Bildhuus Aspect
Some former Nik Software people are building a new tool for managing photo libraries. It’s called Aspect. I’m a sucker for any photo-related software, so I installed the beta and spent yesterday testing it. I took some notes after using it for a day.
First impressions were good. I like the ideas behind Aspect. It relies on the underlying file system, so it’s reasonably transparent. It organizes things for me based on dates and events. I can control the structure. I can even change it later, and Aspect will move things around to match.
There are collections and smart collections. There are metadata filters for labels and ratings. All table stakes so far.
Where I think Aspect becomes interesting is in how it manages photos and can synchronize between devices, without relying on a cloud service.
[…]
Aspect is not a photo editor or RAW processor, so I need to open the files with an external editor.
Reaching one of our most important goals, we are introducing two companion apps for iOS and Android that enable the synchronization of photos taken on the mobile phone with an Aspect library on the desktop.
[…]
The iOS app on the other hand is actually a full version of Aspect hidden under a very simple user interface and uses the peer-to-peer library synchronization of Aspect. The photos contained in the Apple Photos library will automatically be imported into the Aspect library and will then be transferred to the desktop app as part of the regular library synchronization process.
But just because we use high quality equipment doesn’t mean that we cannot have a good multi-device experience. Our peer-to-peer synchronization technology keeps your library accessible on all devices, without having to rely on cloud storage.
[…]
Aspect’s collections combine the best of albums, tags, color labels, star ratings and folder hierarchies into a single clear concept. They are blazingly fast to use, have smart preview modes to show contained photos, and are readily accessible from every context.
There’s a free version with fewer features. The Pro version costs $109 while in beta and then will increase to $169.
Previously:
- Lightroom Classic 14.5
- Google Lays Off Python Team
- Nitro 2024.1
- Immich
- Photomator for Mac
- Peakto 1.5
- RAW Power 3.4
- Photos Workbench 1.0
- PowerPhotos 2.0
- Aperture, Capture One, and Lightroom Walk Into a Bar
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If you haven’t tried Mylio yet, I highly recommend it. Aspect reminds me of what Mylio was like about a decade ago, but Mylio has evolved significantly since then. Its DeDup feature is particularly handy. I use it to manage over 200,000 photos, and it still performs impressively fast.
The interface seems to be built with SDL. Looks much more abiding of usability concepts for a powerful tool than the “Mac-assed Mac apps” of the past ten years to me.
Michael, do you visit Jack Baty's site often? I've been visiting it for years and it is quite interesting to watch him move from system to system for generating websites and managing his notes.
