As we all know Aperture has been “sunset”. We think that sometime in 2015 Apple will “ship” something called Photos.app for OS X. It will be a partial regression from iPhoto; it may have some interesting new features.
Assuming Apple gets its decrepit application software division into working order we might get a viable Aperture 3.5x replacement based on an advanced version of Photos.app sometime in 2018 [1]. We don’t know if Apple will continue to ship Digital RAW compatibility Updates, but we received a Mavericks update just two weeks ago. It’s not inconceivable that Apple will provide Aperture 3.5 compatible RAW updates through 2016. (Aperture is still being sold, and even Apple is likely to provide updates for 1-2 years following end of sale.)
Since there’s no exit from Aperture (or iPhoto) [3] this means I’m expecting to use Aperture for another 4 years. During that time I’ll be still be learning new techniques and workarounds; Aperture is an awesomely power application [2], even if it is now years behind the cutting edge of image processing. In the worst case scenario I’ll buy Lightroom for RAW image development then drop output files into Aperture [4].
I don’t expect Aperture books and web sites to last long though, so I’m planning to put together my own series of tips and tricks based on what I read elsewhere on the web and on a book I’ve just bought. I’ll be going the archives of some old Aperture blogs like:
- The Aperture Blog
- The Photos Expert (formerly ApertureExpert) - it does have feeds, it’s only feed discovery that’s inexplicably broken [5]
- Apple - Aperture - Resources still around
- Aperture 3: The Digital Story
The tips will show up in the Aperture Tag, you can even use a label feed: http://tech.kateva.org/feeds/posts/default/-/Aperture.
- fn -
[1] Based on how long it took Apple to produce a healthy version of Aperture in the first place.
[2] And it’s no longer terribly buggy. The main Aperture bug I run into now is the dangerous Empty Project / Empty Album bug. It’s not that frequent, but beware deleting Projects that show no images!
[3] Strong data lock. Migration to Lightroom was once laughable, but see Aperture Exporter.
[4] Remember JPEG 2000? Or Windows Media Photo / HD Photo / JPEG XR? DNG (TIFF+XMP metadata)? I might go for DNG assuming I can make Lightroom output TIFF DMG per Aperture’s expectations. Good reference here, note the LOC and several other institutions favor JPEG 2000.
[5] I missed the transition to the new blog! I have to add the current one to Feedbin.
See also
- Aperture Exporter: impressive toolset to facilitate migration or save archive creation. Option to create XMPP side cards for JPEG.
- Gordon’s Tech: Dealing with Time Zones in Aperture across multiple cameras - what I do for now 5/2014
- Gordon’s Notes: Apple kills yet another photo sharing service - and generally screws up iOS photo management 9/2014. Amazing.
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