Apple Pro Labs Aperture Berlin

Some time ago we visited the Berlin Apple store for a talk by Berlin photography company 'EyeEm'. It was at this talk (and also the process of registering for the talk) that I saw the store also offers what they call 'Pro Labs' - 8 hours of (FREE!) training on a specific program, spaced over 4 weeks. The training is for Aperture (Photography Editing and Management Program), Final Cut Pro (Video Editing) and Logic (Music Production).

As a PC and Lightroom (Adobe's competing software to Aperture) user, I initially thought that these Pro Labs would have nothing to do with me. But after thinking about it I got really interested. Firstly, I know almost nothing about Aperture, so its good to learn new things right?! The main reason for my interest though is that my current PC is coming up to 4 years old, feels a little sluggish when operating Lightroom, its hard drive gets noiser each year and a few times I've had overheating shut-downs. As much as I avoid upgrading for the sake of it, I like to know what's out there and I've always wondered about shifting back to Mac (I used to be a Mac user). So - the Pro Lab would be a good way to get some quality time with a new Mac and learn the software that I may consider switching over to. Plus it sounded like a bit of fun :)

In the meantime I also used my existing computer with Lightroom to create my photographic eBook Berlin - A Photographic Experience ... and this was quite a challenge for various reasons. I wondered if the Apple workflow would be better for future work.

So I registered for the Aperture course for April, and it was full :( I got put on the waitlist but was never
contacted so couldn't go to that one. I registered again once the May courses were available - waitlisted AGAIN! geez. However, the week it was about to start I was contacted by the trainer 'Guido' to see if I still wanted to come. Of course I said yes. One little issue though, I thought this thing was in English (as the 'EyeEm' talk was), but Guido had written to me in German. We had an email exchange in which he confirmed all of the Pro Labs are in German (makes sense!) but he would be happy to explain anything I didn't get in English. He sounded like a nice guy willing to help me out so I went for it. After all, I live in Berlin, should probably do more things in German!!

The Apple store in Berlin (Kurfürstendamm 26), is a beautiful former theatre and this is where they hold their talks.

 Just as with the talk, you need to tell the staff in the ground floor shop what you are there for and they direct you around the corner and up the stairs of lift to the training room. 

A gripe I had with the whole four week thing was that each session I had to keep explaining myself to multiple staff members as I went to class (as a stranger walking through these areas looks so suspicious as it leads to 'staff only' areas). Every week I would tell one staff member I was there for the Pro Lab and they would say 'ok' and point me to the side entrance, and then as I walked through at least one other person would stop me with an accusatory 'Entshuldigung!' (Excuse me) - and I would have to explain myself again.

The training room was a beautifully bright grand ballroom type place with large windows looking out to the Kurfürstendamm. 

A large table with nice symmetrical layout of laptop, external drive and mouse awaited us. 

Guido the trainer had his own laptop, connected to a big monitor behind. I sat directly in front so I could have a better chance of understanding what was going on.

Once everyone had arrived (8 'students' - 7 male 1 female) we got to the introductions. I gathered that most of them were there out of general interest and looking to see if the program had anything to offer in their professional work and for making home happy snaps better. One guy proudly announced that he was a Apple user since 1983 and I gathered he was a real Mac enthusiast!

To summarise the 4 weeks very briefly,

• Week 1 - Orientation with the program, and setting up 'Projects' and a little bit about importing from the external drive.
• Week 2 - Mostly about importing images from external devices and drives, keyword application and cataloguing.
• Week 3 - A closer look at the features of Apertures adjustment capabilities.
• Week 4 - Running through the light table and book production features

Each week we had the same computers to us, a 15 inch Mac Book Pro, retina display, Intel Core i7 running the Mavericks OS X blah blah blah...the latest Mac Book Pro basically and what I would be looking at if I decided to jump over to the iSide.

For the most part I understood what was going on, able to keep up as my German is getting better, I already understand this field pretty well and the huge display in front of me helped me keep up visually when audio comprehension failed me. I did get a bit lost quite a few times but could catch up relatively easily, ask a question in German, or occasionally ask Guido to explain something in English. I felt very conscious about 'wasting' the others time if I hijacked the course into English so I really avoided that, not that anyone minded when English was spoken. It's also a good challenge for me to be (almost) completely immersed in the language rather than falling back on what's comfortable. Should do more of it!

Back to the course, so the things I was most interested about was what it was like to use the latest Macs and if the Aperture software could offer me something that Lightroom doesn't.

What was it like for me using the latest Macs?

To answer the first question about using the Macs, I found it annoying! This is mostly because this computer is bigger than my one and so the ergonomics feel 'off'. This is something you would get used to over time, but I didn't get used to it over the 4 weeks / 8 hours. My annoyances were the wrist pads too big, the enter key too small and the 'power off' button was directly above the backspace key - I accidentally turned the Mac off a few times just by mis-hitting the backspace key!

The other thing I was surprised about is the performance when playing with the adjustments brushes. On my home computer (in Lightroom), after 'painting' on some adjustments, the ability of the processor to keep up with the adjustments in real time really starts to lag.

In my basic test on the Mac with a similar feature, I also noticed similar lagging from the first stroke. The lag certainly was nothing to get frustrated about, but made me wonder about the power boost upgrade from my old computer to this one. No doubt the Mac is much more powerful and I wasn't really able to put it through its paces in these sessions. I just want a computer that does what I want it to do - and at this stage, barring any catastrophic fatal failures, my current computer is still performing well enough.

The major thing I noticed with the Mac was how the photos looked. These photos were supplied to us and were mostly of cheesy fake model families on fake holidays - but they looked fantastic. Unzoomed, the details looked nice, sharp, creamy bokeh and most of all really vibrant colour. Playing with these photos I was a bit disheartened about my own photography, thinking that compared to these photos, mine looked a bit flat.

I thought about this, what makes those photos better than mine. I had snooped into the meta-data of each photo, and of course these were all taken using professional level full frame cameras with professional lenses (mostly Canon 5D & 6D with Canon L lenses!). No wonder I thought. But I didn't stop there, I started pixel peeping, zooming in 100%, 200%, 500%, 100% and so on. I do this all the time with my own photos during editing, and see the pixelation start to occur sometime after you go past 100%. Doing this with these 'pro' stock photos I encountered the same thing - these photos did the same thing, despite their higher pixel counts and 'superior' equipment. 

So it wasn't necessarily the equipment that was the difference. Was it Aperture, was this somehow doing an amazing job on colour and detail? I seriously doubted it, especially seeing how Guido and the others made adjustments and the sometimes cringey results - Aperture certainly isn't a panacea for fantastic photos. Maybe it just came down to the stock photography, maybe they curated some great shots from good photographers for these examples we were using. I was feeling a bit dejected and after the second session I went home and pixel peeked at some of my own pictures. They were sharp and detailed but something was different. It then occurred to me....what about the 'retina' display the Macs have? Could that be 'the thing'. Then I thought, yea, maybe so, because when Guido's screen is duplicated on the non-retina TV screen behind him, the images look quite a bit different there!

So when I was back at the next session I loaded up my own photographic website theintentionalinstant and started making some comparisons with their 'stock' photos and my own. Sure enough, the retina display gave my photos the same 'pop and vibrancy' that I had been concerned was lacking from my own photography. This was immediately satisfying! But now I have to give more consideration about my current display and its affects on final image.

And this brings me to my second question:

Does Aperture offer me something Lightroom doesn't?

The short answer is NO. In my 4 weeks of Pro Labs I didn't come across a single thing that I thought 'I wished Lightroom had that'. To be fair to Apple and Guido and the whole Mac'o'sphere, I do need to reiterate that I was missing a lot of the nuances of the discussions around the features of Aperture (As my first language is English and these Pro Labs were entirely in German). Maybe I missed something, but I am almost positive that the feature sets on both Aperture and Lightroom and very similar.

One thing that was a stand out is that Aperture has no graduated filter. I use graduated filters in Lightroom all the time, so not to have it in Aperture seems like a huge misstep. This has been complained about on forums for years. I don't know why it isn't added. Lightroom even added a radial filter in its latest iteration (LR5) which further leaves Aperture behind.

When I first learnt how to use Lightroom, I found it difficult and annoying - but once I got over the initial 'what's this do?' phase, I now find it very straighfroward with everything I need for adjustments easily at hand. Maybe its the initial stages of annoyance that I have for Aperture talking, but I very much disliked the way I had to go into drop down menus to access certain features that are intuitively available in the Develop module in Lightroom.

My next great interest was the book features. After my struggles making my own eBook, I was keen to learn about the Aperture book capability. In this feature I was very unimpressed. Using the themes created very tacky looking results and it didn't look like the themes were interchangeable (such as using the tacky but sometimes useful map feature in one theme and applying it to another). I understand that you can make some custom themes but we didn't get far into that. Exporting the book was also limited to pdf only (Lightroom exports to PDF & JPEG) and both programs upload to a third party printer in order to make the hard copy books.

I am not saying that Lightroom's book module is perfect - I just have much more experience with that now , I did not like the Aperture book themes, and that the JPEG export function of Lightroom is very much worthwhile.

Fundamentally though, making a photographic eBook from both Lightroom or Aperture is fraught with problems - though at least with Lightroom you can use its third party printer (Blurb) to create a iPad viewable eBook (for a fee) while I understand Aperture does not offer the same ability.

By now, we were coming to the end of of last session and Guido and the Germans were all playing with the horrible Aperture book themes. With some time left I decided to go on my own tangent and open up Apple's apparently wonderful iBook author program. I had a play with this program and WOW my life would have been easier if I had used iBook author. The program makes it so easy to insert photos (direct import from Aperture or iPhoto), add text that automatically wraps around the photo and so on. You can even easily preview your book as it would look on an iPad within the program. It was easy peasy for me to create a little demo book in just a few minutes. 

BUT - there's a problem, the iBook author only exports to a Mac OS only .iba format - meaning your book can only be uploaded to the iBookstore, and read only on iOS (Apple) devices. Not cool if you want that book to be available elsewhere (such as Amazon) or for other devices. Basically, if you want to make a great iPad (& iPhone) only book, then this program is fantastic and avoids almost all of the problems I had when creating my own photo eBook.

Conclusion:

In the end I was very grateful to be a part of this Pro Labs experience. I was happy that Guido invited me to attend despite not being fluent in German, and I was impressed with myself for going through with a German only course.

In terms of the structure of the course, I would have liked to get in-depth with the editing side of the program, and really refine editing techniques with Aperture (and Lightroom) to professional levels. This is where the Pro Lab is mislabelled, it's more an introduction to all of the features of the program, what they do and how to use it. There's no artistry involved and you won't necessarily improve your retouching techniques if you already have some experience.

For my purposes it fulfilled what I was after. I now know what to expect with the program and ownership of a Mac. I really enjoyed my 4 weeks there (would have enjoyed it more if I could comprehend more!) and would recommend it to anyone that has the time and interest.

*Note - as I am not an expert user of Aperture, if any readers find any of my statements regarding the function of the program, limitations etc are incorrect - please let me know in the comments!