Life after Aperture

If you like LR so much you should already be there instead of trolling here.

Personally I expect Aperture as is to keep working fine for me at least until Apple's new Photos app is out of beta. Evolution of other apps make it unlikely that I will move to LR.

Separating the DAM from the RAW engine ? Don't know, hope somebody has experience with such a workflow.

Phase one integrated the DAM in C1, perhaps it is too complicate to separate into two. For my opinion dealing with two providers or softwares is doubling the risk and not reducing.

I will try to migrate my images to C1 and operate the DAM also in C1, not to separate both DAM and RAW-processing. I plan to import the existing pictures including the ratings and keywords as TIFF-files into C1 and to keep the RAWs if I want to rework a picture in the future. Hope this works.

If this software should cease one day (this will come) the next migration must be done​​. The situation is the same for all softwares

Carry on with Aperture is an option and a personal decision of everybody. No sense to discuss.

My conclusion is:

Apple has a different business idea for a long time. Such software as Aperture are developed in the future by specialists and no more by generalists. Therefore I have decided to switch, Apple will not replace Aperture by Photo.app.

The way how Apple handles this is a disaster. A conference ( WWDC) without comment. Then a stop with reference to a new unknown software, without any information what this is now. And also no indication of whether the user get a process for migration as support. I am alerted in terms of other applications.

Apple have said there will be a process of migration to the new app. They have also said that Aperture will be updated to run in 10.10.

That means that there is a minimum of 18 months that you can continue to use Aperture. How much notice do you want?

From Ars Technica:

"Update: When asked about what Aperture-like features users can expect from the new Photos app, an Apple representative mentioned plans for professional-grade features such as image search, editing, effects, and most notably, third-party extensibility. The representative also clarified the timeframe when Aperture development will end, along with an announcement about its other Pro app offerings receiving updates today; those details have been updated in the text above." - http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/06/apple-to-cease-development-support-of-pro-p hoto-app-aperture/

As a "prosumer" type of Aperture user I welcome this bit of news as very positive. If we can stay in the Apple ecosystem and add extensions or plugins this may get me to seriously consider Photos as an Aperture replacement. Time will tell.

Wow, am I underwhelmed by that.

Albums?

Smart albums?

keywords?

filter by EXIF, IPTC, and much much more?

A dozen or more sorting options?

LIght tables?

Color labels?

ANd the notion of one light adjustment that influences every other lighting parameter does not repeat not turn me on.

Several things occur to me. Firstly, it is odd, that a company with such significant resources, cannot find a modest amount of cash to keep a product discrete, under the 'Pro' banner. This suggests to me that there is more to this than money. Are they sticking their toe in the water to gauge reaction, if a few people whinge a bit then so what, but if the community at large reacts badly, perhaps they'll alter their decision?

If they do want to retire it, why not throw the code over the fence, make it open source and see if the community really care enough about Aperture to want to pick it up themselves? I'm sure someone would want to become custodian of the codebase, even if just to maintain OS compatibility beyond Yosemite? A Darwinian approach is certainly more healthy and having a door slammed in one's face...

For me, if Photos.app provides anything less than Aperture's current import/keyword/backup feature I'll be off... And as for the "Updating Libraries" issue, TimeMachine is a wonderful thing, so in the event of a problem, rewind time then delete Photos.app...

A late update:

I'm using Aperture since version 2.0, paid a good money for it, then for later versions and upgrades, including the last available "payable" version from App Store.

What happens if I don't want (or need, or whatever) to upgrade from Mavericks or Yosemite and need to reinstall Aperture again from scratch if , for example, I change the hard disk ? It's not available anymore for download on App Store.

I'll never go back again to Adobe, specially with their business focus shifting to cloud and subscription. It's just a matter of time to adobe stop selling LR and make you swallow CC.

There's a promising procuct now on App Store, Affinity Photo.

I sympathise with your predicament as I was also horrified by Apple's commercial decision to withdraw its support for Aperture. I loyally tried the new Photos software to my regret. But then I discovered Lightroom, it is stunning! I just wish I had installed it when it was first released. Being a retired professional I am delighted that I went back to Adobe, having used Photoshop for a number of years. I won't ever use the Cloud servers as regrettably, I don't trust the security of the Internet or its greedy companies.

You might consider the 30 day trial, which I'm sure will make you change your mind about Lightroom.

Harri Flex wrote:

I sympathise with your predicament as I was also horrified by Apple's commercial decision to withdraw its support for Aperture. I loyally tried the new Photos software to my regret. But then I discovered Lightroom, it is stunning! I just wish I had installed it when it was first released. Being a retired professional I am delighted that I went back to Adobe, having used Photoshop for a number of years. I won't ever use the Cloud servers as regrettably, I don't trust the security of the Internet or its greedy companies.

You might consider the 30 day trial, which I'm sure will make you change your mind about Lightroom.

Your experience would help me...

1. Are you outside USA and did you buy a lifetime licence or subscription?

2. When migrating did you need to export as Versions or does LR recognise the edits already in Aperture. i would hate to lose my RAW "negatives"

Harri,

I'm a heavy user of image processing and managing software with 20+ years experience. Some of my libraries are linked to 75000 pictures. I really dont like LR and I used to use it for years. The only one (for me) that does the job near perfection is the Phase One Media Pro. I made tests with it merging several libraries resulting in something like 400K pictures and it's dazzling fast.

I still use Aperture for some very useful features it has, but since 3 ou four years ago I'm using DxO, Phase One Media Pro and some other eventual raw converter in specific situations. In late November I decided to give Affinity Photo a try and I'm happy to the poit of leaving Adobe, even having paid for LR and PS (not the CC). Things are much faster, well done and less expensive.

Of course, it's not a simple decision for everione, but here are my two cents about this.

I Signed up for the dual software package which was Lightroom V6 as well as Photoshop on a monthly subscription basis of £7 per month. An offer available in the UK. I had used Aperture for my professional work and iPhoto/Photos for my family leisure shots. Merging the two initially into Photos was a disaster and took some sorting out. I managed to resolve this by then installing Lightroom and setting up both in separate Collections, amounting to approx 36,000 images.

I am very impressed by the speed and logic that the database manages the filing. Images can be left in their original Pictures location folders or added to the Lightroom masters. Overall I am delighted with the Adobe system which proves you get what you pay for.:)

OK thanks. Subscriptions are not for me.

I made some tests with Photos and merged libraries... No good comments. =)

Of course I made backups from the original ones.

But make no mistake, Photos is good if you use it just to organize images and if you take proper care, splitting very large collections and not importing the original files to the Photos library. Basically like Aperture.

The bad thing is it's very basic searching tool and bad metadata management. Works, but meh.

AFS_BR wrote:

I made some tests with Photos and merged libraries... No good comments. =)

Of course I made backups from the original ones.

But make no mistake, Photos is good if you use it just to organize images and if you take proper care, splitting very large collections and not importing the original files to the Photos library. Basically like Aperture.

The bad thing is it's very basic searching tool and bad metadata management. Works, but meh.

OK I decided to boot a CCClone copy disk in USB to upgrade to El Capitan 10.11.1 and test it with Aperture, which worked 100%. That means a considerable future for Aperture which needs no more development as an almost perfect product as far as bugs go.

Then I allowed Photos to convert my Aperture library...

All my project structure was not showing. Shows only dates - useless as a lot of my collection was scanned from prints and put into family categories as projects. I was hoping Projects would be stored as Albums. Even iPhoto did that.

All my RAW and original pice were not available - it seemed to take just my edited versions and show nothing else.

Quite how Photos can be considered good as an organiser I don't see. I think "It works" may be almost an overstatement.

So the future for me is Aperture, and IF my Macbook packs in in 3 years time and Aperture will not work with the next OSX I will have to buy something else other than Photos. For that reason I am regularly exporting Originals and Versions in the same folder structure as well as normal backups.

However the Macbook shows every sign of living me out.