Organizing Photos from Apple Aperture User

[judytraveler]

I've been using the Apple Aperture program and since it is no longer supported by Apple I am looking at other editing programs and came across Affinity which looks ideal to me.  I have not upgraded to El Capitan since I am not interested in using the new Apple program "photos" and I don't want to lose my  Aperture libraries.   Will Affinity be introducing a catalog or library filing program similar to Aperture?  In the meantime what would be the best and quickest way to download my photos into my Mac so I can start

using Affinity?

 

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you.

[MEB]

Hi judytraveler,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

You can continue to use Aperture and set it up tp send the images to Affinity for editing.

You have two options here: right-click on an image in Aperture and select Export ▸ Original... to export the RAW file to a folder and then open it Affinity Photo or set Affinity Photo as an External Photo Editor in Aperture ▸ Preferences..., Export tab (on top). This last option lets you send the images as PSD or TIFF (both 8 and 16 bits) but you have to export them from Affinity as flattened Tiff's because Affinity Photo doesn't support layered Tiff's yet (coming soon).

We don't overwrite PSD's by design (meaning Aperture can't keep track of the edited image after you save it since Photo will only allow you to save it in Photo's native format .afphoto) so this option will not work with Affinity Photo. 

 

We already announced our DAM (digital assets managements software) solution for later.

[judytraveler]

Thank you and I am very much looking forward to the DAM software solution that you mentioned.

[DiederikvdS]

Any news on the DAM already? (it's 2019 now)

I am about to have to stop using Aperture and really convert my workstreams to working with Affinity Photo. However, Photo Library Management is the real show stopper still...

[PLT]

Similar to Judy, I would like to switch over from Aperture to Affinity but need a new library for Mac.  I adore Aperture but it is currently on its deathbed on my computer and loads are limited so I would like to scrap it all together.  Can you recommend a categorized library that is close to Aperture's and works with Affinity?

 

[v_kyr]

There are a bunch of tools on the market, some are for cataloging, some for browsing, converting and previewing, others are RAW converters with DAM like enhancements etc. So it depends on individual needs and preferences here and what in your own specific sense comes close from these to Aperture. - In terms of "work with Affinity" most will allow to open Affinity with some past over files, but not all may make use of the Macs QuickView capabilities to show up a preview of Affinity's own file formats.

• XNViewMP
• Picktorial
• digiKam
• Mylio
• RAW Power macOS
• Pixave
• ... and so on ...

[DSDowell]

The current Mac OS, Catalina, is 64 bit.

Aperture is 32 bit and won't run on Catalina.

So, if you want to move to Catalina, you have to work out how to replace Aperture.

Which, I'm finding, for DAM, isn't easy

[EddCh]

FWIW

I have been a long time Aperture user with a library in excess of 300K images and have been looking for a suitable replacement since 2014 – but, so far, without success. For me, the main problem has been, and still is, Aperture's strength in image organisation, keywords and metadata. Throw in Aperture's unique and brilliant Light Table function (for brainstorming) as well and it has been a pretty hopeless search. So far I have tried On1 Photo RAW, Capture One Pro, Luminar, Darktable, Lyn, Unbound, Mylio and Digikam. Despite the problems, I have invested in Capture One Pro primarily for its RAW image editing, tethered shooting and the hope that its image management capabilities will at least be passable. Unfortunately, compared to Aperture, its image management features are far less capable.

However, I have found that Aperture is still very usable on my three Macs (running macOS Mojave) so will likely continue to wait and see if anything else can fill Aperture's role. In the meantime C1P will process my RAW files and light batch editing, Aperture will continue to manage my image library and AP will do the heavy editing. The Affinity suite of apps already does all my pro work except for RAW processing and image management, so I would dearly love there to be an image/asset management capability from Affinity.