Category: Announcements

Apple just announced that they will stop development on Aperture and instead concentrate their efforts on the new Photos app, which will also replace iPhoto. On the one hand it makes sense to consolidate efforts, on the other hand losing Aperture makes me sad.

I have been a Lightroom user from day one, actually from the first beta. I know Lightroom in and out and whenever I used Aperture it felt a bit foreign. My connection with Lightroom goes so far that I have released several video workshops to make it easy for beginners to get up to speed with Lightroom.

But still, monopolies are bad and competition is good for product quality. Competition is what keeps both, Apple and Adobe on their toes. So I really hope the new Photos app that Apple announced on the 2014 WWDC keynote will be a worthy successor to Aperture that has the potential to keep Lightroom in check.

Still, Aperture will not disappear from your computer right away. It won’t evolve any further, but according to TechCrunch “Apple says that it will provide compatibility updates to Aperture that allow it to run on OS X Yosemite”. And Adobe announced that they will provide a migration path for users who want to switch.

In the meantime, if you are an Aperture user who is now searching for a new home, let me point you to two products that I made and that I’m very proud of:

• Discover Lightroom – a Lightroom video workshop that takes you from the first steps to proficiency. Over six hours of DRM-free 720p HD video.
  DRM-free H.264 (watch free sample videos)
• 1 Hour 1000 Pics – Supercharge your Lightroom Workflow – how much is your time worth? This highly rated ebook (and free audiobook!) explore and explain why a solid workflow is key and then provides you to the point with a fail-safe method that allows you to quickly boil down that pile of images to the essence, to your very best photos

Both sites give you a ton of free demo content to help you decide.

Kathmandu is a special place, both during daytime and at night. Not just for tourists, but especially for photographers. And if the opportunity arises to do some Kathmandu night street photography, Chris is right on the ball. This opportunity came up around the Boudanath Stupha, when the 2014 Everest Trek group stayed for an additional night in Kathmandu before taking off to Lukla airport in the mountains. It’s amazing how busy the streets can be after dark. You can buy anything, from butter lamps to meat, from incense to Fanta. And of course the ubiquitous Tiger Balm. Our hotel was just a few minutes away from the market that surrounds the big stupha, so we snuck out to see what the night life in this part of town had to offer. And Kathmandu didn’t disappoint, especially when it came to street photography. The merchants had their shops open, each one specialized in their own field.

By the way, there are no street lights, so after dark all that illuminates the roads is the light from the shops, which makes street photography even more interesting and a bit of an exposure challenge. The shops light the streets even when there’s a power outage – which does happen on a daily basis. The shops then simply bring out their own little generators.

» view more Kathmandu night street shots

It’s finally here! 6.5 hours (!) of DRM-free HD 720p video that works on almost any device and that covers almost everything that’s there to know about Lightroom. Comes with demo files, so you can try everything that you see in the video with the same files Chris uses.

What’s best: watch over half an hour of free previews – and you choose the price!