Advice on Aperture alternative

[am2am]

I'm another one who's stubbornly stuck with Aperture all along. I gave Lightroom a try but I wasn't all that fond of it (partially because I couldn't follow the workflow) - I do some basic things in Aperture and then will go into Photoshop when necessary. I am curious about one thing if I make the switch to Photos.. My Aperture Library is 736GB, of course now its stored locally on my Mac and I keep a backup of the library externally. If I import all of those images into Photos is that going to be stored on iCloud automatically? (I do have photos on my phone backed up to iCloud as I have 2 phones and an iPad that I share pics between). I dont want to be forced into a 2TB plan and pay $10/mo.

You can import all photos and keep them referenced exactly the same way Aperture does.
It is working well - I have been using referenced photos for 2 years. Once you decide however to move a photo from referenced to managed you cannot roll it back - Photos will not let you.
Referenced photos are not synced with icloud (only fully managed photos with originals are synced across all your devices). This forced me to finally buy 2TB plan and get all photos managed (80k+ RAWs). Happy for now - yes it costs 10$ a month but gives me kind of backup - additional photos storage in the cloud. When I change my device or upgrade home storage I'm not afraid of loosing photos in the process - I know there is a copy.

 

[MCAsan]

I just moved from Adobe world to Capture 1 Pro 12. I did not import my Lr catalog. I simply imported the raw and jpg files from my folders.

You can import an Aperture catalog. There are several sites available where folks talk about their experiences migrating from Aperture to C1P. You can purchase C1P releases or do their subscription plan. There are versions specifically for Fuji and Sony cameras at lower cost.

 

[nicholasg]

I just moved from Adobe world to Capture 1 Pro 12. I did not import my Lr catalog. I simply imported the raw and jpg files from my folders.

You can import an Aperture catalog. There are several sites available where folks talk about their experiences migrating from Aperture to C1P. You can purchase C1P releases or do their subscription plan. There are versions specifically for Fuji and Sony cameras at lower cost.

Why did you make the switch?
Are the jpg files you mentioned from your edited RAWs? If not, did you lose all your edits?

 

[robgendreau]

Won't Aperture do this natively? Cant you export versions and stipulate the folder structure to export them to? Why did you need Aperture Exporter?
[doublepost=1561002530][/doublepost]For those of you using Aperture still, does it play well with Mojave? I have a mid 2012 classic MBP and am considering updating to Mojave but my two concerns are Aperture and whether it will slow my computer to a crawl. (FYI, I've upgraded by HDD to SSD)

If I clone my drive with El Capitan on it, and try Mojave, would I be able to just restore my computer to the El Capitan backup if I am unhappy and no harm no foul?

If you look at the details, Aperture Exporter does more than just firing up an export in Aperture. It's kind of like a customization of that process, with options to find all modified images and export as high quality JPEGs, etc. One could do most of that manually, just a matter of your level of expertise, time, etc.

Aperture works in Mojave, but that's the end of the line. Some raw conversion for newer cameras doesn't work. I don't use it anymore, so don't know if it will crawl, but it's not speedy by any means. It's a dead program, after all. The safest thing is to get out of it now while you can and it's working semi-OK. If your machine got stolen and you had to buy a new one with Catalina on it you wouldn't even be able to start Aperture.

And yes, you could clone the old system and then clone it back. Not a trivial operation, and make sure that's not your only backup. I find it easier to just use say a thumbdrive with the El Cap installer on it, and then I'd reinstall on an erased drive and migrate from my TM backup. But there's more than one way to do it.

 

[MCAsan]

Why did you make the switch?
Are the jpg files you mentioned from your edited RAWs? If not, did you lose all your edits?

The jpgs are mostly for the 90s before I started with DSLRs and then mirrorless. I intentionally lost all my edits and that is OK. I am an amateur. If I need to edit an image for a contest I can do it easier and likely better with new tools that much older versions of Lr and old plugins.

 

[nicholasg]

The jpgs are mostly for the 90s before I started with DSLRs and then mirrorless. I intentionally lost all my edits and that is OK. I am an amateur. If I need to edit an image for a contest I can do it easier and likely better with new tools that much older versions of Lr and old plugins.

So you don’t think Luminar is ever going to be good enough?

 

[MCAsan]

So you don’t think Luminar is ever going to be good enough?

IMHO the Luminar DAM is a train wreck. So no, I don't see any way to use Luminar as my DAM, raw converter, and effects/filters set. But, Flex plus Photo Mechanic 6+ has definite possibilities. 6+ is in beta now and I guess it will be September before it is formally released. But Skylum has made two Luminar releases and nothing for Flex. But there is a Flex webinar on the 11th so I think there will be Flex update this coming week.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

IMHO the Luminar DAM is a train wreck. So no, I don't see any way to use Luminar as my DAM, raw converter, and effects/filters set. But, Flex plus Photo Mechanic 6+ has definite possibilities. 6+ is in beta now and I guess it will be September before it is formally released. But Skylum has made two Luminar releases and nothing for Flex. But there is a Flex webinar on the 11th so I think there will be Flex update this coming week.

Does Photo Mechanic use a referenced or managed library? Does it work with 100k plus Photos? Does it support plugins?

 

[FredT2]

I just moved from Adobe world to Capture 1 Pro 12.

Why C1? As I recall I think you've tried just about everything, but I don't remember why you wanted to move away from Lightroom. My own feeling is that C1 is the best alternative, but I am put off by the high price.

 

[Ledgem]

Does Photo Mechanic use a referenced or managed library? Does it work with 100k plus Photos? Does it support plugins?

If I'm predicting where your questions are coming from correctly, you should know that Photo Mechanic isn't an Aperture alternative. I used the demo for a month - it's a referenced image viewer designed mostly for the intake part of a workflow. Browsing images and culling, as well as tagging. It excelled in those areas and was probably the fastest program I've used for previewing RAWs, impressively so. Unless they're changing their designation with version 6, there were no editing capabilities.

 

[robgendreau]

Does Photo Mechanic use a referenced or managed library? Does it work with 100k plus Photos? Does it support plugins?

If I'm predicting where your questions are coming from correctly, you should know that Photo Mechanic isn't an Aperture alternative. I used the demo for a month - it's a referenced image viewer designed mostly for the intake part of a workflow. Browsing images and culling, as well as tagging. It excelled in those areas and was probably the fastest program I've used for previewing RAWs, impressively so. Unless they're changing their designation with version 6, there were no editing capabilities.

I agree. Photo Mechanic is about batch processing, ingesting, controlled vocabulary and designing say captions and titles derived from other metadata, and geolocating. The Plus version adds a catalog set up, but the value of that is in these other areas, and improves finding stuff with PM considerably. But about the only image editing is cropping; it's just not designed for that.

BTW, it is fast. But I think Fast Raw Viewer is even faster, and even better for culling raw images.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

Thanks guys. Yeah I am still looking for an alternative to Aperture.

 

[MCAsan]

You can find stores and videos on the internet about migrating from Aperture to C1P.

http://thedigitalstory.com/2018/02/aperture-to-capture-one-pro-migration.html

 

[CmdrLaForge]

You can find stores and videos on the internet about migrating from Aperture to C1P.

http://thedigitalstory.com/2018/02/aperture-to-capture-one-pro-migration.html

Thanks. I know C1P shall be great but it is a little out of my price range.

 

[Ledgem]

Thanks. I know C1P shall be great but it is a little out of my price range.

Some years ago they had a discount just prior to a new version release, somewhere around 25% off I think it was. Unfortunately I missed it. These days, if they do discounts it tends to be more like "get this version, and one free upgrade" (with the next version being released a month later), or getting their style packs (which I don't find to be all that useful but I'm sure some do) at a discount alongside the software.

There is a free alternative in the form of the open-source Darktable. It's a Lightroom alternative. I haven't heard from anyone who uses it so I can't speak to how well it works, but did a quick look and there are a good number of comparison and review articles and posts around the internet. I skimmed two and the comparisons appear to be favorable. The only problem for us Aperture users is that Darktable seems to be modeled after Lightroom, so there's likely to be a slightly steeper learning curve compared with someone coming to it from Lightroom.

 

[hfg]

I think they had 32% off ending just a couple of days ago on 7/6 ...

 

[am2am]

Thanks. I know C1P shall be great but it is a little out of my price range.

Apple photos is free. And supports from Aperture conversion natively preserving your edits and keywords. And you can keep it referenced if you chose so.

 

[Ledgem]

I think they had 32% off ending just a couple of days ago on 7/6 ...

That was for Capture One plus some styles packs, and if I remember right it was more expensive than buying Capture One on its own. They're really pushing the styles packs these days...

Apple photos is free. And supports from Aperture conversion natively preserving your edits and keywords. And you can keep it referenced if you chose so.

Photos isn't bad for sorting media, and I use it for keeping all of my processed JPEGs. Capture One is like my book of negatives (RAWs), and after I export them I put them into Photos. I manually mirror my folder structure with Photos just in case I want to reference a RAW for re-processing... but Photos is superior for photo viewing because it has face detection as well as the ability to search photos by location and other features, which makes it just a bit easier to find what you're looking for.

But Photos is a bit weaker as an editor. Aperture lacked layers, but it still had brush support for making focused edits. Photos still doesn't have brushes. Unless you're doing something like cloning or healing, your edits are made to the entire image. It can be restrictive.

 

[am2am]

But Photos is a bit weaker as an editor. Aperture lacked layers, but it still had brush support for making focused edits. Photos still doesn't have brushes. Unless you're doing something like

You can have those capabilities in Photos with plugins (you still need to buy editor that supports it) - it is working quite well. The biggest problem with this approach - you can edit one photo at a time, not possible to paste edits to multiple photos.

Interesting approach with your separate RAW negatives workflow/tool. Best of both worlds - efficient editing and seamless OS X integration with relatively small iCloud plan for sync (if you use it).
For now all my RAWs are in iCloud, I may need to revise this approach if my storage won’t be enough - may go your path.

 

[Tajhad]

Now why didn't they transfer the ”brush” feature over from Aperture to Photos? I would imagine it would take very little change to the coding. It would have made Photos a serious transfer from Aperture.
A least Photos will be updated for free.

 

[am2am]

Now why didn't they transfer the ”brush” feature over from Aperture to Photos? I would imagine it would take very little change to the coding. It would have made Photos a serious transfer from Aperture.
A least Photos will be updated for free.

It would be serious change to current photos workflow. In aperture they generate and keep a jpg for every local edits. If you have multiple edits in different places on one photo - each would be saved as a separate jpg (This is to maintain full non-destructive editing - you can remove one of local edits keeping the others). That would be a serious change and a lot of management/maintenance.
They could simplify it of course and keep just final jpg for all local edits but then you don’t have the ability to delete/re-edit just one of local modifications.

 

[r.harris1]

I've mostly gone to Capture One for a variety of reasons but starting with Photo Mechanic for ingest. PM is remarkably quick. Fast Raw Viewer (as another person mentioned) is indeed competitive from a speed and culling perspective, but I can't find anything that combines that with extreme flexibility in metadata, at which PM excels.

That said, completed work goes right back into Photos for distribution. It's great for smart albums, for example. While there's not a great rating system in Photos, the ratings I do in PM can easily be used to create smart albums for star ratings ('5 star', '4 star', etc).

If I just wanted Photos to be my central workflow, having a few other tools like Luminar would allow me the ability to use layers, brushes and the like from Photos by using extensions. I could also use Edit In to work directly within my chosen app.

And one more "that said": We're spoiled for choice with applications to build our workflows, our DAM processes and our editing/output. There's going to be something that fits a person's individual style and budget. It's not Aperture, to be clear, but at the end of the day, that's OK.

A slight tangent: It may (or may not) be useful, but the folks over at Gentlemancoders (previously of the Aperture team and current makers of Raw Power) have a poll going asking what people miss most about Aperture. The top two are ratings and brushes, so they may (eventually) start adding that sort of functionality in. It's a great tool, by the way.

 

[steve123]

Our best hope for something that resembles Aperture is Raw Power. It is developed by a former Aperture developer. We need to mobilize some resources so Nick can accelerate his development time table. I wonder if he could get some investment to speed things up?

 

[Tajhad]

Just looked at that (RAW Power) Looks extremely interesting .

 

[steve123]

Just looked at that (RAW Power) Looks extremely interesting .

I like the fact it works across macOS and iOS.

Nick is a one man show at the moment. If we could figure out how to get him resources so he could bring on a few developers we could accelerate the development. I think he has a day job, if he could devote his full time attention to it it would probably evolve faster. If we could figure out a way to get a lot people to purchase his existing software, maybe that would be the ticket. I wonder if there is a good marketing guy here looking for an aperture replacement that has some time to offer to help him with that.