More and more digital cameras now provide an option for generating files of raw, unprocessed data. Many serious photographers prefer Raw files (also referred to as RAW) because they allow for the creation of 16-bit images. Since a JPEG file is limited to 8-bit images, raw files preserve more of the color that your camera's sensor can capture. When you shoot Raw, all of the processing that would normally occur inside your camera gets moved into your desktop computer. Because the basic image processing decisions are left up to you, you can often coax much better images from a raw file than you can from a JPEG. Finally, because raw files are uncompressed, they lack the compression artifacts that can occur in a JPEG image.

However, Raw files haven't fit smoothly into photographers' workflows -- workflows that are already stressed by the need to process and manage thousands of digital images. That's why I'm so interested in Aperture, Apple's upcoming software program, which promises to help photographers convert Raw files and manage, compare, process, and output images of many formats, not just Raw. It's scheduled to be available (though only for the Mac OS) in November for $499.

Apple isn't releasing software betas, so creativepro.com can't review Aperture at this point. But from what I've seen and heard so far, it's got a lot of potential. Every edit is supposedly non-destructive, so you never have to fear losing a master image. The image-adjustment tools cover the basics well: you'll find controls for crop, exposure, highlights and shadows, histogram, levels, noise reduction, red-eye correction, RGB channel mixing, sharpen, spot removers and patching, stamping, straighten, and white balance.

Aperture gives you control over all the data a camera sensor captures. Click on the image to view a larger size.

The clever versioning system doesn't make copies of a master; instead, a version is only a set of instructions that tells Aperture how to modify the original to create that version. Anyone with a packed hard drive can appreciate the space savings that promises.

To help you track related images (whether they're originals or versions), Aperture arranges them in "stacks." Other file-organization features include hierarchical keywording (and pre-existing keyword sets for common jobs such as weddings), and the ability to place pictures in folders, albums, projects, or a combination of the three. I particularly like the looks of Smart Albums, which automatically corral images together based on criteria you define.

There's a lot more to Aperture: for example, several ways to compare, rate, and select photos; a virtual light table and loupe; and professional-looking Web and book templates. To see movies and read spec sheets, check out Apple's site.

As extensive as it is, the Apple site skips over several important points about the application and the market. For the real dirt, I interviewed the product manager, Joe Schorr. Keep on reading to find out how Aperture compares to Photoshop, whether you can really run the app on a PowerBook, why it costs almost $500, and more.

Terri Stone: Will Aperture replace Photoshop?

Joe Schorr: Depending on your workflow, there may be a need to use tools that go beyond Aperture. One of the things pros do is launch Photoshop, so we integrate with Photoshop.

Aperture was developed with photographers looking over our shoulders, literally. They picked apart our workflow, and we analyzed what they really do and touch.

We found out overwhelmingly that they all use Photoshop, but only a fraction of it. It became easy for us to develop our list of adjustments. We focused on an essential set. With that essential list, we covered well over 90 percent of what photographers do in Photoshop.

We think Photoshop is an incomparable tool for other things, such as compositing or making someone's nose thinner. Once you use Aperture to open an image in Photoshop and change it, the Photoshop version of the image lives in the stack. We manage all the versions you create with Photoshop.

Our job is getting you from 1,200 pictures to 60. Take wedding photographers. That whittling-down process is where they spend a lot of time. They told us that the single biggest bottleneck is photo editing. Not image editing, but selecting which images to focus on. So that's where we put the horsepower in Aperture -- in photo editing.

TS: Did Canon and Nikon help Apple develop your Raw parsers? Or did Apple have to figure out how to parse Canon and Nikon Raw images on its own?

JS: The Raw conversion code is OS-based. Of course, we talk to different camera vendors, but this is all code that we've written. The OS resources going into making Raw a first-class citizen are enormous. As the OS evolves, our Raw support automatically evolves, too. When you get software updates, any given update can contain aw updates. So one morning Aperture suddenly supports new formats.

People should understand that Raw is not a universal format. It varies from camera to camera. Our Web site has an up-to-date list of which Raw formats we support. We've specially optimized and fine-tuned the Raw decoder for the cameras used most by pros: the top Nikons and the Canons, for instance.

Now that we've announced Aperture, it's opened the way for us to have discussions with camera vendors and ask to be told of future development. There's intellectual property associated with way they do things. It's difficult to make it a lot of easier for the user.

TS: So Apple's Raw parsers are built into the OS, and that's where Aperture gets the information to generate previews for Raw images?

JS: Let's say you have a Canon 20D. If you took a Raw file from it today and double-clicked, the Mac opens the file in Preview. You can see the Raw file, but you can't do anything to it. There are no tools in Preview to take advantage of what you can do with that Raw file.

The benefit of Raw is that you can reprocess. In Aperture, we've given you the decoder to open the file and the tools to take advantage of it.

Let me also draw the distinction between Aperture and iPhoto. You can see a Raw image in iPhoto, but let's say you make an adjustment to the file, like changing contrast. In iPhoto, you now have an 8-bit JPEG. You've said goodbye to Raw.

So the iPhoto choices are that you work in the world of JPEG, or you go back to Raw and lose all the adjustments you've done in iPhoto. It's a binary decision.

Aperture never makes that conversion from Raw to JPEG. You crop it, you throw away pixels, and the original Raw image is still there. We're just applying instructions to it.

You're never more than a click away from Raw. Every time we draw an image to screen, every time we're decoding the Raw file.

TS: Why don't all Raw software programs do that?

JS: Because it's incredibly hard. There's a reason why the Raw solutions out there are cumbersome. You're dealing with huge files, and the resolutions are high. To bring a level of usability to this situation takes engineering smarts.

One thing that surprised me when I looked at competitors is that the photo managers out there are not capable of displaying Raw at 100 percent. They don't even try. They do 60 or 70 percent rendering of the image.

It's not that Aperture is doing it faster --- it's that we're doing it.

Aperture is the first Apple program that actually uses Apple's Core image technology. Core data is an OS-level database structure. It drives Aperture. It takes advantage of ColorSync and multiprocessors. It makes extensive use of the graphics card.

It's a uniquely Mac solution.

TS: What kind of performance difference is there when running Aperture on a dual G5 versus a G4 PowerBook?

JS: It depends on what you do with Aperture. I mostly run it on my 15-inch PowerBook. That's not to say that I don't enjoy the refreshing wind-blowing-through-my-hair feeling when I sit down in front of a G5 running Aperture. But a PowerBook is fine for what a lot of photographers do in the field with their laptops: browse images quickly and step through the thumbnails. Maybe tag the images they like, maybe zoom in closely on one. The photo edit stage. For that, a PowerBook does take a speed hit, but it's totally usable.

This is where our scheme of loading a proxy image comes in -- the 1024 proxy is often all I need to see at this stage. Depending on how many megabytes each image is, Aperture on a G5 can load the full Raw image in less than a second. On my PowerBook, that same image may take three to four seconds to load fully.

For heavier duty image processing, faster GPUs and multiple processors are of huge benefit. Aperture does make extensive use of dual processors, but you do not need a Quad [a new model from Apple that has two dual-core processors].

TS: Besides Raw, what file formats does Aperture support?

JS: We can handle the full list of QuickTime-supported formats. If you wanted to, you could drop all your PDFs in Aperture and use it to organize them.

TS: Can Aperture be shared by multiple people in a workgroup?

JS: It was designed as an individual user app. But Aperture is the first of Apple's pro apps that on initial release has AppleScript capabilities and an Automator action pack. You can use some of its features across a workgroup if you use AppleScript and Automator. [Editor's note: See http://www.automator.us/aperture/ for prewritten Automator actions.]

You can start building powerful workflows around this. There's a simple script that tells the OS to take a file and put it in a drop-box folder on a server volume. Many people could drop their files in that folder, and just one machine with Aperture running could process the files in the drop-box folder. Then you have multiple users adding content to a library without any of them running Aperture.

TS: Where does Aperture put files?

JS: People want to put files anywhere yet never have them get lost. But to let files live anywhere involves lots of relinking and repointing. We decided that to create a system as solid as it needs to be for a professional photographer's work, a system where we know that the Raw images are safe, not lost, and there are no broken links, we had to create a system where we determine where files go.

You organize your files by project. A project is like a sleeve you throw your negs in. Each project has the original files and anything you build from them, such as a web page, album, or light table. Those are all children of the project. At any point, you can export just that project to a DVD. It's self-contained, so there's no chance of missing files.

TS: Can the user determine where the primary vault is?

JS: Yes. You can also move it at any point.

TS: Tell me about Aperture's offline archiving. Say you remove archived images from your drive. Can you still view thumbnails in projects?

JS: Aperture is about live content, not offline cataloging. If you burn a project on a DVD and then delete that project from an Aperture library, it's gone.

We do have integrated back-up that doesn't remove content from the library. It mirrors existing libraries in other places. If you add new images, the indicator turns red to indicate a major change. If you change keywords, the indicator turns yellow. And back-ups are incremental.

TS: How did Apple arrive at the $499 price tag?

JS: The price says we're standing behind our claim that it's a pro tool. Aperture is an all-in-one post-production tool for pro photographers. It's easy to look at apps that cost from $0 to $50 and say, "They're all-in-one apps; why is Aperture so much more?"

But Aperture has to be an all-in-one for what professionals do. Compare Aperture's price to the price of buying Capture One plus Photoshop, and Aperture is less.

If anyone is feeling pinched by iPhoto, we want this to be a logical jump up. But it is a jump up.

The first Aperture features people tend to focus on are the photo management tools. But it's way more than management. It's the whole Raw workflow -- everything on the adjustment side, down to removing dusts and specks. And you've also got to factor in the Raw conversion tools when you're thinking about price.

TS: What else would you like creativepro.com readers to know about Aperture?

JS: Don't worry if any of this seems a little overwhelming. When Aperture ships, the box will include a 90-minute DVD that walks you through the product. There are so many new concepts and people are so acclimatized to working in an Adobe-centric world. Not that Adobe is bad, but Aperture calls for a different way of thinking. For instance, people have to get used to the idea of non-destructive image processing. Your first step doesn't have to be Save As! With this DVD, you just put it on your TV, make popcorn, sit on the couch, and watch how to work with metadata.