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Rick,
I've used Lightroom since its introduction. I've considered also acquiring Aperture, especially for creating books. Is the Aperture book feature more advanced than the iPhoto book feature?

More importantly, how do you find working with both--what sort of workflow or choices do you make? Would you work on the same image in both programs?

Do you work on the same original RAW file or do you have a redundant copy of the RAW file? Or do you export JPEGs from LR and bring into Aperture? I am an event photographer, so I work with large numbers of photos (40,000 up to this point in 2010)--I don't want to have too much duplication of file space.
Thanks,
Jak

whostolemyname, on 29 June 2010 - 07:39 AM, said:

Jak, I'll give my .02 without answering your questions directly as I've spent most of my time in Aperture. One huge advantage Aperture has over LR3 is that Aperture is a much, much (MUCH) better digital asset manager (DAM). Given that you're an event guy, Aperture's better handling of libraries and it's superior (imho) metadata and gps/place-tagging places Aperture well-ahead of Lightroom 3.

In addition to the books and geo-tagging Rick mentioned, Aperture also supports face recognition a la iPhoto. Overall, Aperture's brushable effects seem like they can be more fine-tuned to me. As far as workflow in general, the modal caveats in LR3 that Rick mentioned were immediate turnoffs for me and what caused me to basically mothball Lr3 and use Aperture as my day to day app.

LR3 seems to really shine in 'repurposing' your photos, whether it's for creating web galleries or slideshows. This can't be emphasized enough, LR3 kills aperture in this area.

If I was an event guy -- I would be using Aperture as my primary RAW convertor and DAM, and using it to prep prints and books for clients. LR3 would be used as a secondary tool for providing web galleries and slideshows for clients

The one bummer as an Aperture user is that LR3 seems to have the mindshare of many big names in the industry like Scott Kelby etc etc, so many of the books, blog tutorials etc are geared primarily toward Lightroom. So much so that I may give LR3 another crack just to take advanatge of the wealth of material out there. Apple needs an 'evangelist' out there like they had in the old days, pimping their software with real-world tips, etc

You may want to check out Ars technica's in-depth, 7 page Aperture 3 review here: http://arstechnica.c...-aperture-3.ars

All that said, i'm heavily biased toward Aperture because I started off with it and know the interface much better. I do primarily landscape/travel photography, so the gps/place-tagging makes it ideal for documenting shoots. And LR3's modal nature seems logical in theory, but in practice it seems to get in the way more than it's actually helpful.

This post has been edited by swartzfeger: 29 June 2010 - 08:35 AM

I love Aperture but, it's noise reduction is useless unless I am missing something. Using LR3's noise reduction is a dream. I always end up using BOTH because what one doesn't do, the other one does and vice versa. Doing that makes my workflow less complicated than it needs to be. If that wasn't enough, I gave up LR to make the switch and utilize Aperture. Aperture wins in my book but, the noise reduction issue is the ONE thing that annoys me the most.

bebopredux, on 29 June 2010 - 09:20 AM, said:

Bebop, you reminded me of a few things in my Aperture vs. LR3 comparisons:

Yes, noise reduction in Aperture 3 is terrible. Well, it's not terrible, it's just useless. So is the sharpening. But I use 3rd party plugins for noise and sharpening, but comparing apples to apples, aperture 3 is lame compared to LR3 in regards to noise.

Also:

Aperture 3 needs lens correction. Desperately. Just like Lightroom 3 needs geo-tagging desperately. If Aperture 3 had robust lens correction, I would chuck LR3. If LR3 had great geo-tagging, i would begrudgingly delete Aperture 3 and learn Lightroom's quirky workflow simply because of the massive community support behind LR.

The one thing I've noticed with both apps is that they are both severely limited in a few key areas, forcing me to keep the other app around 'just in case.'

swartzfeger, on 29 June 2010 - 09:32 AM, said:

I might add I meant that my workflow was MORE complicated than it needs to be.

But, yeah, I wish Aperture and LR3 had a lovechild. I try and sharpen or de-noise in Aperture and I see 'processing' going on but, fail to see anything as a result. This alone is what makes Aperture weak IMO. Yes, today's DSLR's have great low light capability and the photos I take need minimal work mostly. But, the 2 things I do use most are indeed de-noising and sharpening in PP work. Not only that but, it's a pain to export the RAW file so I can open it in LR3 to de-noise it. Oh, I could use my NIK plugins in Aperture but then I have to run in 32 bit mode. I need all the help I can get.

I think Aperture 3 was a huge step in the right direction but, love to see an update that addresses these issues I have.

bebopredux, on 29 June 2010 - 10:37 AM, said:

Yep. Actually, the denoising in Aperture is beyond bad/useless, it's a time waster. Like you said, run denoise, then squint to see if it's less noisy. Look at 'processing' wheel spin. Squint some more. See no difference. Pull up loupe. Squint more. Adjust slider. Look at process wheel spin endlessly. Squint again.

Like everyone older than me warned, vision starts to go at around age 40, and i've noticed a precipitous drop in my vision the last year or so. So when I do PP work, I can't pick up the superfine differences I used to be able to just a few years back. Jumping through a dozen hoops, squinting, dicking around with sliders and still wondering if denoising actually worked is bullsh*t and counterproductive.

And you raise a good point -- I think a lot of serious folks, pros or hobbyists, are mostly concerned with sharpness and noise. Geo-tagging is nice because I know exactly which butte or mitten I shot in Monument Valley, but in the end it's all bull[censored] -- I need to make sure my RAWs are sharp and clear, distortion free. In that sense, Aperture 3 needs a lot of work.

whostolemyname, on 29 June 2010 - 07:39 AM, said:

The Aperture book-making capability is definitely richer than the one in iPhoto; it's a lot more flexible. I've tried many of the online-based services for books, and keep coming back to Aperture.

I don't bounce files back and forth between Lightroom and Aperture - I'm sure it can be done, but I mostly work on collections of images in one or the other. When doing a book in Aperture, for example, I'll usually export the final edits from Lightroom as TIFs and import them into Aperture. I won't do much editing there, other than some minor fine-tuning.

I'm not recommending that people really use both products; my workflow continues to be better served by Lightroom, but some of that is definitely the time I've invested in it over the years. I like what Apple's done in Aperture 3, and one of my summer plans is to determine whether my workflow is better served there.

Rick

One feature not yet mentioned where Lightroom eats Aperture's lunch is in applying brushes and gradient filters. In Aperture you can use only one effect per brush. If you want to change exposure and, say, brightness in the same area, you need to use two brushes to do so. In Lightroom the whole range of adjustments is available in each brush and gradient so you can easily balance and tweak effects. These effects include Exposure, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Clarity, Sharpness and Color. The Adjustment Brush also has an Auto Mask option that makes it relatively easy to apply an effect to a particular area without the necessity of using a hard edged brush to paint a precise edge. Of course this works best where there is significant contrast between the areas you want to filter and those you don't; this is especially useful, for instance, in reducing the glare of light through a window while at the same time bringing out detail that might be hidden in the RAW data in the burned out area of the window.

Also important to many Adobe fans is the tight integration of Lightroom and Photoshop. The workflow between the two apps is all but seamless. Indeed, I find it easier to use Lightroom to do my RAW processing in conjunction with editing in Photoshop than to use the Adobe RAW plug-in that is a component of Photoshop. This is especially true for batch processing, where it's much easier to select multiple images in the filmstrip of the Develop module in Lightroom than in the Adobe RAW workspace, which requires Bridge for selecting multiple images. Moving from Bridge to RAW to Photoshop is, in my experience, more tedious than moving from Lightroom to Photoshop. If you don't use Photoshop then this issue will not be important, but given the market penetration of Photoshop among digital photographers and artists, Aperture is at a significant disadvantage no matter how good it may be. No amount of evangelizing is likely to overcome this handicap. The difference in price may eventually make some difference for those with no preference beforehand.

whitedog, on 30 June 2010 - 05:03 AM, said:

In no way would I say LR eats Aperture's lunch in regards to brushes. Yes, in LR they're easier to apply/rollback multiple effects. But in Aperture they're also more fine-tuneable (and I don't think Lightroom's auto mask is that different than Aperture's detect edges feature, it sounds like you're basing this more on what you've read second hand than actual use -- I've actually used both apps for jobs). In Aperture you can brush in dodge/burn/whatever etc just your shadows, just your highlights, etc. I wouldn't call it a 50/50 wash because some people might prefer one method while others prefer another, but I think it's a stretch to say LR kills Aperture in brushes since Aperture has a different approach. The gradients filters, yeah -- LR's approach is pretty awesome, no doubt about that one.

In an area where there is NO dispute as far as "lunch eating" is channel editing, which Lightroom can't do. At all. Say I wanted to do an inverted s-curve on just the blue channel for a retroish/cross-processed look -- no brainer in Aperture. In Lightroom, you have to go over to PS. Which may be why Photoshop integration is a bigger deal for a Lightroom user. I don't need to leave Aperture to do any RAW editing. Any small final tweaks and a quick shift-cmd-O sends a 16-bit tiff over to PS. Not really a herculean task.

There are things Lightroom clearly excels at, but I wouldn't say brushes is one of them. In some ways they're better, in some ways they're not.

Hi, I have two questions. The first is that I discovered that Aperture 3 pretty much requires Snow Leopard, although they *say* it's okay to be at Leopard, which is what I use. I'm not in a position at the moment to upgrade to Snow Leopard or deal with this 32 bit thing. What are the real-life requirements of Lightroom?
Second question is that I'm very interested in the mention of slideshows and galleries for the web. But what form are they in? If they use Flash, they're of no use to me because I would need something that functions well on the iPad and iPhone (especially the iPad) So, what's the story there? Really appreciate any answers here. Thanks!

carolST, on 30 June 2010 - 11:32 AM, said:

Lightroom exports slideshows as .mp4 up to 1080p. Aperture let's you 'play' a slideshow but not save/export one (AFAICT), which is beyond useless. Lightroom 3 rocks as far as exporting for web/slideshow.

Excellent! Thanks, swarzfeger!

Wow, you guys are GOOD! Way over my hobbyist class. After reading your posts and the review of Rick Lepage I hesitate to even ask .... your discussions are awesome ..

What about iPhoto 9 as the Organizer and Library with Photoshop Elements 8 as the advanced editor??

I have LR3 and Bridge CS4 but ... wonder if I'm using the best work flow and getting the best results that I can. My son with LR & PS4 says not. (Forget the PS4 or 5, not for me)

I did download trial Aperture 3 but ... guess I'm not sophisticated enough to see where it does more than the iPhoto/PSE combo. Besides laughing .. any comments?

Been at it a long time from the developing tanks to printing and enlarging but still a long way from pro.