Today marks the beginning of our transition from “ApertureExpert” to “The Photos Expert”. The changes will be subtle at first, building up over time as the Photos apps mature.

Does this mean Aperture training will go away? No, not at all. The Live Training will even continue for Aperture. However, as Apple transitions from one platform to another, so shall we.

Something pretty. Sparks Lake near Bend, Oregon. Not processed in Aperture. Or Photos. Whatchagonnado…

Some questions, some answers

I know there will be a lot of questions about this transition, such as “what?!”, and “why?!”, and other W words. I've aimed to answer most of them on the new Welcome page, which I encourage you to read. I'd like to take this newsletter to tell you what's new, and what's coming.

I know some will ask “why now” though, so let me answer that briefly… today, Sept. 17, 2014 is the day iOS 8 launched, which includes the first new Photos app. This site will support Photos for both iOS and OS X, so it's time to begin. That's all there is to it.

What's new, what's coming

First, you'll notice a few cosmetic changes.

• Shorter landing page photo, which now scales and crops dynamically as the window resizes, taking up less space on small screens. This image is currently a static photo, but we are working on a system where users can submit photos for consideration.
• New “welcome” page link on landing page, explaining the transition, as well as the reason for Apple's move from Aperture to Photos, along with advice to help you decide what you should do.
• New colors and graphic format for the four landing page tiles.
• The background shades of gray have been updated to match the look of Photos for OS X.
• Two new discussion forums, Photos for iOS and Photos for OS X have been added to the Forum page.
• By now @ApertureExpert on twitter should have migrated to @ThePhotosExpert. No need to re-follow; it'll just happen.
• Your login has not changed.
• …and a few other little things.

Here's a few things coming up between now and the end of the year…

• A German language version of the site. We're still sorting out exactly how this will work, but original content will be created in German, which will be localized to English, and vice-versa. There will be German forums, videos, and live training as well. If you speak German, head over to ThePhotosExpert.de to sign up to be notified of the launch.
• A new podcast is in the works which I will host, focusing on photo apps — not just Photos apps, but any and all photo related apps on any platform will be fair game. This will be a great companion to the website.
• We will be taking on site sponsors. Sponsorship will come in the form of banners (where the house ads run now), sponsored posts/reviews, and podcast sponsorship. I hesitate to call this advertising because it will be very, very specific. The only sponsors accepted will be those creating apps for the Photos ecosystem (“extension” apps). If you're a developer and working on a new app, or a revision of an app that will plug into Photos using Apple's new PhotoKit, then you qualify. We will not accept any sponsor whose app we don't believe in. If you see it here, you know it comes with The Photos Expert's endorsement. The sponsored posts/reviews will be exceedingly clear that these are paid articles, and again we will only write these for apps or services that we believe our readers should consider. If you're interested in sponsorship, please contact Joseph at sponsorship@ThePhotosExpert.com.

The growth and changes to the site are being done to ensure its survival. The fact is that while there will be more Photos users than there ever were Aperture users, and traffic to this site could grow exponentially, sales of training will continue to drop, and the quantity of training products to sell will drop. Photos for iOS will unlikely merit any paid training, and Photos v1 will certainly not require the extent of training that Aperture did. So with an expected dramatic increase in traffic yet decrease in sales revenue, the business model has to change.

I hope you enjoy the transition, and I welcome any and all feedback!