I have taken the last week to really think about what we as a studio are going to do when Aperture is no longer supported as well as what we need to do right now to prepare for that time. I wanted to share with you my thoughts and plan of action in hopes that it will help you. A couple things I want to make sure everyone is clear on first.
#1 – Nothing is happening to Aperture anytime soon so take a deep breath, keep using it, and figure out your future course of action. They have said that they will support Aperture at least through the new OS Yosemite. I am sure if they are not where they want to be yet with the new Photos app they will continue to support Aperture until they do.
#2 – Your Aperture Libraries are safe. You will still be able to open those libraries in the new Photos app and access all the images and the edits you made will still be there though the new Photos app. So you not have to worry about your current Libraries.
Okay, with that said let’s talk about a good course of action if you are a professional and in some cases a prosumer using Aperture. If you are a high level Aperture user like we are having a plan of action is really important.
I am going to be very frank with you. The new Photos app although I am sure it will be very robust and yet simple as Apple does so well, it will not be the right tool for Professional Photographers to use to edit their professional images. We will all need to get a good game plan in place for switching to Lightroom for your post production.
#1 Educate yourself
The most powerful tool is knowledge and nothing eases stress better than knowing your options. The more you know about Lightroom the more equip you will be for a change when you need to make it. Then whenever you have time you will be ready to make the transition. We are in the middle of wedding season so we are not ready to make this leap yet but you can bet that when that time comes we will be ready.
I have been researching trainings to help me understand Lightroom and get me up to speed. These are the 3 that I recently purchased: Lightroom 101 with JARED PLATT, Workflows with Lightroom 5 with JULIEANNE KOST, and The Ultimate Lightroom Workflowwith JARED PLATT
#2 Download Lightroom
I suggest getting Creative Cloud for this. Adobe has a photographers suite that gives you Photoshop + Lightroom for only $9.99 a month.
#3 Wait and See
There is still a lot of speculation out there about what the new Photos app will include. It is hard to say, I am sure Apple is still working on that themselves. All we can do is wait and see. There are always new and exciting ways that we can use the Apple software to work for our business and lives. I am excited to see what those new developments will be.
If you want a little preview I really enjoyed Aperture Expert’s evaluation of what we can see of the new Photos app. It is a great read! Check it out!
Some good news!
If you are currently using Shoot Dot Edit for your post production they have a wonderful Lightroom workflow that is similar to the Aperture Workflow so that will make the transition much easier.
There are some great tools out there for Lightroom that we have been discovering while doing research. One of the tools that we plan to check out more is motibodo board for lightroom it gives you shortcut keys to be able to make adjustments without using your mouse. It looks really sweet!
I am also excited about using Rad Labs Lightroom Presets. I love Rad Labs, they create the best adjustments and I am so excited to get to use their lightroom adjustments now. Check out their presets!
Remember… Change is good…
Change is almost always good. It moves us forward even when we don’t want to move. There have been plenty of changes that I have not been happy about in the past but looking back those changes all helped me grow and become better. This will be no exception.
Hope this helps you move forward in your business and life. In my next post I will talk about people that are using Aperture for Album Design and what our plan for transition is for that.
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