Poll: Which is better, Aperture or Lightroom?
The good news is that there's some competition again for software to edit and catalog raw images, the detailed and flexible file formats from higher-end cameras. The bad news is that anybody buying the software has a harder choice to make.
With the new Aperture now available and Lightroom just celebrating its first birthday, I thought it opportune to survey readers. What would you buy? What would you advise somebody else?
News.com Poll
Please vote in the poll here, and share your reasoning in the Talkback section below to enlighten others.
Photographers would be best to think carefully about which software to purchase, and not just because of the necessary investments of time and money. Unlike applications such as Photoshop, which can easily be substituted or used in conjunction with other software, Lightroom and Aperture are equipped to extend their tentacles to manage your library of images.
In essence, that means the software can be a gatekeeper to your data--not the original images, but the editing settings, titles, captions, tags, and organizational structure. For me, having a rich, searchable catalog is definitely worth it, but tread carefully before you commit, because it'll be difficult to extricate yourself.
Apple was first to enter the higher-end photo software market with Aperture in 2005, but the software languished at the same time Adobe Systems released and rapidly updated Photoshop Lightroom over 2007. But now Apple is back in the game with Aperture 2.0, which reproduces some features in Lightroom, boosts performance, and has a price tag $100 less than Lightroom's $300.
Pros and cons
Both packages are solid overall, but there are some features I preferred with one or the other. Here's how I see things stacking up--be warned, though, that I've used Lightroom for countless hours but by comparison only dabbled with Aperture 2.0.
Let's start with the interface. I like Lightroom's pull-out panels--as many as four--that can be deployed or tucked away as needed. Most of the time I only have zero, one, or two showing.
But I think Aperture makes smart design decisions with a few interface options. Its movable panel isn't very obtrusive, and now in 2.0 you can toggle it easily between editing, tagging, and file management modes. For me, editing and adding metadata such as titles, captions, and tags are much closer operations than the big divide between Lightroom's develop and library modules would suggest, and I don't like switching back and forth between editing and tagging.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is used to edit and catalog photos, chiefly the raw images that come from higher-end digital cameras.
(Credit: Adobe Systems)Speaking of metadata, though, one option I like better with Lightroom is the ability to assign five colors to photos (but where's the keyboard shortcut for purple?). The one- to five-star ratings that both packages offer is dandy, but I use colors to classify photos in other ways.
It looks to me like Aperture has a better search interface, especially for complicated operations that combine multiple parameters such as keywords, date ranges, and the handy photos-I-actually-edited filter. I've sometimes gotten bogged down swimming through Lightroom search. And I love the smart folders feature, which automatically updates a folder that's been set to watch for a particular attribute. For example, with Lightroom, I would love for the software to automatically add a photo with a specific recurring tag to a particular collection.
On to editing. For sophistication, I'd give the edge to Adobe, though to be fair I haven't looked in detail at important aspects of Aperture, namely noise reduction and edge sharpening. I sometimes find those wanting in Lightroom.
I like Lightroom's targeted adjustment tool (TAT), which lets you adjust the tone curve as well as color saturation and luminance by clicking on the relevant portion of the image directly and dragging the mouse up and down. And Adobe was smart to actually employ user testing to determine which colors are individually adjustable--orange has more psychological importance than most software, including Aperture, gives it. And I'm a big fan of tone-curve adjustments, though I sometimes wish Lightroom divided the curve up into five or six subranges instead of four.
One unknown is the plug-in future of both applications. Right now Lightroom has a software development kit for export options, and there's work of unknown scope to come. Apple said it's future SDK will permit editing plug-ins, too, which Adobe says is a difficult challenge. On the other hand, Adobe's already got some editing plug-ins of a sort, with the ability to import custom settings for all manner of adjustment options.
Apple's Aperture is used to edit and catalog photos.
(Credit: Apple)One major edge Lightroom has had is much earlier support of the raw image files of new cameras. Apple said it was held back by an overhaul of its raw-processing engine and that things should now go more swiftly, but it'll take real work to win back the hearts of disgruntled Nikon D300 owners. In the meantime, Apple now can make use of Adobe Systems' Digital Negative (DNG) format as an intermediate step to handle raw files Adobe supports and Apple doesn't.
Something Aperture does better is vignetting, the darkened corners that once were a lens deficiency but now have caught on (altogether too widely in my opinion) as an effect to focus attention on the center of an image. Lightroom can fix lens vignetting or add it to a full image, but if you want to apply the effect to a cropped version of the photo, only Aperture offers that mechanism.
Correcting lens problems is a real issue, though, and Lightroom has a chromatic aberration correction I find very useful. It lets you fix some of the magenta, red, yellow, and blue fringes that show up in high-contrast areas, especially near the corners of images, and it also can alleviate the purple fringing overall. Aperture lacks this.
Performance is better with Aperture 2.0 (it was faster on the dual-core iMac I played with than Aperture 1.5 was on a quad-core Mac Pro I used for Aperture 1.5), and a particularly nice feature is the ability to work in a preview mode that employs only JPEGs--either the images built into the raw image or an Aperture-rendered version. You can't edit with it, but it's good enough at least for the first pass through a photo shoot to delete the duds and add tags and titles.
Looking beyond editing, my expertise thins out because I don't do much in the way of exporting photos to Web galleries or printing at home. But I will note one Aperture advantage: Apple expanded its book-export options with 2.0, and Lightroom has no answer so far. That's a drag for wedding photographers and amateurs (like me) who want to whip up a quick birthday present for the grandparents.
Of course, one of the biggest advantages Lightroom has is a Windows version, and that alone is likely to ensure its market dominance over Apple. And where Apple has a lot going on with iPods and iPhones, image editing is Adobe's bread and butter. Should those externalities be factors, too? Weigh in.
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank.
I've been an Aperture user since June of last year and have not
used Lightroom. I'm an enthusiastic amateur, and snapped 25k
photos last year. I use Aperture to organize and access my
photos to I can enjoy them more. I produce photo books with it,
and love how I can easily select albums for syncing to my iPhone
and AppleTV. "Five Stars" automatically land on my iphone, and
its still delightfully surprising to have recent photos (last 30 days
category) automatically appear on my AppleTV. Couple that
with a fun playlist of music from iTunes, and we get on the fly
photo shows to enjoy with a beer.
I've been trying out the demo of Lightroom, and it's okay overall, but without some major plugins for photo correction - the image I typically use for testing has a lot of noise to it because of low light shooting - to me it's like Picasa with the import function on Photoshop for RAW development instead of the simplistic Picasa interface.
Let's not compare Picasa with Aperture or Lightroom. They are leagues apart! In fact, for the most serious photographer, neither Aperture or Lightroom, *cuts" the cake ... it's ALWAYS Adobe Photoshop... now, please, please don't tell me Picasa does 90% of Photoshop!!
I've found that Apple's products, while most of the time look consistent across the range, with the higher end products, there's a bit of a mish-mosh. If it's a high end product, treat it as such - don't put iLife-ish things in. It seems like Apple is shooting for pro-sumer, not professional. Adobe knows its audience and designs the software as such.
other company in the software industry is their attention to the
interface. Adobe has only recently spent some time making the
interface a little more user-friendly. Pro apps do not need to be
difficult to use. Apple has consistently designed their pro apps
(with the exception of Shake and Color which weren't entirely
designed by Apple in the first place) to be easily picked up and
used. They are, however, extremely powerful applications and to
truly take full advantage of their power will take some learning.
So, they are all (even Aperture) very much pro apps despite their
"pro-sumer"/"iLife-ish" look (which they all have with the
exceptions of Shake and Color). Even professionals want tools
that are easy to work with. Having features like photobooks and
iTunes/iWork integration doesn't cheapen the product. It makes
it more useful for more people. No one ever said "pro apps"
need to be exclusively for professionals. It's not like Apple
watered-down Aperture so it would appeal to more people.
They packed it full of useful features and made those features
easy to find and take advantage of. I find it to be a very
professional application and I also find it a lot easier to use that
Lightroom.
Lightroom pretty much decides what kind of workflow you will be
using rather than allow you to create your own workflow.
http://blog.photographythoughts.com/2007/09/20/photo-database/
I back up the database daily on a large 500GB in my studio, as well as all the photos on the portable drive. After I have finished with a particular set of images, I back them up to a DVD and erase them off off the portable drive. Then, I tell Lightoom to look for the "missing pictures" on the 500 GB backup drive.
Works like a charm!
I have to say that I have continually become disenfranchised with Adobe's products. I feel that Adobe has reached the point where Microsoft was with IE6 in the early days. So monopolistic that they have no real desire to fix what is wrong with their products.
Their software has become increasingly bloated, unstable, and obtrusive. I first noticed this with Acrobat Reader. I don't want to download half a dozen trial versions of software, or have to continually tell the program that I don't want the trials just to look at a PDF. However, the more that I continue to find alternatives, the more that I see first hand how poorly programed many Adobe products are.
There are increasingly very good alternatives to Adobe products which are leaner and more stable, and usually less expensive to boot.
So, I will continue to use Aperture and spend my $100 on other things.
Now if I could only find a suitable alternative to Illustrator. I could finally be completely Adobe free. ;)
As for free and cheap tools like Picassa and iPhoto, these are a terrific value if they do the job for you. My reason for upgrading is the desire for better photo correction tools optimized for handling many images quickly.
Like some, I used Picasa on the PC and it was very good for basic photo cataloguing and manipulation. But I've got about 30,000 shots in my collection, and Picasa just can't cut it.
Aperture and Lightroom are both great products. I use Aperture, but could be very satisfied with Lightroom, too. Doesn't much matter. Just pick a product, learn it thoroughly, and don't worry so much about the other one.
One wish: that I could use plug-ins like Nik or Tiffen filters in Aperture. Then I wouldn't have to export photos, fire up Elements and use Nik filters.
Let's hope both products allow us to use these plug-ins soon.
Actually, it's a good thing that Aperture and Lightroom compete so strongly with each other. A competitive market will give us better products at amazing prices.
There's a whole lotta functionality in these two amazing products for only a few hundred dollars.
have us doing, requiring us to have to buy faster, bigger, newer
machines just to use it. I'm happy with my 4 year gold PB G4 and
G5. I'd rather be spending my time and money shooting...
Aperture requires too much cutting-edge tech for me and my
antiquated systems and although I use Lightroom and have
since beta for proof sheets and web catalogs, I don't want to
deal with my entire image collection of 250,000 images in one
pile that they almost require of you.
Instead, I use Photo Mechanic. It works on both sides of the
aisle, quick, works with the group of images at hand, doesn't
stop to render color, retouch, catalog or anything.
It is simply fast and does the job of ingesting all the images on
my cards easily to the folder of my choice for initial screening,
keywording, captioning, renumbering and organization so that I
can spend less time at my computer and more out there
shooting.
Photo Mechanic allows me to quickly go through my shoot and
select my best which I can then further process at my leisure;
not when I'm trying to download, keyword and caption.
If you spend all your time piddling with your image collection
with all the bells and whistles it leaves little time for shooting
great images and that's what this all boils down to.
I'm struggling with Aperture just to make simple adjustments.
It must be the workflow that I assume logical, but perhaps not.
The process (RAW) of just removing sensor dust from the sky, I
threw in the towel, and cropped out the perfect sky. Then
turned in my 30D to be cleaned.
Any action attempted just grinds the processor to submission
with 2 GB ram. If upgrading to V2 makes this easier, I will in a
heart beat.
a great looking file and getting things done in a reasonable time:
use either one and you'll be happy. Obviously, if you're stuck with
Windoze, you only have one option. But Aperture's beautiful UI,
simplified arrangement, exciting new plugin architecture, and cool
export options make it the obvious choice for Apple fans.
I find it hilarious that magazines still believe that Apple is the only platform used by 'creative' people. I have used both and have settled on Windows, largely because it is less restrictive and less expansive than the 'cult' option. I deal daily with other professional photographers and the vast majority easily 10:1 use windows..... go figure!!!
As a working photographer I use all software but prefer
Aperture above all.
The RAW conversions are great and the software is incredibly
fast now with version 2.
Added tethering support works flawlessly and faster than any
other solution with the Nikon D3, including Nikons own
software.
Dual monitor support is another Aperture exclusive and book
making has been a tremendous help, something LR lacks...
The whole integration with the other Apple software is good too,
and the new plug in option should bring us a bunch of
interesting add-ons. I understand anything is possible with
Aperture in the future, its just a matter of time.
At the moment there are some interesting export plug ins I use
a lot, like the Flash gallery plug in and Aperture-to-FTP among
others.
I cant be happier with the direction Apple is heading and my
library is about 350GB of RAW files, around 30.000 at the
moment.
Aperture lets me work as fast as humanly possible with my files
and gives me excellent export options and includes automated
backup. What else do we need? :)
Best,
Thomas
www.thomastukker.com
I'm glad the tethered options for Aperture are working for you, but it doesn't work with all cameras, so check first if want this feature. There's lots of proprietary technology in the tethered domain that makes tethered shooting a complicated proposition.
30-day demo, excited by the prospect of something less
sluggish and intuitive than Lightroom, and more-featured than
iPhoto. But, even though I have a 1.33ghz iBook G4 with lots
of RAM, the video card just doesn't cut it. For now, Lightroom
has been my choice, but it's annoying how slow it is in some
respects, even though it's pretty to look at, and
comprehensively customizable. The biggest annoyance,
however, is how it handles metadata and EXIF... that is one very
un-intuitive part of Lightroom. I will buy Aperture the instant I
can get my hands on a new Macbook pro.
their product.
although adobe has "monopoly" on the design market and
aperture will never match all the photoshop filters, because of
this, adobe tends to be like microsoft with what they produce.
untimely deadlines result in products that tend to crash and
have functions that work well with the initial use, but then have
a glitch the next time around due to lack of details within the
programming.
i have never had aperture crash on me and that is one reason i
favor it... and now that it supports the d300, whoo hoo!
Album/Book feature. I do the work in Lightroom then use Aperture
to create a book.
Finally, are you happy with the quality of the printed book (paper, print etc). Are you familiar with booksmart? or MyPublisher? How does the Aperture photo book compare to these?
Schatzie15
RAW. I just downloaded a 30 day trial with Lightroom after playing
briefly in the Apple store with the new 2.0. Friends (also Macheads)
suggested trying Adobe out first. Will make a decision soon. But I
am leaning towards the new 2.0.....
Great for my workflow!
avoid anything by ACD
- Lightroom wins
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by freeflyfranz
February 22, 2008 11:17 AM PST
- Without going into a longwinded technical comparison , I simply feel that lightroom has a more intuitive interface.Every time I try and use aperture I get frustrated with the lack of flow I encounter. It may well be that there is simply a steeper learning curve to aperture which pays of in the end. I find myself unwilling to spend the time to find out when lightroom was so very easy to start using. I do however lament the lack of integration with my mac world. It would be really nice to be able to dump my latest portfolio straight from lightroom onto my iphone, or as another reader commented, upload images for publishing. I could see a time when I would be tempted by aperture because of the level of integration with the rest of my technology. So my message to Adobe would be, please stick to the uncluttered, intuitive approach taken so far, but somehow integrating other export conduits would be good.
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