Q: Move from Aperture?

The new Photos.app in MacOS X does open Aperture Libraries losslessly. Photos will show all adjustments and does migrate places, faces, keywords, titles, captions.

Only it is not a professional application and does not support the advanced features of Aperture.

To migrate to lightroom, export the original photos from Aperture with "File > Export", and export the edited versions.

There is no lossless transition.

Before you make the leap over to Lightroom, you might want to look at Capture One Pro 8.

So far I am finding C1 to be far more interesting then Lightroom.

Another strong recommendation for Capture One Pro 8 rather than Lightroom. Even some Lightroom users are moving to Capture One (CO).

CO8 is considered to have a superior RAW Converter engine to either Adobe's or Apple's.

After  thinking about this for awhile, my plan is as follows:

Export all of my Aperture originals to an external drive

Export all of my Aperture versions as high res JPEGs to the same drive

Put an  Aperture vault on the same drive

Put the drive away in a safe place to hopefully never be touched again

Use Photos to convert Aperture library

FRom now on I will use Lightroom for every photo I take

Iwill use Photos to do everything with the old photos and if I need to make an edit that is beyond its capabilities then I will use an external editor

The downside is that I will have 2 separate libraries but if that becomes a problem then I suppose I can export all the photos to Lightroom using one of the export options.

Does anyone see a downside to this solution?

The biggest downside I steer to your plan is that it uses Adobe.

After the latest I used AdoBe software

After the last time I anything from Adobe, I swore never again.

So LightRoom is not even on my list.

You should look at Capture One first.

I'm currently using it with my Aperture Library with no issues and I'm impressed.

I've been using the trial version and will continue to compare the two for a while longer but I think I've found a replacement.

I add another recommendation for Capture One Pro 8.  If you migrate to Lightroom, you will find that none of your adjustments to your Aperture images come across, you will have to export your versions to save your work.

In migrating to CaptureOne Pro some of the adjustments are copied across, still a good idea to export your Aperture edited versions as a reference to your CaptureOnePro work.

Capture one imports the color labels properly, Lightroom imports the color labels as keywords.

Both CaptureOne and Lightroom ignore the Aperture version names; I renamed my files with the Aperture version names before the migration.

CaptureOnePro does not have stacks for images from different masters but Lightroom apparently has some stacking ability; Lightroom converts the Aperture stacks to some kind of keyword system whereas Lightroom ignores stacks entirely.

With regard to stacking in Capture One Pro 8, currently one way of stacking versions is to Clone Version/Original but it's not quite the same.

However, the Filters in Capture One (CO) are very powerful and also Sessions have Selected and Output subfolders which you can use such that stacking ceases to be so important.

I gave up the Trial software and bought a licence after 7 days - I haven't opened Aperture since except to export some individual unedited RAW Originals for editing in CO. There's a learning curve but there always is and that's more to do with unfamiliarity. I can still use Photoshop in my workflow.

I sympathise with those who have zillions of files in Aperture but you only have to Reference them rather than throw the baby out with the bath water. And why wait for Aperture to be groaning on its deathbed? - The sooner you move on and get used to another RAW editor, the better off you are. I love Apple products generally but sorry, Apple, you shot yourself in the foot on this one!

P.S.- Perhaps the most important reason for not migrating to Adobe Lightroom is that, like Apple's, its RAW Converter engine is inferior to Capture One Pro's - That's a very fundamental starting point when editing RAW files.

It is likely that Aperture will continue to work for some time to come.

A possible replacement for Aperture might be "Capture One".  A possible replacement for iPhoto might be "Lyn".

However there is no rush.  I would also recommend that any photo editing/organizing program you buy have the ability to show keywords under the thumbnails. (Photos cannot do this.)

I think the main reason is how fast your library growing. If it grows at a very slow rate then you can hold off longer. Butt if have significant number of photos to add now then I think doing the migration soon is the way to go.

I love Aperture.. honestly

I've been using Aperture since the first version came out about 10 years ago.

It's really hard for me to switch. I tried LR but it just doesn't work for me. I can't get my head around it. Adobe software is so complicated.

It's very sad to see Aperture's day is numbered.

I was always, waiting for a complete new version of Aperture for Yosemite, but here we got the bad news.

Annoyingly, I seem to have lost all my adjustments on importing my Aperture library into Photos. Anyone know what I've done wrong?

(I'm more generally annoyed that Aperture is no longer appearing as an option to sync pictures with my iPhone in iTunes; and that while my projects and albums are findable in Photos, they're not available as sync options or appearing as "albums" in the app. This transition feels very poorly done...)

I beleieve that's the way Apple intended it to work. I understand that many of the Aperture adjustments, such as any brushed adjustments and levels and curves are not available in Photos. Plugins are also missing.

MIgrating to Capture One Pro will save some of your adjustments, and will also give you some tools Aperture never had. Including plugins, and a really good raw converter.

I've migrated to CaptureOne, it's not painless, but it's better than staying with Apple.

Annoyingly, I seem to have lost all my adjustments on importing my Aperture library into Photos. Anyone know what I've done wrong?

How did you import the library to Photos?  When I migrate an Aperture library, all adjustments are applied. Only, they cannot be modified or removed selectively, because Photos cannot reproduce brushed adjustments for want of brushes.  I just can revert to original and start over, if I want to edit the photo further, losslessly.

See this link:  How Photos handles content and metadata from iPhoto and Aperture - Apple Support