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Author Topic: History Lesson  (Read 10458 times)

Schewe

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #20 on: March 20, 2017, 05:05:15 pm »

But, two things:  my view, backed up by zero evidence, is that Apple's hubris had as much to do with Aperture's demise as Adobe's efforts, and (b) Lightroom has suffered badly from a lack of serious competition.  And no, Capture One is no competition.  Not even vaguely close.

While I'll be the first to agree that Apple is brimming with hubris, Aperture's demise was as a direct result of Aperture losing marketshare to Lightroom. The reasons for this are varied but are generally related to Apple only selling a Mac version and Apple looing interest in furthering the advancement of the software. That relates to Apple being first, a hardware/computer/phone company.

And I think Lightroom has been suffering for a variety of reasons but primarily to a lack of growth in Lightroom's market. As camera sales fall and mobile apps are advancing, desktop software is declining. Actually, I do think C1 is competition but in a sideways manner. Phase One is a hardware/camera company much like Apple and C1 suffers as a result. The C1 engineers try but medium format is a declining market too.
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peterwgallagher

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #21 on: March 21, 2017, 04:06:54 am »

Thank you Jeff, for a fascinating tale (and images) about the creation of Shadowland and Lightroom.

You say that even LR's market is shrinking. I'm sorry to hear it. I've assumed LR's slow recent evolution was due to its being a mature product.

Well... but surely development will always be a part of the art of photography. A great image is an idea. A thing; not the light on the sensor.
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ButchM

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #22 on: March 21, 2017, 09:34:53 am »


Well... but surely development will always be a part of the art of photography. A great image is an idea. A thing; not the light on the sensor.

Yes and no. Those that take their photography so seriously as to avail themselves of such tools are a relative small segment of the market. This has always been so.

Now the masses carry their entire photography hardware collection right in their smart phone. Instead of dropping their film off at the one hour lab, they actually process most of their images right on that device and do so using free (or nearly free) software options to both enhance the images and curate their entire collection of images in the cloud for free. Why would they pay a monthly fee, in perpetuity, and endure the continual learning process to incorporate options like Lightroom and Photoshop and support a unwieldy, constantly expanding desktop hardware system  ... let alone, taking on the serious financial investment in DSLR gear/glass? Growth in this segment of the market is stagnant of late.

In light of the point and shoot market vaporizing, there were high hopes that emerging economies in Asia would offer the major camera makers growth in DSLR sales, but so far, the news for those folks has not been good. Instead of growth in sales, they are experiencing the exact opposite.
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JeanMichel

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #23 on: March 21, 2017, 10:26:39 am »

I just renewed my LR and PS CC subscription, I find it a small price to pay for the continuing use of someone else's intellectual property. I am happily working with the .4 version of LR CC, at some point I will click on the upgrade button, but so far I have not felt a need to do so. I also have the earlier standalone version as well as the whole CS6 suite – belt and suspenders syndrome!

I think that LR, and PS, have  now pretty much reached the limits of what is needed by any photographer. I am hard-pressed to find desired improvements, I can think of a few, but not many.

The most important part of LR is the print module. Whether or not it is the best printing module available or not is not particularly relevant, what is important is that it alone allows for the preservation of my images. At some point,sooner that we want, the technology we now use will become obsolete, our files stored on hard drives, flash drives, the 'cloud', will become unreadable since the new machines will not be able to read those files. I have quite a collection of backups on 5.25" floppies, Zip Drives, and Syquest Easy drives. None of those are readable by my new iMac, that is a lesson from fairly recent history. I hope to be able to continue to use LR for many more years, printing.

And, if any LR development team members read this forum: thank you.

Jean-Michel

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rdonson

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #24 on: March 21, 2017, 12:00:26 pm »

In light of the point and shoot market vaporizing, there were high hopes that emerging economies in Asia would offer the major camera makers growth in DSLR sales, but so far, the news for those folks has not been good. Instead of growth in sales, they are experiencing the exact opposite.

Isn't Asia where the majority of the mirrorless uptake has been?  I don't think most people see DSLRs as having much, if any, growth potential anywhere.
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Ron

ButchM

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #25 on: March 21, 2017, 01:59:43 pm »

Isn't Asia where the majority of the mirrorless uptake has been?  I don't think most people see DSLRs as having much, if any, growth potential anywhere.

What I should have referenced was RAW file capable cameras with interchangeable lenses. I was showing my age in referencing DSLR cameras specifically ... :)

While mirrorless cameras are the current popular new product du jour, the overall market has not seen any significant growth ... regardless of how we parse the indicators, the masses are not flocking to embrace RAW image processing. Even though the iPhone is now RAW capable with several third party apps, most smartphone photographers are not inclined to venture forth with RAW. Considering the overall quality of jpeg captures these devices are capable of.

Many of the folks buying mirrorless are actually transitioning from DSLR or adding them to their DSLR toolkit rather than purchasing second (or third) DSLR. The point being, mirrorless growth in the market is not going to bolster overall unit sales in a significant manner.
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rdonson

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #26 on: March 21, 2017, 04:28:35 pm »

Butch,  it seems that the market for non-mobile photography has been saturated and overall sales will remain level or decline slightly.  New purchases may be replacing old with new models or transitioning to mirrorless.

Since Wall Street demands continual profit growth that doesn't look good for us or this market.
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Ron

David Mantripp

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #27 on: March 21, 2017, 04:48:05 pm »

First, kudos to Jeff for the insiders timeline.

David, would you elaborate on the traditional editing you think should be in Lightroom but is not?  It sounds like you want a merger of PS and Lr capabilities but that seems pretty much impossible given the two almost opposite editing directions they represent (layers and parametric).

Ron, what I'm talking about are the tools which allow you to work on sets of photos, for presentation or publishing, etc.  Nothing to do with edit as in "change the exposure", rather edit as in "select and arrange a set of photos".  I'm forced here to go on (and on) about Aperture, because as far as I know it is the only application which has truly tried to seriously provide something in this direction.  So, for example, apart from the generally lauded Book tools (which really were brilliant), the little known Lightbox mode which allowed you to work on spreads and arrangements totally free-form, there was the Stacks idea that was only superficially added to Lr and C1.  In Aperture, first, you could pretty much stack anything with anything.  Since this would appear to be a natural advantage of a database-based object management system, which Lr also has, I'm pretty surprised Adobe engineers haven't tried a little harder in that area.  With Aperture stacks, you could also set an Album pick - so, you could have a photo, stacked with a monochrome version, and say a standard cropped version, add the photo to three albums, "normal", "monochrome" and "letterbox" and have the appropriate version display almost automatically.  Then there was keywording -  in Aperture, you could manage keywords! Say you'd used two keywords for the same thing, like "New York" and "NY". Drag one to the other, and Aperture would let you choose which one to keep, and merge them. 

I could go on all night.  It isn't so much that Aperture was so great, it's more that I'm frustrated that nobody else picked up on this stuff.  Maybe there is little market for it.  Of course Aperture was not world champion at the pixel peeping stuff, and new camera support could be glacial at times, but again, it was nowhere near as bad as it was said to be.  Very few of the people who criticised, say, noise removal, ever even realised that Aperture had 2-stage NR, and Stage 1 usually got left on "default".

And then finally there was the modeless UI.  I could never, ever fathom why so many people seemed to hate it.  Especially when I'm endlessly hitting G and D in Lr.....
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john beardsworth

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #28 on: March 21, 2017, 05:50:14 pm »

As I pointed out before, stacking is just different. In Aperture a photo is in a single stack that persists across the library, so that's rigid or consistent depending on your bias, while in Lightroom a photo can be in different stacks in different collections or folders. After all, just because certain photos are stacked in collection A doesn't mean I want them the same in collection B or in folder X. So Lightroom's stacking is more flexible or inconsistent, again depending on your prejudice.

Modeless UI.... Great if you want to work like a butterfly, a few keywords here, a few adjustments there, now back to keywords etc. What Lightroom has is workspaces dedicated to the tasks you're supposed to be doing, giving users a clear workflow. If people hate it, it's only because it's such an obvious feature. Know half a dozen shortcuts and it's no big deal, but you're being nudged to a more orderly workflow.

Synonyms, private keywords? Did Aperture ever have those? Any equivalent to how Lightroom's Folder panels allows you to control where your pictures are? Oh, it did have the Reorganise Masters/Originals dialog box. Now that's one UI that doesn't make one go all misty eyed! How about adjustment history - did it ever have a way of undoing work in subsequent sessions? Before and After comparison?

So yes, one can go on all night....
« Last Edit: March 22, 2017, 02:53:05 pm by john beardsworth »
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Bob Rockefeller

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #29 on: March 21, 2017, 08:28:44 pm »

Aperture is dead. I was a huge Aperture fan and didn't leave it until Apple stopped development. That's old news and doesn't help us now to point out all of Aperture's good points and set them off against Lightroom's.

The sad part, to me, is that Aperture pushed Lightroom and Lightroom pushed back. Now who's left to push Lightroom? Capture One can push on development tools, and it's even modeless, but it's DAM features are far behind Lightroom's. ON1 Photo RAW is interesting, and modal, but very immature.

Lightroom is the undisputed King of the Hill for many. I would just like to see some good competition to spur everyone ahead.
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Bob Rockefeller
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rdonson

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #30 on: March 22, 2017, 11:43:42 am »

Ron, what I'm talking about are the tools which allow you to work on sets of photos, for presentation or publishing, etc.  Nothing to do with edit as in "change the exposure", rather edit as in "select and arrange a set of photos". 

Thanks for responding, David.  I may do something similar to what you describe by using "Collections" in Lr.  Have you tried "Collections"?
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Ron

john beardsworth

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #31 on: March 22, 2017, 11:51:33 am »

Thanks for responding, David.  I may do something similar to what you describe by using "Collections" in Lr.  Have you tried "Collections"?

Custom print package is the nearest to it.
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John Cothron

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #32 on: March 22, 2017, 02:30:59 pm »

No skin in this particular game but it seems like collections would do much of what is being discussed here...either smart or normal.

For me personally the biggest issue Lr has lies with keyword handling. The hierarchy set up is great. The inability to set up a system in which you can change the order they are applied, or even to keep certain keywords from being applied depending on how or where you are exporting them is a far bigger issue.

Sure there are ui tweaks that might be nice, but taking everything into account it does a really good job except with keyword functionality.

Of course that is just my opinion, obviously others feel differently.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Bob Rockefeller

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #33 on: March 28, 2017, 02:28:52 pm »

Modeless UI.... Great if you want to work like a butterfly, a few keywords here, a few adjustments there, now back to keywords etc. What Lightroom has is workspaces dedicated to the tasks you're supposed to be doing, giving users a clear workflow. If people hate it, it's only because it's such an obvious feature. Know half a dozen shortcuts and it's no big deal, but you're being nudged to a more orderly workflow.

Yes, I do tend to "work like a butterfly;" rarely do I sit down with a freshly imported batch of images and work only on DAM things. I'll try a crop, maybe some color balance, and then want to add a keyword.

But "the tasks you're supposed to be doing" are the tasks that Lightroom wants me to be doing to fit its own version of an "orderly workflow." Not that it's a bad workflow, mind you, it's just not mine.

There's no need to discuss this further because Lightroom has been clearly more popular than Aperture, or about anything else. My approach doesn't fit well in Lightroom's mold, but that's just how it is. At least until Capture One can get its DAM, stability, and speed acts together. :)
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Bob Rockefeller
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john beardsworth

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #34 on: March 29, 2017, 04:14:04 am »

Learn a few keyboard shortcuts and you can easily flit around like a butterfly, if that is your thing.
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Hans Kruse

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #35 on: March 29, 2017, 07:09:47 am »

Who was it who said "history is written by the victors" ? Stalin ?

I totally rely on Lr as there is nothing else even close.  But it isn't, and never was, brilliant.  Whatever Schewe et al say, if it looks like a duck, etc, it's a duck.  The timeline shows clearly enough that Adobe were clearly shocked by Aperture, as well as Steve Jobs' apparent desire to destroy Adobe, and rushed out the Shadowland RAW editor prototype with a bunch of badly integrated, poorly designed, barely sufficient DAM stuff loosely bolted on to it.  It  superficially looked like Aperture, but philosophically it was nothing like it - almost the reverse actually, since Aperture's weakest points were in its RAW processing tools.  Then, Adobe's awesome marketing machine kicked into overdrive, brilliantly leveraged the egos of a bunch of "influencers" (remember the Adobe Lightroom Iceland Adventure ?)  and wiped the carpet with Apple.

Apple did not help itself with the launching price of Aperture 1.0, or indeed its insane minimum hardware specification, but that was all pure Steve Jobs downside.  Aperture 1.5 was far better, 2.0 blew past Lightroom, 3.0 was better still, and then the wind went out of its sails.

Adobe's marketing efforts and far, far better engagement with the market won the day.  Lightroom today is excellent in a some aspects, adequate in others, and absolutely dreadful in quite a lot, but it has no substantial competition.  So, sadly, it will probably never really improve beyond being Camera Raw glued on to Bridge Lite with a thick coating of glossy lipstick.

If Apple had made Aperture cross platform it might have turned at quite different.

Bob Rockefeller

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #36 on: March 29, 2017, 07:23:01 am »

Learn a few keyboard shortcuts and you can easily flit around like a butterfly, if that is your thing.

Perhaps. But in my attempts to do so, I am stymied by the lag in switching from Library to Develop and the huge visual context swtich of the entire interface around my point of visual focus.

It doesn't really matter. This is a battle of mine long ago lost.
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Bob Rockefeller
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Bob Rockefeller

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #37 on: March 29, 2017, 07:24:58 am »

I totally rely on Lr as there is nothing else even close.

Don't give up hope. :) Give the Capture One Pro 30-day trial a workout; I think you'll find a lot there for an old Aperture user to like.
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Bob Rockefeller
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john beardsworth

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Re: History Lesson
« Reply #38 on: March 29, 2017, 01:02:36 pm »

Perhaps. But in my attempts to do so, I am stymied by the lag in switching from Library to Develop and the huge visual context swtich of the entire interface around my point of visual focus.

The interface switches to a workspace designed for the task you've chosen to perform. Lag is minimal anyway, certainly after the first time.
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