Aperture vs. Lightroom

[evan]

I've been searching the forums and read a lot of initial impressions of version 3 of both programs, but how does everyone like the programs after using them for several months?

Over the past semester I've taken a semi-photography class and have really started to get more serious about my "taking pictures," and want something a bit more robust than iPhoto for my post-processing needs. I'm completely new to both of these problems so I really don't know what I need to know to look for in them (if that makes sense :)), but here are some things that I would imagine would be important.

-robustness/speed of the program itself. Will it crash? Does it hang up often? I'm not too worried about it right now because my main machine for images is my Core i7 iMac, but I may move some lighter work while away from my desk to a macbook air (if I can ever sell my mbp...) that could fall into installing aperture/lightroom on that machine. For example I won't have access to my iMac for all of christmas break but will be taking LOTS of pictures (family vacation and road trip to vegas are both on the agenda), so the efficiency and reliability of the program will come into play more in a mobile scenario. Plus I take a lot of bad pictures (;)) so being able to quickly delete all the bad ones is a plus.

EDIT:: considering I'll likely be using it on my laptop over the holidays then my iMac in january, how easy is it to swap between computers? I imagine just a one time move would be easy with either program, but would one of them support working on the same library on two different computers relatively easily?

-compatibility with photoshop. How easy is it to take a picture from one of these programs, do some heavy lifting in photoshop, then get it back into the program. Is it easy to keep the original RAW photo and the edited version without over-cluttering the library?

-library management. My iPhoto is currently a huge clusterfuck as a result of over five years of pictures from different cameras, computers, and versions of the program... and I want to make sure that doesn't happen again. I'll only be using aperture/lightroom for my DSLR images so I'm not worried about backward compatibility, but I take a lot of pictures and want to know that there's an efficient way to handle them.

-features? Not really sure what I need here having never used anything other than iPhoto and Photoshop. At what point do you stay in aperture/lightroom for your workflow and when do you bring out the big guns? What are each programs' strengths and weaknesses concerning their image correction capabilities. For the amateur photographer which one gets me on my way faster with great-looking photos?

I'm not too concerned with price because I can get baller student pricing through my bookstore for either one.

sooo.... yeah, that's about it. Any other info about the programs would be greatly appreciated in addition to more directed discussion :)


and as an aside... is CS5 worth the upgrade from CS4?

[Dorian Gray]

I've been searching the forums and read a lot of initial impressions of version 3 of both programs, but how does everyone like the programs after using them for several months?
I bought Aperture 3 and think it's fantastic, though I'm cautious about recommending it to others since it does have some weak points.

-robustness/speed of the program itself. Will it crash? Does it hang up often? I'm not too worried about it right now because my main machine for images is my Core i7 iMac, but I may move some lighter work while away from my desk to a macbook air
Both of them are very stable now, but Aperture 3 is significantly slower for most things, even after the latest updates. There's no denying that Adobe spent more effort optimising performance. At first I thought maybe Aperture was doing more complicated stuff, doing it better, or doing it more elegantly. Nope. Adjustments that are basically instant in Lightroom drag in Aperture, sometimes for seconds. Some heavy-duty processing tasks, like importing raw photos, are quicker in Aperture than Lightroom (and Aperture lets you get right down to work on imported photos while it's still importing others). But Lightroom is generally faster, and specifically its user interface and slider adjustments are snappier than Aperture's.

None of this matters much to me though, since I spend far more time trying to decide how the photo should look than waiting for Aperture to catch up. And Aperture isn't slow, just slower than Lightroom. Aperture's interface is very sophisticated and elegant, although it seems more intimidating at first glance. It's a very satisfying app to use, if you know what I mean. It's always a delight to click the Aperture icon in the dock (waiting for it to open the Library: less so!).

…how easy is it to swap between computers? I imagine just a one time move would be easy with either program, but would one of them support working on the same library on two different computers relatively easily?
I don't know from personal experience, but library management is considered one of Aperture 3's strong points. See here (http://aperture.maccreate.com/2010/02/09/the-importance-of-libraries-aperture-3s-new-syncing/) for some details.

How easy is it to take a picture from one of these programs, do some heavy lifting in photoshop, then get it back into the program. Is it easy to keep the original RAW photo and the edited version without over-cluttering the library?
Very easy with both, and yes.

...I take a lot of pictures and want to know that there's an efficient way to handle them.
Both are great for this, though Aperture has the edge for sheer DAM prowess. With that power comes considerable complexity though. You have to be pretty keen to get to grips with all of Aperture's organisational tools.

-features? Not really sure what I need here having never used anything other than iPhoto and Photoshop. At what point do you stay in aperture/lightroom for your workflow and when do you bring out the big guns? What are each programs' strengths and weaknesses concerning their image correction capabilities. For the amateur photographer which one gets me on my way faster with great-looking photos?
Since learning the basics of Aperture I very rarely use Photoshop. My needs are pretty basic, I guess (mostly global edits).

Aperture 3 has a fantastically powerful Curves tool, with full RGB curves control; Lightroom 3 doesn't, likely because Adobe's trying to give photographers a reason to still buy Photoshop. I use Curves a lot so this is important to me. Lightroom has automatic lens corrections based on a database of lens characteristics (e.g. geometric distortion); Aperture doesn't. Lightroom has significantly better noise-reduction algorithms: in fact, the best in the industry at the moment, including dedicated third-party noise-reduction plug-ins. Aperture's sharpening algorithm is basically a black box as far as I can tell, so prior knowledge of unsharp masking won't get you very far.

On noise again, Lightroom 3 allows the user to completely switch off noise reduction (previous versions using the old Adobe Camera Raw enforced some chroma-noise reduction). Aperture 3 applies a degree of noise reduction to all photos, including base-ISO raw files from an SLR. It's normally no more than you'd want to apply as a starting point anyway, but on occasion I'd rather be able to switch it off entirely. The underlying demosaicking quality is essentially identical for Aperture and Lightroom, which is to say very good and far better than Adobe Camera Raw prior to version 6. Lightroom does a noticeably cleaner job than Aperture in very deep shadows of 14-bit raw files, though the difference is slight.

For default straight-out-of-camera colour, Lightroom is perhaps slightly better than Aperture: more natural looking, which ironically may be because of Adobe's so-called "hue twists (http://chromasoft.blogspot.com/2009/02/adobe-hue-twist.html)". Nothing you couldn't do as well with your own custom profiles/presets, though. I prefer to take a minute to fix colour on a per-image basis. There is a large element of subjectivity about what looks better, of course. Colour accuracy can be measured objectively, but strictly accurate colour is often unattractive (overly cyan skies, etc.).

These apps have so many features that it would be impossible to compare them comprehensively without studying them for months and writing a book. If you're the type of person who has second thoughts about purchases after the fact, Lightroom is the safer option. By this stage, it's almost an industry standard. Aperture is a little quirkier but arguably more appealing.

For most people, switching apps down the road is not as hard as it's made out to be on the web.

[evan]

I bought Aperture 3 and think it's fantastic, though I'm cautious about recommending it to others since it does have some weak points.


Both of them are very stable now, but Aperture 3 is significantly slower for most things, even after the latest updates. There's no denying that Adobe spent more effort optimising performance. At first I thought maybe Aperture was doing more complicated stuff, doing it better, or doing it more elegantly. Nope. Adjustments that are basically instant in Lightroom drag in Aperture, sometimes for seconds. Some heavy-duty processing tasks, like importing raw photos, are quicker in Aperture than Lightroom (and Aperture lets you get right down to work on imported photos while it's still importing others). But Lightroom is generally faster, and specifically its user interface and slider adjustments are snappier than Aperture's.

None of this matters much to me though, since I spend far more time trying to decide how the photo should look than waiting for Aperture to catch up. And Aperture isn't slow, just slower than Lightroom. Aperture's interface is very sophisticated and elegant, although it seems more intimidating at first glance. It's a very satisfying app to use, if you know what I mean. It's always a delight to click the Aperture icon in the dock (waiting for it to open the Library: less so!).


I don't know from personal experience, but library management is considered one of Aperture 3's strong points. See here (http://aperture.maccreate.com/2010/02/09/the-importance-of-libraries-aperture-3s-new-syncing/) for some details.


Very easy with both, and yes.


Both are great for this, though Aperture has the edge for sheer DAM prowess. With that power comes considerable complexity though. You have to be pretty keen to get to grips with all of Aperture's organisational tools.


Since learning the basics of Aperture I very rarely use Photoshop. My needs are pretty basic, I guess (mostly global edits).

Aperture 3 has a fantastically powerful Curves tool, with full RGB curves control; Lightroom 3 doesn't, likely because Adobe's trying to give photographers a reason to still buy Photoshop. I use Curves a lot so this is important to me. Lightroom has automatic lens corrections based on a database of lens characteristics (e.g. geometric distortion); Aperture doesn't. Lightroom has significantly better noise-reduction algorithms: in fact, the best in the industry at the moment, including dedicated third-party noise-reduction plug-ins. Aperture's sharpening algorithm is basically a black box as far as I can tell, so prior knowledge of unsharp masking won't get you very far.

On noise again, Lightroom 3 allows the user to completely switch off noise reduction (previous versions using the old Adobe Camera Raw enforced some chroma-noise reduction). Aperture 3 applies a degree of noise reduction to all photos, including base-ISO raw files from an SLR. It's normally no more than you'd want to apply as a starting point anyway, but on occasion I'd rather be able to switch it off entirely. The underlying demosaicking quality is essentially identical for Aperture and Lightroom, which is to say very good and far better than Adobe Camera Raw prior to version 6. Lightroom does a noticeably cleaner job than Aperture in very deep shadows of 14-bit raw files, though the difference is slight.

For default straight-out-of-camera colour, Lightroom is perhaps slightly better than Aperture: more natural looking, which ironically may be because of Adobe's so-called "hue twists (http://chromasoft.blogspot.com/2009/02/adobe-hue-twist.html)". Nothing you couldn't do as well with your own custom profiles/presets, though. I prefer to take a minute to fix colour on a per-image basis. There is a large element of subjectivity about what looks better, of course. Colour accuracy can be measured objectively, but strictly accurate colour is often unattractive (overly cyan skies, etc.).

These apps have so many features that it would be impossible to compare them comprehensively without studying them for months and writing a book. If you're the type of person who has second thoughts about purchases after the fact, Lightroom is the safer option. By this stage, it's almost an industry standard. Aperture is a little quirkier but arguably more appealing.

For most people, switching apps down the road is not as hard as it's made out to be on the web.

wow, great response, thanks a ton!

I downloaded the demo of aperture and have decided to give that a whirl for the next few weeks (got a bunch of pictures from thanksgiving, some volleyball tournaments, and then a photography class project to go through :)), then for my xmas break pictures I'll use lightroom and when I get back to school in january (student discounts!) I'll make a decision on which I like better.

From the sounds of it I can't really make a "bad" decision either way, so I just want to find what works best for me.

[PB PM]

The big difference between Lightroom and Aperture 3 is that Aperture 3 uses CoreImage or visual or something like that, which is built into OSX. It also uses the GPU to help process stuff and if you have a low end graphics chipset (integrated) it can really bog down your system if you don't have 4-8GB of RAM.

Personally I like Aperture 3, because like most Apple vs Adobe products the interface is just so much easier to use. I found myself wasting so much time in Lightroom just figuring out what was what. Too many different "modes" and stuff like that.

[Dorian Gray]

Bump.

I shot some military gravestones for a volunteer project on Thursday, and I'm processing them today. I'm using Lightroom because I really need to learn how to use this app properly. But here's a screen capture that highlights why I just dislike it:


http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/5788/whyadobesucks.png


The contents of the two red circles should match. Instead they compare like this:

Tone --> Basic Tone
Recovery --> Highlight Recovery
Blacks --> Black Clipping

How hard would it be to use the same words in both locations? In a massively important application with millions of sales?

Lightroom is full of inconsistencies like these, and they sometimes impede use.

The Adobe help documents, by the way, are atrocious. It's remarkable how much better Apple is than Adobe at this stuff. Thankfully the web is full of people telling you how to do things with Adobe apps.