gno2

Q: Has anyone considered letting Aperture live forever on a VM?

I've often thought about this.  We use Virtual Machines's at work all the time.  For example we have 1990's CNC equipment that needs Windows95.  We are running state of the art PC's with modern operating systems but run the CNC using Win95 in a VM.  And my desktop at work is an iMac but I run Windows7 in a VM (because our ERP system is Windows based) and it works flawlessly.

 

Fusion's VM is advertised to be able to run a Mac OS - although I've never tried.  When Aperture becomes incompatible with latest operating system, you could theoretically still run it using a VM.  Aperture would be an icon in the dock and should look and behave as normal. 

 

For those who love aperture I wondered if anyone has considered or tried this?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)

Posted on Feb 5, 2016 2:14 PM

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Q: Has anyone considered letting Aperture live forever on a VM?

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  • by Rob Gendreau,

    Rob Gendreau Rob Gendreau Feb 9, 2016 11:28 AM in response to léonie
    Level 2 (150 points)
    Feb 9, 2016 11:28 AM in response to léonie

    I've used the dual boot method with clones to run older Apple and non-Apple deprecated software and it works OK. But it is a pain. It helps to keep the Aperture Library accessible on say your boot drive SSD for speed purposes, but often the system on the clone itself is just slower. And you've gotta maintain and back up the clone. But that's all manageable. What I wonder about is whether in future system updates the Aperture library will still be accessible from other applications as it is now; that's a big benefit of Aperture over non-Apple alternatives right now. But if every time I needed an image from Aperture that was adjusted and editing within Aperture, and had to boot into another HDD based system to get it, I'd go nuts quickly.

     

    So maybe nice to have use of the older system, but not anywhere near a complete solution.

  • by gno2,

    gno2 gno2 Feb 10, 2016 3:27 AM in response to Rob Gendreau
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Feb 10, 2016 3:27 AM in response to Rob Gendreau

    Rob - I assume that in a Virtual Environment the Aperture library itself can remain on your normal drive (non-virtualized).  I haven't tried this with Aperture, but this is the way it works on my other Windows software.  In that case, other applications will have no problem accessing the Aperture library because the library is always available whether the VM is running or not.

  • by gno2,

    gno2 gno2 Feb 10, 2016 3:41 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Feb 10, 2016 3:41 AM in response to léonie

    Thanks Leonie - I was wondering what the MB957Z/A meant, if that was some alternate code for Upgrade.

     

    Yes it does cost some money and I still don't know if I am going to go down that path.  If I end up being forced to rent Lightroom some day (due to Aperture not working, or Apple Photos not getting better) the Virtualized Aperture would have been a cheaper alternative, as Lightroom would cost over $100 per year.  In looking at it that way, I could justify the cost.  I only wish Apple didn't have such restrictions on Virtualization.

  • by Taverner,

    Taverner Taverner Feb 12, 2016 12:02 AM in response to gno2
    Level 1 (34 points)
    Feb 12, 2016 12:02 AM in response to gno2

    While I think that using a VM for Aperture seems like a great idea, I would also remind people here that there is a viable alternative to Lightroom out there and that is Phase One's "Capture One Pro". C1 Pro is much closer to Aperture in terms of functionality and has a user interface which is even more customisable than Apertures'. You can purchase it and you can rent it if you like, with no differences in functionality between both versions. And to top it all, image quality is even better than Lightroom as well.

     

    For me Lightroom was out of the question from the beginning since I could not wrap my head around its weird structure as an Aperture user since 1.0. Trying out C1 was like a breeze of fresh air.

  • by gno2,

    gno2 gno2 Feb 12, 2016 3:41 AM in response to Taverner
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Feb 12, 2016 3:41 AM in response to Taverner

    That's interesting.  I checked it out a few months ago and talked with a nearby Phase One reseller.  You're not going to believe this:  He told me that if I wanted something similar to Aperture, I should go with Lightroom, not his own product.  He was a really nice guy and seemed to know what he was talking about, and didn't want to lead me in the wrong direction.  I was a little dis-heartened because is C1 Pro looked so nice.  I told him that we have one huge library archive that we manage with Aperture.  He said that C1 Pro works better for many different smaller projects - maybe more for professional photographers.  He said it is not as good as a large digital asset archive, like would be the case for a family photo archive.

     

    Sounds like you are very happy with C1 Pro.  Do you think it would work for a single large archive?

  • by Taverner,

    Taverner Taverner Feb 12, 2016 5:16 AM in response to gno2
    Level 1 (34 points)
    Feb 12, 2016 5:16 AM in response to gno2

    gno2 wrote:

     

    That's interesting.  I checked it out a few months ago and talked with a nearby Phase One reseller.  You're not going to believe this:  He told me that if I wanted something similar to Aperture, I should go with Lightroom, not his own product.  He was a really nice guy and seemed to know what he was talking about, and didn't want to lead me in the wrong direction.  I was a little dis-heartened because is C1 Pro looked so nice.  I told him that we have one huge library archive that we manage with Aperture.  He said that C1 Pro works better for many different smaller projects - maybe more for professional photographers.  He said it is not as good as a large digital asset archive, like would be the case for a family photo archive.

     

    First of all, Capture One recently released Version 9, which added some missing functionality for managing bigger databases (esp. around keywording), so he may have been referring to an earlier version.

     

    I think I understand where his comment may have been coming from. Both Aperture and Lightroom have been going side-by-side for so many years and have been leapfrogging each other in functionality, so the impression may be that they are both more equal than compared to C1. They are in a sense when it comes to having the DAM aspect of the application in the center of things and having everything else, developing, printing, sharing etc. attached to it.

     

    In terms of pure DAM, in my opinion Aperture is still king and better than anything else out there. Lightroom is close but still has a lot of shortcomings. C1 lacks in this area but if you take a close look into it, you will find out that Phase One has added a LOT of functionality over the last two version releases (8 and 9) and is beginning to further implement functionality from iView Media Pro (which they acquired some years ago). At the end of the day, there is not really THAT much missing in C1. The basics are all there. Again, Apple set the bar pretty high in that area, so you'll have to adapt in some way.

     

    One of the main issues for example I always had with Lightroom is that it is almost comically fixated on the folder structure in the finder. There is no way to have your assets "managed" by Lightroom, you will always have to do it outside and reference the files. You can't stack images which are placed across different folders in the finder (think about that for a moment) and so on. C1 is the only tool out there besides Aperture, which lets you choose if you want your images referenced or managed. It has basically the same functionality like Aperture: just throw your images into the application and have it handle it the way you have it set up in the beginning.

     

    Similar to Aperture there is no "module" like interface. You can do anything to your image at any point in time.

     

    Where C1 really shines and where it is LIGHTYEARS ahead of Lightroom is the customisation of the interface. It goes even further than Aperture here. You can set up several workspaces and choose between them. You can place any tool at any place on your screen(s), like the HUD in Aperture but for every single adjustment panel inside it. In Lightroom you can't even switch the side of the adjustment panel! It's always on the right. If you are left handed, bad luck. You can't use a dual monitor setup in any USEFUL way (it has dual monitor support, but just go ahead and try it....it's a joke) etc.

     

    Sounds like you are very happy with C1 Pro.  Do you think it would work for a single large archive?

     

    I have currently 30.000 RAW files in a single C1 catalog and have no big issues with it. It is in no way as fast and nifty as Aperture (which really screamed in the end with Version 3), but I accept all the shortcomings because of the absolutely superior image quality for my Canon RAW files.

     

    I spent a good part of three months of my life testing both Lightroom and C1 Pro side by side and wrote down every single bit of pro's and con's I could find. In the end the image conversions of C1 where THAT MUCH BETTER than both LR and Aperture, that it was no brainer.

  • by gno2,

    gno2 gno2 Feb 13, 2016 6:13 AM in response to Taverner
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Feb 13, 2016 6:13 AM in response to Taverner

    Taverner - Thanks for the detailed response.  I appreciate you sharing the results of your extensive comparison between Lightroom and C1.  This is very encouraging.  I really like the look and feel of C1.  I already have Lightroom as my company has several CC licenses which we use for other Adobe software.  I installed Lightroom on my MacBookPro and imported my Aperture library into it as a test.  I haven't warmed up to the feel of it yet.  The fact that you have to manage folders outside of Lightroom is a big turn off for me.

     

    Is C1 good at importing and organizing?  (I assume it creates events like 2016-02-13?)  Does it recognize duplicates on import?  We are importing more and more from out iPhones lately, and for some reason Aperture isn't recognizing all duplicates on my Wife's iPhone - it wants to import hundreds of duplicates, even though the Photos appear to be exactly the same with the same metadata.  It recognizes some duplicates, but not all.

     

    And lastly - How does it do transferring from Aperture to C1?  Does is retain Keywords and ratings?  Does it retain your Aperture folder structure and Albums? 

  • by gno2,

    gno2 gno2 Feb 13, 2016 6:57 AM in response to Taverner
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Feb 13, 2016 6:57 AM in response to Taverner

    One more question - Aperture is a single user / single PC application which can be limiting.  Lightroom is the same due to the SQLite database deficiencies.  Can you put the C1 library on a network drive and access it from multiple PC's? 

  • by Taverner,

    Taverner Taverner Feb 13, 2016 12:16 PM in response to gno2
    Level 1 (34 points)
    Feb 13, 2016 12:16 PM in response to gno2

    gno2 wrote:

     

    Is C1 good at importing and organizing?  (I assume it creates events like 2016-02-13?)  Does it recognize duplicates on import?

     

    And lastly - How does it do transferring from Aperture to C1?  Does is retain Keywords and ratings?  Does it retain your Aperture folder structure and Albums?

     

    Can you put the C1 library on a network drive and access it from multiple PC's?

     

    Importing is as straightforward as in Aperture (or LR). You can set several presets upfront and decide at import if you want the images managed or referenced etc. You can organise your images into projects, albums, groups and use Smart albums on top of that. AFAIK it does NOT recognise duplicates at import, but this has been mentioned so many times in the Phase One support forums that it would surprise me if they are not working on this for future releases.

     

    It has an Aperture Importer tool, which is much more advanced than what LR offers. It does retain Keywords, ratings, everything even including your whole project structure. However, the project/album structure and philosophy is different than in Aperture, so not everything will work the same, e.g. you can not specifiy a source for Smart Albums like in Aperture, so any query always uses the whole catalog as a source, similar to LR. So you may want to set up everything fresh anyway, which is what I did.

    As I said, Aperture is the gold standard for DAM functionality and they are all playing catch up. At least with Phase One I have the feeling that they are listening to feature requests (their support is nothing short of spectacular, they really get back to you within hours), while with Adobe I don't even know if they are even aware of the LR shortcomings.

     

    I don't know about putting a C1 library on network drive, but I'm pretty sure that it is not possible to work on the database with several users at the same time. This requires a multiuser SQL database which is a whole different kind of beast and I don't know any RAW imaging software out there which has this as a basis.

     

    Phase One has an excellent YouTube Channel with lots of tutorials and recorded webinars, where they answered questions by users live during recording. You may want to check out some of the webinars for version 8, including one that particularly talks about migrating from Aperture to C1 for over an hour:

     

    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDMRz3ssFQH5bVekS7WX6rW9pZu_X_vLJ

  • by gno2,

    gno2 gno2 Feb 18, 2016 5:29 AM in response to Taverner
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Feb 18, 2016 5:29 AM in response to Taverner

    Taverner - Thanks for the info on C1.  Sounds like C1 is superior to LR as a successor to Aperture - that is great.  And you can buy the software, not rent it.  I did watch some of that video - very impressive and detailed.  And I like the fact that they are listening to their customers and are catering to Aperture users.  The only missing feature (that would prevent me from buying it today) is "do not import duplicates".  Hopefully they will implement this in a future release.

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