Why to move to Aperture from iPhoto

Many things that you can do in iPhoto are possible in Aperture but the bonus is you have more control of the photo adjustments and extended features.

Here’s why you should make the switch:

More selective retouching.

iPhoto can only make changes to an entire image – Aperture has many different brushes that can amend exactly what you want to change

Photo looks and effects.

In iPhoto, you can use basic photo effects such as Black & White, Sepia, or Edge Blur. Aperture is the same but with more photo effects and custom effects you can apply to a single picture or an entire album.

Advanced slideshows.

iPhoto only allows creation of click-and-play slideshows. Aperture is really moving towards a full feature video editing product with effects, sound overs and cropping.

Do more with Places and Faces.

Places in Aperture, you can add a location to a photo using data from your GPS-enabled camera or iPhone or just drag the photo to a location on the interactive map

All the tools to manage a giant library.

When your photos number in the thousands, you need easier ways to find what you’re looking for. Aperture gives you a head start by automatically grouping your events by year. Within each year, you can create folders that go as deep as you want. And get ready for superfast searches that sort your photos on the fly. Enter a file type, such as RAW or JPEG, then add a face, place, or keyword like “vacations” and the relevant photos will be served up by year. You can even search by details like the camera or lens you used. The more criteria you add, the faster you can find what you’re looking for. You can also add color labels, ratings, and flags.

Merge, sync, and split multiple libraries.

While iPhoto is designed to work with one library at a time, Aperture lets you set up as many libraries as you want and switch between them instantly. And you can export a project — and all the related photos — as a new library. That makes it easy to do things like take a slideshow from your work computer to your home computer to finish it. Since the slideshow is a separate file, you can work with it directly — no need to import it into one of your home libraries. When you bring it back to your work computer, all the edits you made sync automatically.

Create custom books.

With iPhoto, you can create fun photo books to share with family and friends. With Aperture, you can get even more creative with fully customizable book layouts. Add, move, resize, rotate, or delete photo and text boxes. Place titles exactly where you want them — on any page or even over a photo — and use any font, size, and color you like. Tell a story with multicolumn text. Create two-page, full-bleed spreads. Design wraparound covers. Include travel maps showing where your photos were taken. And add photo borders the width and color you choose. Aperture makes it easy to create photo books as unique as your photos.

Gallery-quality printing.

iPhoto features ready-to-use templates to help you get a great print. With Aperture, you can customize your output and manage color to get the best print possible on your particular printer. The Print dialog in Aperture is live, so you can proof your color adjustments onscreen, then add margins, borders, watermarks, and even metadata to include on your print. (None of the changes you make in Print mode affect your original photo.) You can also create amazing contact sheets. Set the size of your photos and number of columns by using a slider, and add a logo or any metadata you want to each sheet.

Never run out of hard drive space.

As your iPhoto library grows, it may become too big to store on your computer’s hard drive. Aperture lets you set up as many external drives as you want and specify where to store each of your photos — without changing anything in your Aperture library. You can access and edit your photos the way you usually do, no matter where the originals are stored. This feature also allows you to add hard drives one at a time, whenever you need them. So your setup can grow along with your library.