Adobe 'Doubling Down' on Lightroom in Wake of Apple's Aperture Announcement

[Amazing Iceman]

I wonder if Apple is planning on improving iPhoto to avoid having two separate apps. It would seem like a previously planned move, when they upgraded iPhoto to be able to use the same library format as Aperture.
If this is the case, there should be a new iPhoto in the making, which will do all the current Aperture does.

UPDATE: Never mind, I just read Apple announce on the next MR post. That's basically what's happening. So nothing to worry about...

 

[neutrino23]

Okay, but why can't I just keep using Aperture? Is there some major compelling reason I need to spend even more money to buy a new app just because my current app's company decides to stop updating it? In fact, Apple said they'd make sure Aperture was Yosemite-compatible, so that's a sign it could have been worse. Unless that's the thing, being unsure the next OS after Yosemite will keep supporting Aperture?

Did someone already ask this and have it answered?

I use Aperture to edit and manage photos for personal use and for my profession. I don't sell photos but use them to augment my reports and presentations. I don't need LR. I'll use Aperture for the next year or so till I see how Photos turns out. Might be adequate. If I get the lighting and exposure right when I take the picture I find I don't need much post processing except for cropping.

 

[crispy12]

Lightroom competitor? Lightroom blows aperture out of the water any day. It makes a tedious process of editing photos so much easier and has so many plug ins. Integration with Photoshop, the standard for image editing is also superb.

In contrast, iPhoto... It's almost shameful to use such a program! Even ssnapseed On my ipad offers more flexibility.

 

[randyj]

Obviously you haven't learnt how to use LR properly then as it's asset management is far better.
You can organise by file/folder and by metadata. Not just the latter

A major part of the reason Aperture didn't take off was that you simply could not import your already tidily organised folders built up over many years as they were. Whereas you could with LR and then organise by metadata if you wanted to. Early betas of LR experimented with a library similar to Aperture but it was disliked so much it was thankfully replaced by the more powerful/versatile system LR now has.

Wrong about importing folders etc, you can import into the Aperture library or just leave the files where they are!

 

[plusnq]

I would switch from iPhoto to lightroom but I have no way that I know of to move ratings from iPhoto to Lightroom and I have about 20,000 photos rated. Any recommendations?

Not sure if iPhoto ratings are stored in metadata or not. If not then you can export your rated photos by individual rating to separate folders. Then import each folder individually to Lightroom and batch rate appropriately. Lightroom will show both the individual folders on your hdd and the last imported folder making it relatively easy to do.

Cheers

Shane

 

[762999]

I love LR, but there is also a free alternative
http://rawtherapee.com/

 

[Pafoofnik]

I don't think you understand how LR Mobile works.

Uh, actually I do. Fortunately, I don't rely on Adobe (or anyone else but me) to store my images. I'm the one guy who never bought into the Cloud.

I dropped LR in favor of Capture One Pro 7. They have mobile apps, too, but there's are used for shooting tethered. Really nice. They cost a few bucks but have paid for themselves in convenience.

 

[MagicHAM]

I pay $9.99 a month for the Photoshop Photography program which gets me a Creative Cloud drive , Photoshop and Lightroom (plus the iPad app) which is a great price (Australian Dollar) for what i need it for.

I never used Aperture but have heard of it, and looked at its features, and was charged a $99 price from Apple. For basically the same amount of features that it had, just used Lightroom instead.

The subscription deal is great and i see no issue with it.

 

[henzpwnapple]

With the "work out with Adobe on transition to Lightroom", I feel that Apple is doing something in behind with its Photos for OS.

I will stay calm, and see what Photos can do..

Oh, of course, there is no way having monthly fee paid to Adobe for its buggy releases.

"Dear customers, sorry that we lost all your photos due to a security hole somewhere down in our pant."

 

[winston1236]

True, its not really appealing to amateurs like yourself but I think they are aiming at the pro market since they trend to be more willing to pay since they earn a living using it.

 

[dazed]

I wonder how many people here who baulk at paying 10 a month, drop more than that a day on Starbucks.......

 

[katewes]

My biggest fear with Lightroom is that Adobe will change it to subscription-only with Creative Cloud. Nothing Adobe says now reassures me they won't do that in the future. With all the edits stored non-destructively in Lightroom, if suddenly you cannot or do not want to pay for the subscription, in that instant all your lifetime of edits are gone.

I'm thinking of going over to DXO software as my mainstay.

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my understanding was that lightroom was offered stand-alone without having to subscribe to their creative cloud. are they changing this now that they know they can get more subscribers out of it?

that's dirty

Adobe at present says they are keeping Lightroom available as a standalone purchase, but if you trust Adobe to maintain that for your lifetime, well, you're dangerously naive.

Consider what happens, if you invest decades of editing stored in Lightroom, and then Adobe switches LR to Creative Cloud. What's your expected lifespan? Do you want to access your edits into your retirement years? You want to pay Creative Cloud fees till your dying day? Most people do not think long term. That's why Creative Cloud succeeds.

 

[Suxamethonium]

I pay $9.99 a month for the Photoshop Photography program which gets me a Creative Cloud drive , Photoshop and Lightroom (plus the iPad app) which is a great price (Australian Dollar) for what i need it for.

I never used Aperture but have heard of it, and looked at its features, and was charged a $99 price from Apple. For basically the same amount of features that it had, just used Lightroom instead.

The subscription deal is great and i see no issue with it.

As an Aperture user I am in a way glad to have some confirmation of what I long suspected to be true. I have played around with Lightroom and always enjoyed the output results, but stuck with aperture as I like the file management and hoped against hope that one day they would catch up in output.

Now I have taken the plunge, and at AUD 9.99/month for Lightroom, Photoshop and the mobile apps is a pretty good deal. Cross platform support is nice.

Hopefully without a true competing product some integration on the mac front with Lightroom can occur.

 

[repeters]

Lightroom license

my understanding was that lightroom was offered stand-alone without having to subscribe to their creative cloud. are they changing this now that they know they can get more subscribers out of it?

that's dirty

The powers that be at Adobe have said that the Lightroom license is perpetual.

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I did not now LR mobile was only compatible with LR CC.

My answer is to stay on LR4 and not buy LR5.

That would probably be a mistake.

Lightroom is Lightroom. Period. There is no Lightroom CC which is not the same as Lightroom 5.5.

 

[katewes]

Mmm. I'll see if Light Room 6 is standalone and decently priced. Not a pro, don't want pro pricing.

So, thinking short term, if LR6 is standalone, you're ok with that, even if Adobe's corporate personality indicates a risk of later LR's being subscription-only? With all the edit data stored in LR, you want to risk your lifetime's work to Adobe, and having to pay a lifetime subscription just to access your edits? When you stop working, and retire, and want to access your LR files under Creative Cloud, you pay till you die.

Do you trust Adobe?

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at AUD 9.99/month for Lightroom, Photoshop and the mobile apps is a pretty good deal. .

That's a monthly fee until you die, assuming you want to access your photo edits through to your retirement.

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I wonder how many people here who baulk at paying 10 a month, drop more than that a day on Starbucks.......

If I am short of cash, I don't go to Starbucks, but if you want to access your photo edits, even when retired with less income, you pay the monthly fee till you die. That's great for Adobe.

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I pay $9.99 a month for the Photoshop Photography program ... The subscription deal is great and i see no issue with it.

Not everyone can afford the monthly fee FOR LIFE until you pass away.

 

[MacSince1990]

I'm happy to give Lightroom a shot, and I'd even pay $50, $100, or more for it if I enjoyed it, but even at only $10 / month, I don't love the idea of adding yet another "small" fee to my monthly recurring expenses. These things add up. I know saas is the future business model all these companies want, but I'd rather just pony up some $ and have everything working, free of monthly charges.

No kidding! That said you can still buy it

 

[hulk2012]

That's what's coming - overhauled Aperture under name of Photos

 

[PocketSand11]

Doubling down... not! Your biggest competitor pulls out. No competition means higher pricing and dragging your feet when it comes to innovation.

Exactly. The only ones doubling down are going to be the small guys with no market share.

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I wonder if Apple is planning on improving iPhoto to avoid having two separate apps. It would seem like a previously planned move, when they upgraded iPhoto to be able to use the same library format as Aperture.
If this is the case, there should be a new iPhoto in the making, which will do all the current Aperture does.

UPDATE: Never mind, I just read Apple announce on the next MR post. That's basically what's happening. So nothing to worry about...

We only know that Apple is making a Photos application and removing Aperture. We don't know if Photos is supposed to replace Aperture or, even if it is, if it's going to have all its features.

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Lightroom competitor? Lightroom blows aperture out of the water any day. It makes a tedious process of editing photos so much easier and has so many plug ins. Integration with Photoshop, the standard for image editing is also superb.

In contrast, iPhoto... It's almost shameful to use such a program! Even ssnapseed On my ipad offers more flexibility.

In the defense of iPhoto, you can set your external editor to Photoshop, and it works pretty well. Not that I think that iPhoto is for a professional to use!

 

[ThunderSkunk]

As great as all this is, I can't begin to imagine people are going to want to pay a monthly subscription fee to... see their photos.

And the last thing I want to have to do is sync 3GB of Raw files over the Cloud & Wifi... yikes.

 

[FelixDerKater]

We aren't playing cards...

 

[ViperDesign]

As great as all this is, I can't begin to imagine people are going to want to pay a monthly subscription fee to... see their photos.

And the last thing I want to have to do is sync 3GB of Raw files over the Cloud & Wifi... yikes.

It isn't a big deal these days with the connection most people have in their home.

I subscribe to the 10 bucks a month for CS and LR, I think it is well worth it

 

[NY Guitarist]

As great as all this is, I can't begin to imagine people are going to want to pay a monthly subscription fee to... see their photos.

And the last thing I want to have to do is sync 3GB of Raw files over the Cloud & Wifi... yikes.

I can shoot 3GB worth of photos in minutes. The last thing I want to do at the end of the day is transfer many GBs of data over the internet.

 

[plusnq]

So, thinking short term, if LR6 is standalone, you're ok with that, even if Adobe's corporate personality indicates a risk of later LR's being subscription-only? With all the edit data stored in LR, you want to risk your lifetime's work to Adobe, and having to pay a lifetime subscription just to access your edits? When you stop working, and retire, and want to access your LR files under Creative Cloud, you pay till you die.

Do you trust Adobe?

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That's a monthly fee until you die, assuming you want to access your photo edits through to your retirement.

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If I am short of cash, I don't go to Starbucks, but if you want to access your photo edits, even when retired with less income, you pay the monthly fee till you die. That's great for Adobe.

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Not everyone can afford the monthly fee FOR LIFE until you pass away.

So you export your edits as you finish them and the problem is? Who is to say any of these companies will have the same business model, or even be around in twenty years? Picking winners is for gamblers. Let alone image format changes etc, etc. Everyone should use what they prefer, backup regularly and often and keep a close eye on formats.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

I can shoot 3GB worth of photos in minutes. The last thing I want to do at the end of the day is transfer many GBs of data over the internet.

That's what I mean. I shoot with a D800 and have an S2 in the studio. Every time I touch a camera, it's a few gigs of data. If I have to have that syncing back and forth over wifi every time I shoot anything, I can kiss every other service Apple's also trying to jam through the pipeline goodbye.

Paying a subscription fee, to subscribe, to seeing my own content... still seems weird.

 

[brijar]

How about doubling down the price!

As a more causal/prosumer user I have a hard time justifying $10 a month indefinitely (120 a year) for an app I use maybe once a week.

And the stand alone is $140...

*sigh*

$10 bucks isn't a lot, but when you're in college with other bills it is harder to justify...

Keep in mind that updates are only $99. Having used both programs since their inception I prefer Lightroom by a large margin. From everything I've read, there are no plans for Adobe making Lightroom cloud only.