Aperture vs Lightroom

Battle of the editors This debate goes on and it is contributed to by people many times more qualified than I am, but I’ve used both products and am still looking for my ideal workflow/photoprocessing solution, like every other serious photographer out there, so I thought it worth me pitching in.

Lightroom

I have used Lightroom since it was born and it always felt natural. Organising photos with metadata felt tremendously empowering as I hated storing photos in OS folders. Very quickly, I came up against a problem that tends to plague me across applications that use tags and keywords: great idea, I love tagging, but I never actually use them. Correction: I apply tags, especially when I first start using an application, then I realise I never use tags to find objects so I stop tagging. My collection of whatevers (images in Lightroom, tasks in Things or Omnifocus or whatever in Whatever) end up a tagged/half-tagged mess. I still tend to find photos in Lightroom from the folder structure rather than the keywords - I just don’t trust myself enough to have tagged properly.

Lightroom does tags on steroids. It also does star-rating (5 point scale), picking/unpicking and colour coding - another combination of permutations too complex for me to handle without a great deal of stress. I have chopped and changed a million times between selecting and deselecting for deletion, selecting for inclusing in Quick Selections, starring as 1 for trash, 2 for keepers, 3 for potentials, 4 for finals-that-I’m-happy-with and 5s for best of the best. I didn’t get many 5s. I junked the whole system in the end.

I admire photographers who can resist tinkering with this stuff and just take photographs.

Gradually, my collection of images accumulated (nearly 10,000 from May to December 2009) and I acquired a Drobo, with its twin terrabyte combo inside, to handle it. From an asset management point of view, Lightroom does everything you can possibly expect and it does it well.

It’s also a good RAW convertor, with nice extensibility for plug-ins and presets. I never bother with noise reduction and sharpness as I tend to do that outside of Lightroom, and the curves in Lightroom 2 (is this being improved in Lightroom 3 Beta?) is limited, but basic exposure adjustments, colour correction and colour manipulation is a treat.

Lightroom had set the standard with adjustment brushes (exposure, vibrance, saturation, etc) but Aperture 3 has changed the game (see below). Lightroom’s brushes aren’t as intuitive and painting an effect into an image bogged down my 2006 iMac Core Duo with 2Gb RAM, horribly, although brushing is still the best solution for general light-touch dodging and burning.

Over time, I put together a number of useful presets which I used extensively and I was generally happy to export directly for consumption rather than go into Photoshop for further editing. But without layers and masks and the many other features under the bonnet in the mighty Photoshop, editing purely in Lightroom tends to leave your images looking very similar. It’s not easy adding real drama or pushing the boundaries. That’s fine for the majority of work, and in processing the hundreds of images from a wedding, for instance, that’s all you need.

I also like Lightroom’s Print module, although it lacks flexibility. If you want to run off a set of 7×5s though, it’s great.

I never really used the Slideshow module.

Exporting from Lightroom: I exported a lot to Flickr, Photoshelter and Photobox, as well as setting up export settings for 16bit and 8bit TIFFS, various configurations of JPG and everything in between and I thank the developers who made the mostly-slick remote-export plugins for Lightroom.

Pluses

• RAW convertor. No fireworks but based upon Adobe Camera Raw, Lightroom does a smashing job of basic fixing and editing.

<li>Extensibility. I have used a variety of plugins, from all of the <a href="http://www.niksoftware.com/">Nik Software</a> goodies to the various export plug-ins mentioned below. All seemed to fit right into Lightroom. This is more a testement to the plug-in developers rather than to Lightroom of course, but it's worth mentioning.</li>

Minuses

<li>Round-tripping to Photoshop. Generally a pain. You'd hope Adobe would be able to segue Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (to give Lightroom its correct name) and Adobe Photoshop CS4 together quite nicely. Actually, it wasn't that much of a pain, but it somehow felt clunky, probably to do with a lack of RAM more than anything...</li>



<li>Searching and filtering. I can't get the hang of this in Lightroom, probably because of my aforementioned schizoid attitude to metadata. The interface doesn't help - too many toolbar elements look the same (am I attributing 4 stars to this image or filtering for all images that have 4 stars?)</li>



<li>Slow. Clunky [on a four year old iMac with maxed out RAM]. No matter how few other applications I had open when using Lightroom, it always seemed to chow through every bit of available RAM it could find and even after it had shut down Lightroom still beasted my system to the point where a reboot was my only salvation.</li>

This is threatening to masquarade as a “review” which I am mortally under-qualified and underskilled to undertake, so I am going to call it quits on Lightroom right here.

In short, I like it and I’ve spent hours in it. But along comes Aperture 3 and I like many things software, I just cannot resist dipping my toe in the water.

Aperture 3

It’s no secret that I love Apple gear. I’ve used Apples “toy” photo application, iPhoto, for many years but since I assumed the priggish stance of being a “proper” photographer, I have relegated iPhoto to serve only the output of Apple’s “toy” camera - on the iPhone. Still with me?

Aperture is in many ways similar to iPhoto, especially in this new version now that they have enabled the silly toy features of Face recognition (they call it “Faces”) and geo-tagging (they call that “Places”. I love Apple but I get hellishly nipped by their one-word chiming simplicity sometimes).

I’m told Aperture beats Lightroom for photo management: there they are - stars, colour coding and easy techniques for filtering and picking images. Having used it for some time, my problem with metadata is dissapating slightly. Aperture’s Projects, Albums and Folders feel nicer than Lightroom’s Quick Selection and Collections.

The main incentive for me to use Aperture is its editing capabilities. They do brushes aplenty, and useful ones too. Aperture has a very useable curves module, the effect from which can be brushed in and out. I could go on for hours but my wrists are tiring writing this whole article out at once. As Clint Eastwood once said, “Let me rest a while.”

Hello again.

The long and short of it is that I am incapable of writing any kind of review of these two software packages. Go to the experts for that (here and here).

The long and short of it is that I am probably going to end up using both of them. The reason: because Photoshop rules all. I got into photography in the first place thanks to my love of editing images in Photoshop nothing can replace its power and deep complexity. I know I can only lightly tickle the testicles of the mighty beast that is Photoshop and that I can never master it’s true power, but I can do an awful lot with it and I know it will always be the centre of my post-processing world - after I’ve had a little bit of Lightpreture.

Update

Hello again.
I’ve got a new iMac - a really powerful one. It loves Aperture 3 and - slowly - so do I. I’m trying to get into tagging again because I’m trying to treat my future self right. It also round-trips to Photoshop beautifully, thanks to the huge stack of RAM and CPU grunt, although I’ve noticed performance is enhanced by NOT insisting on every export as a 16-bit TIFF. Those files are too big off a Canon 5D MkII. Looking good so far.

I’m also using the silly Face recognition capability and - I admit - I’m really enjoying it. I never doubted you, Apple.

Ends.

Comments

[Ovidiu]

Hi there

I just wonder how you getting on with Aperture 3? I am bouncing between A3 and Lr 3 and it seems that I just cannot decide on which one I should use. I've been always using Lr but since I moved to Apple I decided to give A3 a go and...I kinda of like it but not enough to convince me to move 100% to A3.

[admin]

Hi,

I have been in the same boat as you, trying Aperture 3 and Lightroom 3. I have actually gone with Lightroom for the moment. Am shooting weddings at the moment and I like the way Lightroom handles thousands of files. I also like the new noise reduction capability in LR3. I'm doing most of my serious editing in Photoshop anyway. I might swing back one day!

[Reggie Henkart]

I have been a photographer for 40 years and embraced the digital world immediately. I did my first digital wedding in 2000. I have been using Aperture until yesterday when it crashed ironically after an Aperture update, with over 10,000 photos trapped in its folders. Even Aperture tech support could not release them. Of course I have it all backed up, but guess what? I am NEVER going to use Aperture again.

[Anna]

Hi!
I am a new (one year old) photographer. I am slowly learning the craft, the technicalities, the editing and so on. I bought Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4 from the get go, took my lynda.com classes even after I had the free trial of Aperature and took the Lynda.com classes for that, too. I love so much about Lightroom, and upgraded to both Lightroom 3 and CS5 (I am still learning Photoshop). I love the noise reduction of LR3 and the feel of the photos when I am done.

Tonight, I am typing on a new MacBookPro... not quite maxxed out, but well equipped. I am into all things Mac. Something made me think about Aperture again tonight and I think it has to do with the organization factor. I have an established workflow going... however, I am accumulating a collection of photos that is quite large. I have the originals stored in original files and the LR edits in the LR catalogs. I can not access a photo unless I hunt through all the catalogs, and I experience lag in my system with LR running as well. Now, I was wondering if Aperature may be more user friendly in this area. Since it is an Apple product, has the organizing "smart" features Apple is known for... Would this make my life easier???

I am also approaching having to solve my storage problems as I am quickly maxing out hard drives and need something that has a good flow.

All this said, I am curios as to how you are getting along with LR3 and Aperture 3.

Thanks!
Anna

[Rick]

I have been a faithful Lightroom user for a couple years (LR 2 and now 3), and I must say it works for me for what I need it to do. I edit hundreds of images each weekend (shooting youth sports), and it moves them along quickly, which is good.
I must admit however that I am a slob when it comes to proper filing, and storage of my images. I struggle mightily with LightRoom's "IMPORT" functions and still don't know where half my files are...I know they are somewhere on my external drive...but EXACTLY where is a guess. There are simply way, way too many options and strange terms used in the Import section....particularly the right ("destination") side.
I sure wish this was simpler.

I am tempted to look at Aperture though, as Apple always makes nice simple stuff. I have no real need for Photoshop although I do have CS4 Extended. So the interface between LR and PS is unneeded by me.

Anyone tell me how the file system is in Aperture ??
I also use the NIK plug-in suite EXTENSIVELY. Boy is that some fine piece of software if you are into editing. Sheeeeesh it's the best money I have spent in some time.

[Pinakin]

Looks like you (and others who have posted here) use both Aperture and Lightroom at the same time to manage files/folders, edit, and view your picture library. If that’s correct, how do you do it?

I’m converting from PC to Mac and would like to import my organized folders, but fear that the organization will be lost in Aperture. (i.e., it will merge all the files into a single folder or its native filing system… or it will change the file names, which I would really like to preserve.)

I’ve used Canon’s software to download pictures and Photoshop to edit. My photo library is in a basic tree structure by year, category, and date&event. A little less than 10k files.

How do you use both Aperture and Lightroom with out maintaining parallel libraries which would be a huge pain? Or am I missing something? Thanks!!

[Matthew]

I'm pleased to see that the old debate still generates as much interest as ever.

Nowadays - a long time after writing this blog post - I use Lightroom 3 exclusively as my photo management and primary editing application. Nothing against Aperture, I just wanted to settle on something and Lightroom, which I've used since it was in its first beta, was the one because it felt so comfortable for me.

I reserve the right to change back to Aperture at a moments notice. :-)

[ScottNYC]

god i cant decide ahhhhhhhhhhhh

[Eyvind]

After looking into both Lightroom 3 and Aperture 3 i have startes to use both. I find Aperture much better when it comes to editing my raw-files and i use Lightroom when it comes to managing my picture archive. This works perfect for me.

[Corey]

i use both LR3 and A3, If you re doing wedding books and layout, Aperture rocks in this area, as far as file management, LR3 does an ok job, but if you do a little work on the front end before importing to LR3, say thru acdsee or DPP, then the import will go smother. LR export function needs to be redefine, I dont mail clients photos thru LR3. And all my images are stored in multiple HDD attached to the network, all my lightroom photos are Connected to HDD label LR, and Aperture are stored in drives label AA, and adobe bridge allows me to save and pull respectively. One caution, remember that in LR3 its non destructive editing, so if you pull, after editing, remember to pull the xmp as well. I like both programs, but if you wish to settle on just one,...go with photoshop cs5, bridge as your pm, and keep multiple backups. one for your originals file, and one for all you edited and final out put file, and of course last but not least, a storage cd of each final project and shoot, and contact sheets printout in binders. Oh, aperture do lets you search for offline stuff also.