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A Lament for Aperture
- orefalo 8mo agoI miss it too..
- hahn-kev 8mo agoSomeone should vibe code a new version of Aperture
- grey-area 8mo agoPlease do go ahead and try it. Should just take an afternoon, right?
- irl_zebra 8mo agoThis sounds like a great half-day project. Just use Gas Town and create a team of product managers, senior and junior developers, designers, and architects and have them get on it. (I recommend keeping Opus as the senior, and Sonnet as the juniors). Once you do this, you can release it and you'll be a (very financially successful) hero!
- oger 8mo agoAperture is dearly missed even today. And to make matters worse: you cannot even import Aperture libraries into Photos any more. Essentially leaving you with picking out the raw images from the package. And don’t get me started on excellent support for tethered shooting in a studio setting. And I could go on and on. The only thing I really missed in Aperture was first level support for Nik tools which are cool for their adaptive and non destructive masks.
- Nextgrid 8mo agoI'm not a photographer so pardon my ignorance: is there any reason these old tools can't be used nowadays? Like film photography tools haven't fundamentally changed since the heyday of film, why can't digital tools be treated the same? Maybe there is a niche business rescuing old machines & software and offering them as a packaged tool - offline, air-gapped, with modern bridges where necessary (a Rpi/etc that exposes a modern & secure fileshare on one side, and a legacy fileshare on the machine side, doing file format conversions if necessary). Since the market for modern tools (as opposed to Liquid (gl)ass-infused ad delivery machines) no longer exists, it seems like using and taking care of legacy tools is the best we're got.
- dennisnghouse 8mo agoNew cameras produce raw files that are not backwards compatible with older raw file formats. These raw files are key to the highest quality and flexibility in editing.
- Nextgrid 8mo agoWould a file converter not solve this issue? Or do the new formats embed extra kinds of data (extra channels, etc) that are just impossible to represent in the old formats?
- SanjayMehta 8mo agoThere are file converters. At least one big name company - probably Adobe - offered a free tool. I stopped using Adobe after LR went subscription, so can't remember the specifics.
- wvbdmp 8mo agoYou can still use Adobe DNG Converter. I use it to convert new raw files for Lightroom 4.
- SanjayMehta 8mo agoThat's the one, thanks. I have a Mac mini just for Aperture and LR5, will see if this can revive that system. Problem is that the latest macs are just so fast that it makes it hard to switch back.
- wiredfool 8mo agoMe too. Mini has gone from main dev machine, to backup, to kids, and now to Lightroom. It wasn't a slouch BITD, 6 core and 32G ram. It's a bit slow now, but not that bad even on the 4k screen. But it's the best thing I have that runs 32 bit MacOs.
- 8mo ago
- abruzzi 8mo agoI still keep all my digital photos and film scans, except those photos that originate from a Leaf or Phase One digital back, in Aperture. (the raw format of those digital backs pretty much requires Capture One.) The machine does not visit the internet because it needs 10.14 to run and there haven't been security updates in a while.
- Nextgrid 8mo ago> It was powered by some of the most impressive technology around at the time, but you’d never even know it because you were too busy getting shit done. If you're busy getting shit done you will not have time to engage with ads. That became a problem once technology switched from being a tool to an advertising delivery vehicle.
- dangus 8mo agoI’m confused at how advertising is related to the subject at hand, since Apple does not offer a photo app with advertising.
- Nextgrid 8mo agoTechnology has been increasingly pushing towards advertising and media consumption over productivity, and productivity features have been left to degrade or outright removed. Apple may not offer a photo app with advertising but the photo apps it offers are clearly inferior with less information density and less powerful features, because there is no longer incentive to offer a powerful photography tool. In fact since a lot of software "success" is measured with "engagement" (regardless of the presence of ads), making a productive tool isn't incentivized as it would reduce engagement if the tool allows one to complete their task faster.
- dangus 8mo agoI don’t disagree with you but it’s not relevant to the topic at hand, and it’s not a contributing factor to Aperture getting discontinued.
- trinix912 8mo agoUntil you have to do extra work to get them out of your way, wait for them to end, scroll more down/up and so on. They're also one more thing making UIs less deterministic which IMO is a lost art.
- geerlingguy 8mo agoI still mourn the loss of Aperture. IMO the best pro software Apple ever made. Lightroom was always a distant second for RAW photo workflows, and Photos is still a far cry.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- SanjayMehta 8mo agoI went from Aperture to LR 5 to DXO and Affinity. But nothing beats Aperture.
- tempodox 8mo agoI miss Aperture dearly, too. It is a monument of a time when Apple still could do Software, instead of just Services that feel restrictive and patronizing. I cannot get myself to use that shitty Photos app and am still constantly on the lookout for something to recreate the Aperture of old.
- JKCalhoun 8mo agoMany of the "old-timers" on the Photos team (when I was on that team for a couple of years) also missed Aperture. Very much so. Many kept Aperture running on a device at home—still used it for their own workflows (many passionate photographers on that team—surprise!). And in fact when it came time to discuss future Photos features there was always a contingent pushing to add back features that were lost in the transition away from Aperture. While I was there, for example, they pushed (and got) Curves added to the editing pane. Levels had always been there but the purists missed the more laser-focused "curve" adjustments. They wanted, did not get, the ability to "brush" a setting (the way you might dodge/burn an area of the image). These days, who knows. Like me, perhaps the old guard have moved on… (To clarify though, I was never the "old guard" with regard to the Photos team—had never worked on Aperture.)
- kccqzy 8mo agoAround the time Aperture became dead, I was looking for a photo editing app on the iPhone; three of my non-negotiable requirements: non-destructive adjustments, curves, and the ability to brush a mask for an adjustment. I found Snapseed which fulfilled these requirements. But of course, why did I get the idea for these requirements of mine? Aperture of course. Once you got used to the features of Aperture, you really don’t want to use a lesser app like Photos.
- ghostly_s 8mo ago> And in fact when it came time to discuss future Photos features there was always a contingent pushing to add back features that were lost in the transition away from Aperture. Apple actually publicly promised they would be doing this when they killed it. But not much ever came of it.
- wiseowise 8mo agoAnd here I thought it’ll be about Portal.
- petecooper 8mo agoNitro comes close: https://www.gentlemencoders.com/nitro-for-macos/ https://www.gentlemencoders.com/nitro-for-macos/
- ____________g 8mo agoJust wanted to add that Nitro was built by Nik Bhatt, who was the Senior Director of Engineering at Apple leading the Aperture and Core Image teams. I believe he built Nitro specifically to fill the vacuum Apple left behind. Not sure how close it gets to the OG.
- JKCalhoun 8mo agoYeah, I was on the Photos team when Nik Bhatt left Apple to start this project/company. So I suppose you clearly have Aperture DNA there…
- softinio 8mo agoshame I had not heard of this till today.
- matwood 8mo agoAlso loved Aperture and also a shame this is the first time I've heard of this tool.
- macshome 8mo agoI’m a big fan of their Raw Power app as well that predated Nitro.
- jjtheblunt 8mo agothanks for recommending that: i had not found it and also lament Aperture's retirement for years. Subscribed monthly to Nitro just now...looks great
- shevy-java 8mo agoThere is sort of a correlation here: > AI for some reason, and amongst the complaining in the comments you’ll invariably find it: “I miss Aperture.” and: > Apple released macOS Tahoe, which has been pretty constantly raked over the coals for poor design and broken interactions from the day it was released (and even before, if we’re honest). Of course this may not indicate causation, but I believe that the AI hype has also in part led to a decline in quality overall. Not necessarily everywhere, but there is almost definitely some influence that degraded things. I see this all the time on youtube videos or Google search. In fact, I recently also switched to other search engines; they have issues too, but Google search consistently yields worse results nowadays, even when the search string used excludes AI and other things. The quality declined overall. (And on youtube you can not even really search for much at all, Google tends to show some unrelated crap after some time. They are deliberately trying to waste time of humans.)
- Nextgrid 8mo agoThe decline has started before LLMs became a thing.
- jwr 8mo agoSigh. After Apple suddenly discontinued Aperture, which left users like me with huge complex photo archives hanging, I will never trust any professional software tool from Apple again. It is a disaster that I still haven't fully recovered from. I've learned my lesson — all my archives will now be maintained by me, in file structures, with metadata in text files. And yes, I agree with the article, Aperture was a really good piece of software, with many design decisions that seemed controversial, but were driven by many hours spent with professional photographers, looking at their workflows and listening to them. The result was very good.
- hoyhoy 8mo agoI've been having the same thought. Just move back to a file structure which is what I was doing from 1995 until 2007 before migrating to iPhoto. The metadata in Apple Photos doesn't fully sync to iOS over a cable now. Did Apple intentionally make offline sync not work to force everyone on to iCloud? Also, even the local search inside of Apple Photos doesn't work correctly either. I thought it was hilarious when they tried add "AI" to this shitshow. Apple literally can't even make a local tag search. Isn't it possible to put all the metadata in EXIF tags? People keep telling me to use Immich, but IDK.
- alextsayun 8mo agoThey will soon add Photomator app to Apple Creator Studio. They have bought Pixelmator team last year and since Pixelmator is already in this bundle, I think the next app will be Photomator, a pretty close replacement for Aperture.
- JKCalhoun 8mo agoI think you might be right. I've been using Pixelmator (and recently Pixelmator Pro) for years now. It's a great app and has the "paint an effect" (like blur, sharpen) that Aperture had. I suspect this app, now that Apple bought it, will be where we look for Aperture-like features going forward.
- amir 8mo agoNeither provides a DAM though. Photomator's asset management features are basically what Photos provides, which is far inferior to Aperture's DAM features. Many who miss Aperture aren't just lamenting the editing tools, they miss library organisation features that Photos simply doesn't offer.
- matwood 8mo agoExactly! There are plenty of photo editors that could replace Aperture (and LR if you'd like), but DAM always seems to be the missing piece. I'm using Photos DAM after leaving LR which I was forced to when Aperture went away.
- divan 8mo agoIt's actually good. I use it as my main photo editing app, as it's does exactly what I need, does it good and fast. So my workflow is Photo Mechanic for culling, then importing RAWs into Apple Photos (not to the gallery, just as a separate folder/album) and then it gets picked up by Photomator automatically. It's not a perfect flow (Apple does some weird conversion from RAW in the background and it takes a lot of CPU time when importing a lot of photos), but it gives me pretty much all what I need (including face recognition, ML exposure/color, quick subject/background masking, HDR photos editing, etc).
- bix6 8mo agoWhat are people using now? I’m so tired of LR and planning to make the switch to darktable.
- Arubis 8mo agoAperture’s death coincided with my life getting less excitingly photogenic. The combination was enough to break my habit of shooting pictures altogether. My old well-curated and edited and tagged libraries are still on S3 backups. No conversion has been satisfactory.
- monocultured 8mo agoI switched to Capture One a couple years ago and like it - used Lightroom Classic for many years before that, and think I've tried most DAMs over the years.
- _0xdd 8mo agoDarktable. It has a hell of a learning curve, but it's one hell of a powerful raw editor with some really cool masking features. It has a reputation for being difficult to learn, but the newest release bundles a new tone mapper (AgX) that requires a whole lot less massaging than the old Filmic (and, to a lesser extent, the later Sigmoid mapper). I'm back to managing my photo libraries using plain old files and folders, and syncing them to my NAS using Syncthing. I couldn't be happier, and it doesn't cost me a dime.
- spiritplumber 8mo agoWish we could put Cave Johnson back in charge. That'd fix it!
- needSomeCoffee 8mo agoJust a comment to the author. Very much appreciate how you go about explaining this, and your writing style. Thanks for taking the time. NSC... ...an ex-Arpeture user.
- nicoburns 8mo agoI haven't used it in a decade, but when I last did need this kind of software IdImager's Photo Supreme came out top of my research. The photo editing capabilities were relatively weak (but it would integrate nicely with the editing software of your choice), but the cataloging capabilities were fantastic, and it had a lot of flexibility about how the files were stored on disk (have it organise that for you or not) and the option to store the metadata it created directly in the metadata of photo files themselves where much of it could be read by other software. https://www.idimager.com/ https://www.idimager.com/
- softinio 8mo agoAperture was the best. I miss it.
- paradox460 8mo agoEven worse when you look at things like Shake. Apple owned compositing for at least half a decade, and then just gave up, leaving a void
- hshdhdhj4444 8mo agoI might be thinking of a different app (possibly iPhoto before Apple dramatically changed jt, but I don’t think so), but if it was Aperture, it was also excellent for photo organization.