Apple announced today that it will no longer add features to its professional imaging application Aperture. Apple will continue to update camera formats for the foreseeable future. Apple is folding iPhoto and Aperture into its new release of the Photos app included in the recently announced Mac OSX Yosemite operating system coming this fall.
The announcement quoted below from The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple says in part that “With the introduction of the new Photos app and iCloud Photo Library, enabling you to safely store all of your photos in iCloud and access them from anywhere, there will be no new development of Aperture,” said Apple in a statement provided to The Loop. “When Photos for OS X ships next year, users will be able to migrate their existing Aperture libraries to Photos for OS.”
With Aperture receiving no more feature updates it is a great time to take advantage of Adobe’s $9.99 per month subscription bundle of Lightroom and Photoshop CC. Adobe has a blog to help Aperture users make a smooth transition to Lightroom.
I have no intention on switching to Lightroom. There are other options. I am saddened that Apple is killing Aperture. I would like to think that Steve Jobs wouldn’t have done this.
Yes… makes me sad too. I wrote an edition of the offical Apple book to Aperture. Used it for a long time and it was fundamental to my workflow. Unfortunately, you’ll have to switch to something. I have found lightroom to be a solid tool with better image processing. But relearning is hard.
Same here. What othere options are you considering.
I use Aperture everyday and really can’t see a difference in output between it and Lightroom. I don’t need noise reduction or lens compensation with the camera and lens combo that I use. I prefer the gamma vignette that Aperture uses over the LR one. I still prefer the adjustment brushes in Aperture over LR. The list gos on and on for me. When the time comes that there is something better out there and I need it I will switch. Aperture is still a very good program and in the long run if you don’t need the extra things… Read more »
The Oracle (Scott) called this along time ago so it’s not surprising. Anyone not considering Lightroom at this time is befuddling and probably has brand issues.
Lightroom isn’t perfect but I’d be miserable without it. For the photographer there just isn’t a single product out there that does all it does and does it so well.
This “Letting Go” of Aperture has been happening for about 2 years.I migrated to Lightroom 5
When it came out frustrated by Apple’s apparent lack of upgrade activity.
It’s been a sharp learning curve!
On that note ,when I first got Aperture in 2005, your video tutorials,were very helpful
Thanks Richard
Just saw this…glad I jumped. It was a good product though.
I’m going to continue to use Aperture as long as I can. LR can’t touch Apertures management and when you want to find something it’s pretty darn easy. We shoot and edit raw so if we need to switch to LR I’ll just export jpegs and store/ manage in Aperture. Looking forward to Photo app. As we all know apple doesn’t mind change. They do there best the make it as easy as they can, it takes time. Anyone remember the os9 to osX conversion. One thing I do hope is that the new photo app will allow separate library’s… Read more »
Capture One is looking awesomer.
Sad but apparently inevitable? I love Aperture’s file management vs LR but I bit the bullet a few months ago and made the switch to Creative Cloud as the writing on the wall became more apparent, and the Adobe suite is certainly the real deal. I am too invested in the Apple universe to head for the hills (yet) but it does give cause for a pause to consider the future. Thank you, Adobe, for your continued support and innovation. Time to do the Aperture migration and free up some disk space . . . . . .
This is disappointing and sad news. Looks as though I’ll be changing over to Adobe CC pretty soon.
Sadness!
I’ve used Aperture since version 2. I love it and am very sad to see it go. The problem I see is not that things are changing but that Apple has just dumped this information on every one. Apple should have at least released information about Photos.app. Now pros are running scared to figure out what to do because Apple hasn’t really released any future plans other than their happy go lucky cloud stuff. Things would have gone over a lot better if Apple would have released a detailed plan to move from Aperture to Photos.app for pros. Now were… Read more »
Jerry… while I del your pain in moving. You are slightly wrong.
Lightroom can have multiple catalogs.
You also can easily organize your folders at the folder level and tell them to leave them in place when you import. This is how I easily moved my Lightroom catalog over.
Alos Nik and OnOne definitely have Lightroom plugins
Richard, Yes I know Nik OnOne have plugins for LR. When using Aperture as managed library’s you can drag and drop that library any where you want, another hard drive, cf card, usb thumb drive and pretty much any device that holds data and the library’s can be opened with any relinking or reconnecting any files. Everything in Aperture as I’m sure you know is a package so all the file infor goes where the library goes unlike LR according to the teaching videos I’ve been watching the past two days. Since we shoot boudoir, family portraits, weddings, models and… Read more »
Yes… having seen what’s been done to iWork and FCPX, it often seems to be about removing and streamlining. Apple seems to try ad get parity by limiting the desktop to match mobile (which is just odd).
The concept of a package is a Mac only thing. LR approaches catalogs as cross platform. The solution though isn’t that hard. Simply put your stuff in a folder and make a catalog for that folder. Tell things to stay in place when you import. Peter Krogh has a very good multi catalog workflow – http://thedambook.com/multi-catalog-workflow-with-lightroom-5/
Oh and Aperture works great from a NAS as well, able to access from any computer on the network that has Aperture installed and all edits show up. I pretty darn sure LR can do that.
Jerry… this isn’t a pissing contest.
Neither Aperture or Lightroom are designed to be multiuser products… but in both cases you can put your library or catalog on a server and set your app to use that location. Both work the same way. This isn’t a competition.
I know it’s not a contest. Question, my wife and I work together. If I create an aperture library on a shared drive or network drive can LR do this? Can I open a library on that drive on one computer and do all the selection and basic edits like color correction, the she on a different computer open that file (when I’m done) on a networked or shared drive and have the selections and basic editing show up I her LR? As far as I know from what I’ve seen LR can’t do this because it is not package… Read more »
A catalog can be one a shared volume. Different people can open it, but only one at a time.
Glad the bok helped. Wish we weren’t in this situation again with apple
Sorry for the errors, dropped my iPad and cracked the screen all to heck and I’m on vacation. Uggggggg!!!!!!!!!
Reblogged this on Jesse Gross Photography and commented:
For those out there that use Aperture and have not yet heard the news.
There is a ton of complaining and angry posts directed at Apple because of this. What nobody has seen is what the Photos app for OS X will look like. Everyone is basing their anger at a preview of an app that runs on iOS – phones and tablets. Admittedly there are folks taking advantage of peoples’ chicken little mentality (all the “how to switch to LR posts/webinars”). But Aperture still works on your machine. There is nothing stopping anyone from using Aperture right now. Waiting until the OS X Photos app comes out is the rational thing to do.… Read more »
Two questions for you Paul. Do you think that the new photos.app will even come close to Aperture for pros when released? All of the complaining and running to other options are because Apple just dumped this and didn’t feel the need to provide what the future is and ask us to hang in there until the new app is released. Do you think Apple could have at least inform us that there is something better coming? Change and advancement is wonderful for the most part but Apple just didn’t provide enough info for the future and that is entirely… Read more »
Scott Bourne called it. https://photofocus.com/2012/05/29/heres-why-im-seriously-considering-a-permanent-switch-to-adobe-lightroom/ https://photofocus.com/2012/06/13/wwdc-apples-latest-announcements-from-a-professional-photographers-point-of-view/ https://photofocus.com/2013/06/10/about-my-switch-from-mac-to-windows/ Sorry but this is the reality: Apple is primarily in the business of phone and tablet hardware. And why should they not be? realistically apple works for the shareholders, and while Apple was never able to really go anywhere in the PC industry outside of the niche markets of creative pros, it now finds itself in more favorable place in mobile running second to android. It is all about profit, and mac software just isn’t profitable (or as profitable) nor will any software put the mac sales to the level of their iOS… Read more »
I don’t understand the problem? Adobe is cross platform, they offer excellent support for windows and OSX if that is your thing. Plus Adobe stands to gain nothing from which OS you buy so you can ensure you’ll never have to do this again. In my opinion, picking a closed platform software is bad business decision. It doesn’t matter who makes it. This is why I choose Google, Microsoft, Adobe when it comes to business software because they target the broad spectrum of ecosystems, from android to windows to iOS. So when I move, they are already there. You wouldn’t… Read more »
Can’t really blame Apple here… the pro photographer market is very niche; look what happened to Flickr as an example. When you make the OS and hardware, you have to decide what software you’re going to support; something most people can use, or a professional tool with limited appeal? Heck, I’m not a pro so just about all my needs are met by Elements (and a few other tools I have); people like me are what Apple is looking at, and if I need a pro quality tool I can just rent Photoshop for a while. And run it on… Read more »
Stepan, sometimes a closed system is best. You know like the one that runs a space shuttle, NSA, your bank. Yes Apple is kind of closed and it appears more closed to those who don’t know you can either right click on a image (or a song in iTunes) and choose show in finder and get right to what it is your looking for. Also Aperture has great export features so images can move forward to the future. The file management of Aperture creamed LR’s system and as far as I can tell from the last 3 days looking into… Read more »