I have been a full time professional photographer for 38 years. After 6 years of use, a little over a year ago, I switched from Lightroom to use Aperture for my entire RAW image workflow.

While I still use Photoshop to do some of the things Aperture (or Lightroom) can’t do … only about 5% of all my images ever see Ps. For any photographer, amateur or pro, who shoots more than a handful of images at a time, the workflow advantages of Aperture are worth their weight in gold. Not to mention, Apple does’t hold their hand out constantly wanting more money when it comes time to update RAW support or tethering support for new cameras. Those updates are always free because they are OS based, not application level only.

I think Aperture gets a bad reputation because those folks who have never sat down and really learned it, don’t really understand the workflow advantages. I know I didn’t have a true appreciation for all it could do until I made the commitment to use it my daily efforts. It didn’t take much convincing that I should make the move.

Secondly … there is a reason that Bridge is free … it is the most convoluted, bug ridden and crash prone app Adobe ever developed … and that is on a good day. I never really liked that app and I used it countless hours over too many years. Before the advent of Lightroom and Aperture, there was little choice in options for that type of viewer/organizer.

Walter … I used Lr (and still do for legacy images) since the very first public beta … back when it was Mac only … I was not only a Lr user, I was a self-proclaimed Lr evangelist recommending it’s virtues to anyone who would listen … I was so happy with Lr, I never gave Aperture (or other alternatives) a passing thought.

After four versions and Adobe refusing to bring along suitable features for the Slideshow module … and introduced the abomination that is the Book module … I started to seek out other options.

For some time, I used Lr for my RAW processing … then jump to Aperture for multi-media slideshows and book/album creation …

Then I committed to a six week test of working only in Aperture … just to see for myself if it would be a worthy effort …

To my surprise, I found I was much more efficient, spent less time clicking a mouse … and far less time exporting/housecleaning derivative files for use in other applications.

The time savings opened up the opportunity to take on additional projects thereby enhancing my bottom line significantly … all thanks to a single $80 payment in the Mac App Store. Best investment I ever made.

While there are some aspects of Lr I do miss … they are not enough for me to go back. I don’t miss lens correction, for I used it very little … I try to “correct” as much perspective distortion in-camera as is possible … I spend far more than I care to for my lenses, so CA fringing is at a minimum from the start. I do miss the Print module … that is one aspect Adobe got right.

I agree, there is a significant speed difference in Aperture over Lr … especially when scrolling through large projects/folders of thumbnails … why Adobe insists that thumbs have to re-rendered each and every time they are viewed is beyond comprehension … a total waste of resources … considering Lr does not take advantage of GPU processing whatsoever …

While I have owned a perpetual license and used Photoshop since 1993 … It has become relegated to compositing and graphic design … I seem to rarely use it at all for standard image processing.

I just noticed that Pixelmator is on sale for $14.99 and am going to purchase it just to see where it goes as an alternative to Ps for compositing … if it falters … it’s not too big a financial hit. I’m also keeping an eye on Acorn.

While I have no ill will for Adobe … the CC licensing model doesn’t really make my heart go pitter-patter … I am a firm believer in the merit system. I don’t like paying in advance in-perpetuity speculating a developer will offer new features and enhancements that I find valuable. No more than I would give Nikon or Canon $5,000-$6,000 in advance for their next great DSLR without seeing and evaluating the product first.

That is specifically why I did not purchase Final Cut Pro X upon it’s initial release … Apple screwed the pooch on that one … it took several updates before I was convinced it was a worthy investment. The CC rental model makes it impossible to make that evaluation before you part with your hard-earned cash. Even worse, after years of investment, if you leave CC, you have nothing to show for the investment made other than time served.

 I spend lots of days on the road producing thousands of images a week and really hate the late nights of meeting deadlines,  .ftp transfer and back up,  there had to be something better.  After years of  Bridge, then Photo Mechanic and PS I eagerly awaited Aperture 1.  I trained at Apple on Aperture to became a trainer and didn’t look back (or sideways for that matter) for years.  Then I explored LR as many of my students were not using a Mac platform and was surprised at the differences.  The file management structure in LR seemed cumbersome, the preview situation was lacking and I couldn’t make a decent publication without going away to PS or InDesign.  The lens correction was cool but I’ve round tripped to PS on the occasional time I’ve needed to use it with no problems.  The print module is good but to be honest I don’t print that often anyway. LR is still the best thing out there if you are PC based.

………..but at the end of a six month exploration I happily returned to my Aperture workflow.  managed file structure, vaults on  duplicate drives and publishing software that is elegant yet comprehensible.  

File management is the key to my business. (20+Tb of files on drives) If I can’t find it fast, I can’t provide it to my client.  At the end of the day ( and it ends a lot earlier with Aperture) my business depends on Aperture.  Would I like to see some new changes?  Change for the sake of change never has impressed me.  I will use Aperture the way it exists today without a worry.  It blows PS and Bridge, PS and Photo Mechanic and Lightroom out of the water in ease of work flow from Import to Archive.

I think the question of how many photographers use Aperture as their digital asset manager can only be addressed anecdotally. The last actual survey, based on sampling of course, was done by Infotrends in 2009-10. Back then, even among Mac users, Lightroom had 44% of the “professional photographer” market, while Aperture had roughly 12.5%. 

My suspicion is that once Aperture was offered at the current low price on the App Store, usage levels may have increased. As to whether or not the increase can be attributed to those who identify themselves as professional photographers is anyone’s guess. 

I do think it is inaccurate to label Aperture amateur software. It’s features are relatively good. In my view, however, it has fallen behind the times. The feature set did not decrease; it’s just that additional ones included by competitors such as Lightroom and Capture One Pro have not made their way to Aperture. Additionally, I think Apple’s framework for what Aperture should do and how it does it, is a bit dated. Here are three examples of what I mean. 

1. Size of files that can be saved back to Aperture after using an external editor such as Photoshop. For some types of photography, Photoshop is the de facto standard in image editing/maniuplation. If you shoot fashion or fine art, for example, it is likely that in manipulating images, you will create layers in Photoshop that will quickly result in very large files. This becomes especially important if you’re using the Nikon D800, Sony A7r, or other very high pixel cameras. Aperture caps off the size of the file to 2 GB. This has been an issue, interestingly enough, since about 2010. But someone at Apple, in his or her infinite wisdom, continues to believe that 2 GB is enough. And it simply is not that way anymore. Just imagine, the only way to get such a file back into your Aperture library is to flatten the image and lose all prospects of modifying layers. The industry has changed. Cameras have much larger raw files. Apple has not kept up. 

2.  Ability to add multiple adjustments to a single brush. Photography has evolved. And part of that evolution (for good or bad) includes the need to brush in adjustments. Just imagine, you’ve spent a good amount of time brushing in one adjustment. Then you decided you want to brush in a second adjust to the very same area. You must start over again. You can’t make new or additional adjustments to an existing brush. Now, you can have bricks that you turn on and off or increase/decrease the strength of the original adjustment. And in some respects, this is a useful feature. But it is no real substitute for adding new adjustments to existing brushes. 

3. Correction for lens distortion. Photographers who have been using Aperture for many years (and I am one of them - I’ve been using it since 2007), have been asking for this. I suspect building a databases of lenses is not that easy. Adobe has been at it for a long time. But then Phase One’s Capture One has. DXO has it. And please do not say it happens behind the scenes. If it does, it’s the most embarrassing example of poor implementation I’ve ever seen from Apple. And like it or not, when you put a 24-70 f/2.8 on a full frame body (be it Nikon, Canon, Sony or others), there will be some distortion, especially at the shorter focal lengths. If other DAMs can correct this, what on earth has kept Apple from addressing this? 

Notwithstanding these issues, I kept on using Aperture until the 3.5 update and its constant crashes. In fact, I still have thousands of images cataloged in Aperture, so I have to keep it for archival purposes. When I must open it, I also open Activity Monitor and keep and eye on Aperture’s use of system resources - particularly memory. I can preempt crashes that way. But I do not add new projects to Aperture. Though I love how it initially renders raw images, there’s just too much required to work with Aperture right now. 

There are many for whom Aperture works well. And that’s great. Just about all of the photographers I know personally have moved on for some of the reasons I’ve stated here. They simply got tired of waiting for Apple to do something additional with the application.