Apple's photo strategy is horrendous. Photos.app is a massively improved iPhoto.app. The strategy is like improving iMovie and getting rid of FinalCut, or improving GarageBand and dropping Logic, etc.
The entire platform becomes invalidated if there is nothing to grow into. If I start projects with GarageBand I can expand into Logic. When I had an iPhoto library, I could migrate it to Aperture.
If I have a Photos library, I'm stuck in a dead end of entry-level photo adjustments. Lightroom is neither compatible, nor does it have a good workflow (which is why I never got into Lightroom even though I tried a few times), nor is the software subscription model acceptable.
Further, for anyone halfway serious about Photography the 1TB limit on iCloud is too limiting and it's ridiculously expensive.
So not only is the software unusable, the idea of getting everyone to move all their pictures to the cloud is equally misguided. If I want to share pictures I create an album and share that, plenty simple and sufficient: thank you very much.
Photographers are neither Apple Board members with big incomes, and free unlimited iCloud storage, nor does their library consist of worthless iPhone selfies and snapshots.
Try using 36MP DSLR RAW+JPEG pairs, or even bigger images from LEAF digital medium format camera backs: 1TB fills up fast... (and that's not counting HD video clips captured with the same cameras which should be in the same library)
Apple's change in strategy leaves all pros and semi-pros who either don't like Lightroom or don't like bending over for Adobe utterly stranded on the Apple platform.
I wonder how many OS releases Aperture still works for, or if we'll even be able to download it again onto newly purchased hardware.
I kept quiet, hoping to be positively surprised by Photos, but it's worse than feared, and utterly useless.
Just two examples: can't set a metadata copyright string, can't batch-change time zones for pictures (Camera is set to UTC, so time zone is adjusted upon import based on the location of the pictures taken), etc. Control over adjustments is much worse, etc.
I really wonder if Apple is trying to simplify the binary system next and decides Macs will only know either 0s or 1s...
Now they're sending Pros an email to give Photos a try?
Not really. They sent the email to Aperture users. Not all Aperture users are pros. And not all Aperture users are aware of the pending discontinuation of Aperture. I dislike it's discontinuation, too; but I will give Apple credit for communicating the upcoming change so their customers are aware of it. That's something they are normally quite bad at. Usually you find out the bad after the product is released and you (or other early adopter guinea pigs) have installed it and found out the hard way.
And perhaps there is time for a few more things to get added if enough people provide the feedback. The biggest thing it seems would be the horrible metadata support Photos appears to have. Other things like better adjustment controls can potentially be added later. I say that because it preserves your Aperture adjustments when it imports your Aperture library. So the editing engine must be capable of performing those adjustments. But the UI doesn't provide the user full access to those controls. That could be added back in later. But if any of the metadata is lost, or if you can't add metadata when you first import and organize your photos, it's hard to recover from that to restore the data.
The other thing I'm worried about losing if I were to switch is my current Aperture organization. The concept of Aperture's Projects seems to have no Photos equivalent that I've seen, and that's the key organizational element in Aperture. They are like mini libraries within the Aperture library. Similar to Events, except they exist within Aperture's hierarchical organizational structure, not in a separate section on their own like Events in iPhoto.
I've not tried importing an Aperture library into Photos yet, but I assume a Project will get converted into an Event with a separate set of folders and albums elsewhere in the hierarchy making it difficult to know which folders and albums are associated with which Events. Granted, this is based largely on what I've read and seen in reviews. But if in fact the concept of Projects is gone, it would be a significant loss which would probably be hard for them to add back in later.
Perhaps Aperture users should list the management features they used most in Aperture and give feedback to Apple about which are most crucial to add back in. That's what they did with FCPX. It took 2-3 years for FCPX to get the features back but it shouldn't take them quite as long with Photos if they intend to do that.
It's a slightly different market in that Aperture had a much lower cost of entry and seemingly attracted a broader range of users than the old Final Cut Pro. I mean I didn't really like Aperture compared to the alternatives. I also wouldn't suggest it for really large catalogs of images, because it adds a lot of extra data. Lightroom requires very little extra room beyond what is needed to store the images themselves.
Right now you can get it on the cheap too. Go to eBay and buy a light version for $20 or less. Then visit Capture One to take advantage of their $99 upgrade from any previous version. You can thank me later
Ahh I can still remember the old Capture One, back when all editing was done on a low res preview and it frequently hard clipped highlights. That was version 2. They switched to the black background in version 4. I like their results better than Lightroom. I never really cared for Aperture, and I'll probably never understand why anyone would miss it.
While I would agree it is not yet near as capable as Aperture, I wouldn't say it has "zero" editing tools. I was quite pleased to find Retouch and Definition as well as the usual compliment of light adjusting tools. From what I've seen so far, I believe this app will become a competent replacement for Aperture. The biggest problem I'm having right now is importing my 27k+ library of images in one fell swoop. Imports are failing without any error codes or dialogs and I have to restart the import each time. At least Photos appears to be recognizing where the last import left off and only imports what it considers to be new un-imported images.
I agree with elmoofo, the new iPhoto is nowhere near a product that would replace Aperture. I actually hate it. It's very hard to use, organize, and even keep track of any of your photos.
I agree with elmoofo, the new iPhoto is nowhere near a product that would replace Aperture. I actually hate it. It's very hard to use, organize, and even keep track of any of your photos.
How can I filter a list of photos that haven't been assigned to an album yet? Basically the album "unassigned"? This way I can make sure all my photos end up in an album.
I miss album scrubbing (moving mouse over album to see multiple photos)
Pixelmator isn't an Aperture replacement. I have Pixelmator and it's a light version of Adobe Photoshop. You can't do batch photo editing with Pixelmator. Professional photographers don't just take half dozen photos. They take hundreds, sometimes thousands of photos. They don't have time to sit there and edit each and every single photo. It's far easier to edit one photo, then apply that edit to three dozen similar photos, thus saving time. Also, Aperture is optimized for dealing with raw photos.
Comments
Photos.app is a massively improved iPhoto.app. The strategy is like improving iMovie and getting rid of FinalCut, or improving GarageBand and dropping Logic, etc.
The entire platform becomes invalidated if there is nothing to grow into.
If I start projects with GarageBand I can expand into Logic. When I had an iPhoto library, I could migrate it to Aperture.
If I have a Photos library, I'm stuck in a dead end of entry-level photo adjustments.
Lightroom is neither compatible, nor does it have a good workflow (which is why I never got into Lightroom even though I tried a few times), nor is the software subscription model acceptable.
Further, for anyone halfway serious about Photography the 1TB limit on iCloud is too limiting and it's ridiculously expensive.
So not only is the software unusable, the idea of getting everyone to move all their pictures to the cloud is equally misguided.
If I want to share pictures I create an album and share that, plenty simple and sufficient: thank you very much.
Photographers are neither Apple Board members with big incomes, and free unlimited iCloud storage, nor does their library consist of worthless iPhone selfies and snapshots.
Try using 36MP DSLR RAW+JPEG pairs, or even bigger images from LEAF digital medium format camera backs:
1TB fills up fast... (and that's not counting HD video clips captured with the same cameras which should be in the same library)
Apple's change in strategy leaves all pros and semi-pros who either don't like Lightroom or don't like bending over for Adobe utterly stranded on the Apple platform.
I wonder how many OS releases Aperture still works for, or if we'll even be able to download it again onto newly purchased hardware.
I kept quiet, hoping to be positively surprised by Photos, but it's worse than feared, and utterly useless.
Just two examples: can't set a metadata copyright string, can't batch-change time zones for pictures (Camera is set to UTC, so time zone is adjusted upon import based on the location of the pictures taken), etc.
Control over adjustments is much worse, etc.
I really wonder if Apple is trying to simplify the binary system next and decides Macs will only know either 0s or 1s...
Now they're sending Pros an email to give Photos a try?
Not really. They sent the email to Aperture users. Not all Aperture users are pros. And not all Aperture users are aware of the pending discontinuation of Aperture. I dislike it's discontinuation, too; but I will give Apple credit for communicating the upcoming change so their customers are aware of it. That's something they are normally quite bad at. Usually you find out the bad after the product is released and you (or other early adopter guinea pigs) have installed it and found out the hard way.
And perhaps there is time for a few more things to get added if enough people provide the feedback. The biggest thing it seems would be the horrible metadata support Photos appears to have. Other things like better adjustment controls can potentially be added later. I say that because it preserves your Aperture adjustments when it imports your Aperture library. So the editing engine must be capable of performing those adjustments. But the UI doesn't provide the user full access to those controls. That could be added back in later. But if any of the metadata is lost, or if you can't add metadata when you first import and organize your photos, it's hard to recover from that to restore the data.
The other thing I'm worried about losing if I were to switch is my current Aperture organization. The concept of Aperture's Projects seems to have no Photos equivalent that I've seen, and that's the key organizational element in Aperture. They are like mini libraries within the Aperture library. Similar to Events, except they exist within Aperture's hierarchical organizational structure, not in a separate section on their own like Events in iPhoto.
I've not tried importing an Aperture library into Photos yet, but I assume a Project will get converted into an Event with a separate set of folders and albums elsewhere in the hierarchy making it difficult to know which folders and albums are associated with which Events. Granted, this is based largely on what I've read and seen in reviews. But if in fact the concept of Projects is gone, it would be a significant loss which would probably be hard for them to add back in later.
Quote:
Perhaps Aperture users should list the management features they used most in Aperture and give feedback to Apple about which are most crucial to add back in. That's what they did with FCPX. It took 2-3 years for FCPX to get the features back but it shouldn't take them quite as long with Photos if they intend to do that.
It's a slightly different market in that Aperture had a much lower cost of entry and seemingly attracted a broader range of users than the old Final Cut Pro. I mean I didn't really like Aperture compared to the alternatives. I also wouldn't suggest it for really large catalogs of images, because it adds a lot of extra data. Lightroom requires very little extra room beyond what is needed to store the images themselves.
Or Phase One's Capture One.
http://www.phaseone.com/Imaging-Software/Capture-One.aspx
Right now you can get it on the cheap too. Go to eBay and buy a light version for $20 or less. Then visit Capture One to take advantage of their $99 upgrade from any previous version. You can thank me later
Ahh I can still remember the old Capture One, back when all editing was done on a low res preview and it frequently hard clipped highlights. That was version 2. They switched to the black background in version 4. I like their results better than Lightroom. I never really cared for Aperture, and I'll probably never understand why anyone would miss it.
While I would agree it is not yet near as capable as Aperture, I wouldn't say it has "zero" editing tools. I was quite pleased to find Retouch and Definition as well as the usual compliment of light adjusting tools. From what I've seen so far, I believe this app will become a competent replacement for Aperture. The biggest problem I'm having right now is importing my 27k+ library of images in one fell swoop. Imports are failing without any error codes or dialogs and I have to restart the import each time. At least Photos appears to be recognizing where the last import left off and only imports what it considers to be new un-imported images.
BAD MOVE, APPLE!
BAD MOVE, APPLE!
I miss album scrubbing (moving mouse over album to see multiple photos)
didn't buy aperture thru mac store. didn't get email. updated to Yosemite and lost all my aperture photos. how do I retrieve them