There and back again. An Aperture user's tale by Luc Desaulniers

[Luc Desaulniers]

Hello all!

So I've been using Aperture ever since I switched to Mac. At one point (about a year ago) being a bit sad that Apple was not adding the stuff I wanted to Aperture I decided to switch to Lr because said stuff was available in Lr. I came here and created an account and was totally charmed by this place. Help was plentiful and the people were fantastic.

However I decided to go back to Aperture because I knew this program inside and out and I learned to circumvent the hurdles that the missing functionalities had created for me.

But then Apple decided to pull the plug on Aperture. Of course I could continue to use it for a long while as Apple will make the necessary adjustments for it to be compatible with Yosemite but still, it will pretty much remain frozen until further OS changes render it useless. I could also wait for the upcoming Photos.app and hope it will fill the void but as all new pieces of software, chances are it will be missing key functions at launch and many bugs will probably be present.

So here I am. Again.

But for good this time. About two months ago I signed up for Adobe CC Photography, migrated my Aperture library to Lr and have since been "forcing" myself to edit my shoots in Lr. So far the learning curve has been not too daunting. Of course there are some "how-the-heck-do-I-do-this-in-Lr" moments but not to the point where I am ready to throw everything away.

So I'm back for good.

Please take me back. PLEEEAAAASSSEE!!!!

 

[Tony Jay]

How could one resist that face!

Welcome back!

Tony Jay

 

[jstevensphoto]

I am with you. I subscribed to CC Photography and have LR and PS6 CC. I am really frustrated. Aperture was so intuitive. Everything worked as planned. LR is a nightmare. All I want to do is load my RAW files, edit them and save them as jpegs. Complicated??

 

[Replytoken]

I am with you. I subscribed to CC Photography and have LR and PS6 CC. I am really frustrated. Aperture was so intuitive. Everything worked as planned. LR is a nightmare. All I want to do is load my RAW files, edit them and save them as jpegs. Complicated??

if you can better describe what you find complicated and a nightmare, you might be able to get some suggestions from folks that might help make things easier for you.

--Ken

 

[jstevensphoto]

if you can better describe what you find complicated and a nightmare, you might be able to get some suggestions from folks that might help make things easier for you.

--Ken

Thanks, Ken. I will soon have some legitimate questions for y'all. Right now, just trying to find my way around. I have subscribed to Terry White's YouTube videos and they help a lot. Aperture and Lightroom have some things in common. I like how you can keep groups of photos in a catalogue, much like I kept projects in a Library in Aperture. I got into a bad habit in Aperture of saving projects as new libraries and now am in the process of emptying all those libraries into folders, which I can then just load into LR5. Looking forward to using this forum for help. Thanks for the reply.

 

[Luc Desaulniers]

Thank you for the "re-welcome".

To JSTEVEN, my fellow Aperture ex-user, I can recommend these readings. They've helped me quite a bit in my transition :

Lightroom for Aperture Users - Part 1
Lightroom for Aperture Users - Part 2
Lightroom for Aperture Users - Part 3
10 Things Aperture Users Need to Know About Lightroom

If you're more into videos, I recommend Adobe TV's "Learn Lightroom 5" online course which is totally free and is comprised of dozens of short straight-to-the-point video lessons.

Adobe has also put together an Aperture to Lr migration guide. I haven't taken a look at it though. You can find it here. (scroll down a bit)

Don't get discouraged. I also had a lot of trouble adjusting at first. My main hurdle (it still is) was the adjustment brush. Moving from Aperture's "one brush per adjustment type" to Lightroom's "one brush for everything" is still a bit confusing for me.

Remember to have fun!

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Welcome back guys! We're pleased to have you!

 

[Luc Desaulniers]

Thank you so much Victoria!