Lightroom or Aperture?

[antd]

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Just got set up with my new X1 and very excited. I am an existing Aperture user but also took advantage to download the free edition of Adobe Lightroom courtesy of the kind folks at Leica. Just wondering what people's views are in terms of which is the preferred software for working with the X1's RAW images? Should I stick with Aperture or switch to Lightroom?

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[Leica Boss]

Do you have any trouble with the speed of Aperture? I got Aperture 3 and it was horribly horribly slow, I read after that a lot of people encountered the same problem. LR3 is fast and efficient, I liked the Aperture 3 interface slightly more but have no problems with LR3 and speed. They both do pretty much the exact same thing tho, it shouldn't matter what camera you are shooting on both programs will give very similar results. If you have Aperture 3 and no problems with speed then you're lucky (I would have probably stayed with Aperture had I not had any issues) and you might as well stick with it.

 

Here is a small comparison video comparing the results of the two with the same image -

 

YouTube - Aperture 3 vs Lightroom 3

[paulpp]

I am sticking with Aperture mainly as I don't want another learning curve. Will be interesting to see if the rumours of an Aperture 4 are correct, but at the moment the devil I know seems preferable.

[edmond_terakopian]

Just got set up with my new X1 and very excited. I am an existing Aperture user but also took advantage to download the free edition of Adobe Lightroom courtesy of the kind folks at Leica. Just wondering what people's views are in terms of which is the preferred software for working with the X1's RAW images? Should I stick with Aperture or switch to Lightroom?

 

I use Aperture for all my work; M9, X1 and Canon 5D MkII and 7D. Very pleased with the user interface, quality of processed images and the speed is absolutely fine for me; I'm a photojournalist and yet to miss a deadline!

One tip though for large libraries is to switch off Faces and Places; this speeds things up a lot, otherwise your machine ends up cataloguing tens of thousands of faces and doing facial recognition on them!

[bybrett]

One tip though for large libraries is to switch off Faces and Places; this speeds things up a lot, otherwise your machine ends up cataloguing tens of thousands of faces and doing facial recognition on them!

 

Should be "off" by default??

[edmond_terakopian]

Should be "off" by default??

 

Possibly, but it's not. I think it's on as for casual shooters without huge libraries it works well and helps with finding people of loved ones and placed they have gone to. Any serious photographer or pro almost always fills in the metadata IPTC so people and places can easily be found with a fast metadata search.

I have almost half a million images in my Aperture library and if I switch on Faces my poor Mac Pro begins to sweat!! Facial recognition is cool but with a huge number of faces it's just too slow with current hardware.

[gtownby]

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After using LR3 downloaded with my M9 purchase, I began to miss the intuitive layout of Aperture 2. Also, as a traditional "file folder" user, it appears easier to manage files outside the app than LR. HOWEVER, my Aprture display is always very garish -- skin colors way too saturated. Is there a place to adjust this in Aperture? (I've looked, unsuccessfully).

[edmond_terakopian]

After using LR3 downloaded with my M9 purchase, I began to miss the intuitive layout of Aperture 2. Also, as a traditional "file folder" user, it appears easier to manage files outside the app than LR. HOWEVER, my Aprture display is always very garish -- skin colors way too saturated. Is there a place to adjust this in Aperture? (I've looked, unsuccessfully).

 

Strange about the skin colours; my colleagues and I are in agreement that Aperture is much better with skin tones.

A couple of suggestions:

1- Do you have a calibrated screen? Maybe you're not seeing accurate colours.

2- Nailing the WB is naturally really important, so maybe look at that.

3- Sometimes on the M9 I find the reds a little overpowering so will reduce them by 5% in the Saturation brick.

 

Naturally using RAW is the best option; maybe you have a wrong setting in Aperture and it's actually downloading or showing you the jpeg? I only download the RAW files myself.

 

Hope some of this helps :-)

 

Edmond

[richfx]

Seeking to avoid a huge learning curve with LR 3, I tried Aperture 3.0 (free 30 day trial) and have never looked back. There is nothing I cannot accomplish with Aperture, and Apple's intuitiveness, robustness and user friendliness are absolutely terrific. There are numerous rumors to the effect that Steve Jobs and/or other senior Apple execs are Leica shooters and fans. Its interface with the M9 is excellent. If only Aperture 3.1.2 or its successor included lens metadata info. Alas, nothing's perfect and the workaround I discovered here on the Forum works well.

Rich