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Razeus

macrumors 603
Original poster
Jul 11, 2008
5,348
2,030
Adobe's strategy is to move all of their products to a subscription model, that much is patently obvious, so IMHO it's just a matter of time. Hence, if you don't like to subscribe to software, you know that you have stay away from Adobe's products. I don't think it's useful to buy Lightroom 5/6 just to find out that Lightroom 7 is subscription-only and you're boxed in.

Personally, I'll wait for Apple's Photo app. Given the Pixelmator guys' proclivity for cutting edge API, I expect that they bundle part of Pixelmator as an extension which loads within the Photos app. Depending on your needs, that may or may not be enough.

My only real issue is RAW conversion. I'm going to look at Iridient, since I have a X-Trans cameras.
 

OreoCookie

macrumors 68030
Apr 14, 2001
2,727
90
Sendai, Japan
Are you doing this through Aperture or iPhoto?
I'm on Aperture right now, although the RAW converters used in Aperture and iPhoto are the same. (Maybe Apple doesn't expose all features in iPhoto, though.) My plan is to wait until Photos is released to make a decision which way to go. I've never needed much beyond Aperture's editing tools and I have a strong dislike for Lightroom's user interface, so maybe I'll stick with Photos in the end. Seeing as Adobe's Aperture library converter doesn't seem to work very well, I'll probably just import all old photos into whatever new DAM software I end up using.
 

Razeus

macrumors 603
Original poster
Jul 11, 2008
5,348
2,030
I'm on Aperture right now, although the RAW converters used in Aperture and iPhoto are the same. (Maybe Apple doesn't expose all features in iPhoto, though.) My plan is to wait until Photos is released to make a decision which way to go. I've never needed much beyond Aperture's editing tools and I have a strong dislike for Lightroom's user interface, so maybe I'll stick with Photos in the end. Seeing as Adobe's Aperture library converter doesn't seem to work very well, I'll probably just import all old photos into whatever new DAM software I end up using.

I have a few options instead of paying Adobe forever. The sub was good, but I simply don't use Photoshop as much, though I've always had it installed for years.

I have Aperture so I might use that with Pixelmator and just use Aperture until Apple simply won't let me use it anymore.

I'm demoing Iridient Developer 3 beta as I've always heard they are a much better RAW converter than Adobe or Apple (which I want to see how Adobe changes that in LR 6).

I'll wait for Photos to be more mature and I can see how it performs. I really hope they let you create more than one "library" as I keep my personal/family/friends photos separated and and organized differently that my more serious photography.
 

OreoCookie

macrumors 68030
Apr 14, 2001
2,727
90
Sendai, Japan
I'm demoing Iridient Developer 3 beta as I've always heard they are a much better RAW converter than Adobe or Apple (which I want to see how Adobe changes that in LR 6).
In my experience, it's not just conversion quality. One of the reasons I've barely used my Sigma DP1 was the horrible software that Sigma included. The conversion quality was great, but everything was very clunky and slow. Personally, even if one RAW converter is significantly better (by whatever measure you use), I'd stick with the better DAM tool for everything and use the »better RAW converter« when I have to.
I'll wait for Photos to be more mature and I can see how it performs. I really hope they let you create more than one "library" as I keep my personal/family/friends photos separated and and organized differently that my more serious photography.
Yeah, that'll be interesting to see. Thanks to Extensions, I don't think we need to worry about it on the editing front -- companies like Pixelmator and other plug-in developers will take the opportunity, I'm sure.
 

v3rlon

macrumors 6502a
Sep 19, 2014
872
681
Earth (usually)
Every year I do something creative with the kids Halloween photos. Nothing ridiculously pro, but some basic greenscreening, and some effects and that sort of thing.

This was my first time trying this in Pixelmator.
I was using a single shot from D7000, and compositing with a 3D generated image (at 1920*1080), one of the Yosmite desktop images (at 5k). I ran into some serious crashing and ran out of application memory (16GB system ram). I am not terribly happy with that.

So, pulled Lil'bit out of background in her costume. Pasted her onto 3D image and positioned (move, rotate and scale components so she was riding a dragon). Scale took a LONG time to respond- about a minute, and crashed Pixelmator once. Rotate crashed Pixelmator twice before it took.

I DID get everything done, including color correction done.
I like the way the magic wand drags to expand selection region.
The filters/effect menu is ok, once you get a feel for where everything is.

Crashing and hangs while doing transformations has me a bit bothered though. That was way harder than doing it in photoshop.
 

Michaelgtrusa

macrumors 604
Oct 13, 2008
7,900
1,821
Every year I do something creative with the kids Halloween photos. Nothing ridiculously pro, but some basic greenscreening, and some effects and that sort of thing.

This was my first time trying this in Pixelmator.
I was using a single shot from D7000, and compositing with a 3D generated image (at 1920*1080), one of the Yosmite desktop images (at 5k). I ran into some serious crashing and ran out of application memory (16GB system ram). I am not terribly happy with that.

So, pulled Lil'bit out of background in her costume. Pasted her onto 3D image and positioned (move, rotate and scale components so she was riding a dragon). Scale took a LONG time to respond- about a minute, and crashed Pixelmator once. Rotate crashed Pixelmator twice before it took.

I DID get everything done, including color correction done.
I like the way the magic wand drags to expand selection region.
The filters/effect menu is ok, once you get a feel for where everything is.

Crashing and hangs while doing transformations has me a bit bothered though. That was way harder than doing it in photoshop.

Nice work. Pixelmator has bugs in Yosemite. I'm hoping they will update to 3.3 this monday.
 

v3rlon

macrumors 6502a
Sep 19, 2014
872
681
Earth (usually)
A Yosemite fix this week would be nice. I would try to recreate the process at that point and see if I had the same issues.

There is a lot to like in Pixelmator. These issues aside, it is a nice app for the price and can do quite a bit with no Adobe headaches.

Adjustment layers would be really nice.
 
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