Adobe product manager speaks up on Aperture

Apple's new photo-editing program Aperture has been compared to Adobe Photoshop. John Nack, Photoshop program manager at Adobe, offers his take on Aperture at blogs.adobe.com. Nack stresses that Aperture is "not designed to be a Photoshop competitor," which Apple executives are also saying. However, Nack acknowledges that Aperture's raw editing and browsing features do compete with Adobe Bridge–the image viewer and organizer that comes with Photoshop CS2 and Adobe Creative Suite 2, and with Adobe Camera Raw–the raw format editor that's built into Photoshop CS2. More after the jump...

Nack points out some differences between Aperture and Photoshop and notes that it's easy to move a file from Aperture to Photoshop for further editing:
"As Apple is the first to say, Aperture is not designed to be a Photoshop Competitor. It has a number of very slick features (I dig the Web gallery creator in particular), but if you're looking to do something as simple as make a selection and sharpen someone's eyes, you're out of luck. That's not a knock–just a reflection of what Aperture is and is not. Fortunately Apple has a one-click method of sending a PSD to Photoshop for further editing."

Nack is generous about complimenting Aperture's designers:
"Aperture is a cool product, no question. Apple's designers have a great aesthetic, and their marketing is second-to-none. (This is the company, after all, that can sell the iPod Shuffle's lack of screen as a lifestyle choice.) Aperture zips around on quad G5's with four GPUs,
and I'm looking forward to getting it onto my PowerBook 17" to see how it might run in the field."

And he welcomes Apple into the image-editing field, noting that a variety of solutions in the marketplace keeps Adobe on its toes and makes things better for customers:
"And you know, to the degree that Aperture stirs things up, I'm excited. CS2 wouldn't be all it is today without the apps I mentioned keeping us on our toes, and the more tools offer solutions for for photographers, the better off customers will be. So in the spirit of the Apple of yore, I say Welcome Apple. Seriously."

Well said, John. I think we're lucky to have two such great companies. Apple and Adobe both rule!