Aperture is a publishing system built for photographers with tens of thousands of frames. It handles ingestion, derivative generation and delivery through a CDN, keeping originals private.
Process
Started as a personal need: an archive too large for off-the-shelf portfolio tools. Built ingestion first, then delivery, then the editing surface.
Challenges
Keeping first paint fast while galleries grow into the thousands of images.
Outcome
Sub-second gallery loads on mobile networks with an archive of 40k+ frames.