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mtbdudex

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Aug 28, 2007
2,900
5,271
SE Michigan
Till the pry it from my cold hands .......
Ok, not that dramatic but still good old Aperture still suits my needs.

I've got the workflow down, multiple libraries still actively used, like the non-destructive editing, how the active library syncs streaming to my AppleTV.

So, who else is still using Aperture?
Am I the lone holdout dinosaur here....
 

robgendreau

macrumors 68040
Jul 13, 2008
3,471
339
Me...to occasionally transition stuff to newer, better alternatives. :cool: (BTW, that doesn't include Photos....)
 
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Ish

macrumors 68020
Nov 30, 2004
2,241
795
UK
I am. Going to learn LR this winter though when things aren't so busy.
 

Attonine

macrumors 6502a
Feb 15, 2006
744
58
Kent. UK
One more here. Mainly through idleness!

I'll move to LR eventually. I need a new MBP, waiting for the next update, then I'll probably get myself in gear and sort everything else out too.
 

Padaung

macrumors 6502
Jan 22, 2007
470
104
UK
I stuck with Aperture until last month. The positive comments and discussion on the MR Capture Pro One thread made me try alternatives (until then it had been 'better the devil you know' for me). The Capture Pro One image quality was incredible but for usability and accessibility I chose Lightroom in the end. I'm very glad I tried the alternatives, I won't be looking back as I now know how far behind Aperture had fallen.
 

Cheese&Apple

macrumors 68010
Jun 5, 2012
2,004
6,606
Toronto
Not me. I made the move to the Lr/Ps CC subscription a few months ago and I'm very happy that I did. When using Aperture only, I thought it was great. It wasn't until I switched to Lr & Ps that I realized the limitations of Aperture.

~ Peter
 
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Clix Pix

macrumors Core
Still clinging to Aperture with all my might....... I recently did purchase Affinity Photo, though, but haven't used it enough to feel comfortable with it yet. Although I have used Photoshop in the past, I really don't want to go into the subscription thing with Adobe now because I truly do not do that much processing these days.....it would be a waste of money.
 

page3

macrumors 6502a
Feb 10, 2003
852
847
Outside the EU
Me.

I tried Photos. It's terrible.
I tried Capture One. Put off by the price and some shortcomings - like not being able to easily compare original to edited photo.
I tried Lightroom. Hate the UI and how Adobe splatters stuff all over my Mac. The Aperture import is laughable (doesn't keep edits???!).
I tried Affinity Photo. Nice app, but no DAM for now.

I've almost decided on either a) wait, or b) go with Lightroom, which while I didn't particularly like I could see has some nice features and workflow with the iPad.
 

Easttime

macrumors 6502a
Jun 17, 2015
705
503
Not me. Switched to Photos early on and very happy. Only had one 25 GB managed library. Added Affinity Photo for when I occasionally want more powerful edit tools. Reminds me: time to delete Aperture and iPhoto.
 

Ray2

macrumors 65816
Jul 8, 2014
1,170
489
After 2 years of trying out different apps I finally settled on Lightroom. Switched last month. I fought going to Adobe but it just works.
 

Designer Dale

macrumors 68040
Mar 25, 2009
3,950
101
Folding space
Who, me? I'm still using an '08 MacBook Pro... I just like the way Aperture manages my Library.

Anyone using Aperture as a DAM and LR as an editor?

Swapped the 128 gig sad for a 256 and made a Fusion drive with the 750 HDD in the optical bay. Runs like a top.

Dale
 
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robgendreau

macrumors 68040
Jul 13, 2008
3,471
339
Who, me? I'm still using an '08 MacBook Pro... I just like the way Aperture manages my Library.

Anyone using Aperture as a DAM and LR as an editor?

Swapped the 128 gig sad for a 256 and made a Fusion drive with the 750 HDD in the optical bay. Runs like a top.

Dale
Frankly, if you wanna use Aperture as a DAM and get more up-to-date and useful editing capabilities, look at something like Affinity Photo. I did some work years ago when I still used Aperture a lot, but did some edits in Lr, and it was OK but kind of a pain. Essentially you reference the same photos, and export back into the same folder. Or use an Aperture watched folder. But since both can do non-destructive edits of the same original photo, it's easy (at least in my case) to forget to export or reimport).

And a managed library makes it that much more of a pain.

I tried Lightroom. Hate the UI and how Adobe splatters stuff all over my Mac. The Aperture import is laughable (doesn't keep edits???!).
I agree about the spattering, but don't blame them for the import mess. They'd have to do some reverse engineering of Aperture/Apple's adjustments to figure out how to preserve the parameters Aperture provides. One of the downsides of using a parametric editor like Aperture is that there are no standards, so it's really tough to apply some other company's edits. At least anything complex, as opposed to just a crop or something. Especially with RAW.

If you've got a lot of saved adjustments in Lr, either do the export-full-sized-previews thing with Lr's plugin, or use Aperture Exporter to do a more comprehensive job of that. Or just export as you use it now, knowing that nothing will perfectly replicate those adjustments once you leave Aperture.
 

page3

macrumors 6502a
Feb 10, 2003
852
847
Outside the EU
I agree about the spattering, but don't blame them for the import mess. They'd have to do some reverse engineering of Aperture/Apple's adjustments to figure out how to preserve the parameters Aperture provides. One of the downsides of using a parametric editor like Aperture is that there are no standards, so it's really tough to apply some other company's edits. At least anything complex, as opposed to just a crop or something. Especially with RAW.
Capture One manages it though, really well. Brought in all of my crops and adjustments. If they can mange it I'm sure Adobe could.
 

notrack

macrumors 6502
Feb 19, 2012
446
94
Me. But I'm using Capture One side by side for a smooth transition. Tried all alternatives multiple times and given the progress that C1 makes with every release, I think it's the best next step.
Not sure yet what to do with the Aperture library for later.
 

NY Guitarist

macrumors 68000
Mar 21, 2011
1,585
1,581
Till the pry it from my cold hands .......
Ok, not that dramatic but still good old Aperture still suits my needs.

I've got the workflow down, multiple libraries still actively used, like the non-destructive editing, how the active library syncs streaming to my AppleTV.

So, who else is still using Aperture?
Am I the lone holdout dinosaur here....


Still using Aperture; still works for my needs.
 

Clix Pix

macrumors Core
I just really love Aperture -- it definitely does what I want to do and does it quickly and efficiently. I'm not big on lots and lots of retouching; take the shot, get it into the computer, maybe add a little more contrast, maybe do a wee bit of cropping if need be, remove anything extraneous in the scene that I couldn't avoid, add a touch of sharpening and I'm done. Ideally, anyway! Sometimes have to spend a little more time in post-processing but really the less of that I have to do the better as far as I'm concerned. Get it right in the camera in the first place and one doesn't have to spend a lot of time fiddling with it in the computer later. :)

I am planning to keep using Aperture for as long as I can, even though now it will no longer be supported by Apple with updates and such.
 

BrettApple

macrumors 65816
Apr 3, 2010
1,145
488
Heart of the midwest
I still use it because I've got a 300GB+ library with 45,000+ photos and a TON of projects, albums, and more sorted just how I like it.

Some of the reasons I haven't switched are because of the useful Photo Stream import (auto downloads all my photos from my phone upon launch no cable required) and Lightroom's import is a joke. It doesn't retain all of my albums, projects, or their sorting. Plus I don't want any kind of subscription to Adobe's services.

I'll make the switch as soon as someone has a good importer that doesn't mess up my projects and folders. Plus stores their edits.
 
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zioxide

macrumors 603
Dec 11, 2006
5,737
3,726
I first switched to Lightroom a few weeks before Apple announced Aperture was being EOL'd. Haven't looked back. Lightroom blows Aperture's editing capabilities out of the water. Seriously, Aperture's editing is like a Prius compared to a Bugatti.

Moving a 100GB photo library from one app to the other wasn't easy as there's no real way to transfer edits from Aperture. Basically, I transferred all my originals over to Lightroom, and then exported TIFFs of every edited version I made in Aperture so I have full-quality versions of the edits.

In many cases though, I've gone back and reprocessed many of my favorite shots in Lightroom (even using the exported edit from Aperture as a visual guide). 99% of the time, the Lightroom version ended up coming out way better.
 

Small White Car

macrumors G4
Aug 29, 2006
10,972
1,468
Washington DC
I switched my professional work over to Lightroom a while back but my personal home photos remain in Aperture. I really don't know what I'm going to do with them. Lightroom is absolutely not a solution for that half of my life.

For now the answer is simply "keep waiting." My miracle cure would be if Apple keeps adding to Photos in the same way they kept adding to Final Cut Pro X. Maybe it'll get better within the next two years?

But I don't really believe that. I figure I've got at least another year before it's really a problem, though. I'll just have a to wait and see what the options are then.
 

swordio777

macrumors 6502
Apr 3, 2013
291
18
Scotland, UK
Another hold-out Aperture user over here.

Personally, I do all my editing in photoshop, so I only need a DAM to do 2 things:
1) manage my files
2) raw conversion

Aperture's lack of tools never bothered me because I never used them anyway. However aperture's raw conversion is still the best out there so I'll continue to use it for now. I don't say this to start a flame war between different raw converters (there's plenty of that elsewhere) but the bottom line is that, for some reason, Aperture is able to pull more information out of a raw file's extreme highlights & shadows than any of the competition. I have no idea how it does it, or why the others cannot do the same. I honestly wish they could (or that Apple would make their Aperture raw convertor open source so someone else could).

The other thing I love about aperture is the managed file system. Each client gets their own library containing only the files from that job. Having the images stored inside the library makes moving/copying the library and the assets easy. Great when you want to transfer them from working drives to archive drives without needing to worry about referenced links being broken.

I used lightroom up until Lr4, and switched to Aperture3 in mid 2012 purely to take advantage of the features I mentioned above. When Aperture stops working completely, I'll likely switch back to lightroom, but I'm not particularly looking forward to it.
 

dotnet

macrumors 68000
Apr 10, 2015
1,664
1,390
Sydney, Australia
I'm still using Aperture, too. I don't "photoshop" my images, so the adjustments afforded by Aperture itself and the Nik plugins are more than enough for me. I find the main challenge to be DAM, and that's where Aperture suits me best.
 
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