OS X 10.10.3 was released today, and with it Apple’s new Photos app. I’ve already made my move to Adobe Lightroom, but for folks who are on the fence about how to handle the demise of Aperture/iPhoto it’s a big day. In order to test out Photos I migrated my old Aperture library over to Photos and played around a bit. My thoughts are below.

The need for speed

At first I wasn’t all that impressed with the speed of the app. This came as a shock, as that’s what most pre-release reviews touted as a big selling point. When I first got into the app I experienced a lot of “press and wait” as different features activated. When I went back to the app after returning from dinner, however, the speed issues seem to have resolved themselves. There must have been some heavy lifting going on under the hood even after the library was migrated. Some indication of this would have been nice, but oh well. Since I’ve returned app is wonderfully responsive.

It’s in there

There are some powerful developing features in the app, but they are hidden underneath an already-hidden reveal arrow. I guess this is good for most novice users, but it was a bit annoying to have to dig for them. Thankfully, once the more advanced features are exposed, the app will remember that you wanted them out in future sessions. That’s fine, and the basic features handle a lot of the advanced stuff without needing to show users the kitchen sink. As someone who was first taken aback by the overload of settings in Lightroom I can appreciate Apple’s impulse here, even if it was a tiny nuisance .

Fine Tuning Maddness

Making fine-tune adjustments was a pain. I wanted to compare a Lightroom-developed image with one developed in the Photos app, so I tried to manually type-in adjustment values in Photos. While it is possible to click on the adjustment bars and enter a value, I never quite figured out where to click in order to activate manual entry. Mostly, whenever I clicked the value advanced the slider to my current cursor position. There is probably a simple trick to this, but I naturally want to double-click on the slider to get into manual mode. When it didn’t work I became a tad bit frustrated.

The User Interface

The UI is hit and miss – mostly it’s a hit. The crop & rotate is really cool. Again, I like being able to enter manual values and in my quick test I didn’t figure out how to do it. Still, it’s very nice – and it’s the the type of detail which is evident throughout the app ¹. I also appreciate the ability to hide/show the split-view and sidebar views. When they are needed they are fantastic, and when they aren’t needed they fade away and allow screen real-estate to shine. Unfortunately, Apple chose to make the information view into a floating window, which I cannot stand. Photo information isn’t a view that is referenced and then closed, it’s really helpful to have open all the time, and now it gets in the way. This should have been a dockable view by default.

Adjust the glass?

One of the biggest selling points in Lightroom is, for me, the ability to apply specific lens corrections to my photos. Aperture had an automatic feature which handled something similar, but I don’t think it worked quite as well. When I compare the same image in Lightroom and Photoshop it looks like there aren’t any lens corrections being applied to my photos. I could be wrong, I hope I’m wrong, but it appears this feature is missing. Professional photographers and hobbyists will certainly miss this.

Photos in the Cloud

I do not have iCloud photos turned on, so I can’t convey what this feature is like. The idea of having my entire photo library available to me, with adjustments applied, everywhere is appealing. Unfortunately, my library is so large I’d have to be on the 1TB plan for $19.99/month if I want to use iCloud Photos. That, plus that fact that more and more I find myself setting up personal cloud solutions instead of relying on commercial ones, is keeping me from activating it. I’d love to hear from someone who is using this feature, though. A similar concept called “Lightroom Mobile” is one of my favorite things about Lightroom.

My recommendations

The photos app is not the disaster that people were afraid of ². This is good, as Apple really couldn’t have afforded to put out a train-wreck. Photos is smooth, has some decent features, and a mostly excellent UI. In my limited exposure with the app I already like it better than I ever enjoyed iPhoto. Your migration to Photos will largely depend on your photography workflow.

Point and Shoot & iPhotographers

If you’re point and shoot or smartphone photographer photos will into your workflow extremely well. There’s no reason to not migrate to Photos. Just do it.

Novice Hobbyists

If you just got an entry-level DSLR and are just figuring out this photography thing, then Photos will more than likely handle your needs. I’m still wondering about the apparent lack of lens corrections, but most people won’t really notice. If you don’t shoot RAW then there certainly is no reason not to migrate to Photos.

Professionals and Other Hobbyists

The frustration I felt applying manual adjustments, combined with the lens correction omission, will probably give more advanced photographers a bit of a headache. Photos is good, and I’d even say it’s approaching a prosumer-level tool with all it’s hidden features, but the power of Aperture just isn’t quite there at present. The good news is, photographers who don’t want to migrate to anything else right now may continue to use Aperture for the near-future. Given Apple’s recent track-record, the Photos app is almost certainly going to have it’s features expanded in upcoming releases. Still, it can be difficult to continue using an older tool hoping it’s replacement will become as capable.