Subtitles of the Movie

In this movie, I'm going to talk about the computer requirements and cameras that will work with Aperture. Let's first talk about the computer requirements. You must have a Mac in order to use Aperture. That might seem obvious, but there are a lot of PC people out there asking whether there's a chance that there will be an Aperture for them. The folks at Apple have consistently responded that Aperture will remain for Macs only in good part because the program is so well integrated with the Mac Operating System that it uses some of the OS in its processing. Any Mac that you buy new or that you bought new in the last year plus will run Aperture. Specifically, Map Pro, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, MacBooks, MacMini's with Intel Core Solo or Dual Processors, iMacs with 1.8 gigahertz or faster power PC G5 or Intel Core Duo Processors and even some of the older machines like PowerMac G5s with 1.6 gigahertz or faster, Power PC G5 Processors, 15 or 17-inch PowerBook G4s with 1.25 gigahertz or faster, Power PC G4 Processors. Note that the older, smaller 12-inch PowerBook G4 will not work. Apple suggests that you have a minimum of one gigabyte of RAM, two gigabytes for a Mac Pro. In all honesty, if you're running any other programs, etcetera, I'd highly recommend that you have at least four gigs if at all possible. In addition, Apple recommends one of the following graphics cards and from experience I can tell you that making sure that your graphics card is compatible really does matter. Ideally you're going to want to be running Leopard, but you can run Aperture with Tiger as well. Apple recommends that you have at least two gigabytes of RAM and one of the following graphics cards. So if you're ordering a new machine, make sure to get one of these graphics cards and as I said a moment ago, at least two gigabytes of RAM and preferably four. If you're in doubt about your computer and whether it will work with Aperture, there's an Aperture Compatibility Checker. It sounds a little bit like a dating service, doesn't it? Go to www.Apple.com slash Aperture slash Specs and click on the Compatibility Checker to download a small program. When you open and run the program it will determine if your computer system and graphics card meet the minimum requirements to run Aperture 2. In addition, you're going to need an external drive for your vault. You might consider a Drobo or RAID set up and we'll talk more about those in a movie devoted to that topic. In terms of monitors, Aperture is set up so that it's easy to use on a single monitor, but it can take advantage of additional monitor setup. Although I personally have two monitors, I use Aperture on only one of them, using my other monitor for email and other apps that I may have open at the same time. Let's talk a little bit about cameras and camera-type compatibility. You can check at www.Apple.com slash Aperture slash Specs slash Raw for a list of the current raw formats that Aperture supports. You'll find that it supports most of the leading digital SLRs as well as JPGs, TIFFs, GIF, PNG or PSD files as well. Aperture 2 will also work with dng files from supported cameras as well as dng files generated by the Adobe DNG converter with the Convert to Linear Option turned off. You can download the Adobe DNG Converter free from www.Adobe.com. What this means in practical terms is that if you have a camera that shoots in raw that Aperture doesn't support, you can still use Aperture for the camera's raw files. You buy a new camera before Aperture releases support for it; you can also still shoot in raw and use Aperture. Of course, if you're shooting in JPG or TIFF, obviously you can use Aperture.