Get started with Lightroom
Looking for an Aperture replacement? Here we introduce Adobe’s offering
Aperture is dead. The app might still run for now, but there will be no updates, and its stability on future versions of OS X isn’t guaranteed. Until we know more details about Apple’s new Photos app, the first name that springs to mind when thinking of Aperture replacements is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.
Lightroom can be bought as a standalone app for around £100. However, what Adobe would really like for you to do is sign up for its Creative Cloud Photography Program, which gets you both Lightroom and a full copy of Photoshop CC for £9 a month. This isn’t that bad a deal; it’ll be almost 18 months before you start paying more than you would have for the standalone Lightroom and cut-down Photoshop Elements apps (here you get fullstrength Photoshop), during which time new versions of each probably will have been released – meaning more cost if you wanted to upgrade. Signing up to Creative Cloud means you get the updates without spending extra, and nets you 20GB of cloud storage, too.
It does mean, however, that if you stop paying, the apps stop working. If
Signing up to Creative Cloud means you get upgrades without spending extra
you just want to try it out, Lightroom is available as a 30-day trial from adobe.com/uk/products/photoshoplightroom.html along with the rest of the Creative Cloud apps. You need to be online to install, and have to sign in every 30 days to validate your membership, but otherwise your apps should run perfectly well offline. The apps can also be installed on two computers (Mac or PC).
Once you’ve got it installed (we liked the installer that downloads just to download and install another installer) you’ll notice some differences between it and Aperture, if you’re used to the latter. The interface is darker, although this can be changed in the preferences, and is split into a series of modules in contrast to Aperture’s all-in-one window.