Why I'm sticking with Aperture (rather than Lightroom)

[jonoslack]

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Hi There

I'm convinced by the new paradigm for photographic software exemplified by Aperture and Lightroom.

 

After the last post on Apple's information on delayed support for the M8, I made a definite decision to go with Lightroom. I've spent the last three days importing projects and setting things up. I was already quite familiar with beta 2 and 4, and had the bare bones of a library structure.

 

After many hours, I realise that I'm going to have to stop being sulky, and get back to Aperture.

 

Of course, my perspective has mostly been with landscape and natural light, so it may be different for you.

 

Here is why:

 

Well:

 

1. image quality - Lightroom does funny things to the reds, and, there is invariable considerable fringing in high contrast foliage and branches - and the lens correction fringe tool seems to be pretty much useless. Comparable Aperture conversions are much more subtle, with better reds, and the fringing doesn't even seem to exist. . . . .and that's using Eoin's splendid hack.

 

2. Develop - there are lots of good things in both, but the need to click back and forth in the development module has been driving me crazy - with Aperture you can choose easily what shows, and for most purposes everything is there at once.

 

3. Dual monitor support - with Aperture you can have the tool bar and controls on one monitor, and the images on the other - the full screen mode means that you can fill the screen with the image while working on it, with all controls on the other monitor - you just can't do that in lightroom.

 

4. Printing - the printing support in Lighroom looks fine, but I'm always having to re-pick the printer and profile when hitting the print button - with Aperture this is all stored together - so that if you have, let's say, a preset for A4 ilford gallerie, and another for Roll paper enhanced matt colour - just click it and hit the print button. The number of times in Lightroom I was frustrated in that it simply doesn't hold the paper profile. Worse than this - I like to print in black and white using the Quadtone RIP - excellent software which produces lovely results, especially on my Epson 4000 with enhanced matte paper. In lightroom it either says 'unrecognised profile', converts the preset to 'lightroom manages' without asking and prints nothing - or else it crashes.

 

5. Web output - with Aperture you can control the size of the thumbnails, and I simply like the output better (obviously this is my opinion). Added to this, it's easy to hack into the different templates in Aperture and change them to suit your own wants.

 

6. Project / Smart Album etc. etc. With Lightroom 1.0 you are pretty much forced to use the folder structure of the library for your structure in the program - I find this really frustrating. With Aperture you can have a folder for 'general shots for the month' and then include a number of sub folders in this. Smart Albums are another splendid tool which doesn't seem to exist in Lightroom.

 

7. Browser - There isn't one in Lightroom - in Aperture, the import routine gives you a good (and very fast) browser screen, so you can choose what to import, and what not to, or simply look.

 

I think anyone deciding which to use should think hard - it's easy to criticise Apple for their arrogance and speed of reaction - but the feature set and ease of use just seem so much more intuitive and successful.

 

So I AM going to stop sulking and get on with it!

[elopezso]

Couldn't have said it better myself. Am loving using Aperture. Now, every time I return to Capture 1 or Lightroom, th ecolors eem oversaturated and/or out of whack!

 

Ed

[LJL]

Jono,

I am with you on all of this. Thank you so much for laying out a nice list of objective findings. These are the sorts of things we have all been talking around, but this is good comparison.

 

Not trying to convince anybody to go or leave Aperture or Lightroom, but more to think about their needs, workflow, and more importatnly, the quality of the RAW conversions. I have been using Aperture from its first day of release, but still have not put it into full production for my equestrian and polo work. That is brute force stuff that for me is handled adequately by Bridge/ACR/PS, as I need lots of cropping, straightening, cloning, and noise reduction via Noise Ninja that right now work well in PS for me. for everything else, and all of my finer work, I use Aperture. With Eoin's hack, I am now going to be using Aperture for most if not all of my Leica work. I love the conversions and the workflow.

 

Thanks again for sharing your observations and comments. I thought you had "gone over" a few days ago and was a bit saddened. Glad you are back.

 

LJ

[flavio]

As I said in another thread, I have used LR from the Beta 2 to 4.1. In October I downloaded Aperture and in few weeks (the trial time was 30 days), I realized that, for my way to think and act, Aperture was better: colour quality, sharpening, B&W conversion. Interface is quite good for me and the overall workflow seems to be faster. BTW, speed: LR beta 2 was clearly faster than beta 4.1 (far richer). Nowadays LR 4.1 and Aperture 1.5.2 seem to be almost the same. For some action LR may be faster, for some others, maybe fewer, Aperture. Anyway not that big difference. What I think is important is the workflow of the various actions that is faster, for my way to work, in Aperture.

Yesterday I have downloaded LR ver 1.0 and will understand where LR is arrived.

Anyway for digital shooters, it is a great time indeed. I do not need all the possibilities some software may supply, but I can use almost a real darkroom as in the beginning. And this is great.

 

One more thing: I would like suggest to give a try to Raw Developer by Iridient Digital. I really appreciated how it works for colour rendering and sharpening.

 

Thanks everybody for sharing your views. More minds, more to understand.

[iomatic]

I love the Smart Albums: e.g., "4 stars, and shot at 24mm".

[Eoin]

Can I join the Aperture love in?.

Since the release of version 1.0 I've been hooked, so much so that I moved my personal PC computers over to a PPC G5 and later added a MBP just to run this application. It has not been an easy road of quirks and speed issues but I've kept with it. I was like many disappointed at the lack of support for native DNG but I will wait and wait and wait 'till it happens. To my mind it is the best all in one DAM, developer, printing and many other functions such as dual monitor support and so on.

 

It works quite well with the M8 files now and if I may say so my self better than lightroom and C1, I'm sure some may argue that point with me, but they are fighting a loosing battle, it's a personal choice, like a lens or a film, aperture is my kodachrome 64 on steroids.

[JHAG]

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Couldn't have said it better myself. Am loving using Aperture. Now, every time I return to Capture 1 or Lightroom, th ecolors eem oversaturated and/or out of whack!

 

Ed

 

Edwin,

I compare the three. Frankly, regarding tones, when you adjust in LR from "as shot" to another selection (or doing so, then applying the pipette in Capture), you have quite accurate tones.

Despite its great features, I'm always struggling with the GUI in Aperture to find my way in it, while LR and Capture are really more intuitive to me. Capture 4 I discovered today works really fine for me.

[vikasmg]

Thanks for that comparison Jono. I have in fact been very happy using Lightroom and although I read a few Aperture reviews never bothered to try it out. However I'm not entirely happy with the printing and some of the inconveniences in the interface that you mention I realise I'd just acepted these as a given, but now think it might be worth trying an alternative. It's like when I speak to someone who only know one language - they tend to think there's something inherently natural about a particular grammar, while of course there are other options :-)....

[lesh]

On the other hand.........

Aperture sets quite a high system requirement - at least for an amateur like myself with some old equipment still in use. With there being 5 Apple machines in the house at Christmas time, it's clear we are solid Mac supporters, but I'd suggest they don't always get everything right.

Another example is iPhoto where one of the program updates made a horrendous mess of the image storage regime (full recovery is still not complete) . If you wanted to do something in another image application it was impossible to locate specific files.

Lightroom has become the cornerstone of my image management/manipulation resources. It does a great job of storing images in the way I prefer, and allows me to 'develop' them in amazing ways. There is room for improvement - there are some impressive features in Lightzone that would be nice to have.

With it's ability to run even on my 8 year old PowerBook, and the ease with which you can continue to use specialist applications like Photomatix or Noise Ninja, as and when required - LR certainly gets the nod from me.

[ptomsu]

On the other hand.........

LR certainly gets the nod from me.

 

Fully agree!

 

I have all - Aperture, C1-4 and LR and I prefer LR because of the clean file management as well as the very good al-in-one capabilities of this package. And if I need more I do it in PSCS3.

[fjmcsu]

I use both programs & see benefits of both.One thing I would like to see in "A" is the type of keywording system that "LR " employs which makes it so much easier to tag photos. It seems the Aperture system is not as use friendly as the LR version & oftens 'forgets' previously used keywords, whereas the "LR" version does not .I do agree that I much prefer the color rendition of M8 files in "A" over "LR", WEB set-up, Albums etc. I don't print from either so I can't comment on that portion of the modules.

[JHAG]

I tried A, LR and C1. A's GUI is always uneasy to me. Plus the "vault" that eats a lot of disk space : 10 000 pics (1/3 RAW, 2/3 JPG) = 80 Gb.

Regarding colour rendition, I compared : provided you correct WB in C1 or LR with pipette tool, you get exactly the same colour results as A.

LR and C1 ergonomy are the best to me.

But I always need to go back to CS3 to work on the images. As I'm used to work a lot with high pass filter (much better that any sharpening), I find rendition of contrast and sharpness far better in CS3.

So, to me, C1 and LR are mostly enhanced versions of Bridge.

[Guest stnami]

Apple have been messing up their higher end and mid end for a while, Final Cut pro has it's problems reading HD as does the mac version of Premiere. iMovie 8 is a backward step from 6, iphoto stopped using that years ago as it became more and more a glorified slide show.

 

Aperture has had a real sluggish start and is yet to recover or really move, works better with some files than other, lacks consistency across the board. The my files are OK and bugger you mentality doesn't mean that the application is good and efficient, people use a variety of gear because they either choose or have to.

 

The new mac versions of Microsoft word etc are different to the PC version and runs a bit helter skelter, one thing iWorks is a lot more efficient that word but the industry use is limited.

 

Mac is/has become a consumer entertainment company, it may as well go to bed with Panasonic and co.

 

Changing OSX every 18 months is a pain, conflicts in older versions are left and newer versions create new conflicts that take ages to solve by that time a new cat comes out and we start all over again. Applications continually conflict until a patch is made All this costs costs the consumer a heap.

 

I have less problems with PC applications than mac ones now, it used to be the other way round, I still stick to mac at home and for my own work as I still enjoy the work flow and interface but everything else, lectures tutorials are presented via PC for efficiency.

[vikasmg]

6. Project / Smart Album etc. etc. With Lightroom 1.0 you are pretty much forced to use the folder structure of the library for your structure in the program - I find this really frustrating. With Aperture you can have a folder for 'general shots for the month' and then include a number of sub folders in this. Smart Albums are another splendid tool which doesn't seem to exist in Lightroom.

 

7. Browser - There isn't one in Lightroom - in Aperture, the import routine gives you a good (and very fast) browser screen, so you can choose what to import, and what not to, or simply look.

 

Some initial thoughts on the Aperture interface after browsing around in it and going through Apple's fairly useful on-line tutorials.

 

Perhaps because I don't make my living from photography I find I don't really find the Album/Project model very useful, though perhaps this may change as I use it more. At present I find the fact close relationship of the Lightroom library folder structure and the Finder's folder structure less confusing and more straightforward and adequate for my needs.

 

However Aperture's import interface is something I would find very useful and if I stuck to Lightroom I would find myself missing it a lot.

 

- Vikas