Anyone still using aperture

Yes but not for new pictures. I‘ve kept my 2010 Mac Pro on Sierra, and kept a bootable Yosemite system just in case. Yosemite is the last system that Aperture was supported on. I am using Aperture primarily to clean up my library and metadata (keywords, location data, gps, copyright, description, etc.) and to rename my originals. Aperture handles this really well. All this is to get ready to move images to a new app. I won’t use Photos for the same reasons stated by other posters. I also will not rent or lease an app. That eliminates LR. Capture One is good but expensive. My new go to app for photos is ON1 RAW 2018, soon to be ON1 RAW 2019. I’ve waited 3 years for ON1 to become robust enough to replace Aperture. It does not require a catalog or database to keep track of your files. You organize in the Finder. It uses sidecar files to keep your metadata and edits. Want to move a file? Move the photo and sidecar files and you keep all metadata and edits. Want to search across all your images? Turn on the catalog feature - it will collect the data from your sidecars. Non destructive layers, coming soon. Lens corrections - already there. New camera, they probably support it. Plus you get all the stuff ON1 has always been known for like presets, effects, LUTs, panorama, HDR masking, etc. Moving to a PC because Apple won’t build the machine you need. It works there too and your license already covers both. If you haven't looked ON1 recently I recomend you do so. Their is so much more, but this post is too long already. BTW, I am not affiliated with ON1 other than as a customer.

My major concern is that Aperture can't write IPTC or XMP side-car files so getting 13 years worth of captioning information out of my 23TB database is going to be a major PITA.

You probably know, that you can save the metadata fro selected images with "File > Export > Metadata.

It will write a tab separated text file with the IPTC metadata. This could be read into a Filemaker database or Microsoft excel database, where you can at least look it up by searching for the filename.

I used "Metadata > Write IPTC Metadata to Original" to embed all metadata into the original image files to save them for the migration to other applications.

A workaround to create an XMP sidecar file would be to migrate a copy of your Aperture library to Photos. Many Aperture metadata can be migrated to Photos, and Photos can export the original image files with XMP sidecar files.

for LR support contact their support team - this geivs a lot of info about moving from Aperture to Photos - Notes on Migrating an Aperture Library from Aperture to Photos for Mac

and although these links are for iPhoto most of them apply equally to Aperture - : Links to User tips re migrating from iPhoto to Photos

LN

. Someone in the Mac community told me Photos is a lot better now, almost no difference with Aperture. After reading comments here, I’m starting to doubt.

Photos 3.0 on. High Sierra is a lot better than Photos 1.0 on Yosemite, but there are still important tools missing in Photos 3.0. It is hard to work with it efficiently.

• You cannot customize your work space with presets for editing or metadata
• You cannot batch change metadata using presets. There is no list view for metadata and limited sorting options.
• You cannot use brushed adjustments for dodge and burn, or sharpening, or brushing in color, or skin smoothing. The only brush available is the retouche brush, and it does not work properly.
• You cannot even compare two photos side-by-side. I used the work-around to put the two photos onto a book page to compare them, but Photos does no longer have a native tool to create books.

I am using photo editing extensions for advanced editing tools, and Power Photos as a second Browser for Photos.

With extensions, Photos is workable, although Affinity Photo sadly does not (yet) support the HEIC format.

HEIC is still problematic in Photos, even Photos 4.0 on Mojave.

• Photos cannot yet export HEIC; the edited versions will be exported in a different format.
• On older iMacs with a certain graphics card an edited HEIC image can be corrupted by artifacts. (Re: Help- Artifacts/Corruption in several Photos)
• All my HEIC images (if not edited) will be duplicated for the media Browser as JPEGS, so they need a lot of additional storage. My iPhone HEIC fils are using 8GB of storage in my Photos Library, but 10GB additional storage in the Media Browser for JPEGs: ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.MediaLibraryService/Data/Library/Caches/com.appl e.iLifeMediaBrowser.ILPhotosTranscodeCache

As a work-around to pass HEIC files to affinity: I am using the External Editors Extension to call the external editors, that do not yet support HEIC. External Editors allows us to convert the file to a different format, for example TIFF, before sending it to DxO Optics Pro or Affinity.

External Editors allows to save any edited file back to Photos as the edited version, also HEIC files, if we use Preview to convert to HEIC

1) Tabbed panes (ala Aperture's Library, Info and Adjustments panes; and those in Pages, Numbers or Keynote); 2) Dynamic resizing of the description and keyword fields, based on their contents; 3) Adjustment brushes (though Luminar 2018 does a fine job); 4) Side-by-side (2-up) view feature; 5) Batch rename File and Title names.

These are all very good points. To add to this list:

• Photos lets us lift and stamp adjustments, but not metadata. That is a real pain. And we cannot batch apply a "lift&stamp", because it is only available in Edit mode, and so only for one photo at a time.
• The user interface is not suitable to navigate large libraries. The list of keywords is quickly getting too long, because we cannot group them hierarchical. We cannot group the Faces either. This makes it clumsy to pick keywords or faces as a rule when trying to create smart albums. we cannot sort the photos by the filenames or the file size or pixel size. There is no list view.
• I really need the ability to flag photos and add ratings. And these need to be visible as badge overlays. The favorite heart alone does not suffice. I miss the five rating stars.
• The access to EXIF and IPTC metadata is very limited. We cannot show all EXIF data, and not use all of them in smart albums or searches. Some limitations are just silly - if a photo carries GPS coordinates, I can see the name of the place, but not latitude and longitude, and the altitude is not available at all. we can copy and paste the location name as assigned by Photos, but not the precise GPS coordinates, because coordinates are not shown in Photos. The altitude cannot be changed even by an Apple script. And we have to jump through the hoops to find out the timezone that is used with a capture date.
• We cannot name the basic items in the library in a way, that is meaningful for our projects. Moments and collections are named automatically according to the date and location, but we cannot assign a name that is more meaningful for the project. For example, Photos is frequently calling a moment for the name of the state or worse or ocean, when I would prefer a more distinctive name, like the name of the island, the cape, the reef, or "Measuring site 1".

For those just getting started with Photos, here is an index to the user tips with "how to"s and many Apple Scripts, that help with batch changing or looking up metadata:

Thematic Index to Photo Related User Tips: | Communities

AppleScripts come in handy to mitigate some of the deficiencies of Photos metadata.

And I am frequently using Power Photos as a second browser for my Photos Libraries.This will allow me more sorting options and provides a nice list view.

I still use Aperture. It is by far the best app I have ever used for cataloging my photos, organizing my collection, making quick edits & exports. The workflows (importing, rating, keywords, albums, adjustments, exporting) are extremely well thought out and have never gotten in my way. All the other apps I have tried fall short on one or more of those features. I have reserved 2 Macs specifically for use with Aperture and probably won't upgrade them beyond High Sierra (Aperture 3.6 + High Sierra are running fine for me. I don't think I want to take chances with Aperture on Mojave.)

That said, I do use Luminar 2018 and am looking forward to the addition of asset management/library features later this fall. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it comes close to Aperture's cataloging & interface capabilities ... and that it will be able to import Aperture Libraries.

I evaluated CaptureOne and a number of other solutions but overall none have fit my needs as well as Aperture.

There are many, many other alternative apps to Aperture. None of them are quite the same, and arguably, none hit the sweet spot between media manager and non-destructive processor quite as well. But they all have a considerable advantage over Aperture now, and that is they have seen continuous development over the past 5 years, while Aperture has seen none. Even if you don't like Lightroom (in either of its guises), it is inarguable that it's tools are, bluntly, 5 years more developed than Aperture's now, and that gap is only going to grow. Among the other alternatives (a non-exhaustive list): CaptureOne, OnOne Photo Raw 2019, Luminar 2018 (which gets a DAM module in a December release), Mylio, DxO PhotoLab, Darktable - these can be used either alone or in tandem with each other. For instance, in LR Classic, you can send your Raw to DxO PhotoLab and return it, if you prefer its Raw processing, and use LR for its DAM capabilities. Almost all of them can be used in tandem with pixel editors like Photoshop or Affinity Photo, or plug-ins like the Nik Collection, or even as plug-ins to each other. While you may prefer to Repair tool in Aperture to that in Lr, there is no way that you can't beat that with one or other of the alternatives.

Translation - I intend to keep using Aperture. Period

Unfortunately, about the only thing that can be said with a degree of certainty is that this won't happen. Even if you don't upgrade the OS past the point where Aperture runs, sooner or later the hardware will give out, and you'll need a new machine, and then you'll be moving to a new app anyway. The difference being that migrating now, with Aperture running, is a PITA, migrating when it has ceased to run, will be a fully-fledged crisis with a severe risk of dataloss.

How have people got on moving pictures from Aperture to Photos or Lightroom?

I keep still Aperture 3.6 around foo be able to see my archive of Aperture Libraries and iPhoto libraries as they originally have been, or creating PDF files of Photo books, creating maps with pins, or some advanced adjustments that are easier in Aperture, like skin smoothing.

But for most purposes I could break Photos in to suit my needs, with a little scripting to help with the metadata and photo editing extensions. For advanced editing I am mostly using two applications that offer photo editing extensions - Luminar 2018 and Aurora HDR 2018 for combining exposure brackets into a HDR photo.

I'm still using Aperture, professionally, every day. Why? Simply because it's STILL the fastest workflow tool around. Import, automatically add caption & adjustments, and work on the last image even whilst the first hundred or so are still importing. The ability to swap between edits and meta-data changes quickly and work in a non-linear fashion.

I've tried everything else, LR, Capture One, OnOne RAW, PhotoMechanic. They all are cumbersome and slower than Aperture.

Since running Mojave I'm seeing more issues which is very concerning as there still isn't anything as good as Aperture to switch to yet. Still hoping maybe one day Apple will release Aperture's source code to the community, or a developer will make an application that mimics Aperture's workflow and speed.

My major concern is that Aperture can't write IPTC or XMP side-car files so getting 13 years worth of captioning information out of my 23TB database is going to be a major PITA.

I keep tweeting Tim Cook asking to #BringBackAperture or release it as open source. Maybe the members of this community can do the same and bring it back to his attention that people are still using it years after it was killed.

The Edit mode in Photos offers a menu with all Photo Editing extensions we have installed. It makes it easy to switch between external editors for each photo.

It is easy to use Aurora HDR, Affinty, Luminar 2018 and many others this way.

Only, when I take Exposure brackets for HDR processing in Aurora, I do not import them directly to Photos. I collect them on an external drive, develop them in Aurora, and then I only import the developed photo to Photos.

Yep. Still using it.

Although I'm looking to what Luminar provides as their DAM effort. For now it is still providing the goods.

I have looked at Photos. But it still lacks a lot of features to keep me in the Apple realm (eg. brushable adjustments, importing GPS logging data, creating multiple versions, custom keyboard shortcuts and lots more).

The interface is so good. Or suits my workflow.

I have used Aperture professionally and also Capture One in a studio environment. Aperture is still the best.

My imports to Aperture are referenced now. Knowing that I will need my images to be accessed by another app in future.

If Photos were to offer a few more alá Aperture wisdom / Pro features. It may have my attention.

Until then, Aperture, suits my needs.

TheCuerco wrote:

Even though I still use aperture occasionally, I’ve moved to capture one pro. I liked aperture better, but what can we do.

The thing about using the photos app is, I don’t trust apple anymore. I can’t. They didn’t hesitate to drop a well established professional app without explanation, what’s to stop them from doing the same thing wuth photos whenever they feel like it.

So, even if the photos app were to gain feature parity with aperture (which I doubt), I won’t use it, because apple may do the same thing they did with aperture/iPhotos.

Ditto and Amen!

Hello Robin,

I just upgraded my iMAC 27 2013 to an iMAC 27 2017 two days ago. On the new iMAC, I just restored a Time Machine backup and Aperture is working fine on the new iMAC 27. Don't be afraid to upgrade your h/w, as long as you use Time Machine.

For the rest, I agree with you. I'm on a 30-day trial period now for Capture One. I would love to keep using Aperture.

Guy -

I still hoping Apple will release new version of Aperture someday

Very unlikely.

What's a *lot* more likely is that soon, some change in the OS means that Aperture will n longer run, or only run in a limited fashion. You need to prepare for that day, and make your choice for an app to replace Aperture. You're living on borrowed time.

I would like to know too.

I have been using Aperture for years and am loathe to change. I love how I can switch out to Photoshop, or Aurora (my preferred HDR app) or Portrait Professional (my preferred portrait retouching app) and back again and still have everything organised.

Have recently been a little concerned about some of the RAW processing results and am considering doing my RAW processing using an Adobe app then importing the resulting file in Aperture.

Having said that, I know that Aperture is a dead end and hence am seriously considering Photos simply for the database management aspects of things. Am not keen on Lightroom as I don't want to pay subscriptions.

I am keen to know if anyone has similar needs to mine, or a similar workflow, and how you've tackling this.

Thanks.