Ars Technica Lightroom Review (vs. Aperture)

Pupator

Good review of Lightroom here, especially considering Aperture. Lots of good technical info about the differences between the two programs that I didn't realize.

wxwax

I like the site, and the review is satisfyingly thorough. I still don't know why I need both Lightroom and Photoshop, though.

Richard

Pupator wrote:

Good review of Lightroom here, especially considering Aperture. Lots of good technical info about the differences between the two programs that I didn't realize.

Thanks for pointing this out. For the highly geeky, there is a discussion about this article on Slashdot right now. FWIW.

Cheers,

System

wxwax wrote:

I like the site, and the review is satisfyingly thorough. I still don't know why I need both Lightroom and Photoshop, though.

You don't need both. I'd say you need PS. LR adds a far more powerful and user friendly RAW developing platform as well as a much more intuitive image management system than Bridge. LR will allow you to get your RAW files developed much faster than PS and cut down on your PS workload as all the exposure, curve adjustments, cropping and 90% of the color management is done in LR. Retouching and the use of various filters is still done in PS.

Pupator

truth wrote:

You don't need both. I'd say you need PS. LR adds a far more powerful and user friendly RAW developing platform as well as a much more intuitive image management system than Bridge. LR will allow you to get your RAW files developed much faster than PS and cut down on your PS workload as all the exposure, curve adjustments, cropping and 90% of the color management is done in LR. Retouching and the use of various filters is still done in PS.

Am I reading that wrong? Because it doesn't seem to make any sense. You say "I'd say you need PS," but then you go on to explain all the great things LR does.

System

Pupator wrote:

Am I reading that wrong? Because it doesn't seem to make any sense. You say "I'd say you need PS," but then you go on to explain all the great things LR does.

You can do all those thing with PS / Camera RAW but LR does them better.

colourbox

If you work on tons of photos at once, Lightroom will probably be worth it in the time savings and efficiency of corrections, even if you already own Photoshop.

If you only work on one or two images at a time, and aren't paid for it, it's probably more reasonable to stick with Photoshop/Bridge/Camera Raw, especially with the enhancements to those apps in CS3 that bring it even with Lightroom. You have the same features plus everything else that Photoshop can do.

But look what I had to write there. With Photoshop, three programs are needed to accomplish the core digital camera processing tasks Lightroom does all by itself, and coordinating those three programs to process a large shoot can sometimes be exasperating. That's why Lightroom exists. There was a major opportunity to streamline for folks who do a lot of volume processing with digital camera files.

wxwax

colourbox wrote:

If you work on tons of photos at once, Lightroom will probably be worth it in the time savings and efficiency of corrections, even if you already own Photoshop.

Thanks, that's what I figured. It's a bulk management tool.

I don't shoot enough good shots to need something like that. :cry

David Taylor

An 'evolving' comparison between Aperture and Lightroom will unfold here.
It should be interesting. I'm prepared to sit back and watch for the moment.

CatOne

wxwax wrote:

I like the site, and the review is satisfyingly thorough. I still don't know why I need both Lightroom and Photoshop, though.

It replaces Bridge and ACR, and adds more workflow at the same time.

wxwax

CatOne wrote:

It replaces Bridge and ACR, and adds more workflow at the same time.

But I get both of those with Photoshop.

Why pay a minimum of $200 extra for something I already have?

I think I understand some of the workflow benefits. Seems to me they are only relevant for high volume processing.

CatOne

wxwax wrote:

But I get both of those with Photoshop.

Why pay a minimum of $200 extra for something I already have?

I think I understand some of the workflow benefits. Seems to me they are only relevant for high volume processing.

They're relevant for high volumes. Aperture is SUBSTANTIALLY faster for going through 5,000 images than is Bridge -- For comparison and selecting "keeper" images there is really no comparison at all. Lightroom also is a help -- it's not as good at compare/select as is Aperture, but it's a bit stronger on some editing functionality.

If you come from a 4x5 film background and shoot only landscapes then you probably don't need anything of the sort