Aperture to Adobe Migration

TallPhotoGuy

With Aperture no longer being developed at some point I need to Migrate, assuming the Adobe $9.99 offering is the right way to go.

Some background. I am not a pro but do a lot of family/friends and HS sports, both pictures and video. I use SmugMug as my official share site. Thats not changing. My platforms are all Apple, iMac, iPhone and iPad. Thats not changing. I have 1TB+ of storage for photos. For video almost 2TB. All my storage is on external drives. They are inexpensive and meet my needs.

I plan to throw on a new 4TB external driving switch to the Adobe $9.99. I don't need to use their cloud offerings, too many clouds already. The Apple cloud stuff along with SmugMug meets my needs. I just need to replace Aperture and figured might as well do it now.

Any issues with the above plan or things I need to watch out for

mercphoto

There are good things about the LR route. Adobe has about 0% chance of ditching LR, while unfortunately Apple has ditched the best DAM software out there. It works on Windows and Mac. But, to me, its typical Adobe: horrible UI and slow.

I've switched to Photos for all my family photography. Its friendlier for the wife and does what I need. If I was still doing paid work however, I'd have to stick with Aperture or switch to something like LR.

The biggest gripe I have with Photos right now is a nearly complete lack of a RAW workflow. You cannot bulk apply settings to numerous photos. In Aperture I defined a preset for adjustments that I would apply automatically upon an import of RAW images. This got me 90% of my work done. You cannot do this in Photos. Sheer utter stupidity from Apple.

If your workflow is JPG with minimal editing then Photos is great. If not, look elsewhere.

Richard

You'll probably find LR a satisfactory replacement for Aperture, once you get used to its user interface. Unless you're also interested in Photoshop for pixel editing, you might want to consider buying a perpetual license version of LR rather than going the subscription route. We've discussed the pros and cons of CC versus perpetual license several times. Check out http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=240866 and http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=253055.

pathfinder

The RAW file editor of LR I find quite useful and strongly prefer it to PS, although I grew up in Photoshop over a decade ago.

Today, I find that I can edit 4/5 images in Lightroom only using the global editing commands and adjustment brushes in LR.

I still use a trip to Photoshop from Lightroom for about 20% of my images. ( exactly how much depends on how persnickety I am about this final image - a portfolio piece or a snapshot, say )

I can ( and usually do! ) merge Pano and HDR images in LR now, but the merge to HDR or Pano in Photoshop is significantly more sophisticated and a bit more desirable. LR's merge command seems to remove pixels along the way, especially when merging larger panos.

The upside to the merge to pano or HDR in Lightroom is that the final rendered image is a DNG file which allows the full RAW editor to edit the merged file as a DNG file, not a tiff or jpg.

I have joined the BORG, and use LR CC and PS CC. I do still own licenses for LR5 and for PS CS5 which I used in previous years, but I cannot imagine ever really using them again. LR CC is head and shoulders above LR 5, and PS CC continues to advance as well.

LR CC does require a modern desktop ( or laptop ) computer - when one starts painting in layers on masks created in real time with adjustment brushes, it demands significant processing power.

I used Aperture V 1 and 2 for a while, but I think I moved to LR 3 when Apple announced it was no longer supporting Aperture.