Aperture 4.0

[flynz4]

Will the new Photos app be able to be used without the cloud? I prefer my source photos to be here, with me

All indication are yes... use of the cloud is optional.

/Jim

 

[glenthompson]

Look at a few cases that we have seen 1000 times here on Aperture. I would say the largest areas of disappointment (by class of user) is:

• Consumer: Sharing their library... (ex: husband/wife teams who want to share a library that was never meant to be shared). How many times have we given the advice to just avoid doing so. How many of them listened to advice to try and share via a NAS... and how many of them ended up with corrupted libraries. Photos will solve that problem once and for all. Instead of being built on a non-sharable library (like every other DAM out there)... Photos is built on a core that fundamentally will support optional sharing.
• Professional Photograhers: Probably the biggest single complaint has been the lack of non-destructrive round trip editing through 3rd parties. Every DAM works this way... requiring TIFF or DNG bulky new versions to be created... and losing all previous non-destructive edits. We know from the classes at WWDC that the new Photos core fully supports non-destructive editing by any 3rd party application. This is HUGE.
• Check-box examiners: They complain about stupid little features by measuring the minutia between applications and amplifying them. Meanwhile... LR is still at an effective version of LR2.4 (LOL per Boyer)... incrementing the "whole number" to sell newer but insignificant versions... but still stuck in mud of being a lousy DAM. Who gives a crap about the quality of noise reduction or lens correction... especially when the problem gets solved by round-trip non destructive editing by 3rd parties.

/Jim

I agree with these points completely. I can't think of how many times people have asked how to share libraries or asked for help when they tried and hosed it up.

There's another category I would add - Prosumer. people that want the high end editing capabilities but only for personal use. In my opinion, if you're not making your living off photography, you're not a pro. These people are urgently well served by Aperture or LR due to the various plug-ins available. Since we know from WWDC that the new Photos app will provide 3rd party access to the library I expect a lot of plug-ins for it.

For the 3rd category I guess Apple should have called Photos Aperture X so that it would have version number higher than LR. I don't care what you call it as long as it has the features I need. Coming from the film world I don't edit photos that much. I try to get the picture right when taking it, not fix it later.

I'm still amazed how many people claim Photos will be a disaster when they haven't seen it and haven't looked at the Photos framework talk from WWDC.

 

[maflynn]

I'm still amazed how many people claim Photos will be a disaster when they haven't seen it and haven't looked at the Photos framework talk from WWDC.

Its not going to be a disaster, in the sense its will be an awful app, but using hindsight in how Apple has released major updates in the past, if that holds true, we'll get an application that is not feature rich, but rather bare bones. Then over the course of time, Apple will improve it.

Could they (and will they) release an app that exceeds the features and performance of Lightroom and Aperture 3? Sure and I'd be the first to admit I was wrong, but given apple's focus more on the needs of consumers, how they handled FCPx and iWork. I'm making an educated guess that the new app will be less then waht we have now.

Either way, I've decided the best thing for me is to transition over to lighrtoom. This offers me the stability and peace of mind. There's no right or wrong answer here, but rather what best fits our needs.

 

[flynz4]

Its not going to be a disaster, in the sense its will be an awful app, but using hindsight in how Apple has released major updates in the past, if that holds true, we'll get an application that is not feature rich, but rather bare bones. Then over the course of time, Apple will improve it.

Could they (and will they) release an app that exceeds the features and performance of Lightroom and Aperture 3? Sure and I'd be the first to admit I was wrong, but given apple's focus more on the needs of consumers, how they handled FCPx and iWork. I'm making an educated guess that the new app will be less then waht we have now.

Either way, I've decided the best thing for me is to transition over to lighrtoom. This offers me the stability and peace of mind. There's no right or wrong answer here, but rather what best fits our needs.

Mike,

I agree with you. We really do not know for sure what will happen with Photos.

For me... it does not make sense to move until I have more data. I clearly like A3 better than LRx. I may or may not like Photos better than LRx. What I want to avoid is an A3 > LRx > Photos transition. I am OK with A3 > LRx transition if Photos ends up being a bust. Ideally, I'll just do a A3 > Photos transition if Photos turns out to be great.

At this point, it just seems logical to see what Photos offers before making a decision. There are plausible reasons why Photos might be great... adding in a few HUGE features (sharing & 3rd party non-destructive editing). But... even if Photos ends up being a bust... then there is no downside to waiting from my perspective. We are likely to see at least two major releases of Photos during the announced lifespan of Aperture.

/Jim

 

[maflynn]

I see your point and I won't contest it.

In doing my due diligence I found that that features LR had, and its UI was such that I could transition. What I thought was a negative with LR turned into a positive for my work flow. So I'm liking some of the features Lightroom is offering. I had taken a look and used LR in the past but with more research I felt it was a good move for me.

Aperture works, and is a fine app, I like it a lot, but in the end, I'm putting my trust behind a company that is focused on the creative sector, instead of Apple being focused on the consumer. Don't get me wrong, Adobe is not perfect by a long shot, I have serious misgivings with the subscription model, so much so I'm not ready to commit totally to them yet.

 

[flynz4]

I see your point and I won't contest it.

In doing my due diligence I found that that features LR had, and its UI was such that I could transition. What I thought was a negative with LR turned into a positive for my work flow. So I'm liking some of the features Lightroom is offering. I had taken a look and used LR in the past but with more research I felt it was a good move for me.

Aperture works, and is a fine app, I like it a lot, but in the end, I'm putting my trust behind a company that is focused on the creative sector, instead of Apple being focused on the consumer. Don't get me wrong, Adobe is not perfect by a long shot, I have serious misgivings with the subscription model, so much so I'm not ready to commit totally to them yet.

Fair comments, and a fair POV. I do not think this is a case of disagreement... but rather what we want to do in our own situations.

/Jim

 

[maflynn]

Fair comments, and a fair POV. I do not think this is a case of disagreement... but rather what we want to do in our own situations.

/Jim

Agreed - there's no right or wrong answer, just what works best for your situation

 

[jland]

IMHO, Apple has so mishandled the relationship with photographers over the past ~4 years, it almost does not matter what they release in 2015.

I think this is the major point, many aperture users (including myself) are not willing to trust apple given how they mismanaged Aperture and are so consumer focused. We've seen how they handled their other pro apps and only angered them, I see no reason why they would not make a consumer app that some professional features but not a fully pro app like LR.


I've seen it Dpreview.com and here in the MR's Digital Photography forum as well.

Even if one sets aside the issue of how the professional users' needs have been served or not by the software, Apple has a terrible record for guiding their commercial software applications. Logic has been a great audio DAW but during the huge gaps between updates before LogicX many began to sniff around elsewhere. Which any other company would jump in to avert but Apple just lets that happen. And now people are used to alternatives like Reaper, which even if one dislikes it (as I sort of do interface-wise) they see the developer being very responsive to feedback from users, and it remains literally many times more CPU efficient than LogicX, which now that it has gotten its reasonably big update is back to generating silence from Apple and having its users wondering if the next fairly major update is 4 years away. They totally mishandled the entire life of Soundtrack and Soundtrack Pro, both in development and marketing. While they were waiting nearly all users (probably except many who took advantage of its FCP compatibility) virtually deleted it and found something else.

It's not that I don't think Apple is capable of designing and marketing a great Pro App, I just have not the faith to become vested in any of the formats/proprietary libraries involved, as I have with Aperture.

I love Apple stuff but for creative apps it's now three strikes and you're out.