Aperture Replacement 'Photos' to Offer Image Search, Editing, Effects and Plugins

[MentalFloss]

Aperture has been surpassed by both of it's main competitors for image quality, feature set, and versatility.

...and price.

Like I said before, your reason for switching was not that Aperture is being discontinued but that Aperture already sucked for you before this announcement. But that is not automatically the situation that everyone is in. If people are happy with Aperture right now, then there is no reason whatsoever to invest into another application at this very moment - in fact, it's probably best to wait now.

However, if you're terribly unhappy with Aperture already now and can't get the work done that needs to get done, then by all means, switch to something else. But that decision should not even be influenced by the announcement that Aperture support will be discontinued.

 

[prowlmedia]

It's interesting that not one person has mentioned the Book printing service in iPhoto or Aperture. We use that now and again for gifts and it's expensive but very good quality.

And the fact that Aperture Book print at a higher quality 300dpi against 150dpi of iPhoto books.

 

[MentalFloss]

Photos will be an Aperture replacement to the extent that it'll be the only photo app that Apple offers. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that it'll have all of Aperture's features.

Fortunately, it also doesn't mean that it won't.

Otherwise, why not tweak Aperture's UI to make it more accessible to less photographically-sophisticated users and make it widely available at no cost?

It is still my assumption that this is quite possibly what Apple is doing: Take the Aperture "engine", add a new UI and call it "Photos". The whole speculation that Photos will be "weaker" than Aperture is currently based on the fact that it will not be called "Aperture".

And yes, there is the assumption that Apple is moving away from pro features, but that is somewhat invalidated by the fact that Apple made it a point to talk about RAW support in Photos during the WWDC as well as the new noise reduction and lense correction. If they were moving away from pro features, they'd simply discontinue RAW support as opposed to enhancing it.

I'm planning on using Aperture until it's no longer compatible with OS X and then decide.

At least that is a reasonable strategy.

 

[Macist]

If Photos will be a legitimate Aperture replacement Apple's PR over the scrapping of their flagship photo software was amateur hour stuff.

Which idiot exec is doubtless being paid millions to preside over this shoddy work?

 

[QquegChristian]

If I used Logic, I'd be looking for an alternative. I know that Final Cut X has gotten better but it could have just as easily not gotten better. We didn't know. We still don't know. It could go away.

I am a working food photographer who dabbled in filmmaking and now have a "hit" indie film called The Battery.

From the filmmaking side, the fall of Final Cut Pro was genuinely shocking. I don't mean the program itself, I mean its dominance. A few years ago it was pretty much the indie standard... Today, I haven't met a single real, working filmmaker that hasn't made the jump (mostly to Premiere, but Avid on the higher end). I am close with over a dozen filmmakers that our movie traveled the festival circuit with, all with released and distributed films, and not a single one uses Final Cut today, yet cut their teeth using it years ago.

In the photography and design world where I make my real living, the loss of Aperture won't make much of a shockwave, which is probably why it's being neutered and made into a free consumer app. Simply put, I have never met a paid photographer or designer who isn't doing their work in Adobe products. There are strong opinions on Adobe's business model on here, but I feel these are coming from consumers and prosumers. There simply aren't any career professionals that I have met that use anything other than Lightroom and Photoshop (together) or Bridge and Photoshop. I have worked with dozens of clients in the print world and every single one required Adobe files, be it layered Photoshop files or InDesign files for longform projects. (Quark is dead.)

The writing was probably on the wall for Aperture the day that Lightroom was first released. It still doesn't have the greatest integration with Photoshop, but having any integration with it at all was going to eventually make Adobe the victor in the pro world. Pros use Photoshop, it's that simple. Lightroom hit quick enough that pros that were using Aperture had no real allegiance to it.

There was a true allegiance to Final Cut though, which made filmmakers continue to go out of their way to add After Effects to their workflow. When Apple released FCX, After Effects integration (much like Photoshop with Lightroom) sweetened the deal for filmmakers to switch to Premiere.

Apple still has one dominance in the filmmaking world. My film has been distributed in 15 countries and the distributors all request the film in ProRes HQ. ProRes is most definitely still the standard for delivery. In my admittedly varied career(s) ProRes is the one thing that actually makes me still consider buying a Mac.

Because, yes, I still work on Windows. I am not a troll, just a member here because I genuinely love the iPhone. So in a way, I'm kind of the problem with Apple's more consumer approach since their success with iOS. Apple has me hook line and sinker with iOS devices, because they need to "just work" but for whatever reason, I still like my work machine to feel like work. I like to open it up and upgrade and tweak things. Windows 8 blows, but I turned it back into Windows 7 (cosmetically) in 5 minutes.

With filmmaking, I genuinely thought I HAD to go Mac, but the Final Cut debacle happened right when I was looking to upgrade to an editing machine. At that same time, the old Mac Pro tower was overpriced component-wise. Knowing I would be going with Premiere, it allowed me to custom build a PC, save several hundred dollars, and not feel like I was behind the rest of the industry. ProRes turned out to be the only hang up, but thankfully there are several freeware programs that allow me to convert uncompressed files to ProRes HQ for final delivery.

I suppose the point of my post was that exclusive software can be an ace in the hole (look at game systems), but Apple has pretty much given up on that in the Pro world. That said, clearly they have instead focused on their most important exclusive software, OSX and are making it more enticing to the masses with every update. 95% of the time my computer is on, it is in either an Adobe program or Chrome, so I'm happy and just keeping up on this stuff for a few years from now when I want to upgrade machines.

 

[till213]

Sounds like they are merging the products, not so much doing away with them per say.

For fukus sakus, where did you learn Latin? "per se" ("by itself"), not "per say"!

And yes, from an iPhoto point of view it's probably going to be a plus in functionality, overall. They might even take some advanced image algorithms from Aperture and make it "compatible for the masses" (e.g. you won't have much possibility to fine-tune the result, but rather have a "More-Less" kind of slider for the "effect").

But don't expect something of the calibre like Aperture - that is gone (and Apple made that clear by even announcing that they would "collaborate with Adobe to find a migration path towards Lightroom).

----------

If Photos will be a legitimate Aperture replacement Apple's PR over the scrapping of their flagship photo software was amateur hour stuff.

That's the point: it won't.

Which idiot exec is doubtless being paid millions to preside over this shoddy work?

To shut down Aperture?

----------

PS: I'm certain that Photos will be free.

I wouldn't be surprised if the new Photos would be "iCloud only" - then we talk again about "free". Remember, you read it here first

 

[jadot]

You can if you want to annoy users. Hopefully Apple has no intention of doing this.

People 'hoped' that Apple wouldn't cripple Final Cut Pro. People Hoped Apple wouldn't lock out iWork users - this happened. people hoped Apple would update Aperture 2 years ago.

Blind faith and loyalty hasn't worked out for most people, and Apple does indeed have a history of 'annoying' their loyal user base.

A replacement for Aperture simply means that there will be a 'something else' where the Pro App Aperture used to be. Good or bad, it won't be another Aperture.

 

[till213]

I personally can't stand Lightroom's clutter.

That "clutter" in Lr gives you access and control to fine-tune all settings. In Photos it will be a "More vintage, less vintage"-kind of slider control.

I see there is a healing tools section as well, so this might actually be everything I need.

Yeah, right, like I said...

----------

But they said there will be third-party extensibility, probably allowing some of the features that Aperture had to be added in Photos.

The price-winning question of course will be: are those plugins "non-destructive", or do they just spit-out a new "myphoto-edited.jpg" version of the original (like in Lightroom?).

Or in other words: will Apple add a clever plugin API which merely records the "work steps" done by the plugin? Well, I don't think so (or how would you sync those changes to another devices, say, an iDevice, where that plugin was not installed?).

We'll see...

 

[someone28624]

I've fairly obsessively organized my photos in iPhoto using events, faces, smart albums, geotags, and manually entered locations. As long as I don't lose that , I'm good.

 

[till213]

Who said it will?

Apple said it won't.

----------

It looks and sounds a lot like Aperture to me..

Why, because it as a "dark GUI"? Geez, why didn't I realise this myself? My gosh, you are right!

I shake my head at many of the comments since last Friday. So many people reacting like they have been left with software that does not work at all.

No. People are upset because development has stopped. Simply that.

Its become clear to me that Photos will have most if not all of what Aperture offers, and probably a great deal more.

But off course, no... wait... you are RIGHT! Simply by looking at the screenshot it totally becomes obvious that Photos will be the new Aperture! Geez, how could we even have listened to Apple who themselves announced a collaboration with Adobe for a migration to Lightroom? How could we have been so blind and miss all those shiny "Exposure", "Highlights" etc. controls in the screenshot? They are sooo professional, y'know! Like basic image operations glued together by some clever "Instragram"-kind of algorithm!

So if you like Apple's approach to photography, stay the course

Lucky me, I am not in that boat anyway...

P.S. Pro tip: You should better hide that batch which sais "Apple employee of the month" next time you're posting here.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

Picture-perfect strategy: Why killing Aperture means Apple will rule the cloud http://www.cultofmac.com/285505/ape...twitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter

 

[steve-p]

I mean, who's (out of Current Aperture users) really going to wait until next year to see if photos might just be OK?

Me, for one. I'm disappointed Aperture is being dropped, as it's one of the reasons I switched to Mac in the first place, and I've been using it for years now. At the same time, I'm not going for the knee jerk reaction of jumping to a different product without first waiting to see exactly what Apple has in mind for the final Photos application, and what integrated third party support is available.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

If Photos will be a legitimate Aperture replacement Apple's PR over the scrapping of their flagship photo software was amateur hour stuff.

Which idiot exec is doubtless being paid millions to preside over this shoddy work?

Apple has not said or even intimated that the new Photos app is a direct Aperture replacement. It did specifically say it was continuing work on its other "pro" applications, Logic and FCPX. Apple also clearly stated Photos IS an iPhoto replacement [again with no mention of Aperture]. Based on that one can make a logical inference that Photos, out of box, is intended as consumer application with some "pro grade" [ambiguous marketing jargon] features which also allows for 3rd party plugins to fill in gaps.

All Apple has said regarding Aperture is that it will have one more compatibility update for 10.10 and then its officially dead after being comatose for two years and that there will be a migration path from Aperture to the new Photos app.

The only ball Apple dropped here was not admitting Aperture was on the chopping block sooner. But most real pros (and many hobbyists) figured that out anyway and either moved on or decided Aperture was good enough for the time being. Now everyone has to make a decision, but this moment was clearly visible miles ago.

 

[jadot]

...and price.

Like I said before, your reason for switching was not that Aperture is being discontinued but that Aperture already sucked for you before this announcement. But that is not automatically the situation that everyone is in. If people are happy with Aperture right now, then there is no reason whatsoever to invest into another application at this very moment - in fact, it's probably best to wait now.

However, if you're terribly unhappy with Aperture already now and can't get the work done that needs to get done, then by all means, switch to something else.

You're wrong - I absolutely love Aperture, and i still use it. I still think it had one of the best Library and filing systems on the market. And great OS X integration. If people are happy with Aperture right now, then good for them, but it's not going to magically get any better, and it's not in development any more. It's official.

"But that decision should not even be influenced by the announcement that Aperture support will be discontinued." -

this is also wrong. It totally depends on how you work with photographs and how you will be working with photographs in the future. In short - it depends on workflow and what time means to you. I spend the majority of my time in front of Aperture>Capture One Pro. Soon that will be Capture One Pro, but I'm working with an amount of photographs which makes the transition take a long time. This has accelerated thanks to Apple's 'announcement' and I welcome the pre-warning. They could just as easily dropped Aperture for Yosemite, and FWIW Aperture works fine in Yosemite right now. I also welcome the Photos app and will use it no doubt in the same way that I use iPhoto now.

Apple have basically said: "Our development strategy is for a massively different market, and in the same way that we acknowledge that developing a photoshop competitor is a waste of time and resources and money, we acknowledge that there are better third party Applications for pro digital asset management and RAW processing."

Or, to whit: "We are setting you free to use other better Software so we can concentrate on a wider universal integration"

Holding on to Aperture isn't doing any harm, it's just delaying the inevitable. What's the point in that?

 

[mono1980]

I really hope this program lives up to Apple's hype. And I'm sure it will improve over time, but it won't have anywhere near the capability that aperture had. For those that need it. At least not at this time.

The sad truth is that Aperture had fallen WAY behind other apps like Lightroom and was very buggy and had performance problems since the beginning. I was hoping for an Aperture X rebuild, but losing the current Aperture is no big loss.

 

[jadot]

Apple has not said or even intimated that the new Photos app is a direct Aperture replacement. It did specifically say it was continuing work on its other "pro" applications, Logic and FCPX. Apple also clearly stated Photos IS an iPhoto replacement [again with no mention of Aperture]. Based on that one can make a logical inference that Photos, out of box, is intended as consumer application with some "pro grade" [ambiguous marketing jargon] features which also allows for 3rd party plugins to fill in gaps.

All Apple has said regarding Aperture is that it will have one more compatibility update for 10.10 and then its officially dead after being comatose for two years and that there will be a migration path from Aperture to the new Photos app.

The only ball Apple dropped here was not admitting Aperture was on the chopping block sooner. But most real pros (and many hobbyists) figured that out anyway and either moved on or decided Aperture was good enough for the time being. Now everyone has to make a decision, but this moment was clearly visible miles ago.

This

 

[Janichsan]

Or in other words: will Apple add a clever plugin API which merely records the "work steps" done by the plugin? Well, I don't think so …

It seems they did. At least the PHAsset and PHAssetChangeRequest classes seem to do exactly that.

 

[mrbyu]

Ok, the 3rd party thing could be HUGE.

Imagine a whole section of the Mac App store that does nothing but sells things that work inside "Photos."

If that takes off (IF) you could potentially make the program into whatever the hell you want it to be.

If only Mac App Store contained truly useful, high quality programs like the iOS counterpart, not just mainly crappy and/or ridiculously expensive applications. : (

 

[r.harris1]

... Geez, how could we even have listened to Apple who themselves announced a collaboration with Adobe for a migration to Lightroom? ...

While wading through your unnecessarily condescending and patronizing statements, you've referenced the above line at least twice. TechCrunch reported this initially and have since retracted it. Apple has made no such announcement.

 

[chiefsilverback]

I have loyally stuck with iPhoto over years, and as a consquence, I have GIGS worth of photos stored in a messy complicated way that I cannot even begin to understand.

Will this new Photo app unmess the mess iPhoto made and restore all my pictures to some rational system that a non techie can easily grasp?

Or am I, like so many other Mac loyalists, going to get stuck with having my photos buried within cryptically named photos in a way that I just cannot understand, much less use practically?

Apple please clean up my photo storage mess after you ditch iPhoto, thank you!

I just don't understand posts like this. If you dive into the file structure that sits behind an Aperture/iPhoto library the photos are stored Year>Month>Day. It couldn't be more simple!

Are people confusing the events/faces/places/albums/folders views that the the application layers over the photos?

 

[zedsdead]

Where does that doubt come from? Aperture allows for photo organization. iPhoto allows for photo organization. The current Photos app on iOS allows for photo organization. I somehow doubt that the new OS X Photos app will just smash all your pictures into one view (especially seeing how they will allow up to 1TB of pictures in iCloud storage).

The doubt about organization comes from past/current experience:

(1) iPhoto did not gain folders until the library merger with Aperture. The only reason I left iPhoto was because you had to keep everything in Events, but you couldn't group those events together. Aperture allows much better organization of your pictures. That is a key feature that Apple has not mentioned yet. And the screen shots only show moments and albums...neither of which on iOS allow subfolders.

(2) FCPX - took TWO YEARS for Apple to drop the one unified library and allow customers to make multiple ones. And only in the most recent update last week did Apple allow people to store media in locations other than the library itself. This is a professional app and Apple has been reluctant to hand control back to the people. They have come a long way, but this release drastically hurt public relations for pros.

(3) iWork - pages...at release, you couldn't organize PAGES!!! In the pages app. And it still only allows duplication...cant copy and paste.

(4) iCloud - took forever for iCloud Drive/iDisk to develop. Apple wanted a basic system, with only one layer of folders and not allowing sub folders. THANKFULLY they have been forced to relent on this front.

The organization in this Photo app will be what iOS allows, which is little. I am not expecting much on that end.

 

[swordio777]

But don't expect something of the calibre like Aperture - that is gone (and Apple made that clear by even announcing that they would "collaborate with Adobe to find a migration path towards Lightroom).

They announced nothing of the sort. This was incorrectly reported and then retracted. Shoddy journalism and nothing more.

The full statement from Apple is freely available.

 

[Digital Skunk]

The doubt comes from past/current experience:

(1) iPhoto did not gain folders until the library merger with Aperture. The only reason I left iPhoto was because you had to keep everything in Events, but you couldn't group those events together. Aperture allows much better organization of your pictures. That is a key feature that Apple has not mentioned yet. And the screen shots only show moments and albums...neither of which on iOS allow subfolders.

(2) FCPX - took TWO YEARS for Apple to drop the one unified library and allow customers to make multiple ones

(3) iWork - pages...at release, you couldn't organize PAGES!!! In the pages app. And it still only allows duplication...cant copy and paste

(4) iCloud - took forever for iCloud Drive/iDisk to develop. Apple wanted a basic system, with only one layer of folders and not allowing sub folders.

The organization in this Photo app will be what iOS allows, which is little. I am not expecting much on that end.

Sadly I have to agree although I do think in the Pages we can copy and past pages in the thumbnail view . . . . .

Never mind, I just checked and you CAN'T! You're right that's asinine!

So yeah, I agree with you 100% now. I like the UI of the screen grab, it's nice and clean and simple but we all know that simplicity has it's limitations.

We won't see some of the finer editing tools in "Photos" for at least another year or two; which is sad because Aperture was already behind many library applications and there was a breath of hope with Aperture 3's introduction.

Now, . . . . . . we can only wait and see, but I am not going to be holding my breath.

 

[rhett7660]

For fukus sakus, where did you learn Latin? "per se" ("by itself"), not "per say"!

Thank you and thanks for not being a prick about it too!

 

[Dinø]

"certain professional-grade features would be coming to the new Photos app:"

I wonder then if it will have less then features then if only certain features will be added.

Is this sentence then supposed to then be comprehensible, then?