Adobe 'committed to helping' Aperture customers migrate to Lightroom after Apple announcement

Following Friday's announcement that Apple would discontinue both iPhoto and Aperture in favor of OS X Yosemite's new Photos app, software giant Adobe chimed in to tout its "rich roadmap" for Lightroom — Aperture's main competitor — and to reiterate the company's commitment to Apple-based photographers.

"Put simply we're doubling down on our investments in Lightroom and the new Creative Cloud Photography plan and you can expect to see a rich roadmap of rapid innovation for desktop, web and device workflows in the coming weeks, months and years," Adobe digital imaging executive Winston Hendrickson said in a blog post. Lightroom, which first saw stable release in 2007, has sapped a number of former Aperture users in recent years as Apple's offering seemed near-abandoned.

Lightroom is available as part of Adobe's Creative Cloud Photography subscription program, which gives users access to the latest versions of Lightroom and Photoshop CC for $9.99 per month. That will represent a steep step up in cost for Aperture users, who have been able to purchase recent copies of the software for just $79.99.

"We also continue to invest actively on the iOS and OSX platforms, and are committed to helping interested iPhoto and Aperture customers migrate to our rich solution across desktop, device and web workflows," Hendrickson added. The company later said that they are working on ways for Aperture users to import their libraries to Lightroom, but provided no further details.

Apple announced Aperture's sunset earlier Friday with a brief statement.

"With the introduction of the new Photos app and iCloud Photo Library, enabling you to safely store all of your photos in iCloud and access them from anywhere, there will be no new development of Aperture," Apple said. "When Photos for OS X ships next year, users will be able to migrate their existing Aperture libraries to Photos for OS X."