| 10 July 2006, The combination of Mac hardware and | | | | That may be a bit of wishful thinking. |
| software has been exceptionally consistent over the | | | | New features included by apple |
| years, providing an ease of use that Mac users have | | | | There are new RAW adjustment controls in the |
| enjoyed. With a Windows emulator such as Virtual | | | | Adjustments Inspector and Adjustments HUD that |
| PC, Macs can also run Windows and DOS applications. | | | | improves the quality of RAW decodes via custom |
| Since the mid 1980s, it has been essentially a Mac vs. | | | | tuning of parameters. Most noticeably, you can |
| PC world for personal computers, with Linux-based | | | | control contrast (using the new Boost tool) and |
| PCs gaining ground after the millennium. | | | | sharpness, as well as color noise reduction from the |
| Mac mini: - | | | | RAW decoder. |
| The more recently announced Apple's Mac mini has | | | | Apple gave us a new Color Meter tool that quickly |
| been turning some heads, even in the PC world. If | | | | and easily samples any area of an image for RGB, |
| the iMac G5 is basically a 1U server attached to a | | | | CMYK, or LAB color values. You can use this as a |
| monitor, the Mac mini is basically a reorganized laptop | | | | stand-alone tool or as part of Aperture's Loupe tool. |
| without a monitor The Mac mini is especially relevant | | | | Photoshop users who like to sample specific color |
| to this article because a lot of the discussions about | | | | ranges will feel right at home in Aperture due to this |
| performance with regards to Apple's PowerBook will | | | | new tool. |
| apply directly to the Mac mini, as the two platforms | | | | For those who never felt comfortable with |
| are very similarly configured. | | | | Aperture's printing parameters, the new version has |
| OS X Tiger: - | | | | updated image resolution controls. You can specify |
| The more I read about OS X Tiger, the more | | | | output resolution in dots per inch (dpi) when |
| interested I become. The two main features that | | | | exporting images or sending images to an external |
| draw me to the update are Apple's system-wide, | | | | editor and Aperture 1.1 has increased the maximum |
| fully indexed search engine, called Spotlight, as well as | | | | size of images displayed in the Browser. You can |
| the fact that in Tiger, every single pixel on the | | | | resize the display of images in the Browser up to a |
| screen will actually be rendered by the graphics card. | | | | maximum of 512 pixels in height or width. |
| For the most part, in OS X Panther, all of the | | | | There is an attractive feature included by apple that |
| rendering work is done by the CPU, with some GPU | | | | is Universal Compatibility that means Aperture 1.1 runs |
| accelerated compositing occurring. In Tiger, | | | | natively on both Intel-based and PowerPC-based |
| everything is done through the pixel pipelines of your | | | | Macintosh computers. I tested it on both an Apple G5 |
| GPU, increasing the dependency on a graphics card | | | | Dual Core PowerMac with four gigs of RAM and a |
| with fast memory access, as well as increasing the | | | | new Mac Book Pro 2GHz model with two gigs of |
| flexibility of some of the effects that you're able to | | | | RAM. I've seen Aperture run on a PowerBook, and |
| do in the OS itself. | | | | there's no denying that it runs much quicker on the |
| Given Tiger's reliance on very high GPU performance, | | | | Mac Book Pro. I've seen Aperture run on a |
| I would almost expect Apple to celebrate its release | | | | PowerBook, and there's no denying that it runs much |
| with a new G5 platform - with PCI Express graphics. | | | | quicker on the Mac Book Pro. |