I have been loyal Aperture user since the beginning and still cannot forgive Apple ditching it..
This is the story of migrating 50k+ RAWs (~1TB) into Photos. I've decided to share it as there are still many looking for Aperture alternative. Natural direction for most is Lightroom (which I truly believe is very good solution) but I decided to stay with Apple as I really wanted to maintain mine 15 years of cataloging/editing/key-wording and tight integration with ecosystem.
My requirements
- easily available for my wife and me to import, view, catalog and edit photos
- library has to be separate from our personal iPhone libraries
- all my edits, keyword, folders/project structure must be migrated
- acceptable performance with 50k photos
Phase 1 – Aperture referenced library to Photos referenced.
Process went quite well. Lost few features (eg stocked photos) but overall not bad. Keywords were not hierarchical anymore but I still had them all. Has been using it for more than a year.
Biggest problem – no reference photos management. I can have originals out of library but that’s all. No relocations, no delete, nothing. Once I decide to move original into Photos, its over – no way to make them referenced again.
Naturally editing is limited comparing to Aperture or Lightroom, but this was not my primary need – it has been improved recently in High Sierra and is pretty decent now. I can use external plugins if needed.
I have decided to use network share for my referenced originals (so I don’t need to connect external drive to my MacBook each time I want to edit /add photo) and surprisingly it was working quite well – from time to time I had to reconnect lost originals but overall it was not bad.
Phase 2 – Photos with managed library
With High Sierra/iOS 11 family cloud sharing finally arrived. It was no brainier to migrate to 200G – had already subscribed 50GB individual plans for me and wife - with new shared one my kids benefit as well.
Was struggling a moment with 9.99 monthly price point (need 2TB), but then Adobe Lightroom is the same, and I have a copy of my photos out of home so kind of disaster recovery plan. Decided it is worth for me.
As mentioned, I didn’t want to mix our DSLr photos with our iPhones ones. My wife and I have lots of Phone’s photos and we share them occasionally using icloud photo sharing albums but keep them separate in our icloud accounts.
I have created dedicated “family” icloud account and decided to use it just for family DSLr photo management.
My configuration:
- dedicated “family” icloud account for photos
- my always on mac mini (osx server, plex server, nextcloud server, fileserver, …) got new role - Photos library with full resolution (not optimized) originals.
- Caching service on mac mini – IMPORTANT – will explain later
- Family laptops with additional dedicated user/login (linked to “family” icloud account) – Photos with optimized library are there.
- My family ipad pro (256GB) is linked to the same “family” icloud with Photos optimized on it as well.
Long story short – all my photos are in the cloud now. It took few weeks, but I have everything synced between my laptops, mac mini & ipad. I have all originals in the cloud and on my mac mini library (and a backup on another drive as before).
PROS:
1. My wife is happy as she can import new photos, create new album, star rating, delete unwanted and edit on ANY computer at home EASILY
2. Everything gets magically synced
3. Caching service is great. It speeds-up access to originals when at home, and sync between devices on home network is really instant. I set-up big cashing buffer (1TB – memory is cheap now) and it flies – access to originals from all optimized libraries is really quick. When out of home I need to get originals directly from icloud so take a bit more, but still acceptable.
4. Faces feature is working really well (better than Aperture) and I have my faces synced between devices (be aware – it will process faces on all devices separately – long process, but once complete its working really nice)
5. Memories from 50k+ photos is a great discovery – I really appreciate Photos reminding me some old stories. There is big potential with key-wording and machine learning on big libraries. Image you can select a person (for some people I have several thousand photos tagged) and create 2 minutes memory with smartly selected photos covering last 15 years – wonderful – we all love it.
6. Filtering is nearly as effective as Aperture (still missing “or” logic function) – I can easily select 4* photos taken in 2005 during my mountain trip with myself, my wife and one of our kid. Just type your keywords separated by space and it keeps shrinking your photos selection (or use siri if you prefer voice commands).
CONS:
1. Editing capabilities are still far from Lightroom or Aperture, but they are progressing – latest changes on OSX platform bring some hope. Still not decided which plugins to use – hope apple brings native brushes to photos. Recently considered using Aperture as my external editor …
2. Mobile version (iOS) sucks. Lightroom is years ahead here. All this apple talk about ipad pro replacing computer is just marketing. You cannot add keywords, you cannot edit white balance and edits started with ipad cannot be continued on OSX (well they continue if you accept using jpg as your starting point with OSX), there is no shortcuts on smart keyboard, etc. iPad for now is just for viewing – and this is where it really shines
3. You are locked in apple ecosystem. If you want to migrate to anything else – it will be a pain.
Overall – I am satisfied – with few compromises I can enjoy building my photos library.
This is the story of migrating 50k+ RAWs (~1TB) into Photos. I've decided to share it as there are still many looking for Aperture alternative. Natural direction for most is Lightroom (which I truly believe is very good solution) but I decided to stay with Apple as I really wanted to maintain mine 15 years of cataloging/editing/key-wording and tight integration with ecosystem.
My requirements
- easily available for my wife and me to import, view, catalog and edit photos
- library has to be separate from our personal iPhone libraries
- all my edits, keyword, folders/project structure must be migrated
- acceptable performance with 50k photos
Phase 1 – Aperture referenced library to Photos referenced.
Process went quite well. Lost few features (eg stocked photos) but overall not bad. Keywords were not hierarchical anymore but I still had them all. Has been using it for more than a year.
Biggest problem – no reference photos management. I can have originals out of library but that’s all. No relocations, no delete, nothing. Once I decide to move original into Photos, its over – no way to make them referenced again.
Naturally editing is limited comparing to Aperture or Lightroom, but this was not my primary need – it has been improved recently in High Sierra and is pretty decent now. I can use external plugins if needed.
I have decided to use network share for my referenced originals (so I don’t need to connect external drive to my MacBook each time I want to edit /add photo) and surprisingly it was working quite well – from time to time I had to reconnect lost originals but overall it was not bad.
Phase 2 – Photos with managed library
With High Sierra/iOS 11 family cloud sharing finally arrived. It was no brainier to migrate to 200G – had already subscribed 50GB individual plans for me and wife - with new shared one my kids benefit as well.
Was struggling a moment with 9.99 monthly price point (need 2TB), but then Adobe Lightroom is the same, and I have a copy of my photos out of home so kind of disaster recovery plan. Decided it is worth for me.
As mentioned, I didn’t want to mix our DSLr photos with our iPhones ones. My wife and I have lots of Phone’s photos and we share them occasionally using icloud photo sharing albums but keep them separate in our icloud accounts.
I have created dedicated “family” icloud account and decided to use it just for family DSLr photo management.
My configuration:
- dedicated “family” icloud account for photos
- my always on mac mini (osx server, plex server, nextcloud server, fileserver, …) got new role - Photos library with full resolution (not optimized) originals.
- Caching service on mac mini – IMPORTANT – will explain later
- Family laptops with additional dedicated user/login (linked to “family” icloud account) – Photos with optimized library are there.
- My family ipad pro (256GB) is linked to the same “family” icloud with Photos optimized on it as well.
Long story short – all my photos are in the cloud now. It took few weeks, but I have everything synced between my laptops, mac mini & ipad. I have all originals in the cloud and on my mac mini library (and a backup on another drive as before).
PROS:
1. My wife is happy as she can import new photos, create new album, star rating, delete unwanted and edit on ANY computer at home EASILY
2. Everything gets magically synced
3. Caching service is great. It speeds-up access to originals when at home, and sync between devices on home network is really instant. I set-up big cashing buffer (1TB – memory is cheap now) and it flies – access to originals from all optimized libraries is really quick. When out of home I need to get originals directly from icloud so take a bit more, but still acceptable.
4. Faces feature is working really well (better than Aperture) and I have my faces synced between devices (be aware – it will process faces on all devices separately – long process, but once complete its working really nice)
5. Memories from 50k+ photos is a great discovery – I really appreciate Photos reminding me some old stories. There is big potential with key-wording and machine learning on big libraries. Image you can select a person (for some people I have several thousand photos tagged) and create 2 minutes memory with smartly selected photos covering last 15 years – wonderful – we all love it.
6. Filtering is nearly as effective as Aperture (still missing “or” logic function) – I can easily select 4* photos taken in 2005 during my mountain trip with myself, my wife and one of our kid. Just type your keywords separated by space and it keeps shrinking your photos selection (or use siri if you prefer voice commands).
CONS:
1. Editing capabilities are still far from Lightroom or Aperture, but they are progressing – latest changes on OSX platform bring some hope. Still not decided which plugins to use – hope apple brings native brushes to photos. Recently considered using Aperture as my external editor …
2. Mobile version (iOS) sucks. Lightroom is years ahead here. All this apple talk about ipad pro replacing computer is just marketing. You cannot add keywords, you cannot edit white balance and edits started with ipad cannot be continued on OSX (well they continue if you accept using jpg as your starting point with OSX), there is no shortcuts on smart keyboard, etc. iPad for now is just for viewing – and this is where it really shines
3. You are locked in apple ecosystem. If you want to migrate to anything else – it will be a pain.
Overall – I am satisfied – with few compromises I can enjoy building my photos library.
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