Life after Aperture

[purplehaze]

Just stumbled across some interesting articles comparing Capture One and Lightroom to Aperture:

Aperture, Capture One and Lightroom Walk into a Bar (Part 1 of 2)

Why I Chose Capture One Pro v8 and Abandoned Aperture 3 (Part 1 of 2)

(For each article, see the "More Like This" section on the page for the link to Part 2)

As both sets of articles compare the editing as well as the file management features of the various programs, I elected to create a new thread.

As regards file management specifically, there is also this article:

Your Aperture Files Imported into Capture One Pro 8; the Good, the Bad and the Missing

[billtils]

Janis

There is life after Aperture! I took advantage of the 30 day free trials to check out all of the apps you mention and some others (e.g. On1) and ended up concluding the best answer was none of the above

First of all, you need to take a very serious look at what you do with Aperture. If its digital asset management is vital and if you have a large repository of images, perhaps in several libraries, none of the alternatives works very well if you use Aperture in its "managed libraries" option; things may be a little better if you have it set up to use referenced libraries, and each is small.

If having a good DAM function does not matter to you, then life gets easier. I take it that if you are posting about Aperture you must be a Mac user. There are a couple of good editors available for outright purchase without breaking the bank - Pixelmator and Affinity Photo, rated 4.5 and 5 stars respectively in the Mac App Store, for example.

After messing about and getting increasingly frustrated with the shortcomings of the various alternatives, I realised I was freaking out needlessly. Aperture is not dead yet - it works with the pre-release beta test versions of the latest update to OS X (OS X 10.11, El Capitan), and if/when Apple withdraw support you can park Aperture, your library, and a legacy version of OS X on an external drive or partition on your internal one and use it to manage your library for as long as you wish.

Aperture can call any appropriate app as an external editor so no need to fret about missing out on advances in editing software.

Hope this helps (FWIW, and probably pretty obvious from the above) I am running Aperture on Yosemite (OS X 10.10.5) with Affinity Photo and some Topaz plugins. I tried out the beta of El Capitan and it was fine except that I can't print from it until Canon release an updated printer driver.

[purplehaze]

I took advantage of the 30 day free trials to check out all of the apps you mention and some others (e.g. On1) and ended up concluding the best answer was none of the above

Thanks for calming my fears, Bill. Frankly, reading the articles made me a little depressed, as it was clear that, while there might be some gains in moving to another program, there would also be significant (to me) losses. I am not too panicked, just trying to think ahead as I move stuff off the old computer onto the new. It is reassuring to know that Aperture works with El Capitan. I am definitely going to stick with it for the next while. On top of everything else, after dropping a bundle on the new hardware, I am certainly not eager to spend any money on new software.

[billtils]

No problem Janis.

Glad to help out another Mac/Aperture user - and we also share the D7100 and SB 700s, but my lenses are slightly different - Nikkor 50mm f/1.8, Nikkor 16-85mm, f/3.5 - 5.6, Nikkor 70-300mm, f/4.5 - 5.6, and very recently, a Tamron 150-600mm (which I like a lot).

[Manfred M]

Janis - while I can understand where Bill is coming from, I disagree with his approach.

Once a supplier has announced the end of life for a product, there is NO guarantee that the product will continue to work and there is a high likelihood that some time in the future the product will become useless, either because you upgrade your camera and the RAW converter will no longer work or the product will no longer function on the operating system. Unfortunately, for the graphic / creative arts community, Apple has become a consumer goods company and is no longer supporting the creative community the way it did.

Unfortunately, the signs have been there for some time. Apple's Final Cut Pro 6 and 7 were the mainstay of film and TV production until the introduction of Final Cut Pro X in 2011. This industry panned the new software and Apple ignored them and came out with a consumer oriented product; and the industry switched to alternate software.

The slowdown in the release of Mac Pro releases (hint - serious amateurs and pros do no edit on laptops) had the whole group fuming again. And now with Apple dropping Aperture and replacing it with Photos is just another sign of Apple's move into the consumer marketplace.

I would highly recommend you explore the alternatives out there. Eventually Aperture will stop working for you and you will have to make the switch. Doing it sooner, rather than later will let you transition at your own rate, rather than an emergency rush.

[billtils]

Hi GrumpyDriver

There are lots and lot of Mac users who are still using Mountain Lion - arguably the best iteration of OS X, with all the more recent versions being "enhanced" by adding features directed to integration with social media and Apple's iOS rather than any major change to what it can do (but El Capitan may be an exception). They are still happy campers ...

I have no doubt at all that the path I suggested to Janis will work for her for a long time - especially bearing in mind that she is used to Aperture, likes Aperture, and has just purchased the most recent iteration of it. Dumping all that right now and struggling with converting her library and learning the ins and outs of a new editor doesn't make a lot of sense. There is no emergency rush now or for the foreseeable future, as if she keeps the App and a copy of the OS then her library management is future proofed, and she can call whatever external editor she wants. For example, I use Affinity Photo, and based on the commitment of Serif to it and its stablemates (Designer and Publisher), it is not going away ...

Now if she was in a position where she has a MacBookPro but was just starting out in digital photography, I'd agree wholeheartedly that she should not go with any of the Apple photo software - Aperture because of the EOL issues and Photos because it is a consumer plaything; but that is not where she is at!

[purplehaze]

Don't worry, Manfred. "A while" is not forever. "A while" is time to see whether any of the other products that are out there fill the void that Aperture is leaving and develop the features that some of us don't want to do without. Mike's approach appeals to me logically. On the other hand, I already have View NX, Bridge and LR on my system, bought and paid for. Unfortunately, none of them appeal for file management functions. Capture One appears to be the most Aperture-like, in terms of look and feel, but it doesn't offer all the round-tripping options for editing I currently have with Aperture.

I appreciate your concern and don't intend to get left behind, but I don't want to jump too quickly either, and later regret my decision.

It is a shame that Apple has abandoned its roots. It rather looks like it may be spreading itself too thin. Still, I am diehard Mac person, who currently only uses Windows because I have to. And I am no technophobe. (I actually am part of the technical team that manages our translation software at work, and am currently teaching myself to write regular expressions.)

Also, I am perhaps too much of dilettante to consider myself a "serious" amateur, but for the record, I edit on a 27" display. Edit: But I think maybe you were talking in terms of processing power?

[purplehaze]

Glad to help out another Mac/Aperture user - and we also share the D7100 and SB 700s, but my lenses are slightly different - Nikkor 50mm f/1.8, Nikkor 16-85mm, f/3.5 - 5.6, Nikkor 70-300mm, f/4.5 - 5.6, and very recently, a Tamron 150-600mm (which I like a lot).

I'm sure there are more of us on this forum, Bill, which is why I started this thread, but they are awful quiet. I will have to look for your pics shot with the Tamron. Now that I have been bitten by the BIF bug, I am in the market for a really long lens.

[billtils]

It's early days yet, but here are a few. They are all hand held at between 500 and 600mm. The birds were about 10 - 20 metres away; the deer was about 150 metres and shot from a (slow) moving boat. The oyster catcher in flight was by accident - I was creeping up the shore line to capture the one in the other photo when it zipped past, and did not have the exposure comp set for this so the highlights on the wings are blown.

Comments welcome - I'm happy enough for only the second outing with it. The first outing was at a red kite sanctuary but it was not a nice day - light rain and grey skies so everything went into the "lessons learned" folder

[Mike Buckley]

Janis,

You mentioned that Lightroom file-managment capabilities are't "appealing." It might help you to clarify that. If it's the look and feel that you don't like, I understand. However, if you're saying that Lightroom doesn't have those capabilities, several people in the thread have confirmed that all of the file-management functions (copying, deleting, moving and renaming files and folders) can be done using Lightroom. I don't use Lightroom for file-management purposes, so I'm not personally familiar with what it can and can't do. Even so, it seems logical to me that such a widely adopted program would not be so widely adopted if it didn't include those functions.

The only reason I mention this is that you may (probably) already have the solution to your file-management needs in the form of Lightroom and just need to learn how to use it.

[Jimr1961]

Hi Janis,
You may want to play around with DigiKam to see if it fits your needs. It's open source and free. At least, look through some other's evaluations.

[purplehaze]

Janis,

You mentioned that Lightroom file-managment capabilities are't "appealing." It might help you to clarify that.

Mike, I think that many users coming from Aperture find LR clunky and counter-intuitive. I know I do. But the major stumbling block for me is that I have six years' worth of edits in my Aperture library that LR cannot read unless I save them out to TIFF or DNG. Apart from the JPGs I have shared with all of you, the only edits I have in LR-readable format are the ones I have edited in other programs, but even many of them have been tweaked in Aperture after the fact. At least Capture One can, to some extent, read Aperture edits and metadata in their native format, or so I gather.

[purplehaze]

Hi Janis,
You may want to play around with DigiKam to see if it fits your needs. It's open source and free. At least, look through some other's evaluations.

Thanks, Jim. I hadn't heard of DigiKam, but I will keep it in mind.

[purplehaze]

It's early days yet, but here are a few.

Nice shots, Bill; thanks for sharing.

[Mike Buckley]

I have six years' worth of edits in my Aperture library that LR cannot read unless I save them out to TIFF or DNG.

That's perhaps to be expected from my point of view except as noted below. As an example, I use Nikon software to edit all of my raw files. The only way to view the effects of those edits is to use Nikon software or to use software that reads the JPEG embedded in the raw file. I always use the latter unless I have decided to change the edits.

Are you absolutely certain that the edits have not been saved in the embedded JPEG? If not, shame on Apple for devising such a program.

[billtils]

Janis

Not sure what you are doing to get the files from Aperture into LR, but during the trial run I had with LR there were no problems opening NEF or JPEG files. If I recall correctly (it was a while ago now) I exported them full size from Aperture then opened in LR - I don't think I called LR up as an external editor. I do know it worked whether it was an original or a version that was exported for editing.

Trying to get LR to view my Aperture library was not an experience that made me feel inclined to move to it at any time, but the problems were all related to the library side and not in editing.

Sorry that this is not really going to help you resolve the issue - other than perhaps suggesting that transitioning to LR is not at all the easy task that Adobe would have you believe.

(I'm not sure what Mike B meant in his last reply to you, but one of the many things I tried was using Nikon ViewNX 2 and CaptureNX-D to download and edit and never had any problems re compatibility and integrity of those files when accessed from Aperture).

[Mike Buckley]

I'm not sure what Mike B meant in his last reply to you

Janis explained that Lightroom is not reading her Aperture edits unless she saves to other file formats. I take that to mean that it is not reading each of the individual edit steps. However, I personally would not see that as a problem. That's because I so rarely return to an image weeks, months or years later to change the edit steps. In other words, if it takes a lot longer to save the images to TIFF or DNG than it will take to start over with the relatively few images that she wants to rework, it makes sense to do the latter.

That then leads to the final comment in my previous post -- that the only requirement is that she can view all edited images as a JPEG using the embedded JPEG in the raw file. If she is saying that that also cannot be done, shame on Aperture for not updating the JPEG when applying the edits to the raw file. I would be very surprised to learn that the embedded JPEG has not been updated.

[billtils]

Mike

I know from personal experience that Aperture does do what you are talking about. It appears that you don't actually have any direct experience with Aperture so perhaps language such as "shame on Aperture" and "shame on Apple" is somewhat out of place in the discussions aimed at working together in the spirit of the forum to assist a member with a question.

[purplehaze]

I am in no way offended by Mike's comment, Bill; in my experience, he exemplifies the spirit of the forum and I don't doubt his sincere desire to help. In fact, he did help, in that he made me want to find out where and how Aperture stores the edit steps. In the course of trying to find that out, I came across a lynda.com tutorial on moving from Aperture to Lightroom that I managed to get halfway through before I fell asleep. I will be doing my research and weighing my options for some time to come, I think. In the meantime, I need to get my Aperture library moved across to the new system and through whatever upgrade process the Yosemite-compatible version of Aperture requires. And try to get out and take more photographs.

Btw, was out last night with a friend who has just made an arduous move from a three-story house to an apartment and I had a little epiphany about my accumulation of virtual "stuff".

[Mike Buckley]

perhaps language such as "shame on Aperture" and "shame on Apple" is somewhat out of place in the discussions aimed at working together in the spirit of the forum to assist a member with a question.

I like the spirit of your thinking, Bill. I would completely agree with you if those comments had not been qualified by preceding comments about "if Apple blah blah blah' or "if Aperture blah blah blah." I would also completely agree with you if the discussion was limited entirely to the purpose of solving Janis's issues; it's not because far more people follow the thread than participate in it, which presents the potential for making tangential issues very helpful.

It would be understandable if you do not realize that all of my comments about anything are entirely brand-agnostic; I have absolutely nothing for or against Apple or Aperture as brands and only concern myself with a product's capabilities.