As a multiple-times-a-day Aperture user for the last several years - I'm really glad to hear this. Apple has made it abundantly clear, that they were longer going to invest any effort into Aperture, and so we're going to get the best of all worlds. The application is absolutely rock solid for me - most of the database crashes, and corruptions have stopped occurring for over a year - so in the interim, I have a product that works for me and will keep me satisfied for the next couple years.
Meanwhile, Apple is going to put all their energy into a single photo system, instead of trying to do some schizophrenic split between iPhoto/Aperture - I expect to see a pretty excellent system out of it.
Perhaps it's because I don't work commercial or event photography, but the reality is that most of what I use Aperture for these days could probably be done with a slightly beefier iPhoto - which is pretty much what Photos is going to become.
Photostream, as of about 3-4 months ago, has also gotten reliable enough that I never have to worry about any picture that I've taken being on my Laptop. Unlike the early days (months, year?) when it was pretty much a crapshoot as to whether your pictures would move from your iPhone to PhotoStream and then to your laptop - It Just Works now.
The one worry, and this is more of an ancillary one, is that now without the Aperture competition, Adobe will let lightroom development slack off. Lightroom is (was) one of the adobe apps that don't totally suck, and I always credited this w/ them getting taken off guard by Aperture (competitions is a great thing, etc etc). That being said, I suppose the writing is on the wall and whatever changes in direction were in store for lightroom is probably already in motion.
I'm not even so worried about Adobe letting Lightroom languish as I am about them using their newfound monopoly position to at last move Lightroom into the mandatory Creative Cloud subscription model that ate the Creative Suite last year. As an enthusiast photographer and avid Lightroom user, there's no way I'm paying a recurring subscription for the same app when I'm not using it to make an income.
That said, there's a potential twist here. Apple's upcoming Photos app can go one of two directions: Apple could, as everyone seems to be assuming, go the consumer-focused route and stay out of Lightroom's market. On the other hand, Photos could pack all of Aperture's pro features and more behind an "advanced mode" UI. Suddenly, Lightroom isn't just competing with an Apple product, they're competing with free.
>I'm not even so worried about Adobe letting Lightroom languish as I am about them using their newfound monopoly position to at last move Lightroom into the mandatory Creative Cloud subscription model that ate the Creative Suite last year.
I think they've already done that, a few months ago.
You can still buy stand-alone Lightroom, though they also offer it as part of the $10/month Photography subscription where you get both Photoshop and Lightroom.
I see. I had the impression the standalone version was off-ed by now.
I myself have forked for the PS + Lightroom subscription -- and I hate subscriptions --, and the reason was, that, if I am not mistaken, you can't use the Lightroom app for iPad without the subscription.
The copy of Lightroom you have right now isn't going to suddenly stop working, even if the next version becomes part of CC. If somehow it does fail to do the job for you in the future, you can switch to DarkTable, RawTherapee, CaptureOne, or any number of other programs.
It will stop working if you ever get a new camera. RAW formats are all different and Lightroom needs constant updates to support new camera models. It's a huge mess, the camera companies don't make the specs public and the formats change subtly with camera releases. Adobe obviously gets access to the formats, but open source tools are left to guess and it shows.
I just had this burn me when I got a new camera (Panasonic GH4) and I couldn't import a thing. Even worse is that I was on a road trip and didn't have a way to install the software that came with the camera (also terrible, but I took photos at Yellowstone and badly wanted to see them). As of the last week an update came out and now I'm good to go, but if you want to remain on an old version of Lightroom it can indeed be tricky.
None of the other programs you mentioned are anywhere close to Lightroom. For example, while RawTherapee can technically open images from my new camera, it displays them incorrectly. They're not even the right size and I don't want to talk about color.
You might want to play around with Darktable (http://www.darktable.org). I have no affiliation other than using it a bit. I use an Olympus EM-5 and it handles the raw files just fine.
I have an E-M5 too (great camera!), but it has been out quite a while which helps out. It's still not perfect though, the color is off a bit for the E-M5's RAW images (.ORF). The GH4 images are unusable in Darktable, they look they have been through an Instagram filter. This is straight off the camera in both Darktable and Lightroom:
It's rage inducing, but I think they are of the opinion that it's part of their secret sauce. I get the idea that they're all similar enough so that open source apps can get most of the way there, but Adobe has the full specs and is able to get them perfectly.
True, but it won't handle or process RAW files from your new camera. Yes, you can use the free Adobe tool to convert RAW to DNG, but that adds another step, and reduces some of the current simplicity of Lightroom.
You can't expect software written before your camera was even released to support it. It will never stop working for existing cameras. What more can you expect?
Also, compare clicking on various Menu Bar items (or other UI features) with option-clicking on the same item. Apple has advanced little mini UIs all over the place.
Similarly, look at many current System Preferences panels in Mac OS X. The basic stuff most users need is up front, and the rest is hidden behind an "Advanced..." button.
I conclude that having an advanced mode, or various enhanced features accessed in different ways from the standard UI, is not inimical to Apple's approach or UI philosophy.
Lightroom isn't the only game in town. Both CaptureOne from PhaseOne and DxO's Optics Pro handle raw files better than ACR. Bibble also still exists in the guise of Corel After Shot. There are a few decent OSS options too. it looks like Apple are incorporating the Aperture toolset into the new photo app, so it's not necessarily the end of the world.
With Apple supplying the RAW codecs with the OS, Hasselblad's Phocus [1] is a viable (and gratis) alternative on the Mac. For Windows types, it's only good for Hassy's own cameras, but if OS X understands hte RAW format, Phocus can work with it.
I don't think Adobe will slack off too much, they know it's a massively popular product but that most photographers are geeks and won't put up with them taking their foot off the gas, they'll look elsewhere (although elsewhere is mostly nothing at the moment).
This seems like all the more reason for Adobe to double down on Lightroom if you ask me. They stand to gain a lot of displaced users from this. I'm certainly going to have to make a choice now.
There has been some bugs since Mavericks came out that still hasn't been fixed, mostly related to multiple monitors. That was an indication that it was going to be dropped.
It's fairly reliable but it's showing it's age right now.
My only hope is this doesn't turn into a FinalCut-type fiasco where what they consider the new "pro" isn't all that useful for pro. (Yes, I know more pros are on adobe lightroom, but I really hate renting software so I'm not going in that direction.)
As a professional editor and technical director, I hope Apple continues to innovate, trying to push their software into the future. Otherwise you end up with a bunch of NLEs that really don't offer much of a difference (which is where we were with FCP7, Avid, and Premiere several years ago). I want my tools to become better, faster and more efficient and sometimes that will mean I have a bit of a learning curve to adjust to the new tool. Regularly bouncing between the four major NLEs (really 3 major plus FCPX), FCPX has become the fastest and most efficient NLE for my workflow.
You mileage may vary in your desire to see your tools evolve, but I much prefer radical evolution, otherwise we'd still be cutting film on slightly upgraded Steenbecks and Moviolas.
Good to know. I haven't used it, since I like Aperture, but I'll keep that in mind if Apple delivers something that doesn't do what I need/want. (FinalCut is still useless for my workflow.)
Seems foolish to change. Unlike every other app Adobe offers, LR is also a library. Renting access to your own assets is categorically different from renting access to software which is already somebody else's IP and is also getting (more or less) continually updated.
Letting people buy LR makes them feel comfortable about never losing access to their own raw material. The savvy approach is to let them have this much, charge them to do interesting things with it, and let them keep the final output in a place that remains entirely theirs.
Actually tons of editors have reversed their opinions with the subsequent updates.
As of 10.1 I don't think anybody thinks it's any kind of bad program anymore.
Initially it was mostly people not understanding that a "rewrite from scratch" is inevitably going to lose some of their features, but will provide a better foundation for future stuff. Plus, some professional users think that the rules of software development don't apply to them, and that some features they used in 2002 should continue to exist in 2014, because "we're pro". And Apple discontinuing fcp 7 prematurely didn't help with that either.
I would bet that it won't initially but will long term. Apple has a track record of releasing things with key features missing, but putting them in down the track. The most recent example being iWork.
So, that’s quite extensive (definitely compared to iPhoto), but it doesn’t seem like they are going for Aperture levels of possible adjustments. But maybe they are, that interface could be hiding things.
Meanwhile, Apple is going to put all their energy into a single photo system, instead of trying to do some schizophrenic split between iPhoto/Aperture - I expect to see a pretty excellent system out of it.
Perhaps it's because I don't work commercial or event photography, but the reality is that most of what I use Aperture for these days could probably be done with a slightly beefier iPhoto - which is pretty much what Photos is going to become.
Photostream, as of about 3-4 months ago, has also gotten reliable enough that I never have to worry about any picture that I've taken being on my Laptop. Unlike the early days (months, year?) when it was pretty much a crapshoot as to whether your pictures would move from your iPhone to PhotoStream and then to your laptop - It Just Works now.
So, good news all around.