Takkun
Ian M.
Hey all,
been a while; been busy working, and a good part of that has illuminated that while my 10-year-old iMac is still going strong, Aperture isn't. A good number of features are broken (search and grid view, specifically), and I've been putting off a dreaded OS update until I figure out what's what.
Haven't been any recent posts on the topic here, and internet searches aren't turning up too much hands-on experience on anyone who hasn't jumped to LR. Like many others, I'm not a huge fan of the subscription pricing, or really the software itself. Used it extensively back in 2012 or so at a publication I worked for, and have found newer versions just plain sluggish on the computers I tested it on, which were far newer than my own.
Looking at a few options. Of course there's the gold-standard Capture One. Easy to migrate, powerful (too much so?), pricey. Looks like a steep learning curve.
DXO PhotoLab is intriguing, especially since I already use their plugins extensively—Silver Efex and ViewPoint mostly. I've been demoing it and reprocessed RAWs look fantastic. No real DAM to speak of, though, and no ingest function.
Then lastly there's just switching over to Photos. It's hugely improved from when I first used it, but not terribly flexible. Exporting to plugins is just as wonky as Aperture was.
After using Aperture for nearly 15 years, its daunting to make the switch, and have a lot of cleanup to do. I have work spread out into dozens of libraries, shot of a mix of different cameras, RAW, JPGs from the early days, and scanned TIFFs. Those last two are important, since I'm looking for something that works equally well as a non-destructive editor to ditch PS entirely.
Thankfully, I didn't rely too heavily on metadata in my catalogs, just a lot of projects/folders/albums to sort everything. But losing my edits is a pain.
So far I've downloaded demos of C1 and DXO PL to get a feel of them before the dreaded task of consolidating and organizing my work. I'm leaning toward DXO, but I'll definitely need some sort of 3rd-party file manager. I do enough volume-type work that hand sorting everything is a no-go. Conversely, C1's seems almost too geared toward studio shooting.
Lastly—I've looked at a few other options, and not super thrilled. None of the free/low-cost options have the flexibility I'm looking for. Luminar looks too point-and-clicky for me, and ON1 just might kill my computer. But I'm open to suggestions.
So, a tl;dr: Other than LR, what've people switched to?
been a while; been busy working, and a good part of that has illuminated that while my 10-year-old iMac is still going strong, Aperture isn't. A good number of features are broken (search and grid view, specifically), and I've been putting off a dreaded OS update until I figure out what's what.
Haven't been any recent posts on the topic here, and internet searches aren't turning up too much hands-on experience on anyone who hasn't jumped to LR. Like many others, I'm not a huge fan of the subscription pricing, or really the software itself. Used it extensively back in 2012 or so at a publication I worked for, and have found newer versions just plain sluggish on the computers I tested it on, which were far newer than my own.
Looking at a few options. Of course there's the gold-standard Capture One. Easy to migrate, powerful (too much so?), pricey. Looks like a steep learning curve.
DXO PhotoLab is intriguing, especially since I already use their plugins extensively—Silver Efex and ViewPoint mostly. I've been demoing it and reprocessed RAWs look fantastic. No real DAM to speak of, though, and no ingest function.
Then lastly there's just switching over to Photos. It's hugely improved from when I first used it, but not terribly flexible. Exporting to plugins is just as wonky as Aperture was.
After using Aperture for nearly 15 years, its daunting to make the switch, and have a lot of cleanup to do. I have work spread out into dozens of libraries, shot of a mix of different cameras, RAW, JPGs from the early days, and scanned TIFFs. Those last two are important, since I'm looking for something that works equally well as a non-destructive editor to ditch PS entirely.
Thankfully, I didn't rely too heavily on metadata in my catalogs, just a lot of projects/folders/albums to sort everything. But losing my edits is a pain.
So far I've downloaded demos of C1 and DXO PL to get a feel of them before the dreaded task of consolidating and organizing my work. I'm leaning toward DXO, but I'll definitely need some sort of 3rd-party file manager. I do enough volume-type work that hand sorting everything is a no-go. Conversely, C1's seems almost too geared toward studio shooting.
Lastly—I've looked at a few other options, and not super thrilled. None of the free/low-cost options have the flexibility I'm looking for. Luminar looks too point-and-clicky for me, and ON1 just might kill my computer. But I'm open to suggestions.
So, a tl;dr: Other than LR, what've people switched to?