Aperture 3 V. Lightroom 3

<p>Okay, I've moved up to a DSLR. I am taking some awesome photos in RAW format, but that leads me to another question. Which is better for processing my RAW files, Lightroom 3 or Aperture 3. My instinct is to go with Aperture, mostly because I am a Mac guy. Ive taken a few minutes and perused both Adobe and Apple websites and other than the huge price difference I can't find many advantages one way or the other. From those of you who have used one or both, which do you find the better software? As far as the basics, uploading, tethering, etc... I am not worried. I am a computer programmer by trade so I know I will easily be able to adapt to either of these programs. What I want to know is which is technically superior?</p>

<p>I haven't used Aperture, but can give advice on two things:</p>

<p>1) <em>Lightroom 3 or Aperture 3 </em> You should be looking at Lightroom 4. The beta is out and it's been bug-free for me so far. I haven't yet seen any reports of major issues. You can run the beta until it's released.</p>

<p>2) <em>My instinct is to go with Aperture, mostly because I am a Mac guy</em> Everyone I know using Lightroom, including me, is on a Mac. I've never heard any negatives about using Lightroom on a Mac. </p>

<p>Jeff, what is it about Lightroom that makes it worth the extra $200+? I get it, the beta is free and I've seen some screenshots of Lightroom 4, very nice. But at some point I will have to pay for it. </p>

<p>You have to decide where the value is. Things that keep me from looking seriously at Aperture:</p>

<p>1) Lightroom is a core product for Adobe, it's not for Apple. I'm not convinced that Apple will support Aperture as separate from iPhoto for the long term.<br>

2) There is a feature in Lightroom called Collections that I would have a very hard time abandoning. Collections fits my workflow far better than the Projects viewpoint of Aperture.<br>

3) When I was doing my own printer, I bought an Epson. The primary reason I bought an Epson was the huge support community around Epson printers. I could get a question answered in minutes on the web. I could get utilities, third party stuff, and profiles for Epson that were not available for other printers. The same thing is true of Lightroom. There is a lot to consider beyond the product, and Lightroom has a huge community of educators and developers around it.</p>

<p>Jeff, you have made some good points. I was initially leaning to Aperture, but I think now I will download the trials of both and see which fits me better. Any tips on how best to compare the two?</p>

<p>Maybe this will help:</p>

<p>http://rickellis.com/journal/aperture-vs-lightroom.html</p>

<p>I use both and prefer Aperture. Even more-so when you consider the price difference and at one time Aperture was crazy, $499, expensive! If choosing Aperture, be advised that Aperture has two ways of managing your images: referenced and managed. Lightroom only uses referenced. In a referenced library, your images are still located on your hard drive within your typical folder hierarchy. You can navigate to them outside of using program. But if you move of delete the image, then the program won't "see" the image. Again, both Aperture and Lightroom can have referenced libraries. Aperture can also use a "managed" library. In this case, Aperture imports the image into it's own directory system (inside a package not available outside of Aperture unless you want to go digging around in the package contents). In essence, this means you can't see the image outside of Aperture.This also means you can't move or accidentally delete the image outside of Aperture as well. Personally, I prefer managed libraries. I bought the program to manage my growing library of images!</p>

<p>Steven, I tried them both. I spent a couple of hundred hours using Lightroom on my wife's Mac, and then used the trial of Lightroom 3 on my machine. I like Lightroom a lot, but ended up buying Aperture. The price difference didn't make any sense -- I feel that Aperture is priced appropriately and the Lightroom (like all Adobe products) is expensive. Aperture works just as well, and intergrates very nicely with the rest of the Apple ecosystem (I also use Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro.) Aperture has all of the editing tools I need for 99.5% of my photos. The RAW support is fast and seamless -- other than the extended dynamic range for adjustments, you can't tell the difference between working in JPEG or RAW. Workflow is fast - importing files, reviewing and rating shots, editing, export. I haven't used the printing/books features but they seem very well done.<br>

I am not a huge user of plugins. The big-name plugins are available on Aperture but not nearly as many as for Lightroom. That's the one area that Lightroom wins. If you can mostly live with the tools provided by Aperture, then it doesn't matter. If plugins are everything to you, then look at Lightroom.</p>

<p>This <a href="http://www.twin-pixels.com/raw-processors-review-aperture-bibble-capture-one-dxo-lightroom/">http://www.twin-pixels.com/raw-processors-review-aperture-bibble-capture-one-dxo-lightroom/</a> seems to be a good comparison between LR and Aperture (and a few others). I'm a PC guy so I use LR3 (and Canon DPP). LR3 requires frequent switching between library and develop modules. I agree on the review that switching between modules is less than perfect. A friend of mine uses Aperture and she's always faster than me in presenting pictures but perhaps that's personal and not software related.</p>

<p>I just read Rick Ellis' comparison (linked previously) last night, and agree that it's one of the more balanced comparisons. I've had Aperture since I bought my iMac in 2008. Last weekend, I did some HDD housecleaning/memory upgrades, and did a clean install of both Snow Leopard and Aperture 3 on my internal boot HDD. Here's how I'm running it:</p>

<p>1. 2008, iMac, model 8,1 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo with 6GB of RAM (1x4 in slot zero, 1x2 in slot one).<br /> 2. Clean install of Snow Leopard.<br /> 3. Primary 300GB Aperture library file resides on its own, dedicated 500GB Firewire external drive.</p>

<p>Note that 2007-2008 (models 7,1 and 8,1) iMacs can actually support 6GB of RAM, not just 4GB as Apple states; 2009 and later iMacs support 8GB-16GB of system RAM. If you own a more recent Mac, I would recommend no less than 8GB if planning to run RAM-hungry plug-ins such as onOne's Perfect Photo Suite, etc. However, with a clean OS X install on a wiped boot drive, Aperture runs very well, even on just a 4GB iMac.</p>

<p>I'm still figuring out my workflow, but I liked Aperture enough to invest in its current version and some books. I bought the only three titles available on Amazon--all three are pretty good, and I highly recommend them if going with Aperture:</p>

<p>Apple Aperture 3, McMahon & Rawlinson<br /> Focus On Aperture 3, Hilz<br /> Aperture 3 Portable Genius, Anon, Anon</p>

<p>The first is the most comprehensive, the latter two sell for below their published price, and are a good bargain at only about $12 each.</p>

>>> What I want to know is which is technically superior?<P>

 

Adding to what Jeff said above, for me it is not about which is technically superior (though I believe LR is). It's about

which company will be in imaging for the long term supporting my needs. <P>

 

At this point if I needed to switch from Lightroom to Aperture, <B>and retain all of my edits</B>, with >100K images it would pretty much

be impossible. And the same would be true if I were using Aperture now, and for whatever reason needed to switch to

Lightroom.<P>

 

Also, Adobe has been very responsive with updates, new features, and moving RAW processing forward with better and

better algorithms. And I'm confident that will be the case over then next 10 or 20 years.

 

<P>Will Apple? Hopefully yes. But

with their huge emphasis on mobile <a href= "http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/24/apple-reports-best-quarter-ever-in-

q1-2012-13-06-billion-profit-on-46-33-billion-in-revenue/">(with amazing results)</a>, and letting some video

professionals down with Final Cut Pro X, I'm just not willing to take a chance.<P>

 

Choose carefully...

<p>It seems like the majority of you prefer Aperture. The links were very helpful. It really has me leaning back to Aperture. Since digital photography is a passion and not source of income it seems like the better choice. I think I will download the demo of both, go out and do some shooting on a wide range of subject matter and lighting then come home and run the images through both programs. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Also, Adobe has been very responsive with updates, new features, and moving RAW processing forward with better and better algorithms. And I'm confident that will be the case over then next 10 or 20 years.<br>

Will Apple? Hopefully yes. But with their huge emphasis on mobile <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/24/apple-reports-best-quarter-ever-in- q1-2012-13-06-billion-profit-on-46-33-billion-in-revenue/" target="_blank">(with amazing results)</a>, and letting some video professionals down with Final Cut Pro X, I'm just not willing to take a chance.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>But then just maybe, we can convince Apple to buy Adobe :)))))) Let's face it, they have the cash!</p>

<p>Let's not restart the discussion on how Apple got all that cash :-)</p>

<p>While the majority of posters on this thread prefer Aperture, that's not true of the market in general, which is why I think Apple will eventually merge Aperture and Lightroom. Going back to the community and support issues I brought up, I happened to see this recently:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p> I am an Apple Certified Trainer for Aperture, but I hear nothing. They do not even include us in Beta testing.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>which might be considered an indicator. It's kind of amazing to me that I have never met a photographer using Aperture, only seen it here, and I meet a lot of photographers. Most are pros working events with me though, so that may be a differentiator.</p>

<p>Steven:</p>

<p>I was in a hurry to post my last message . . . here are my further thoughts:</p>

<p>1. Lightroom has far more users than Aperture. So, expect continuing product upgrades from Adobe. Aperture's future support is less clear. The popularity of Aperture in this thread is a bit of an anomaly.</p>

<p>2. Although I'm not as familiar with Lightroom, I know it definitely has some capabilities that Aperture cannot match, and any "missing features" in the current version of Lightroom looks as though they've been addressed in the Lightroom 4 beta release.</p>

<p>3. I re-read your post, and you actually asked, "Which is better for processing my RAW files, Lightroom 3 or Aperture 3?" which is not what I answered. My reply for that question is as follows:</p>

<p>Truth be told, I have no definite workflow right now, and I do not use Aperture as my primary RAW converter. My preference to convert RAW files would be either Nikon's Capture NX2 and/or DxO Optics Pro 7. When concerned with producing single images for personal work at their highest quality (e.g., portfolio, gallery, publication, etc.), I lean toward a more dedicated RAW converter, rather than a "workflow" application like Lightroom or Aperture. I will likely end up with several workflows: 1.) For clients (either Aperture or Lightroom); 2.) Personal work (NX2 or DxO). For asset management, I'm currently using a browser, PhotoMechanic, which means, I'm managing my assets manually using OS X' folder structure and manually assigned HDDs.</p>

<p>So, to continue . . .</p>

<p>In answer to your question, within the constraints given, my vote would go to Lightroom 3/4, and its integrated Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) converter. I have some familiarity with ACR by working with it in Photoshop 5.5. I like ACR, and am comfortable using it. So, the bottom line . . .</p>

<p>Adobe Lightroom v3/v4 benefits:<br /> 1.) Lens correction data support (which Aperture lacks).<br /> 2.) Superior noise reduction.<br /> 3.) Adobe ACR.<br /> 4.) Lightroom's large user base guarantees extended future support from Adobe, third-parties, and the user community in general.</p>

<p>That said, Lightroom makes the best case for being the "safer" bet. However, for the casual user, it's largely personal preference. Personally, I just prefer Aperture's user interface, and it's only one of two applications I know (the other being Capture NX2) which is able to display the camera's auto-focus points.</p>

<p>I think its also a matter of who can help you and the community around a software...</p>

<p>some user use Gimp, its free (or cheap.. dont recall and dont care) but theres no book or little if any, the community is small.. not many user on PN anyway. And some use Photohop... do i have to say more about it?</p>

<p>Same for Apperture,price is amazing, its a Mac product (if Mac put out the TV i will get it, if they make a car, i will probably get it also ; ) and the lightbox is very good, better than Lr.. but again, a community almost non existent, the number of user keep going down since is introduction, camera update are slow, at some point rumor was that they will not make any update anymore, or very little from time to time.. and i know far more user that switch from Aperture to Lightroom in the last 2 years.</p>

<p>Witch one is better? they are both good, both do the same result, its a matter of support and how big the community is if you need support.</p>

I just switched from aperture to Lightroom. Aperture was glacially slow, buggy and generally horrid for me, and I was glad

to dump it. Lightroom 4 has several features aperture doesn't, and the noise reduction I found superior. Also it runs way

faster for me. I also found aperture poor when it came to key wording and then trying to find images based in keywords. For instance, you can see a list of keywords by clicking the keyword icon, but you can't click on one of the keywords and see the images for that keyword.

<p>Hi Steven. I am a Mac user, and I went with Lightroom (I have version 3). I find it easy to understand, and the workflow makes sense to me. I also like that it is easy to work between Photoshop and other programs from Nik while working in Lightroom. I know people that work with Aperture, and they say they like that program as well. I have never worked with Aperture, so I cannot comment on that program. Good luck!</p>

<p>Wow, just so much data. So to extend the topic. What do you find is the most important feature in either of these programs. What feature do you find is missing in either of these programs?</p>

<p>I'd go back to what Jeff said in the first response -- the community around Lightroom is HUGE compared to Aperture, and that matters. A lot.</p>

<p>In the end your photos will look great from either one, and there are ways to get the same things done in either one. Today, one might be easier than the other for some things, but the other will be easier for other things. Tomorrow, that may change, but you probably won't change tools once you pick one. I wouldn't choose based on today's functionality.</p>

<p>I'm an Aperture user for several years and I just upgraded to Aperture 3. I must say though, that Aperture 3 is glacially slow, as Chris Nielsen stated, but only if you edit in 64 bit mode (I should add that my files are huge being that I shoot 4x5). This is a known bug. I bought the upgrade anyway because I've been using it for so long and I'm hoping that Apple will put out a fix in the next iteration. Also because of the huge price difference. If you set Aperture to edit in 32 bit mode it's as fast as the previous version. I noticed that in all of the above posts, where the posters say it's fast, they don't say whether they're using Aperture 2 or 3. It's a great app though, and I recommend it, with the caveat about the 64 bit mode.</p>

<p>Peter</p>

<p>I own 'em both. I have been a Mac user since forever, which is to say, my default thought is, go with Apple's offering.</p>

<p>But I do 95% of my work in Lightroom and the 5% I do somewhere else (Aperture, or DxO Optics Pro, or elsewhere) I do partly because I just want to keep my fingers in the alternatives. </p>

<p>For a while I liked the fact that Aperture made it relatively easy to create a book. Lightroom 4 now works with Blurb to create books. I do a lot of my own printing and printing (and in Lightroom 4, soft proofing) is a real strength of Lightroom. </p>

<p>The main thing however is that I simply find it MUCH easier to work in Lightroom. The UI makes four times more sense than the UI in Aperture. That's my opinion and I think the opinion of many other photographers. </p>

<p>But Aperture is much cheaper and that's definitely worth something. Since you can get a free download of both of them, I'd try 'em both and go with the one that feels better. You can't lose either way.</p>

<p>By the way, you might want to consider the desktop version of Snapseed. The Snapseed iPad app is one of the most brilliant apps ever and now they have a desktop equivalent. If my needs were simpler, I'd be using it myself.</p>

<p>Will </p>

<p>I have both and they are basically very similar. Lightroom works flawlessly on macs.

Aperture works well too. However for me the advantages Aperture had in one area, book

making, appear to no longer be true. I tended to like Ap's individual local brushes better than using

one brush with setting the different parameters, but though I haven't downloaded LR4 I will now, because

of recent experience, I'm very interested in local white balance adjustment. As far as interrelation

of raw files I think they both are pretty equal, though again, LR 4 may be the next leap up.

Actually, I find the best raw file converter and the program I'm mostly using for like a wedding or

paid sort of situation is Capture 1. But different experience. I think LR is less of a resource

hog than Aperture, but all these programs are greedy because of the GUI's. Lightroom generally

has less speed hiccups. Also, the light table in Aperture is something I was interested in and I like

it, but I've never ever really made good use of it. As far as overall image adjustment, they both

pretty much do the same thing in a similar fashion. I don't think there's really much learning curve

going from one to the other. I would try LR 4beta just based on Jeff's recommendation

alone. </p>

<p>600,000 images in Aperture 3. Also have Lightroom 3/4beta, latest PSCS, Nikon Capture NX2. Have tried DxO and Phase 1 Capture 1. All give good results. I like A3 the best. I like the way it works and I like the RAW processing results. It really does a nice job.</p>