Buy LR or Aperture now, or wait for Photos

[jms969]

iPhoto has shortcomings but the library/database is the same as Aperture and I believe Apple is delaying Photos because they DON'T want another FCP X. While I didn't like the Logic X upgrade it ruffled a LOT fewer feathers and I think is a sign that Apple is being a bit more careful about alienating pros while it goes after the lucrative prosumer market.

has for the most part completely alienated the pro and prosumer market, that market segment is gone FOREVER...

I moved to LR two years ago (when it was apparent that Aperture was abandonware) with north of 350gb of raw images (at that time). I now have hundreds of gb more and there is no way I am doing anything but using LR and PS...

My story is not unique and frankly doesn't care. Photos will be for the mass consumer of iDevices and cater to their needs, which is fine. I will stick with the company whose bread and butter is graphical manipulation.

As an aside, it doesn't matter if Photos is an absolute killer app, there is no going back...

 

[FWRLCK]

I have Adobe CC but I use Aperture. I am in a holding pattern until Photos is released as well. Unfortunately, Apple has a history of releasing software, like FCPX, and adding important features significantly later in time. Given that Photos will be Apple's only photo app, I am guessing that it will be closer to iPhoto than Aperture.

I'm sort of in the same place. Based on screenshots, we know that Photos will have some fairly sophisticated adjustments (there was a screenshot with either Curves or Levels for instance), but no indication about local adjustments. Proofing tools seem like a stretch.

To be honest, I will be happy with Photos as a DAM so long as it has reasonably robust global adjustments and tagging, with the ability to round trip for more sophisticated edits. The iCloud Photo Library has the potential to be really great or really terrible -- it's going to depend on implementation details.

 

[VirtualRain]

has for the most part completely alienated the pro and prosumer market, that market segment is gone FOREVER...

Not true. This is a common narrative that seems to be spread by a vocal minority. They may certainly have alienated you and some others, but not the entire market.

For example, at my company, we use a lot of Macs and Apple software in all areas of creative production (and even for general office work) and you would have to pry these Apple products from my colleagues cold dead hands to take them away. In fact, more and more people in my company are switching from PCs to Macs at the first opportunity.

Of course on top of FCP X, we use a lot of Adobe products (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator) and Microsoft Office. People use whatever software enables them to be productive and enjoy their work... Whether it's Apple or some other vendors software.

One of our goto contractors for video work uses FCP X exclusively. I've never asked how they fared through the early days of FCP X, but they are clearly not alienated either.

Time will tell if Photos has any appeal to pros or prosumers, but it's just rhetorical nonsense to say they've alienated these markets.

 

[jms969]

Not true. This is a common narrative that seems to be spread by a vocal minority. They may certainly have alienated you and some others, but not the entire market.

For example, at my company, we use a lot of Macs and Apple software in all areas of creative production (and even for general office work) and you would have to pry these Apple products from my colleagues cold dead hands to take them away. In fact, more and more people in my company are switching from PCs to Macs at the first opportunity.

Of course on top of FCP X, we use a lot of Adobe products (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator) and Microsoft Office. People use whatever software enables them to be productive and enjoy their work... Whether it's Apple or some other vendors software.

One of our goto contractors for video work uses FCP X exclusively. I've never asked how they fared through the early days of FCP X, but they are clearly not alienated either.

Time will tell if Photos has any appeal to pros or prosumers, but it's just rhetorical nonsense to say they've alienated these markets.

I doesn't really matter what releases, pros and prosumers are not going to move and reedit 75K+ photos to use an product.

With regard to the photo market they crapped in their post toasties long ago...

Following is an very unscientific poll from DPS... (pre Aperture death announcement)

Adobe 72%
Apple 9%

The pro market is toast

What Post-Production Software do you use the Most?

Lightroom (40%, 20,817 Votes)
Photoshop CS or Creative Cloud (20%, 10,333 Votes)
Photoshop Elements (12%, 6,030 Votes)
Picasa (7%, 3,457 Votes)
Aperture (5%, 2,745 Votes)
Gimp (4%, 2,063 Votes)
Paintshop Pro (3%, 1,471 Votes)
iPhoto (4%, 1,831 Votes)
Other (5%, 2,675 Votes)

Total Voters: 51,401

 

[robgendreau]

Time will tell if Photos has any appeal to pros or prosumers, but it's just rhetorical nonsense to say they've alienated these markets.

I dunno about alienating them, but they may not have had them in the first place. The stats aren't in Apple's favor.

And here's another angle on it. Aperture has a lonely neglected little web page at Apple you could (eventually) find if you wanted to find out about site licenses. They are $79/seat. There's one question on the site; posted in 2011 asking about upgrades...with no response from Apple. That's it. I still dunno how one manages even a small number of seats with the Mac App Store.

Meanwhile, Adobe offers the very cheap Photographers subscription (if you need PS), a whopping discount on academic versions, various site licenses, support going back a long time on older versions (with clear info on timelines and such), better support, and on and on. And even the license is better: I can use LR on BOTH a PC and a Mac, so I'm not stuck with one kind of hardware. Even if you were a rather small enterprise it is just so much easier to do business with them. And that's before getting to the issue of abandonware.

 

[jms969]

Looks like the Photos app is vaporware

Apple seemingly crops Photos for Mac out of early 2015, takes eraser tool to Apple.com

Apple has made a small but significant change to its website that could spell bad news for those eagerly awaiting the release of the company’s new Photos app for OS X.

Every single mention of the software has been scrubbed from Apple.com, save for a single help article that now lists the app as being “available at a later date.” A page dedicated to Apple’s Photos app on iOS and iCloud as well as the Continuity page have both been updated to remove references to the software.

The app was supposed to ship in “early 2015″ like the Apple Watch, but while the wearable device is now confirmed for an April launch, the Photos app has gotten little to no press since the original announcement. The recent changes to the website could indicate that the release has been pushed back even further.

At the time of the Photos release, iPhoto and Aperture were both scheduled to be discontinued. Competitors like Adobe have already started putting plans in place to help users transfer their photo libraries into Lightroom.

Meanwhile, Apple has continued to expand the feature set for its web-based iCloud Photos app, adding support for uploading new photos, as well as tweaks like the ability to zoom in on images. That service is intended to function as a stopgap until the native app is released.

We’ve reached out to Apple to find out if there’s a new timeframe for the app’s release.

http://9to5mac.com/2015/01/27/photos-for-mac-removed-from-apple-website/

 

[cr2]

LR5 Sale

I think LR6 should come sometime this year and LR5 is on sale everywhere, I saw Nikon D3300 with Lens and LR5 for $400 (or even less), then some printer with LR5 for $70 or so not so long ago. You might have some nice options if you look around for LR5 deals.

I switched from Aperture a while ago to LR4 and been very happy, I can backup to Amazon and Google very easily.... Aperture was a pain and it created a big problem from me once...

 

[Bubba Satori]

@Razeus
Adobe's move toward a subscription model is a strong reason for me to wait, because I'd then be locked into Lightroom once I make the move, meaning that I'd probably have to shell out $120 every year.

How much do you spend on cookies every year and what's your ROI on them?
How much money do you make on your LR work and what is your ROI on it?

 

[MCAsan]

Read the latest financials from Apple. iPhone sales are over 60% of revenues. Folks do snapshots with phones don't need a pro DAM or editor.

It is not so much that Apple left Aperture....they just followed the money...which is not coming in from high end photography.

I am very sad to lose Aperture. But it is understandable as to why the happened. We just don't have to like.

 

[The Bad Guy]

How much do you spend on cookies every year and what's your ROI on them?
How much money do you make on your LR work and what is your ROI on it?

Nicely put.

 

[jms969]

Read the latest financials from Apple. iPhone sales are over 60% of revenues. Folks do snapshots with phones don't need a pro DAM or editor.

It is not so much that Apple left Aperture....they just followed the money...which is not coming in from high end photography.

I am very sad to lose Aperture. But it is understandable as to why the happened. We just don't have to like.

Exactly, that is why you go with a software provider who's business is graphics manipulation... Adobe, Phase One, etc...

If Photos ever ships it will be directed at soccer moms...

PS. Apple’s Q1 stats: iPhone now makes up 69% of total revenue, 1B iOS devices shipped. That should scare the crap out of investors...

 

[MCAsan]

It should scare the crap out of Samsung.

 

[v3rlon]

Exactly, that is why you go with a software provider who's business is graphics manipulation... Adobe, Phase One, etc...

If Photos ever ships it will be directed at soccer moms...

PS. Apple’s Q1 stats: iPhone now makes up 69% of total revenue, 1B iOS devices shipped. That should scare the crap out of investors...

Yeah, nothing scares investors like a record quarter on an upward trend. Quick, get out now before you make even MORE money. You don't want to wind up in a higher tax bracket, do you, and have you SEEN what maintenance costs are on Ferraris?

Regardless of what you think, cel phones (and thus iOS) are not some fad. They are here for the foreseeable future.

Photos is already good enough for Soccer moms if you mean just moving snapshots across platforms. Moving photos with non-destructive edits is a bit trickier. That is a bit more of a 'pro' feature, I would say.

 

[jms969]

Yeah, nothing scares investors like a record quarter on an upward trend. Quick, get out now before you make even MORE money. You don't want to wind up in a higher tax bracket, do you, and have you SEEN what maintenance costs are on Ferraris?

I would never give investment advice... All I was saying is that there is a very high concentration of sales and even higher concentration of profits in 's mobile product portfolio... Please draw your own conclusions.

Regardless of what you think, cel phones (and thus iOS) are not some fad. They are here for the foreseeable future.

I couldn't agree more, mobile device are certainly not a fad and whoever gets mobile right will be the winner. The race is just starting, mobile is still in its infancy. happens to be the current leader, that could change in an instant.

Photos is already good enough for Soccer moms if you mean just moving snapshots across platforms. Moving photos with non-destructive edits is a bit trickier. That is a bit more of a 'pro' feature, I would say.

You would say wrong...

 

[v3rlon]

You would say wrong...

So you are saying pros (that you know) DON'T want to move all their hard work across platforms or just that they only want to move fully committed, destructive edits? Just so I can be clear.

 

[jms969]

So you are saying pros (that you know) DON'T want to move all their hard work across platforms or just that they only want to move fully committed, destructive edits? Just so I can be clear.

There you go attempting to put words in my mouth again (you may have a bit of a reading comprehension issue). What I was saying is it is not tricky at all to move raw files with none destructive edits, apparently it is just tricky for

I seriously doubt that any "pros" are going to be interested in moving terabytes of existing files around in the cloud

By all means please enjoy your upcoming Photos app If it actually ever ships. If it does remember what happened to iWork

 

[OreoCookie]

PS. Apple’s Q1 stats: iPhone now makes up 69% of total revenue, 1B iOS devices shipped. That should scare the crap out of investors...

Ugh, the usual FUD. Apple's Mac division had revenues of $6.6 billion with a very healthy profit margin. As a point of comparison: HP's Personal Computing division has posted revenues of $8.9 billion in the same quarter with a very small profit margin, and HP is globally the #2 player in terms of unit sales. Compared to the other big players in the PC market, Apple isn't small and Apple consistently hogs the high end of the market which sports healthy margins.

Apple is in the business of profitable businesses, and the Mac is doing very well. We've heard eulogies about Apple so often, it gets rather tiring, usually because they're not looking at the big picture. In isolation, you could think that Apple has given up on the »pro« market with Aperture's long stagnation and eventual cancellation, yadda yadda yadda. I think it's part of a larger trend at Apple that they're stretched too thin, because it's not just Apple's pro software but all Apple software which is suffering -- including iApps (e. g. iTunes and iPhoto) and productivity apps (e. g. Keynote).

I seriously doubt that any "pros" are going to be interested in moving terabytes of existing files around in the cloud

Many already have, because they are using online backup services such as Backblaze or Crashplan, and I advise anyone whose data is important to him or her to do the same. Note that this has nothing to do with Apple and its new Photos app, it's just the prudent thing to do.

 

[v3rlon]

There you go attempting to put words in my mouth again (you may have a bit of a reading comprehension issue). What I was saying is it is not tricky at all to move raw files with none destructive edits, apparently it is just tricky for

I seriously doubt that any "pros" are going to be interested in moving terabytes of existing files around in the cloud

By all means please enjoy your upcoming Photos app If it actually ever ships. If it does remember what happened to iWork

It isn't putting words in your mouth. I said "moving photos with non-destructive edits is a bit trickier. That is a bit more of a 'pro' feature, I would say."

You said that I "would say wrong."

You are the one who added "terabytes" to my language. I merely think the ability to conveniently move an edit in progress across multiple computers/devices. I never said that was ALL they would do or want to do, or that it was impossible otherwise. I just believe being able to do so MORE easily might come in handy.

 

[Razeus]

The rumor is LR6 will be released on March 9th.

 

[skaeight]

It's looking like it's going to be a bang up update:

https://thephotosexpert.com/tips/2015/2/19/adobe-photoshop-lightroom-6-leaked#.VOYYTIY8KnM

- GPU acceleration
- 64 bit optimization
- what sounds like a Ken Burns like effect for slide shows
- built in HDR processing
- built in panorama processing

They've hit most every single thing I wanted. All that remain are OS Level DAM integration and iCloud sharing, neither of which are too likely, but who knows maybe we'll see them in LR 7.

Really really glad I switched now, can't wait.

 

[MCAsan]

Look at the LR6 thread to see the rumored contents. If Adobe delivers that In March, serious photographers should not have a need to consider Photos.

 

[Razeus]

Look at the LR6 thread to see the rumored contents. If Adobe delivers that In March, serious photographers should not have a need to consider Photos.

What LR6 thread?

 

[Apple fanboy]

What LR6 thread?

This one. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1848282/