For more information about the application, please visit www.apple.com/aperture .
Aperture 3.0.2 Release Notes
This update improves overall stability and fixes issues in a number of areas. The key areas addressed include:
iPhoto Library Import
Fixes an issue that could cause Aperture to erroneously report the amount of hard drive space required to import an iPhoto Library.
Aperture now displays an estimate of the amount of free hard drive space needed to import an iPhoto Library.
Addresses memory management issues when importing large iPhoto libraries.
Rotation of iPhone photos is now preserved when importing from an iPhoto Library.
Fixes an issue that could cause Aperture to stop responding when attempting to play a slideshow imported from an iPhoto Library.
Image Import
During import, Aperture now correctly reads image ratings, color labels, and GPS data stored in XMP sidecar files.
Fixes an issue that could cause Aperture to stop responding if both the Auto-split projects and Auto-Stack options were used together during import.
Addresses an issue that could prevent the Import window from automatically opening when a memory card is mounted.
Aperture now provides correct options when importing hierarchical folders of photos into a library.
Library
The amount of free hard drive space required to upgrade an Aperture Library is now displayed if sufficient space is not available.
Fixes an issue that caused Aperture to overestimate the amount of free hard disk space needed to upgrade an Aperture 1.x or 2.x library.
Fixes an issue that caused thumbnails to take up more disk space than needed.
Addresses stability when importing an Aperture 2 library into an Aperture 3 library.
Addresses some performance issues when opening and closing libraries.
Export
Addresses an issue that prevented Library Albums from being exported properly as standalone libraries.
Fixes an issue that could cause the Email command to use an incorrect export preset when attaching photos to an email.
Canceling a library export now correctly moves the cancelled library to the Trash.
Color labels on non-image files, such as video and audio clips, are now preserved in the Finder when exporting versions.
Adjustments
Addresses issues with retouching 16-bit images.
Fixes an issue that caused the Straighten tool to work incorrectly on flipped images.
Fixes an issue that caused Aperture to quit unexpectedly when Curves was used on JPEGs with a custom printer profile.
Adjustment presets that include brushed adjustments are now correctly rendered when imported into another copy of Aperture.
Fixes a temporary slowdown or potential unexpected quit that could occur when canceling the Reprocess Masters command.
Images are now stacked in the correct order when using the "Create new version when making adjustments" option.
It is now possible to pause preview generation.
Preview generation for adjusted images is now faster.
Addresses an issue where using a large number of Spot and Patch adjustments could cause Aperture to quit unexpectedly.
Printing
Fixes an issue that could cause custom print presets to be displayed in the wrong order in the print dialog.
Print presets now correctly retain printer choice, paper size, orientation, and other printer settings when saved.
Addresses an issue that prevented custom print presets from retaining color profile settings.
The Print dialog now correctly defaults to the last print preset that was used.
Settings such as Image Size, Rows and Columns, Resolution, and Rendering Intent are automatically remembered for next use when choosing Cancel in the Print window.
Addresses an issue that could prevent custom print presets from being saved.
Addresses an issue that prevented custom margins from being saved in print presets.
The Image Size pop-up menu now includes a 4 x 5 setting.
Trash
Fixes an issue that could result in a slowdown when emptying the Aperture Trash.
Fixes an issue that caused the progress indicator to display inaccurate data when emptying the Trash.
Faces
Fixes an issue that could cause a spinning wait cursor to appear when attempting to move snapshots on the Faces corkboard.
Fixes usability issues with auto-completion from Address Book when adding names to Faces.
Aperture now correctly remembers the state of the Faces and Photos buttons when matching photos in the Faces view.
Addresses an issue that slowed performance when using Confirm Faces.
Fixes an issue that could cause Aperture to quit unexpectedly when browsing rapidly in the Viewer with the Names overlay turned on.
Addresses a face correlation issue that could sometimes prevent Aperture from suggesting potential matches.
Places
Addresses an issue that could cause Aperture to report an incorrect number of items when the Show Unplaced Images option was chosen In the Places view.
Addresses an issue that could cause Aperture to stop responding when opening Places with a large number of locations assigned.
Fixes an issue that could cause Aperture to quit unexpectedly when importing a GPS log file.
Metadata
Addresses compatibility issues affecting XMP sidecar files exported with masters.
The Duplicate Preset command now correctly duplicates the data in all fields when duplicating a metadata preset.
Fixes an issue that could cause a spinning wait cursor to appear when creating or duplicating metadata presets.
Audio/Video
Fixes an issue that caused externally-edited video and audio clips to lose their original date/time stamp.
Books
Fixes an issue with saving changes to custom books when the custom theme is not present.
Search
Fixes an issue that could cause the built-in smart albums listed under the Library Albums to filter images incorrectly.
Search by the Flash EXIF field now returns correct results.
Addresses the reliability of searches for text containing special characters.
Flickr publishing
Fixes an issue that could prevent the Cancel button from working when setting up an export to Flickr.
Watermarking
Watermarks are now correctly saved as part of an export preset.
Watermarks now remain unscaled when the Scale Watermark box is left unchecked.
General
Addresses an issue that prevented View modes from being changed using keyboard shortcuts while in Full Screen view.
Restores the ability to navigate photos in the Viewer by scrolling. (Turn this option on in General Preferences).
Fixes an issue that caused the Query HUD to overlap the Filmstrip in Full Screen view.
Double-clicking on a project name in Projects view now displays the contents of the project.
Fixes an issue that could cause projects to be appear under the wrong year header when using Group by Year.
The name of the version or master being processed is now displayed during face detection, export, and preview generation.
Resolves performance issues when using zoom in Viewer.
iPad Compatibility
Enables support for importing photos from iPad to the Aperture Library, as well as syncing of photos to iPad.
Aperture 3.0.1 Release Notes
A note on upgrading your Aperture library
If you are upgrading your Aperture library from an earlier version of Aperture, here are some guidelines to assist you in a successful move to Aperture 3:
Before upgrading, it is recommended (though not required) that you perform a rebuild of your Aperture library. To rebuild an Aperture library, hold down the Option and Command keys while opening your library in Aperture 1.5 or 2, then click the Rebuild Now button.
Aperture temporarily uses extra space on your hard drive during the upgrade process. This is for the purpose of backing up critical library info and insuring the integrity of your data during upgrade. If you don’t have adequate space on your hard drive to accommodate the upgrade, Aperture will display a warning dialog. You may need to move your library to a different hard drive with more space in order to upgrade it, and then move it back to the original drive when the upgrade is complete. Any space used by Aperture during the upgrade is released and made available to you again once the upgrade has finished.
Keep in mind that fully upgrading a very large library is a one-time process that can take a long time; the process may take many hours or even overnight, depending on the size of the library. Once the initial database upgrade is complete, you can begin working with your Aperture library. However, post-upgrade processing will continue in the background for some time, as face detection and preview generation are performed. (A progress indicator and the word "Processing" will appear in the status line of the Viewer or Browser to indicate these operations are underway.) While you can work with Aperture while these operations are performed, you may experience temporary slow-downs. Optimal performance will return when all post-upgrade processing is complete.
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Author: David Schloss
David Schloss is the director of the Mac Create Network and the Aperture Users Network, a professional photographer, writer, editor and photographic educator who specializes adventure sports, travel and lifestyle photography. Schloss is the author of the books Blue Pixel Personal Photo Coach: Digital Photography Tips from the Trenches and Blue Pixel Guide to Travel Photography: Perfect Photos Every Time. Schloss is the former Technical Editor for Photo District News, a position he held for six years.
18 Comments
bob
March 25th, 2010
just shows you what a buggy infestation aperture 3.0 was when it was released. someone ought to be out of a job over there at apple.
David Schloss
March 26th, 2010
Bob – All software updates after release. That’s how software works. You release a version and then you update that version. There’s no such thing as a piece of software that ships and is perfect. (Check versiontracker.com if you’d like to see how many apps do updates daily.)
A company can be aggressive about updates or they can be slow to respond. Apple’s being aggressive with Aperture.
Ron Cohen
March 26th, 2010
David you have your nose so far up apple’s butt it’s amazing
Hristo Iliev (1 comments.)
March 26th, 2010
David, Apple is aggressive with Aperture updates just because Aperture 3 was released half-baked and with lots of obvious bugs that slipped through the testing process. It’s easy to deduce that they did so to position A3 ahead of the upcoming LightRoom 3 release. To get a grasp on how buggy A3 really is just visit the Aperture Support forums. I like Aperture because of its features and bought it after 3.0.1 was out but somehow I don’t like this “buy now, we fix it later” attitude of Apple.
rob
March 26th, 2010
@Ron Cohen couldn’t have said it better myself. Schloss is Apple’s official brown-noser. Um, David, it’s a minor update that fixes broken stuff. Get over it. People are already having issues with it.
By the way, I noticed your forums are yanked again. You guys love losing members, don’t you. I love Micah’s workaround- “As you probably have noticed, the login you had been using on the previous MacCreate Community site no longer works here. We are in fact working to migrate this data over, but if you just can’t wait for that to happen, please feel free to create a new registration…”
What a fricking joke of a site. I want the old AUPN back.
Christopher David
March 26th, 2010
I think the level of professionalism in the comments to this topic is grossly lacking. It never ceases to amaze me how the anonymity of sitting behind a computer brings people to social ineptitude.
Public shaming is never a means to bring about change. How motivated were you the last time someone sullied your character in a public forum to work harder?
What ever happened to “if you don’t like the product or service, don’t buy”? Doesn’t that mean that staying with a product or service that isn’t to your satisfaction is catamount to bringing about your own misery?
I hope everyone’s day gets better.
Rockaway
March 26th, 2010
I think what it shows is that Apple can learn alot from Adobe’s public beta practice. Lr 3 beta 1 was full of problems, and beta 2 still has issues, but users understand that it’s a free beta release. There is no chance that Apple was able to do the amount of testing for A3 that the thousands of Lr3 beta tests do every day.
Dear Apple, please do you users a giant favor and open up a free beta test for A3.1. You’ll earn many more converts and the criticism will subside along the way. And please start that beta test about 30 days from now.
Rockaway
March 26th, 2010
3.0.2 is a welcome upgrade.
Brushes are indeed better, but there’s still problems showing/hiding the color overlay — especially when zoomed in.
They this: you are working with a brush, zoom in, brush more, grab the hand cursor to push the image over a little… What I get almost every time is a long wait while A3 rerenders the scene to include the new view. It goes all fuzzy and out of focus for about twenty seconds before snapping back into 100% pixel accurate view. I can force the refocus by quickly cycling screen view modes with the V key, but what a giant hassle. Add it to the list for 3.0.3.
Rockaway
March 26th, 2010
Don’t forget we also got a nice update for iMovie that was related to importing A3 video. iMovie was quitting just after it attempted to scan the A3 library for video. I got stung by that bug yesterday. Nice to know Apple was monitoring my system!
Rick
March 26th, 2010
Now how about speeding Aperture 3 up. It runs slower than molasses on a cold day when compared to Aperture 2.
Rex Anderson
March 26th, 2010
@ Christopher David: Thank You!
rd
March 26th, 2010
Granted photographers aren’t the savyist when it comes to tech.
but the Lightroom people reading Aperture Blog and
complaining about how buggy the software just takes the cake.
They are more afraid of Aperture than Amazon is of iPad.
I guess if it is free and labeled Beta then you can get away
with murder.
pad
March 26th, 2010
Short Question. Is it a new Bug in 3.02?
If I want to work with Faces, the lettering under the pictures whre fall out of the frame to left. If i hover a picture with the mouse it looks right. Can you testify this?
Allan
March 27th, 2010
I am constantly amazed at how nasty people can be sitting behind their keyboards. For goodness sake it’s software not a religion.
No question in my mind that Aperture 3.0 was released a little to soon and had more bugs than I would expect. That said, most major software releases do have their fair share of bugs, but two wrongs don’t make a right.
I welcome the 3.0.2 upgrade.
Geoff Burge
March 28th, 2010
Having major issues with Faces. Ap 3.0.2 still “forgets” already named photos, particularly those where I’ve named well over a thousand faces in my library then suddenly find that the number of faces (ie in the case of my daughter) has gone from 2400+ to something like 15. Then it won’t recognize her at all in the section “photos may also contain (name)”. Very frustrating and time wasting.
Allan
March 28th, 2010
Geoff – I would be frustrated too! Not cool.
I know it doesn’t help your situation, but I have not this kind of issue with Faces. I recently watched the Rob Boyer Screencast on using faces and he had a good work flow which I have now adopted. If nothing else it might help you get your Faces database up and running.
I have used Faces a lot and found it very useful with adding keywords to photos with multiple faces
—-
Pad – I don’t see the text bug you report
pad
March 30th, 2010
Hi Allan,
it’s magic. The original font used at faces is a kind of marker, but it was at the first time after update to 3.02 an arial or helvetica. The text was going out left of the space under the fotos. The next time i started aperture to take a screenshot of the “phenomena” and worked with faces all was ok. I don’t know what happend there
But now it seems to be ok again 
John Donahue
August 6th, 2010
You were quick to point out the new, and yes, potentially useful folder import features (as folder or project), but you completely glossed over the fact that in doing this Apple completely removed the ability to continue using the file chooser to import individual or groups of files. This has been replaced by a Finder like window that presents previews of files only found in the root level of that users ‘Pictures’ folder’s contents and nowhere else. This is a very limited approach. You can set up Preferences to break down an import into separate events based on ‘x’ number of hour intervals. Sometimes this is not enough. I prefer to store all of my picture files on my hard drive by calendar date and catalog them in apertrure by specific activities, ie: birthday party, museum, zoo, etc. This is a lot easier for me to do when I can import them directly into a folder or album, one step right into their final destination. I realize I could import the folder a folder or project and then separate them later, but that is inefficient. I don’t know why they removed the file chooser for importing files.