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Aperture vs. Lightroom
- Thread starter Westside guy
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One major feature of Aperture I liked and used was that I let AP manage my images, that made moving the library to external drives so much easier. Now that option is gone in a sense.
I'll be holding off on my system upgrades until I can complete the transition from AP to LR.
Indeed folks who used a managed library in IPhoto or Aperture will now have to carefully consider how to create their referenced master file library. I have used a chronology based structure. At the top is the Pictures folder. Below that are yearly folders. The next level down are folders for any day with photos. This works for me as a hobbist. I can understand that some folks may want to store by customer or event. You can use Collection and Smart Collections to create a logical view of some or all of the file.
Since my Mac is an rMBP, I can not store all of my folders on the internal SSD. So my library is in a Pictures folder on an external RAID set. When I do a shoot I import to the SSD, cull, and do initial editing. When I am back home I use LR to move the daily folders to the external RAID set. That frees up space on the internal SSD for the next trip
Since my Mac is an rMBP, I can not store all of my folders on the internal SSD. So my library is in a Pictures folder on an external RAID set. When I do a shoot I import to the SSD, cull, and do initial editing. When I am back home I use LR to move the daily folders to the external RAID set. That frees up space on the internal SSD for the next trip
I'm in that boat, but I was using AP because I could create the library by year, so moving to LR and setting up my structure will be similar. Year->Events
I have a number of specific events that I always create and categorize on, so its a workable solution I think
I'm surprised Apple made the announcement about Aperture prior to releasing any more information on their new app Photos. I'm reserving my judgement until they release it. Apple did say that Photos will be geared towards consumers and professionals.
Mike, it may be easier than you think.
The thing that swung me over to LR was that it did not have an external library, referenced or otherwise. The LR "library" is just your regular old folder structure, whatever that is.
Non-referenced photos in Aperture's library are actually just in regular old system folders as well, just buried in the special "package" folder and hidden from you. To use them in LR I just went into the library package, made an alias of "Masters," copied that alias to a regular folder, and then imported it into LR. Bingo, there are my photos.
Alternatively you can copy that Masters folder somewhere.
LR can flatten the whole file structure, if there are subfolders. That's Library>Show Folders in Subfolders in the menu.
The problem is you don't have the events and keywords from iPhoto. Events you can reconstruct with date filtering, and then make a collection for that date. Keywords are more problematic, since you have to export and choose some options to put them into photos or sidecars. I used small jpgs as sidecars and then stacked them. it wasn't ideal. Now that I have a faster machine I'd probably export.
But at least as I was transitioning accessing the actual masters meant I could do some work in Aperture, iPhoto and LR without moving much around. And a really nice thing about LR was that once the photos were referenced, I could move around the file system folders, rename them, etc right within LR. Very very handy.
The thing that swung me over to LR was that it did not have an external library, referenced or otherwise. The LR "library" is just your regular old folder structure, whatever that is.
Non-referenced photos in Aperture's library are actually just in regular old system folders as well, just buried in the special "package" folder and hidden from you. To use them in LR I just went into the library package, made an alias of "Masters," copied that alias to a regular folder, and then imported it into LR. Bingo, there are my photos.
Alternatively you can copy that Masters folder somewhere.
LR can flatten the whole file structure, if there are subfolders. That's Library>Show Folders in Subfolders in the menu.
The problem is you don't have the events and keywords from iPhoto. Events you can reconstruct with date filtering, and then make a collection for that date. Keywords are more problematic, since you have to export and choose some options to put them into photos or sidecars. I used small jpgs as sidecars and then stacked them. it wasn't ideal. Now that I have a faster machine I'd probably export.
But at least as I was transitioning accessing the actual masters meant I could do some work in Aperture, iPhoto and LR without moving much around. And a really nice thing about LR was that once the photos were referenced, I could move around the file system folders, rename them, etc right within LR. Very very handy.
I'm not sure why everyone is so worried about migrating. Do you really need to integrate all your petebytes of photos? Or can't you just start with the most recent stuff in Lightoom? I wouldn't try to do it all at once. That's how files get lost for good.
Switched to Lightroom... Not looking back. I will use what ever apple comes out with next year for my iPhone/iphone photos but Lightroom for my real editing.
Don't get your hopes up on Photos being a robust replacement for Aperture. Apple is clearing going to the mass market consumer crowd.
As Gomer Pyle used to say, "Surprise, surprise, surprise...."
I'm not surprised. Switched quite awhile ago to LR5 and before that to Capture 1 Pro....
Apple has said lots of things in the past and they have not kept their word. They used iWeb to get people to buy Macs and then abandoned it. They left professional videographers in the lurch when they took so much time to upgrade Final Cut Pro, that they lost their loyal followers to Adobe and other software companies. There is a long list, but I saw this coming a long time ago. I wasn't happy about having to switch to other professional software at the time, but once I did, there were so many advantages to LR over Aperture, that I never looked back.
There is little chance (less than one percent imho) that professionals will use the new Photo app that will be coming out with Yosemite.
I've spent the past 3 weeks moving my 35,000+ photo library out of Aperture and into Lightroom. What a tedious process, but I'm happy to say that I'm now finished!
I was sad to hear about the fate of Aperture -- what I liked most about it was its ease of use. The learning curve for Lightroom 5 seems much more steep, and while I've come to understand that it may be more powerful (??) in its abilities, it's just been difficult for me to get started on a good workflow. I'm a hobbyist.
That being said, I believe what I'll be doing is keeping my entire library of photos in Lightroom and use it for editing/managing, then exporting all of my best photos as JPEG and importing them into the new Photos app for sharing/viewing purposes. Can't wait.
I was sad to hear about the fate of Aperture -- what I liked most about it was its ease of use. The learning curve for Lightroom 5 seems much more steep, and while I've come to understand that it may be more powerful (??) in its abilities, it's just been difficult for me to get started on a good workflow. I'm a hobbyist.
That being said, I believe what I'll be doing is keeping my entire library of photos in Lightroom and use it for editing/managing, then exporting all of my best photos as JPEG and importing them into the new Photos app for sharing/viewing purposes. Can't wait.
I've spent the past 3 weeks moving my 35,000+ photo library out of Aperture and into Lightroom. What a tedious process, but I'm happy to say that I'm now finished!
I was sad to hear about the fate of Aperture -- what I liked most about it was its ease of use. The learning curve for Lightroom 5 seems much more steep, and while I've come to understand that it may be more powerful (??) in its abilities, it's just been difficult for me to get started on a good workflow. I'm a hobbyist.
That being said, I believe what I'll be doing is keeping my entire library of photos in Lightroom and use it for editing/managing, then exporting all of my best photos as JPEG and importing them into the new Photos app for sharing/viewing purposes. Can't wait.
I'm curious why you didn't wait until Photos is out? What if it's a great Aperture replacement?
Maybe the OP was sick of waiting on Apple. Afterall if Apple hadn't announced the end of Aperture many here would still be waiting for Aperture 4 or X
That's the problem with apple - they leave you in total darkness. I got tired of Apple and moved on.
It's always best to use 3rd party software with Apple hardware. I had a good run with iPhoto, but last year, I decided to take all my photos out of it and go with a folder based system. Now I can use any service I want and point it to those folders. I do miss the Faces feature and how it was displayed (minus the cork board graphics).
iPhoto really was a great piece of software when I first got my Mac in 2009. I thought it was a much better way to organize photos (at that time, I was just dumping all my pics into the Pictures folder in Windows without any sort of organizing scheme).
I'm hoping the Photos app and iCloud drive solve the problem Everpix, Snapjoy, Loom, and now Picturelife is trying to solve.
Structuring a sentence using "always"... is generally something that you will eventually regret.
/Jim
With the demise of Aperture & iPhoto, the simplification of Logic Pro, Final Cut, and iWork, the malfunctions of iCloud items like basic Mail and Contact syncing, my experience with iTunes Match not optimal, I don't think so.
Give it some time and you'll likely enjoy the change as you get comfortable with the interface. http://tv.adobe.com/product/lightroom/
Welcome to the world beyond Apple GUI. I also find Lightroom an unfortunate mess. Its dark, cluttered, littered with tools that can't be removed, buttons in all the wrong places and, at least on my wife's 2014 1.7 i7 Air, incapable of updating fast enough to avoid jittery thumbs during scrolls and sliders that are not real time.
I'm an experienced LR user and I was rather surprised 5.5, on a decent spec'd machine, is still a throwback in time.
As far as the editing module goes, its solid. Get past the GUI and it works well.
And you are now a "real photographer".
Perhaps this will help. Its a recap of my last few years using a suite of iPhoto on a media server (mini), Aperture and iPhoto for iOS. As I have a headless server, I need solid power management and remote management so a mini, iMac and MBA all ran 10.6.
Circa 2010 Apple releases iPhoto with a new library incompatible with "old" iPhoto. No problem, don't update.
Need support for Fuji XTrans. Nope, not available. Use Lightroom for 2 years.
XTrans support available, not for 10.6. At the time I was a virgin and updated to 10.8. 1), iPhoto libraries now incompatible and either share (not a good approach as that means my desktop needs to be on all the time) or maintain 2 different libraries. 2), Little did I know at the time of the consequences for power management and remote management. Lots of time spent updating all three machines to 10.8, debugging, change the server back to 10.6 and live with the consequences of different flavors of iPhoto.
Running Aperture 3.4.x on the iMac and notice white balance temp/tint is wacko. Oh, its broken. Need to update to 3.5. Need to update to Mavericks. Another OS upgrade for a simple app.
Update to 3.5.1, more library in compatibilities. No recall what they were. Something to do with the unified library perhaps.
Adopt iPhoto for iOS. Lousy editor but nice features with Journals and Slideshows. Put the time into learning them and building a series of web journals.
Now, per the iOS 8 release notes to developers, iPhoto won't run, neither the Journals nor Slideshows will migrate.
Aperture now being discontinued. Search for a replacement or wait for Photos?
I frankly don't need this sort of nonsense. I'd rather be out clicking the shutter than sitting in front of a computer doing OS updates, sorting out sharing and remote management and juggling photo libraries. So I will take a pass on waiting for Photos. If the developer notes re iPhoto for iOS is any indication, I don't expect a painless migration from Aperture DAM to Photos. So I'm out of Apple photography apps. Probably what Apple wanted as I am not their target group.
I have 30 years with Apple and like their hardware and OS on both the Mac and iOS side. But I do not plan on getting locked into yet more turmoil with their, so far, disjointed and poorly thought out long-term plans, or lack thereof.
And iCloud to bind all this together. So far in 2 years Apple has managed to wipe out all my Journals photos on iCloud twice. The pages, text, links to photos, etc still exist but the Photos are gone as in reflected in lower usage on my account. Which I pay for. DropBox has never let me down. And it can already easily do what Apple has attempted to do with PhotoStream/iCloud. Plus, DropBox works with all apps for desktop Mac's and just about all the apps I use in iOS, except those from Apple.
I will certainly continue to purchase Apple hardware. But my future software strategy will revolve around stable development and using DropBox to tie them all together. Which probably means a lot of other Apple software will be uninstalled or banished to the "Junk" folder I keep on iOS devices.
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With that said,
I'm not even going to trust iCloud Drive/Photos in the Cloud for a least a couple of years.
Like every cloud service Apple tries to do, they'll botch it. To this say, iCloud still has problems with syncing simple things like Contacts and Calendars (go see the sub-forum). My experience with iTunes Match has been subpar. How come the entire album Matches but ONE song? Why are you replacing my explicit lyric tracks with clean versions?
I simply can't trust Apple cloud "services" right out of the gate. This is why I keep saying don't trust your stuff to a company that seems to change things on a whim and don't derive most of their income from that stuff. Hence, why I push for people to go Adobe with Photography. Google for Search & Maps. Microsoft for Office. Those guys are going to fight tooth and nail to continue that level of insane income. It's their bread and butter. Everything else they try to offer ends up being sub par.
Sure you guys may not think Lightroom is UI friendly, but it's constant, stable, and I know what I'm getting. With Aperture, they started hiding their tools in blocks, unifying libraries with iPhoto (I've said I keep my family snaps (iPhoto) and more serious work (Aperture) separate and these 2 were great at that), lack of RAW updates for months for new cameras, breaking compatibility just because a new OS came out, etc. They release a half hearted iPhoto that didn't even sync back to OS X's iPhoto. Lightroom is just much more dependable - and their mobile apps sync back to the mothership on OS X.
Apple really should stick to hardware and OS's and simply allow 3rd parties who are MUCH better at certain services the ability to hook into it.
I'm not even going to trust iCloud Drive/Photos in the Cloud for a least a couple of years.
Like every cloud service Apple tries to do, they'll botch it. To this say, iCloud still has problems with syncing simple things like Contacts and Calendars (go see the sub-forum). My experience with iTunes Match has been subpar. How come the entire album Matches but ONE song? Why are you replacing my explicit lyric tracks with clean versions?
I simply can't trust Apple cloud "services" right out of the gate. This is why I keep saying don't trust your stuff to a company that seems to change things on a whim and don't derive most of their income from that stuff. Hence, why I push for people to go Adobe with Photography. Google for Search & Maps. Microsoft for Office. Those guys are going to fight tooth and nail to continue that level of insane income. It's their bread and butter. Everything else they try to offer ends up being sub par.
Sure you guys may not think Lightroom is UI friendly, but it's constant, stable, and I know what I'm getting. With Aperture, they started hiding their tools in blocks, unifying libraries with iPhoto (I've said I keep my family snaps (iPhoto) and more serious work (Aperture) separate and these 2 were great at that), lack of RAW updates for months for new cameras, breaking compatibility just because a new OS came out, etc. They release a half hearted iPhoto that didn't even sync back to OS X's iPhoto. Lightroom is just much more dependable - and their mobile apps sync back to the mothership on OS X.
Apple really should stick to hardware and OS's and simply allow 3rd parties who are MUCH better at certain services the ability to hook into it.
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Honestly, because I didn't think about it. Who knows, I may go back to Photos. I'm not against it or anything.
Thanks!
Haha! Glad it's not just me.