Aperture 2, and Flickr Pro - two good investments
Here in Australia, an approximate total of A$298 will buy you a terribly advanced image editor and manager, and all the online image publication you could want. If you have a Mac.
I am speaking of the recently upgraded Apple Aperture photography program — aptly named Aperture 2 — which builds upon the standard iPhoto app with far more sophisticated editing tools and quick and easy management of often massive photo libraries. This retails at just A$268 — which is a bargain — as apposed to around A$450 for its inferior predecessor, Aperture 1.
On the cheaper side, retailing for around A$30 (the US price v market fluctuates), is a Flickr Pro account — most tech enthusiasts know of Flickr, a free online photo storage/sharing tool that allows users to upload their photos to a central account on the Flickr (flickr.com) website. Since it was bought by Yahoo a year or two back its services have been enhanced and refined and even a free account allows users to store, share, publicise and even perform basic editing of their photos.
However users can also upgrade to a Pro account, which allows unlimited monthly uploads (as apposed to 100mb/month for a free account), and unlimited total storage. Basically, these are the only real long-term benefits — but trust me, if you are constantly uploading shots (I use my account for my proper blog, TB Tech News+Blog (see blogroll)), then a Pro account will be a godsend.
Straight after I installed Aperture 2 a few weeks ago, I found an excellent plugin for my Aperture version that allowed direct export to my Flickr account, which was totally compatible with my existing title, caption and keyword (this was a bit niggly though) setup which I had done in Aperture itself. This plugin was available through Flickr’s site; I can’t find the link now, but make sure you look hard).
So within a matter of minutes of shooting off a few pictures of whatever gadget I’m reviewing at that point, the images are cropped, edited, and on my Flickr account (flickr.com/photos/tbtechphotos).
If you’re a Mac user, and a keen photographer, like myself, and you have about A$300 to burn, then use it on this. You won’t regret it.
Link: Apple > Aperture 2
Link: Flickr
