Last friday morning started with a call from Apple with the sad news that they were going to be announcing that Aperture would no longer be developed and would only be supported through the new OS, Yosemite. Sadly I was as shocked as everyone else. Unfortunately the team at Apple is not able to share with others the details, that often would be very helpful. I am sure I am not the first to find out via announcement that Apple has decided to change something unexpectedly. It is the beauty and hardship of working with such an epic company.
Although I did everything I could to make sure that the Creative Live course I did would be relevant, in this case there was not way for me know the what the future had in store for our beloved application.
Aperture as many of you know has been the center of my business workflow since 2007. Has it really been 7 years? I have done several Aperture trainings for photographers including WPPI, my own Aperture training DVD as well as my Aperture Book Tool Training and most recently of course, my Creative Live Course that was just a month ago.
It took me some time to process the news and it just happened to come in the middle of one of my busiest weeks so I apologize for the radio silence on my part. This week I shoot a big wedding in San Diego and then heading out the next day to Martha’s Vineyard (where I am now) for a weeks long wedding coverage that is not over quite yet. I know many of you have been waiting to hear from me on this subject so I am taking today on this beautiful island to share with you my thoughts on how the death of Aperture will affect your future as well as my own.
I always feel like the best way to break things down is in pieces so I am doing that below and I hope it helps you navigate my thoughts.
The bad news: Our beloved Aperture as we know it is being discontinued. The software that I loved and invested my whole business in will be no longer after the Yosemite OS. For me this means that all the investment in our workflows and trainings will be lost and we will have new learning to do. However, I am a look on the brighter side of things kind of person and I always think that change is good. If you are not moving forward you are moving backwards in my world so lets focus on the future.
The good news: I know that there has been a lot of negative out there about this change but there is some good news with this shift as well. First, Apple has always been a company that has made shifts for the greater good. Even if we do not see the full picture right now.
With the death of Aperture all the resources that were there are going into the new Photos App. They are listening to people like us for what we want to have in the new Photos app. So…..if there is something that you can not live without in Aperture that you want in the photos app please leave a comment on the blog and I will be sure to pass on the information to the team at Apple who is working on the development.
Several of the same sliders look like they will be in the new Photos App and I know the Aperture team is very excited to be able to redesign some of the functionality as well as interface with something brand new so I am excited to see how these sliders work on the images. My friends over at Aperture Expert did an excellent job breaking down the sneak peak that we all got of the new Photos app so check that out for sure. I think you will be surprised how much is there, like the white balance we are all used to and most of the sliders that we use on a day to day basis.
Also, they have said that your Aperture Libraries will open in the new photos app so you don’t have to worry that you would not be able to open your libraries moving forward. When the new Photos App comes out I will share with you that transition and we can discover together what is the best way to move forward when we see how well it handles the upgrade.
The last piece of good news I wanted to make sure everyone knows is that Aperture will still be with us through Yosemite so we have time to figure out what shifts we need to make in our lives and businesses without completely loosing our beloved App.
What this means moving forward? What this means for me and what this means for you may be very different things. I think the key to what it means to you is how you currently use Aperture. So I decided to break the information by the way you use Aperture currently.
So that I do not make this a never ending post I am going to break each of those groups down into separate posts so you can just focus on the one that fits you best. I will be posting each of them over this coming week. Below are the 2 I am planning to cover. If you have a specific situation that you would like me to talk about please feel free to leave it in the comment below and I will do my best to specifically address each of your situations.
Part 2: Professionals – In my studio we have multiple photographers, multiple interns, we outsource our weddings to Shoot Dot Edit, and we use Aperture for all of our book design. We use multiple libraries set up so 1 library per event. We also use Aperture for personal images. In this section I will cover what this means for all professional photographers using aperture for image editing including Single & Multiple Libraries
Part 3: Prosumers – If you use Aperture for mostly personal photos and enjoy the global adjustments but do not go much into using some of the brush tools or other fine tuning. The market tends to call this group prosumers.
Again, if you do not fall under either of these groups please let me know I would be happy to gear a post directly towards your own challenges and needs moving forward.
In closing I would like to deliver a eulogy for our beloved Aperture
“My beloved software, Aperture, was an extremely powerful and underutilized software. It was dearly loved by all that knew it and used it across the years. Although it came from simple beginnings it grew to be so much more. The hard work that the Aperture team at Apple put in to this software made it the thing that we knew and loved before it’s unexpected passing.
I loved my Aperture very much and dedicated so much of my life to sharing it’s stories with all of my friends and family. It will continue to live on though this Aperture family and we will never forget the impact it had on our lives. It’s useful tools changed our lives and our businesses forever and we are forever be changed my that.
Please join with me in remembering this beautiful and powerful app and let us encourage the growth of it’s only child, Photos as it grows to be even more powerful and beautiful.
– Sara France”
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