So here I’m sitting with my shiny new Canon EOS 400D, also as “Digital Rebel XTi” for the non-europeans out there, and have been looking for an application to manage and edit my RAW images.
After attending Apples Aperture presentation my first look went over to their website – just to find out that there is no support for the relatively new EOS 400D. Adobe instead has exactly that support for a little while. Just recently they also finalised the Camera RAW plugin in Version 3.6 and even before that there was an updated beta of Adobe Lightroom; which is free while in beta.
So for now the only good way on the Mac to use the RAW images is either go use Lightroom or not only taking RAW images but also JPEGs which of course work without any problems in Aperture 1.5. The obvious problem is that you lose all advantages that come with RAW.
Feature-wise I can say that Aperture 1.5 looks far better that Lightroom – at least from what I saw at the presentation in Cologne at Photokina in September. And beyond that, that’s my personal opinion, Aperture looks far better without all that wasted space around the interface like Lightroom. It just looks and felt more professional. I really cannot imagine that these guys were the same as those who designed Photoshop. Of course you could still go and edit the RAW images in PS using the Camera RAW plugin.
I really hope Apple will get out an updated RAW support to the OS soon, but I guess we’ll only see that when it’s really ready. Apple isn’t really known for announcing anything before it’s really done. That iTV thing was a premiere from what I can remember.
Oh and I’m working on an 24 inch iMac that I just got for review. It makes everything around look so tiny! One day of use and I already really like it; if only they could get away with that iMac-typical chin beneath the screen. Tomorrow I’ll throw some more software at it to see what it is able to do.