aperture vs. lightroom?

lilmomma

there may be a thread for this already, sorry if there is...but I just recently completed my trial of lightroom 2 and I really liked it. Then my brother in law who works at the apple store convinced me to download a trial of Aperture last night. I was under the assumption that aperture was more of an organizing tool and there wasn't much editing power there. So I'm thinking along the lines of having about as much power as iphoto or some other basic tool. When I got into it, I found that so far the only thing I didn't see was gradients. Everything else that I had been doing in lightroom was there (except for presets, which I didn't care for as they stood anyway). And, with aperture, i can get it through him with his employee discount. I'm not a pro at all, but definately would like to be there someday. My question is, for someone who is still learning, what would I be able to do in LR that i can't do in aperture? For me it seems to be the same but aperture will be cheaper for me. I also want to get a version of PS elements, and maybe if I save money on this part, I can get both. I haven't gotten to spend a whole lot of time with aperture, but just from what I see it seems pretty close. I did like the power that LR had and I don't want to give that up. But, I'd also rather save $100 and put it toward an external flash or new lens. hmmm...anyone have suggestions? Oh and if it makes any difference at all, I shoot RAW.

dlplumer

I love Aperture , and with the latest plugins you can do just about anything you want.

Dan

Tiziano

FWIW I am an Apple fanatic but I chose Lightroom over Aperture.
Trouble is, I cannot provide a reason for the choice. IMO, they are both great programs. I've been with Photoshop since v5 and am now up to CS3 Extended. Since I started using LR2 I have not gone to PS for anything but some occasional layer work.

This link seems to compare the two fairly well:
http://www.stuartforsyth.com/2009/01/12/the-aperture-vs-lightroom-shootout

Thunder Rabbit

Howdy.

I don't know anything about Aperture, but if you are a student or your kid is, you can get Lr 2 for under $100. It's worth every penny at full price. Under $100 is a steal.

colourbox

As far as I know, you don't get non-destructive local adjustments with Aperture. But if you don't mind doing that in Photoshop (at the cost of much larger file size) you're fine, and it's easy to understand saving $100. But I use Lightroom.

dlplumer

colourbox wrote:

As far as I know, you don't get non-destructive local adjustments with Aperture. But if you don't mind doing that in Photoshop (at the cost of much larger file size) you're fine, and it's easy to understand saving $100. But I use Lightroom.

Aperture adjustments are all non-destructive.

lilmomma

Thanks for all the info! I think I might end up with Aperture, because in the end it will be easier to keep my stuff organized and load them to my mobileme gallery. Silly basis, but if that's what it comes down to then so be it! However, in response to this post:

Thunder Rabbit wrote:

Howdy.

I don't know anything about Aperture, but if you are a student or your kid is, you can get Lr 2 for under $100. It's worth every penny at full price. Under $100 is a steal.

I'm curious how the student discounts work. I am not a student, however I graduated college in August and still have my student ID (that doesn't have a date). Could I go into my old school's bookstore and purchase PS Elements at a discount there? Do you think it matters that my (Accounting) major has nothing to do with it? Now I'm wishing I would've gotten into this before I graduated. Of course I'm not sure I would've had the time for all this then, it was pretty intensive

dwayne_bradley

Unless...

dlplumer wrote:

Aperture adjustments are all non-destructive.

Adjustments are non-destructive unless you use an editing plug-in like NoiseNinja, Silver Efex Pro, etc. In this case, all adjustments made in Aperture are "flattened" and sent to the plug-in as a single "layer". After saving the image with the plug-in, you cannot get the adjustments back. But, when you DO save the photo using the plug-in, you DO get an additional version of the photo in Aperture so you still have the original with any prior adjustments that you had made.

Going back to the OP question of Lightroom vs. Aperture, I personally chose Aperture because of how it integrated so well into the rest of the Mac universe. For instance, my Aperture library is an option in iTunes for syncing photos to my iPod and AppleTV (for screensaver pics). Also, anywhere the Media Browser is present in other apps (such as iLife and iWork apps), my Aperture library is present there as well so I have access to all of my pics.

One more thing. In my opinion, if you are not shooting in the RAW format of your camera, you are not getting the most out of either Aperture or Lightroom. These apps were built for the RAW workflow.

Dwayne

colourbox

dlplumer wrote:

Aperture adjustments are all non-destructive.

I didn't say non-destructive adjustments - I said non-destructive local adjustments, where you can (for example) dodge and burn specific areas of the image and save that in the metadata. I believe Aperture and its plug-ins can only do this by generating a second TIFF copy of the file, but do correct me if I'm wrong.

Can Aperture apply a graduated density filter to an image? That's turning into my favorite non-destructive local adjustment.

mercphoto

I chose Aperture over Lightroom because of easy integration with the rest of the Apple universe. Sending images to iMovie, iDVD, synching to my iPhone and iPod. But I also found Lightroom to have the same problem that Bridge has, in that its just dang slow. I found Aperture to be more responsive.

Thunder Rabbit

Howdy.

The documentation requirements for student discounts vary.

I bought PS3 from SoftwareKing.com on a student discount for $399 and no documentation was required.

I bought Lr2 for $98.00 at CreationEngine.com. and used a copy of my son's report card for verification. He's in kindergarten.

Go to creationengine.com or any other Adobe reseller to get more details. But my general impression is that by and large, student discount policies are pretty loose. Your student ID card will probably work.

WolfOnDigital

I agree

Tiziano wrote:

FWIW I am an Apple fanatic but I chose Lightroom over Aperture.




So am I but would rather use Lightroom hands down.

WolfOnDigital

Integration with Apple

dwayne_bradley wrote:

Adjustments are non-destructive unless you use an editing plug-in like NoiseNinja, Silver Efex Pro, etc. In this case, all adjustments made in Aperture are "flattened" and sent to the plug-in as a single "layer". After saving the image with the plug-in, you cannot get the adjustments back. But, when you DO save the photo using the plug-in, you DO get an additional version of the photo in Aperture so you still have the original with any prior adjustments that you had made.

Going back to the OP question of Lightroom vs. Aperture, I personally chose Aperture because of how it integrated so well into the rest of the Mac universe. For instance, my Aperture library is an option in iTunes for syncing photos to my iPod and AppleTV (for screensaver pics). Also, anywhere the Media Browser is present in other apps (such as iLife and iWork apps), my Aperture library is present there as well so I have access to all of my pics.

One more thing. In my opinion, if you are not shooting in the RAW format of your camera, you are not getting the most out of either Aperture or Lightroom. These apps were built for the RAW workflow.

Dwayne

Lightroom was available for testing to the Mac people first! I was one of the early beta testers with 1000s of others. Lightroom people listened to the feedback from all the photographers and is trying to include everything we asked for. I am a HUGE Apple user and advocate, BUT no comparison between the two.

Aperture is a great product but Lightroom blows it away and will continue to have the elad as every version is actually adding things requsted by "Photographers" in a real world setting. Aperture does not do this to any level of the dgree Lightroom does.
How exciting is that??!!! A company that adds features real photograhers requested!

WolfOnDigital

Which version of lightroom did you use?

mercphoto wrote:

I chose Aperture over Lightroom because of easy integration with the rest of the Apple universe. Sending images to iMovie, iDVD, synching to my iPhone and iPod. But I also found Lightroom to have the same problem that Bridge has, in that its just dang slow. I found Aperture to be more responsive.

Speed was an issue in the early versions of lightroom.

It is NOT anymore. Not even a factor right now as Lightroom is as fast as Aperture.

arodney

dlplumer wrote:

I love Aperture , and with the latest plugins you can do just about anything you want.

Dan

Ah, you realize that all its doing is rendering a TIFF and applying those edits, just as if you exported a TIFF and ran the same plug-in, in Photoshop. Its not processing via its Raw processor (nor are any Lightroom plug-ins). All this does is save you a trip into Photoshop, but from the perspective of image quality and data handling, its exactly the same. And it is destructive.

dlplumer

colourbox wrote:

I didn't say non-destructive adjustments - I said non-destructive local adjustments, where you can (for example) dodge and burn specific areas of the image and save that in the metadata. I believe Aperture and its plug-ins can only do this by generating a second TIFF copy of the file, but do correct me if I'm wrong.

Can Aperture apply a graduated density filter to an image? That's turning into my favorite non-destructive local adjustment.

You are correct: plugins generate a Tiff copy.

I use Tiffen Dx (plug-in) for gradient filters

CatOne

WolfOnDigital wrote:

Lightroom was available for testing to the Mac people first! I was one of the early beta testers with 1000s of others. Lightroom people listened to the feedback from all the photographers and is trying to include everything we asked for. I am a HUGE Apple user and advocate, BUT no comparison between the two.

Aperture is a great product but Lightroom blows it away and will continue to have the elad as every version is actually adding things requsted by "Photographers" in a real world setting. Aperture does not do this to any level of the dgree Lightroom does.
How exciting is that??!!! A company that adds features real photograhers requested!

So you're implying that Apple isn't taking feature requests from photographers? How might you know that?

CatOne

arodney wrote:

Ah, you realize that all its doing is rendering a TIFF and applying those edits, just as if you exported a TIFF and ran the same plug-in, in Photoshop. Its not processing via its Raw processor (nor are any Lightroom plug-ins). All this does is save you a trip into Photoshop, but from the perspective of image quality and data handling, its exactly the same. And it is destructive.

Except, if you don't use Photoshop multiple times per week, the damned thing is so obtuse as to be infuriating.

I cannot currently blend two photos in HDR. Because I forget the shortcut (command-option-tilde? refresh my memory) to select the 128-255 valued pixels in a shot. Every time I go to Photoshop, I have to spend the first 3 hours remembering what I forgot since the last time I used it. Using Viveza in Photoshop is refreshingly easily, even if it does generate a TIFF. "Hey, what if I darkened this sky a bit? Hey, that's nice, 3 control points and I'm done!"

I was also very excited to see that Photomatix now has a plug-in for Aperture. Formerly, LR2 + Photoshop had a big advantage there, but now that you can do Photomatix inside Aperture that's gone, and Photomatix does a _great_ job with HDR.

CatOne

colourbox wrote:

I didn't say non-destructive adjustments - I said non-destructive local adjustments, where you can (for example) dodge and burn specific areas of the image and save that in the metadata. I believe Aperture and its plug-ins can only do this by generating a second TIFF copy of the file, but do correct me if I'm wrong.

Can Aperture apply a graduated density filter to an image? That's turning into my favorite non-destructive local adjustment.

Nope. Non-destructive local adjustments and the non-destructive graduated filter are two things LR can do that Aperture currently cannot.

colourbox

For those who haven't used either, in the end, Aperture and Lightroom are both excellent and very similar products, such that threads like these end up talking about and clarifying the few remaining differences. If you're on Windows, then Lightroom is your choice because Aperture doesn't exist on Windows. On the Mac, you can save $100 with Aperture, but you get more local control with Lightroom. Both products are only at 2.0 and both companies are gonna want to listen to their users in future revs.

One aspect not discussed is performance. I started with Lightroom because it ran decently on my old laptop, while Aperture would not run at all because its system requirements are higher. But that was then. I'm not sure how that comparison has changed in 2.0 if you pit Aperture against Lightroom on what is considered not-quite-new hardware today.

WolfOnDigital

Because...

CatOne wrote:

So you're implying that Apple isn't taking feature requests from photographers? How might you know that?

If you read all of my posts..:)
I said how I have worked for Apple and I still have contacts with them. I am not saying they aren't taking any requests. I am saying Lightroom setup a website for beta testing at the start and listened and RESPONDED personally with posts to all requests that were made. They are trully listening to what the Photographers wanted. They seem by all indications to be way more responsive to improving their product then Aperture was.

Hopefull Apple will follow suit and do the same. It would only benefit us the Photographer.

Based on what I have seen, heard etc I would choose Lightroom over Aperture.


Jeff

mercphoto

WolfOnDigital wrote:

Speed was an issue in the early versions of lightroom.

It is NOT anymore. Not even a factor right now as Lightroom is as fast as Aperture.

Unfortunately it was when I was making my buying decision. I will admit that after years of cursing at Bridge that also tainted my decision making process. In general I like Apple software more than Adobe software.

The one good thing about Lightroom is that it is cross-platform, will run on Windows and on Mac.

WolfOnDigital

The biggest issue

mercphoto wrote:

Unfortunately it was when I was making my buying decision. I will admit that after years of cursing at Bridge that also tainted my decision making process. In general I like Apple software more than Adobe software.

The one good thing about Lightroom is that it is cross-platform, will run on Windows and on Mac.

I know what you mean. When we were beta testing it we were bitching about the speed of Lightroom and a lot of people were of course turned off by that fact and were saying they would buy Aperture. Like yourself I am sure many went to Aperture due to this major fact then.

Jeff

Slinky0390

I use both, I wound up buying Lightroom and my dad bought Aperture. I prefer to use Lightroom as my digital darkroom, can't tell you a good reason why other than I have about 5000 pictures in my library with edits made. I use Aperture to make photo books since it is really quite easy, even with editing the photos in Lightroom. I just export them as TIFF and import them into Aperture.

black_ghost

dlplumer wrote:

I love Aperture , and with the latest plugins you can do just about anything you want.

Dan

Hi Dan,

Have you ever had a problem with removing disconnected vaults I have 3 vaults I want to remove but Aperture just seems to go into freeeze mode nothing happens when I try to remove one.

dlplumer

black_ghost wrote:

Hi Dan,

Have you ever had a problem with removing disconnected vaults I have 3 vaults I want to remove but Aperture just seems to go into freeeze mode nothing happens when I try to remove one.

Sorry. No experience with vaults.

lilmomma

Thanks for your help everyone.... today I discovered that you can download presets in LR. Wow some of the ones I downloaded are awesome. That has decided it for me, i'm going with LR. Although I sort of feel like i'm cheating (not that i'm complaining!)