My photos are a bit of a mess. I started with Aperture way back when and I have a decade of photos there. I later started using Lightroom 5 about 6 years ago. Now Adobe switched to CC so there's no option for a standalone product. Given that I'm not a professional the $10 a month is steep for something I use maybe once a month. I pay for OneDrive so I don't need the photo storage. I was thinking about migrating everything to apple photos. All my photos are in RAW format. What would I lose out on? Is there a reason not to switch and keep using legacy products?
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Lightroom vs. apple photos
- Thread starter UNCMo96
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TL;DR I have an aperture library and an LR5 library of photos from my DSLR. I want to move them both to 1 program that will let me manage, edit and add new photos.
I take RAW pictures with my DSLR about once a month. I first used Aperture and then later Lightroom to manage and edit my photos for printing/sharing/uploading. I currently have LR5. I actually wouldn't mind getting LR6 but Adobe does not let you buy the software. They only do the cloud subscription. I don't use it enough (especially lately with COVID!) to justify the subscription cost. I was thinking about converting my Aperture AND Lightroom libraries to Photos and using that. I was curious how Apple Photos compares to Lightroom when it comes to editing pictures. I could convert my aperture library to LR5 but I worry that if it is not supported I'll have to convert to something else again.
I’ve been happy with Photos (but I miss Aperture) since it gets my pictures on all my devices. My editing needs are limited so Photos handles it fairly well. I also don’t like Adobe and their UI. You can add 3rd party editing tools into Photos if needed. If you don’t use iCloud for your photos you miss some of the advantages of Photos.
Aperture continues to work under Catalina using the free software called "Retroactive".
If you have a copy of Lightroom that still runs, well, I'd just keep using it.
This may require that you "stay back" from the most recent Mac OS upgrades.
I have no problems with doing that.
Other folks might.
If you have a copy of Lightroom that still runs, well, I'd just keep using it.
This may require that you "stay back" from the most recent Mac OS upgrades.
I have no problems with doing that.
Other folks might.
An option is to continue using LR5 and use DNG's for any unsupported new cameras. Cost effective, gets you off Aperture (At some point it’s not going to run. As a former Aperture user, while Aperture is nice it’s library is not nearly as robust as LR's and some tools are more effective. Other than color, and Fuji XTrans demosiacing, I can’t think of any area I’d prefer Aperture).
Photos is not a bad program at all for most edits. For most of this year, I'd been using Photos on iPad and Mac for 99% of the work I publish here, and I even printed a landscape shot at 16 x 20 from something edited only in Photos. IMO, Apple has done a good job with the sliders in that they don't "overdo it" when you use them. You do have to deal with the gotcha's of having your library under Apple's format, but every DAM photo program does this in order to offer non-destructive edits. If you're an "all Apple" user and have iCloud, it's even more convenient to go with Photos, and sharing content is pretty simple with other iCloud users. Granted, some have had real fits with sharing content though iCloud, but I've never had trouble.
I have an older iMac which I am keeping on Mojave solely to manage my Aperture library. It continues to work well 90% of the time for DAM and post processing. I export JPGs of my processed images into photos, which sync across devices.
When I am using an SLR, I will take many photos and select keepers from there. I dont want to delete the non-keepers, but I also dont want them all in my synced photos across all devices. I also dont need the original, pre processed versions in there. So this system works well for me. For now.
I tried Lightroom, but like you, I dont really want to spend the CC money per month for something I dont use often.