December 20, 2015

Switching to Adobe

It had to happen sometime. Early in 2015 Apple let us know that our beloved Aperture would no longer be updated or supported going forward. I was so happy with the Aperture and iMac combo, but had to make a decision - keep using Aperture as it slowly became obsolete, or take the plunge and start over with the Adobe Suite.

Rather than wait, I took the plunge. $9.99/mo is more than I care to spend (Aperture was $80 when I got it) and I was satisfied with On1's Perfect Photo Suite for the more complex editing Aperture couldn't do. But Lr/Ps is the standard, there's tons of support and learning content on it, and it's always kept up to date and upgraded free on this plan. So Adobe it was.

Since July 2015, I've been adapting. On and off over months, I moved 17,000 images from the old library to a pristine new one, cleaning out dupes, organizing better, and keyboarding many as I went. I'm actually glad now for that. My collection has never been in better shape.

Lightroom is fantastic, too. It was pretty easy to get the hang of it. It's got a nice mobile syncing feature and also syncs with my SmugMug site well. So I'm definitely happy I made the switch. Now for the winter of 2015/16, I'll be using Lr to help me overhaul my online presence. You'll see a better web site layout and certainly many more images. Time to move forward!