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Reason for Aperture EOL (?)
- Thread starter whiteonline
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I'm in a similar situation, I have PS 5, but to be honest, I don't use it much. Most of what I need can be taken care of in Lightroom.
This is probably one of the biggest stumbling blocks from my adoption of Lightroom.
Maybe I'll take the plunge and buy version 5 and live on that as long as I can and hope that Capture 1's next version has improved DAM capability.
Seems to me that Adobe offering the LR/PS bundle is one of the big factor in Aperture's EOL.
Let's imagine Apple came out with a new version of Aperture, at 79$. Who would have bought it? The pros all have Adobe CC. The enthusiasts can buy Lightroom for the same price and know it'll work fine if they upgrade to Adobe CC in the future. This new Aperture would have needed to include some incredible features to get traction.
Photos might be able to replace Aperture for some people and it will probably get a lot more traction than iPhoto ever did if it makes it really easy to get into. iPhoto always kind of had this barrier to entry.
I don't see how Apple would have made money with a new version of Aperture. I'd rather see them not make the software at all than cripple it or offer poor support like they have been doing in recent years.
Let's imagine Apple came out with a new version of Aperture, at 79$. Who would have bought it? The pros all have Adobe CC. The enthusiasts can buy Lightroom for the same price and know it'll work fine if they upgrade to Adobe CC in the future. This new Aperture would have needed to include some incredible features to get traction.
Photos might be able to replace Aperture for some people and it will probably get a lot more traction than iPhoto ever did if it makes it really easy to get into. iPhoto always kind of had this barrier to entry.
I don't see how Apple would have made money with a new version of Aperture. I'd rather see them not make the software at all than cripple it or offer poor support like they have been doing in recent years.
My recollection may be wrong, but as I remember:
In the past it's typically been around $600-700 for a new photoshop license and ~$170 or so to buy an upgrade license if you shopped around. You could typically upgrade three version levels; i.e. a CS5 upgrade package would work for CS2, CS3, or CS4 but not if you had CS. Release cycles seemed to be around 18 to 20 months on average.
Lightroom I'm unsure of the pricing on earlier versions; as a user of Pixmantic's Rawshooter I was given a Lightroom v1.0 license when Adobe acquired Pixmantic. The upgrade to LR3 was $100 and I'd gone over to Aperture three years ago. Right now the LR5 upgrade is $75.
LR2 -> LR3 was 2 years, LR3 -> LR4 was nearly 2 years, LR4 -> LR5 was 15 months. LR5 was officially released just over a year ago.
If you're starting from scratch and will use Photoshop, then the $10/mo is a pretty decent deal as you'd otherwise have spent $700 to $800 outright for PS + LR new licenses. If you used both for two years before upgrading, you're still ahead. The subscription model holds even with every-other-year upgrades if you consider the (as it used to be) typical ~$170 upgrade street price for Photoshop and a $75 major version upgrade street price for Lightroom.
The above assumes you need and will fully utilize Photoshop. Depending on what you do that may not hold true. A lot of people IMHO simply do not need the full blown power available and could easily achieve their goals with lesser software such as Pixelmator or PSE. Plus as raw processors add greater tweaking/fixing/plugin capabilities the need to take an image over to PS lessens.
Personally I'm on the fence. I've been relatively inactive photographically for a while and was just starting to get back in the saddle as the news of Aperture's demise broke.
I don't really want to spend much time reestablishing a workflow for an EOL product (Aperture), I'm disinclined to buy a LR5 upgrade knowing the direction Adobe is signalling, I'm not keen to subscribe since I don't believe I need full Photoshop capabilities at this time, and I don't know what capabilities the new Photos app will provide. Perhaps Photos.app will cover my relatively simple needs and have a simple upgrade path from Aperture; even this ideal will take time. Need to figure out what to do in the interim.
People have been batting around the fight over whether Photos will be "pro" or not from a features standpoint.
Instead, take a look at licensing. Aperture offered site licenses, but I dunno of any places that had them except a few schools. They've got one little section in the Apple Store with a 3 year old comment. Then it went to a MAS model, where licensing is per AppleID with your family allowed access to use it.
Compare with Adobe, which has always focused more on businesses. The CC subscriptions are many tiered, with per seat licenses in addition to support options and consultations for just purchase decisions. It's pro all over. LR and the Photography CC subscription are almost an exception.
For anyone in the business of photography, $10/mo is trivial. I'd argue that in fact it's a consumer offering by Adobe, designed to entice enthusiasts, or "individuals" as Adobe phrases it.
And like their two flavors of academic pricing, it's a deal. C1 over time probably costs more, and that's just for C1 with no PS.
So I think Paolo is right. Photos will probably be free for people who use "free" camera equipment, i.e. their phones. Sorta the "Point and Shoot" of software. If you are one of the poor souls who uses an interchangeable lens camera you're stuck in the pro market, and gonna pay pro prices. Just like for lenses, etc. You may get lucky and find Apple gives you a tool you can live with, but it will be incidental to their real goals.
Instead, take a look at licensing. Aperture offered site licenses, but I dunno of any places that had them except a few schools. They've got one little section in the Apple Store with a 3 year old comment. Then it went to a MAS model, where licensing is per AppleID with your family allowed access to use it.
Compare with Adobe, which has always focused more on businesses. The CC subscriptions are many tiered, with per seat licenses in addition to support options and consultations for just purchase decisions. It's pro all over. LR and the Photography CC subscription are almost an exception.
For anyone in the business of photography, $10/mo is trivial. I'd argue that in fact it's a consumer offering by Adobe, designed to entice enthusiasts, or "individuals" as Adobe phrases it.
And like their two flavors of academic pricing, it's a deal. C1 over time probably costs more, and that's just for C1 with no PS.
So I think Paolo is right. Photos will probably be free for people who use "free" camera equipment, i.e. their phones. Sorta the "Point and Shoot" of software. If you are one of the poor souls who uses an interchangeable lens camera you're stuck in the pro market, and gonna pay pro prices. Just like for lenses, etc. You may get lucky and find Apple gives you a tool you can live with, but it will be incidental to their real goals.
Apple has been neglecting pro software for a while, so the end of Aperture isn't surprising at all.
I guess that Photos will be more like Picasa/iPhoto than like Aperture/Lightroom.
I personally prefer DxO for fantastic lens corrections and no "library" overhead, folders and OS-wide tags are enough for me.
I guess that Photos will be more like Picasa/iPhoto than like Aperture/Lightroom.
I personally prefer DxO for fantastic lens corrections and no "library" overhead, folders and OS-wide tags are enough for me.
I agree with this, although perhaps not so much about the money aspect of it.
Apple has said publicly on several occasions that people are taking millions of photos with their iPhones, and sharing them through the web or social media. Point-and-shoot camera sales are down since phones are capable of taking pretty good pictures for many users. Add to that that Apple is improving the camera in the iPhone regularly and significantly. I think Apple believes that most of its customers will be using an iPhone for photos, so they are making apps and hardware for that customer base and putting their resources there. Third party apps, like Lightroom, will fill the gap for the professionals and serious amateurs (call them "power users" if you will), just like many other third party apps that are more powerful and capable than the native Apple apps.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Lightroom for sale in the Mac App Store sometime soon.
Not to argue, but your link points to the IOS version of Lightroom. It is free.
But to use the product you linked to you must have LR 5 and be subscribed to one of the CC plans.
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Many people are forgetting about Adobe Photoshop Elements (PSE). It has all the pixel editing features of Photoshop CC it has an organizer too.
One feature of both iPhoto and Aperture that I hope caries over to Photos is that you can specify a "default editor" in the preferences panel. If you specify PSE then in either iPhoto or Aperture if you double click an image to gets round tripped through PSE.
Apple might make Photos so that it could be used as a DAM and then hand off the editing to whatever you specify. PSE is very good at editing and not really expensive. In fact I don't see much reason to buy Photoshop as there are no photography related features missing from PSE.
Apple has to 'dumb-down' OS X apps at first, because they're migrating to a common engine used in both OS X and iOS. Besides that, they have to start off with feature-parity between the same app on two different platforms at first.
Then as time passes, they'll reinstate the features from the previous engine to the new cross-platform (iOS and OS X) engine.
From a developer's standpoint, this is probably an explanation that sort of makes sense.
Then as time passes, they'll reinstate the features from the previous engine to the new cross-platform (iOS and OS X) engine.
From a developer's standpoint, this is probably an explanation that sort of makes sense.
I don't think anyone is arguing the point that in all likelihood version 1.0 is going to be devoid of features that many aperture users expect and need.
I'm not willing to wait, either waiting for version 1.0 and see what feature are missing, and waiting for some of the features I need because those features may never make it into the app.
Been there, done that. Lightroom 4 was available in the Mac App store beginning in May 2012. I'm unsure for how long, though it seems LR5 never was in the Mac App store.
http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2012/05/lightroom-4-now-available-on-the-mac-app-store.html
I doubt we'll see a repeat. Adobe seems intent on the subscription model, to the point of making it difficult to buy the standalone product on adobe.com
I won't be surprised if boxed copies of LR5 become more difficult to find, and LR6 is solely subscription based when it eventually appears (likely 2015 based on average time between releases).
It already is difficult to find it on adobe's site. Googling it will get it for you, but simple navigating to it, is nearly impossible.
I actually did figure it out.
- Go to Adobe.com then Menu and select Lightroom to land on https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-lightroom.html
- Scroll to the bottom of the page, look for where it says Lightroom 5 Standalone and click on Buy Now.
- I'm taken to a "My cart" page that lists the Upgrade version for $79.
- Notice the "Edit" option; click that and you can then at "I want to buy" you can change from the Upgrade version to the Full version at $149. Both are download delivery.
I've been playing around with a demo copy the past few days and relearning LR; I've used it in the past so am fairly familiar with it. I think I'm probably going to spring for the upgrade soon as I'll probably go a year before deciding any further moves. Then I'll see what Photos looks like, what Adobe does with LR6, and what else in the market possibly surfaces.
I wouldn't be surprised if LR5 were the last version of Lightroom to be sold in a shrink wrapped box. All the signs point to subscription-only licenses in the future.
Agreed, I'm fully expecting LR6 to be subscription only, especially by the recent news that Adobe will let people still use LR even if they cancel the subscription, i.e., still access their photos. One long running complaint/fear about subscriptions has been removed by them. I'm not advocating that its a good idea for the subscription just merely pointing out that adobe is removing some obstacles in going the subscription model.
IF they pull that BS, I will be looking very seriously at Photos.
BTW, I was on a conference call with OnOneSoftware and I asked about Perfect Photos interworking with Photos. They said that was on their candidate list for their Perfect Photos 9 release; however, they have not seen Photos yet from Apple. So they could not promise anything.
If we can get Nik, Perfect Photos, Topaz and a few others to do plugins, maybe Photos has some chance of being a good basic platform. I guess we will know this time next year.
BTW, I was on a conference call with OnOneSoftware and I asked about Perfect Photos interworking with Photos. They said that was on their candidate list for their Perfect Photos 9 release; however, they have not seen Photos yet from Apple. So they could not promise anything.
If we can get Nik, Perfect Photos, Topaz and a few others to do plugins, maybe Photos has some chance of being a good basic platform. I guess we will know this time next year.
I think the writing is on the wall.
I would wait anyway, period.
My strategy is to convert my Aperture library to Photos, because I won't be able to manually transfer my library over to [insert DAM software]. (I'm not talking about transferring files, I'm thinking of edits, versions, albums and such. These are not contained in the RAW files.) If I choose to use some other software, I would start afresh and use it only for new photos. It looks as if Pixelmator is also thinking about using Extensions to make advanced image editing tools available to Photos.
Personally, I am not too worried about the editing part, it's more about the asset management part.
Equally (or more) important, is how rich Photos is in it's DAM functions. I have much more time investment in my photo organization than I have in photo editing. Most of my most important photo editing was round tripped through NIK and/or PS... so those edits are already baked into new masters.
Coming from Aperture, my DAM list for Photos includes:
- Must haves: Good equivalent of "Aperture Projects", geotags, ratings, tags, smart albums, plug-in support, external editor support.
- Nice to haves: Preservation of hierarchical tags, stacks, stack picks, album picks
- Thrill me features: Effective sharing of database, simultaneous editing on multiple machines, round trip non-destructive editing
If I get most or all of the "thrill me features"... then Apple has just left everyone in their dust. OTOH, if Photos does not have the "must have features, then I'll have no choice than to migrate to LR.
/Jim
Still need to see how Photos would work. I can separate databases for my family & friends snaps and for my more serious work.
I do this because I don't want to show of my latest family photos with others and then see a few pictures of my street photography, followed by some black and white architecture with a few pictures of public toilets thrown in.
If Photos only allows me one "library", then it would be for my finished family & friends snaps, which is sub divided into Year>Event, that I'm already using LR for to ingest, process (simple basics like crop, contrast, blemish removal, and geotagging if they're needed), and spit back out a JPEG, which goes into my folder structure that currently sits in Google Drive.
I'm starting to fully expect that LR6 will be subscription based, which I don't care since I'm an Adobe member (works out much cheaper given my upgrade patterns). Afterall it would be Adobe's incentive - what choice do you have since Aperture is no longer (or will be no longer) in the picture and the other options aren't as robust?
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I seriously think you guys are putting your hopes and dreams too far in with Apple's Photos app. It's pretty clear Apple is giving us a soccer mom app with the hope that dev's will build in 3rd party functions for the more hardcore among us would want. Out of the box, this will be an app that puts your photos in the cloud, with some basic to intermediate editing tools, with search features (which Apple has called a "pro tool").
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Correct. Except Aperture also has all of the must haves.
Since moving from Aperture to LR will be a fairly easy process... it really doesn't matter if I do it now or 1-2 years from now. It will be roughly the same amount of work to migrate then, as it would take to migrate now. I feel pretty strongly that Aperture is better than LR, so I am not in a hurry to switch.
If my "Thrill me features" arrive in Photos... then for sure I will know that I made the right choice to wait.
If my "must haves" arrive in Photos... then I am still ahead.
Otherwise, if Photos is a bust, I will switch to LR... take a step backwards from Aperture... and it will be no harder to do it then, than it would take to do it today. I see no downside by waiting.
/Jim
Actually, it's not at all clear what Photos for OS X will be providing. This link just says that it's coming early next year, and in the meantime have a look at what Photos for iOS 8 will be about.
It's interesting to note that the iOS 8 blurb mentions the following:
The idea being that you download lightweight device-specific variants of your source image from your 'iCloud library'.
Undoubtedly, Photos for OS X will also be able to make use of the user's 'iCloud library', but I suspect that the option will remain to make use of one or more local libraries. The thought of paying for a few hundred GB of iCloud storage would not be appealing to many.
You can bet your bottom dollar that devs will embrace the new non-destructive plugin model. It's a much better way of doing things.