Skylum Is Shutting Down Aperty
Skylum has decided to shut down its AI portrait editor Aperty this week, less than two years after launching it with the promise of five years of updates. The company says Aperty will officially close on November 4, although people who already own the software will still be able to use it. What they won’t be getting are any further updates. That is particularly frustrating considering lifetime licenses sold for around $250, with those five years of continued development being part of the original offer. The last Aperty update arrived back in March, following another in January.
Skylum says the decision was made so it can put more of its resources into Luminar, its main photo-editing software. Some of Aperty’s portrait-editing technology has already made its way into Luminar, and Skylum says it plans to develop those tools further there. But there does not appear to be any special upgrade path or discount for people who bought Aperty. There were actually signs that something was happening back in September, when Aperty suddenly became unavailable to purchase and its standalone Instagram account disappeared. At the time, Skylum said more information about the product would be coming in the following weeks.
Unsurprisingly, the reaction from existing users has been pretty negative, and the comments online show just how much trust Skylum seems to have lost with some of its customers. Several people say they have been through similar situations with previous Skylum products and simply won’t buy anything from the company again, while others describe buying “lifetime” licenses only to see the software replaced or abandoned later. Some are also questioning whether Luminar could eventually face the same fate, while others say they have moved back to alternatives such as Lightroom simply because they feel more confident the software will continue to be supported.
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