Jeremey's Weblog

Aperture Experiences

I've been getting my feet wet in Aperture and for the most part I'm very pleased with it. I think I can unquestionably say that it is the most complete RAW workflow software out there. That doesn't necessarily mean it's the best in all areas, but there is no end of cool features. This will be a rather long-winded rambling on my experiences.

The most surprising thing to me is that Aperture's RAW conversion is very good. I would say that it is very, very close to my results with Capture One PRO. So close, in fact, that it would make me wonder if Apple didn't license a RAW engine from Capture One. The Aperture output looks like I would expect C1PRO output to look if C1PRO didn't include camera profiling... which I guess amounts to C1LE. Very interesting.

The second most surprising thing is how slow Aperture is, even on my quad 2.66GHz Core 2 Mac Pro with 2G of RAM. I've heard that it really works the graphics card and that you really need to upgrade that to get the best performance out of it, and that could well be. Many things are quite speedy, but overall it feels sluggish and very sluggish when making adjustments, especially in full screen mode. I have one of the fastest personal computers one can buy, I would expect it to be snappier. That's the most disappointing thing, and very likely will keep me from buying it, given that C1PRO exists and doesn't have that problem. Granted, it doesn't have half the features, but iView MediaPro picks up the slack (and then some).

Let's get some screen shots out of the way... the browser/grid:

The browser/grid, with loupe:

The full screen, with loupe:

Full screen, w/o loupe:

Centered loupe:

More rambling after the jump...

Technorati Tags: aperture, DAM, photography

Steve Parsons

Steve Parsons #3
Originally uploaded by jeremey.

I did some promo shots for Steve Parsons last week, this is my favorite, I think. There are a couple more on my Flickr site.

They Will Know Us By Our... Board Games?

Your holiday shopping just got so easy: get the Joel Osteen board game for everyone on your list! Oy.

In Futility We Trust

Local news has picked up on the stupidity that is Real ID. The worst of it, though, is exemplified by the quote from "a Texas driver" at the end:

"The standing in line part is going to be difficult but I think as long as we have secruity [sic], we can't have enough security"

Huh? Can't have enough security? Whatever happened to freedom and liberty and all that we supposedly stand for as a nation? Whatever happened to thinking?

Oh, but we do have freedom, don't we... I could watch CSI or I could watch Lost... wow... now that's freedom.

Technorati Tags: security

Coffee Factoid #4: Roast

The roast may be the single most important step in the making of good coffee. It is through roasting, and only through roasting, that coffee beans develop flavor. There are two components to roasting: how far (often called the "roast", like Full City, French, etc.), and how fast (called the "profile").

The roast generally describes how dark the beans are after roasting and how much oil is present on the surface. Darker roasts produce darker beans (shocking!), and at some point, oil on the surface of the beans. A roast that is too light will fail to develop the flavor potential of the bean, and a roast that is too dark will overpower the bean with roastiness.

The profile describes the curve of roast temperature over time. What is important to know is that different profiles produce flavor differently, some better than others. Roast profiling is really important to developing optimum flavor from a particular bean. For example, some beans may react better if brought up to maximum roast temperature slowly, whereas others may fare better if the temperature is cranked right away. The problem with many roasters is that they seem not to pay alot of attention to roast profile, and only pay attention to the roast itself (i.e. darkness).

What does this all mean? One of two things: roast your own, which is feasible but requires at least some moderately expensive equipment to do well, or find a roaster that profiles their roasts. There are plenty of good roasters doing mail order on the Internet... my favorite is Intelligentsia in Chicago. They do great roasting and they're roasting great beans (see their site for more info on all that).

I recently visited a local roaster (Java Coffee Co.) and had a good talk with the guy there... but unfortunately, I really didn't like the coffee I made from their beans... it's not roasted enough, and probably too fast (but that's just my guess). They told me that their roast is an American roast, which is pretty light (shy of City, I'd say)... I don't think they're developing enough flavor or complexity. You can do light roasts, but you won't get full flavor, and my theory is that a light roast that is done too fast will be even worse because the beans won't be fully roasted through. But the "American" roast label does make sense... we're not known for our great coffee (as compared to say France or Italy).

Technorati Tags: coffee

Great Release Notes

Seen in the release notes for the latest TextMate I just downloaded:

"[REMOVED] TextMate no longer pays tribute to human sacrifices, rape, nor does it show a picture of the God of the deaths in your dock -- ticket 945BEB5D"

Tee-hee.

Technorati Tags: macosx, programming, textmate

Grand Opening!

The lovely Apple Store opened at First Colony Mall yesterday with much fanfare...

Technorati Tags: apple

Here 'Tis!

Technorati Tags: food

No-knead Bread

This recipe for no-knead bread has generated some buzz... it was highlighted in this article in the NYT (free registration maybe required). Mine is in the oven, almost done!

Basically you let the dough rise for 18 hours... time is the big ingredient. And also baking a very moist dough in a Le Creuset or other similar heavy cast iron dutch oven seems to create favorable conditions much like commercial steam ovens.

I will report when I've eaten some!

Chowhound thread: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/340910

Technorati Tags: bread, food

Glass #1

Glass #1
Originally uploaded by jeremey.