Impressed with light room

[nryn]

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Hi Sirvine.

 

The difference between Lightroom's "backup" and Aperture's vaults is actually described right on the popup which appears when you create a new Aperture vault:

 

Adjustments, ratings, and other metadata are included for all images, regardless of file location.

 

In other words, the vault is ostensibly a backup of your library, including ratings, versions, etc. Lightroom basically just copies the files as far as I can tell. I don't know about you, but there are a bazillion different ways to backup the files (my files are backed up via a cron job, but there are many different programs which can schedule file duplication). The real effort--which I most certainly want backed up--is the effort I put into organizing those files. Also, Aperture's vaults can be offloaded to removable media but still referenced in the program, which gives you the ability to truly archive images (and by that I mean you can archive them to DVD but know which DVD to grab when you want an original file).

 

It seems to me that Aperture's backup system is actually a system with very well-thought-out, deep functionality which is very closely tied into the application's functionality. Lightroom's feature is certainly welcome for some I'm sure, but really it just saves you the effort of hitting copy and paste in the Finder.

 

As I mentioned, I'm running the programs side-by-side now and am putting both of them through their paces, and I'm really on the fence. It surprises me how virulent and misguided some of the comments about either program can be. I'm not pointing any fingers here, and I'm not necessarily sticking up for Aperture. I'm trying to make sure that the conversation about [/i]both[/i] programs actually goes a bit deeper than kneejerk impressions. I'm sure I'm not the only person deciding between these two apps, and anything less than a serious and informed comparison between the two doesn't do anyone any good. I myself am pretty frustrated trying to find objective comparisons of these apps' features.

[Giulio Zanni]

I bought Lightroom because supports the M8 DNGs, but then I found out that is miles ahead of Aperture. The develop tab is fantastic and I am now using curves for the first time. It has also one of the best BW converter (no need anymore to mess around with channel mixer). It is also much cheaper compared to Aperture. It doesn't force you to buy faster Macs and then it doesn't let you down waiting forever for phantom upgrades....With the money that I spent on Aperture and a faster computer I could have almost bought a second M8.

 

Giulio

[Guest sirvine]

Ether,

 

You make some good points. I stopped paying attention to Aperture after it let me down on a number of fronts. As you rightly point out, the effort is in organizing libraries and keeping them maintained, and I didn't have time to wait for Apple to work it out. My decision was made before Apple even had a serious release. Now, I'm invested in the LR workflow despite the fact that I did everything in my power to make Aperture work. At some point, I'm sure I'll switch back.

 

As for the vault scheme keeping metadata intact, that seems like a nice feature, although I'm not sure how it is superior to keeping incremental duplicates of your library and the managed files in LR.

 

At some point, this becomes a question of personal taste, which is why the competition is a good thing. Some people care more about the metadata, others about the develop modules. For me, I'll take the develop features every time because metadata is just begging to be corrupted, lost and locked into proprietary formats.

[carstenw]

Carsten, I am curious as to how you think Lightroom's V1 workflow and organization features are superior to Aperture's.

 

I don't. I just wanted to know why someone thought the opposite, and I wasn't implying in this that they were wrong. I honestly wanted to know.

 

I am not a pro, and although I have perhaps 15k images, I don't look at them all; far from it, so the lighter-duty interface in Lightroom is great for me. I use a separate backup strategy, and haven't actually compared the new backup integration in Lightroom, so you could easily be right there.

 

Apple got a lot of things right with Aperture, but there are a few things which made me reject it: performance, a closed database system (at least until very recently), no way to use external raw developers (fixed), less good raw development quality until recently, and so on. A lot of this was fixed in 1.5, but I still feel uneasy about it, and I do not wish to support a product which does not support my camera. I understand that some may, and that those who already own it are looking for solutions, but not me.

 

When the Lightroom beta first came out it was like a breath of fresh air compared to using the sluggish, over-engineered Aperture, in many ways. Perhaps if I was doing studio fashion work, was taking 1000 pictures a day, and had a quad Mac Pro with 16GB ram and a Raid-5 drive array I might see it differently, but I would expect that *almost* (not quite) everyone on this forum is better off with Lightroom, at least until Apple addresses the last couple of problems. Adobe is moving faster at the moment, and got more of the key aspects right immediately which made me question Aperture. Apple is really dragging behind here, IMO.

 

If Aperture one day truly passes Lightroom, I will switch. I do prefer Apple as a company, and like their approach to things. For now, it is Lightroom for me. I plopped down the money for it today.

[nryn]

I've fixed the Aperture performance problems with a new Mac (which I don't consider an Aperture cost since I use it for so many other things). I'm really, really impressed with Aperture and, but in the end it comes down to this--I have to hack the damn program to get it to recognize photos from my camera. This irks me to no end, and though I suspect this is just as much Leica's fault as it is Apple's ("the M8 image" is still a work in progress as we wait for firmware 1.10), I'm not going to plunk down $300 on blind faith that Apple will support my camera.

 

If they make an announcement today that the M8 would be supported in the next version, I'd gladly give them my money. It's a given they'll address the performance issues and offer a concerted response to Lightroom 1.0. But though Eoin's hack works and works well, in the end it's a hack and it requires an extra step (DNG conversion from...DNGs...). Lightroom supports my camera files today, period.

 

18 days left on both trials, and I probably won't make a decision at the end of those 18 days. I feel my library is a million times easier to manage in Aperture. I can get in and out of images much more quickly in Lightroom's Develop module, though. That said, I find the color handling and sharpening in Aperture far superior to Lightroom. That said, I prefer Lightroom's interface and responsiveness. Sigh.

 

I suppose of dilemmas in life one could be in, this is an extremely privileged one, and I definitely keep that in mind. I think anyone who spends energy getting mad at either company has lost perspective.

[arthury]

I just downloaded LR and it's pretty after the import is completed. It's comparable to NikonCaptureNX, except I cannot find something equivalent to the U-point technology in LR.

 

Can someone who is familiar with both CaptureNX and LR point to me the similar thing in LR which allows me to dodge/burn a selected area in 2-3 clicks?

 

I'm almost sold for LR, except for the above feature in CaptureNX.

[tashley]

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I just downloaded LR and it's pretty after the import is completed. It's comparable to NikonCaptureNX, except I cannot find something equivalent to the U-point technology in LR.

 

Can someone who is familiar with both CaptureNX and LR point to me the similar thing in LR which allows me to dodge/burn a selected area in 2-3 clicks?

 

I'm almost sold for LR, except for the above feature in CaptureNX.

 

There's no exact way of doing it but you can often get the same effect by selection the little squeezy thingie top left of the curves tab in Develop, then hold it over the area you want to affect and click and drag up or down to selectively lighten that tonal area.

 

Do look at the curves demo video on the Adobe website - it is incredibly useful.

 

Best

 

Tim

[nryn]

There's no exact way of doing it but you can often get the same effect by selection the little squeezy thingie top left of the curves tab in Develop, then hold it over the area you want to affect and click and drag up or down to selectively lighten that tonal area.

 

The little squeezy thingie on the top left of Lightroom inspectors is called the Target Adjustment Tool, and it's one of Lightroom's absolutely coolest features.

 

Can someone who is familiar with both CaptureNX and LR point to me the similar thing in LR which allows me to dodge/burn a selected area in 2-3 clicks?

 

I should point out (without hopefully being too pedantic)--these adjustments are not applied to a "selected area" of the image. As Tim points out, they are applied to a selected tonal range, and in that way are applied to a local area on the tone curve. But this means those adjustments are applied globally to the image, wherever those tone values are present.

 

There is no way to dodge/burn selected areas of an image in Lightroom or Aperture...you have to take images into Photoshop to accomplish that. Lightroom and Aperture are not image editing programs.

[hammam]

...very nice feature THAT ERASE THE PICS from captureone AND FROM HARD DISK TOO !!!!!! Eric

 

Well, er... yes, ERASE, as the name implies, has a tendency to do that, erase files from the hard disk. If you expected something like «delete files from a collection or library», well, that's an entirely different function, I guess.

 

Are we seeing the birrth of another battle of titans here, in the vein of Nikon vs Canon, Mac vs Windows, Coke vs Pepsi? Aperture vs Lighroom?

[arthury]

The little squeezy thingie on the top left of Lightroom inspectors is called the Target Adjustment Tool, and it's one of Lightroom's absolutely coolest features.

 

 

 

I should point out (without hopefully being too pedantic)--these adjustments are not applied to a "selected area" of the image. As Tim points out, they are applied to a selected tonal range, and in that way are applied to a local area on the tone curve. But this means those adjustments are applied globally to the image, wherever those tone values are present.

 

There is no way to dodge/burn selected areas of an image in Lightroom or Aperture...you have to take images into Photoshop to accomplish that. Lightroom and Aperture are not image editing programs.

Yes, indeed, it's workable for me and it's quite nice. If the area chosen is a "popular" tonal range, then I'm out of luck. It's workable as long as the tonal range is all over the image. It's a U-point with a little less precision, I guess.

 

If you guys have used the U-point feature, you'd be thrilled to see how easy it is to dudge/burn a particular adjustable area.

 

But, LR is still very nice. I am beginning to like it.

 

Here's one from LR with IR-Cut filter ...

 

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