Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
RAW Power 3 will maintain its file browser feature set, and add the ability to browse Apple Photos Libraries as well. Ratings and flags will be stored in a small database, but I plan to add an export function to save the data out to a XMP file or something like that. I think it’s fine to use Photos as a repository for the whole library, with iCloud Photos. It does incur a monthly cost (I have a 1TB plan), with the associated benefits that come with a cloud-based library. I don’t think it’s clunky – the basic idea is quite seamless. I think if one manages multiple storage locations (file system + a library with exported JPEGs, etc), then it gets complicated quite quickly.
RAW Power 3.0 will be a front-end for the Photos library, but there are a lot of limitations imposed by Apple. For example:
1) There is no ability to read or write keywords, or any metadata except “favorites” and creation date
2) Aperture adjustment data is not readable, because it will have been converted before RAW Power could read it.I plan to add ratings and flags to the Photos library, though it’s crazy what I have to do to get it to work.
Some restrictions may be relaxed in the future (like keywords). I am pretty sure the adjustment data is a lost cause once it is in Photos, though.
The feature set for RAW Power 3 is continuing to fluctuate, but I will share it once I feel that it’s stable enough to not disappoint people if I have to pull something important to get a stable release out to people.
I have not considered the idea of migrating LR data to RAW Power (or to Photos, then readable by RAW Power), but it is conceivable. As usual, the problem with moving data from LR or Aperture to RAW Power is that RAW Power (or Photos) is simply not as mature a product as either LR or Aperture. RAW Power cannot represent all of the data that those apps store. I’ll have to think about it.
My main archive is still in Aperture (running El Capitan on a pre-retina iMac 27″!)
I have been meaning to write something describing the options people have. Until then, here is a brief look at them.1) Move the Aperture library to Photos. The adjustment data will be discarded, but it will generate full-size previews, so your images will appear correct. Any subsequent edits will be made to the preview, or you have to Revert to Original. Note that Photos does have a Duplicate command, so it should be possible to duplicate, revert the duplicated image and edit the duplicate image without disturbing the Aperture edit. Most metadata will be moved, but not all (e.g, some custom metadata isn’t moved, ratings become keywords and some other odd transformations I can’t recall at the moment). While older versions of Photos did a much better job of preserving Aperture data, later versions take the migrated data and migrate it again, discarding the relevant Aperture data (that is my understanding, I am not 100% sure).
2) Use the LR importer. This will bring some of the metadata (I believe ratings and keywords are preserved properly). Edits are not preserved at all, so you would need to export your edited images (you can search for images that have adjustments, so you don’t have export every image) and import them into LR. This is quite clunky, of course. You could stack the exported images with the originals, to approximate what Photos is doing.
3) Use Capture One’s importer which I have no experience with, but it tries to import some of the Aperture adjustments.
When you export images in Aperture, the metadata is stored in the exported file. Aperture can also export an XMP sidecar.
RAW Power 3.0 will be a front-end for the Photos library, but there are a lot of limitations imposed by Apple. For example:
1) There is no ability to read or write keywords, or any metadata except “favorites” and creation date
2) Aperture adjustment data is not readable, because it will have been converted before RAW Power could read it.I plan to add ratings and flags to the Photos library, though it’s crazy what I have to do to get it to work.
Some restrictions may be relaxed in the future (like keywords). I am pretty sure the adjustment data is a lost cause once it is in Photos, though.
Re: a conversion program. I appreciate your desire for such a thing. There are a few options, which are not great:
1) Convert Aperture adjustments that also exist in Photos so that things are non-destructive in Photos. This is a very small set. Even Exposure doesn’t technically exist in Photos (it’s part of the Light adjustment, which isn’t the same thing)2) Convert Aperture adjustments into RAW Power adjustments. This is a larger set, but Aperture has way more adjustments than RAW Power, including brushing which I’m still working on.
I sometimes think about writing #2, but I’m so buried with work, it’s hard to imagine how to carve out the time necessary to do a good job with it.
If you have a late 2015 model, then you have a “Display P3” screen. In that case you can set it to Display P3. Display P3 is different from Cinema (or regular) P3 because its white point is different.
The advantage of setting it to sRGB is that you can view images the way that people with sRGB displays would see them (which is most of the world). AdobeRGB and P3 are about the same size, but each has colors the other doesn’t have (basically if you rotate AdobeRGB, you get P3 and vice-versa). Setting your display to AdobeRGB will clip colors on your display, but not let you preview images as a AdobeRGB monitor might show them.
Photos does not support the richness of Aperture’s smart albums, so not everything gets propagated to Photos. That has been true from day 1 of Photos, unfortunately.
You’re welcome. I’m still wrapping my head around this discovery about the conversion from Aperture to Photos. When I have something, I’ll write up a post or article with the plan for my own Aperture library…
Hi Erik,
How Apple treats Aperture adjustments changes with each release (I did not know this until yesterday – I assumed they had some conversion code and left it at that). In Mojave, Aperture edits are considered external edits. I do not know if Aperture adjustment data is stored in the library for future use, or if they just store a placeholder that says “nothing to see here – external editor was used”
I ran two tests today. One with half-sized Aperture previews and full-size previews. With half-sized previews, the images came through upgrade with NOTHING at all. The images were treated as unadjusted. With full-size previews, the JPEG appears. Attention: people who are upgrading their Aperture libraries in Catalina – make sure you have your previews set to “No Limit” [aka full-size] and ALSO rebuild all of your previews (changing the preview preference in Aperture affects future previews, not existing ones).
(If you already upgraded in an earlier release, you have already have full-size previews)
While this does serve as a warning for people, any time you have data in an application, you are at risk of losing it. This is true of RAW Power as well – if the app stops working for some reason, then you would not have access to the adjustment data either. Apps can conceivably document their adjustment formats, but someone still needs write a very good converter.
I edited my reply, but I see that notifications don’t always go out for those. So, I’m going to paste that edit here:
In the past, Photos did a really good job of converting Aperture adjustments (and rendering them faithfully and non-destructively). That has changed. I have run some tests with Mojave and Catalina beta and have found that, for the most part, Aperture adjustments are no longer converted. Instead, Aperture edits are generally treated as foreign data made by an external editor. In a few cases, Photos will convert the data (e.g., if there is only crop or a few other adjustments). In most cases, Photos simply creates (or reuses) a JPEG preview to represent the Aperture adjustments. Any further edits are made to the JPEG, not to the original (unless you revert to original). In some cases, the adjustment data is completely discarded, and you just get an unadjusted image. Whoa.
This is definitely a lot worse. On top of that, if you used a Photos on an older OS to convert (a version of Photos that did a better job), once you move to Mojave or Catalina, you get the new behavior. I’m still wrapping my head around what it all means, but I do know that it is really bad news for people, like me, hoping to move to finally move from Aperture to Photos.
(Edit: I have been looking more into the way Photos handles Aperture data)
Thanks for letting us know. I think it’s good that people will have multiple choices for moving off of Aperture. It looks like C1 has done a decent job of migrating data, though they have the same problems moving adjustments over that everyone else does (they move some global adjustments but they say the conversion is only an “approximation”).
In the past, Photos did a really good job of converting Aperture adjustments (and rendering them faithfully and non-destructively). That has changed. I have run some tests with Mojave and Catalina beta and have found that, for the most part, Aperture adjustments are no longer converted. Instead, Aperture edits are generally treated as foreign data made by an external editor. In a few cases, Photos will convert the data (e.g., if there is only crop or a few other adjustments). In most cases, Photos simply creates (or reuses) a JPEG preview to represent the Aperture adjustments. Any further edits are made to the JPEG, not to the original (unless you revert to original). In some cases, the adjustment data is completely discarded, and you just get an unadjusted image. Whoa.
This is definitely a lot worse. On top of that, if you used a Photos on an older OS to convert (a version of Photos that did a better job), once you move to Mojave or Catalina, you get the new behavior. I’m still wrapping my head around what it all means, but I do know that it is really bad news for people, like me, hoping to move to finally move from Aperture to Photos.
Hi Erik,
Using ExifTool to add a GPS location: no effect
Renaming the directory in which the image files are located: no effect
Moving the image files to a different directory: no effect
Using ExifTool to change the file creation date to the image capture date: yes, can affect itRAW Power uses the following information to create its “signature” that it uses to connect a photo with the sidecar. These are the components of the signature (this all changes in 3.0):
Filename (but not directory)
EXIF data: “PixelWidth”, “PixelHeight”, “Depth”, “DateTimeDigitized”, @”DateTimeOriginal”, “Make”, “Model”, “Orientation”So if you change any of these properties in EXIF, it will alter the signature and the app will not be able to match the files.
In 3.0, the signature is based on the file name, the ‘inode’ which is the unique ID on the disk, and file system creation time (not EXIF). 3.0 will track a file as it moves on the disk, but not across disks (2.0 tracks across disks, but I have decided this is not as desirable as I first thought).
Aperture has remarkably powerful file management features which have yet to be duplicated.
There really isn’t a good way to convert Aperture adjustments to another editing system. LR doesn’t do it, nor does anyone else really.
There is a company that is working on a translator for a wide range of applications and attempt to convert a subset of adjustments (cyme.io), but I have not tried their beta so I cannot speak to it at all.Another customer was asking me a question over email with respect to referenced files. I thought I would include some information here because Photos handles referenced files differently from Aperture (basically, it’s identical to iPhoto):
– Photos supports images located on external drives (mixed with ones on the drive holding the photo library itself).
– These externally located files are called “referenced files”
– Thus, you can store the library on the internal drive, but store as many of the original files on the external drive.
– The edit information and full-size JPEGs are stored on the internal drive with the library.
– Albums and folders can include referenced files.
– The only time you would need the external drive is when you are editing an image.
– Referenced files are not uploaded to iCloud Photo library
– Photos cannot move a file from the internal location to an external location, nor can it move it from one external location to another.
– this is a problem if you run out of space on your external drive and want to relocate all the files to a new, larger drive.That last point is the most important one – you cannot move files around as you could with Aperture.
I ran a small test with a Catalina beta and found that referenced libraries are still supported, and RAW Power was able to see the images in that library. So, you should be able to convert each library with Photos and use them with RAW Power 3.0.
However, Photos only allows a single library to be viewed at a time – you switch it with Photos itself, and referenced libraries are not supported with iCloud Photo Library.
–Nik
I try to maintain compatibility with two versions of macOS for a given version of RAW Power.
So, RAW Power 3.0 will run on Mojave and Catalina, but not High Sierra. At some point, RAW Power only run on Catalina and Catalina + 1.
However, note that features like Photos library support are only available on Catalina, so you would not be able to use that when running RAW Power 3 on Mojave.
