Mac users, did you choose Aperture or Lightroom?
Pindy
Registered Users Posts: 1,089 Major grins
I bought Aperture last year when I started getting back into photography, which I run on a Mac Book Pro. I have learned quite a bit about the app from the training book by Ben Long and the other fellow whose name eludes me right now.
I notice the program is by far the slowest I own and bogs down the entire machine just to do routine things and even when standing idle, the fan will come on and cause everything else in the computer to bog.
I bought LR when there was the $199 deal on, as I use Photoshop for curves, USM and the odd composite or layer work, and I thought the integration might be superior. I think LR also has some better editing features. But I have a few thousand photos in Aperture, and although I really like the app, the speed just makes me want to not open it in the first place.
Those of you that compared the two and settled on one, which was it? Why?Obviously all my settings will be lost if I switch (no, I don't want to import effected JPEGs if I can have the RAW files) but that was hours of work to get the important photos to the place they are now, WB, levels, exposure-wise. The draw of Lightroom is that it feels like a very capable app that's not too slow.
FWIW, I mainly use Aperture to organise and for basic contrast and WB chores.
What to do?
I notice the program is by far the slowest I own and bogs down the entire machine just to do routine things and even when standing idle, the fan will come on and cause everything else in the computer to bog.
I bought LR when there was the $199 deal on, as I use Photoshop for curves, USM and the odd composite or layer work, and I thought the integration might be superior. I think LR also has some better editing features. But I have a few thousand photos in Aperture, and although I really like the app, the speed just makes me want to not open it in the first place.
Those of you that compared the two and settled on one, which was it? Why?Obviously all my settings will be lost if I switch (no, I don't want to import effected JPEGs if I can have the RAW files) but that was hours of work to get the important photos to the place they are now, WB, levels, exposure-wise. The draw of Lightroom is that it feels like a very capable app that's not too slow.
FWIW, I mainly use Aperture to organise and for basic contrast and WB chores.
What to do?
0
Comments
Aperture is definitely slower than Lightroom in general use. However, there are some work-arounds if, like me, you prefer the toolset and workflow of Aperture.
* when browsing images, turn off the adjustments panel, viewer and HUD
* turn off previews unless you need them ( you can always choose to generate them later )
* use multiple libraries if it suits your style
From the sound of it, image preview generation is probably what is slowing you down and causing the computer fan to come on when you aren't doing anything. Try turning that off and see how it goes.
Strange this, as I have tried out both and settled on Aperture because I preferred the interface, and it ran a lot faster!!!
Michael
www.banksy.me.uk - main website
http://galleries.banksy.me.uk - smugmug site
I assure you there is no way to get acceptable performance out of Aperture if you are a serious user. I've got a very fast Mac Pro configuration and I've tried everything. In addition, the Spot and Patch tool has major defects, but Apple is unwilling even to recognise this, let alone fix it.
In my opinion, Aperture is an absolute disaster. Rumour has it every line of code is being rewritten for v2.0, but Apple is already totally discredited for me with this product.
My advice would be to do as I did - bite the bullet, kiss your sunk cost in Aperture good bye, and move over to Lightroom. I concluded that my frustration with Aperture was just not worth it. Now I'm riding the wave with Lightroom as this already competent program picks up momentum. It just works, and some enhancements due in v1.1 in the next few days will improve it still further.
In your case, as a Photoshop user, you can also be assured of good LR-PS integration into the future.
Good luck!
I tried Lightroom and was instantly won over, it suited my workflow and didn't get in my way at all.
Charlie
Canon 60D
Canon Rebel XTi (400)
Canon 10-22mm, Canon 50mm f/1.8 II
MacBook, MacPro
FWIW, Aperture runs fine for me on my 2.16ghz MacBook Pro w/ 2GB RAM.
http://www.macworld.com/2007/06/features/digitaldarkroom/index.php?lsrc=mwrss
Not a lot to disagree with here. Just your regular 'on the one hand, on the other hand' features summary designed to offend neither advertiser.
What isn't commented on is the relative performance and stability of the two products with a substantial image database and extensive/intensive image management and manipulation - i.e. in real life. That's where there's a world of difference IMHO.
I have Aperture and its performance in Intel machines I've found to be quite good. When I was away for 3 weeks in Antarctica, I took maybe 9,000 shots, edited it down to about 5,000, and performed color correction, levels, spot/patch (damn dirty sensor!), sharpening, shadows/highlights, and horizon leveling, and performance was very good. This was the 1st generation MacBook Pro as well. I was working amidst throngs of Lightroom users (Heck, the whole team -- Schewe, Reichmann, Resnick, Johnson, Atkinson were beta testers and advisors)... and Aperture was just as fast for me on that machine.
When I came home and imported them to my Quad G5 with 7800GT... it was kinda painful... it was definitely slower than the MacBook Pro was. Not sure if it was the smaller screen size or what. I have since upgraded to an 8-core Mac Pro and performance is quite good. Yes, this machine is a monster, but performance is certainly adequate. And at any rate, it's tens of times faster than an ACR/Photoshop combo would be, simply for workflow reasons.
I absolutely prefer the organization/management interfaces of Aperture (the stacks and compare functionality is fantastic), while I prefer the editing functionality of Lightroom (specifically because its curves is so much more intuitive than Aperture's "quarter tone sliders", and because the targeted adjust tool is AWESOME). Aperture's sharpening is way better at the moment, but as the ACR 4.1 changes move to LR 1.1 this advantage will go away.
Still... it boils down largely to how you like to work -- Aperture is a very free-form workflow, and Lightroom is a strictly modal workflow (i.e. you organize HERE, you edit HERE, you create galleries HERE, and you print HERE). I will say, the ability to edit/adjust/color correct an image when you're in the *middle* of a book is very, very useful -- you want to brightness match two photos on the same page -- go right ahead. Some people will STRONGLY prefer one workflow to the other, and I say the only way to really know is to try both programs out. On good Intel hardware, the performance thing shouldn't be much of an issue. On PPC or older hardware, it most certainly will.