Aperture vs Lightroom

Firetographer

Firetographer

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I thought this would be a subject that has been done to death, however, searching has not brought this up. I do apologise if it has, please feel free to point me in the right direction if this is the case.

Back to the question. I am a Mac user and wish to know, based on people who have used both, which is better and why?

Aperture or Lightroom ?
 
Can you explain why you prefer Lightroom ?
 
Its non districtive to photos if you edit them, simple to use, good basic featured such as organising images and creati catalogues, i used to be a fan of apatire and ca4 photoshop, light room is the real deal!!!!!
 
I have no experience with Aperture but use LR3 for 99% of my editing. Shooting events and weddings without it would take me 3 times as long. It's a fantastic piece of software but it takes a while to get used to. (or it did me anyway).
Why don't you download the free trial and see how you get on? If you don't like it try Aperture.
 
In my limited experience using both I have to say LR. Is a blast to use offering far more control and sophistication over processing than Aperrture.

When I look at places like Yiutube i believe I am only scratching the surface of its abilities too!

Lightroom for me every time, but as someone else mentioned why not trial both :)
 
Aperture most definitely, don't know what GH is on about but none of those things mentioned are exclusive to Lightroom. Aperture does it all and more. One of the most distinctive features of Aperture over Lightroom (as lets face it in functionality they do the same although personally I prefer the Aperture brush approach) is the full integration with the Apple Media Browser. This means no matter what application you are using on the Mac you have your photos available and ready at all time without having to start Aperture, without having to export a duplicate, with all the search for any of the keywords. If you prefer spending your time with your photos and sharing your work opposed to be a librarian by managing all those copies it is huge thing.

Further more it helps that when you buy it through the App store on your Mac it is very very good value for money, and also you are licensed to install it on any machine you hook up to your apple id.
 
Aperture can be had very cheaply via the app store and LR is quite pricey in comparison but it might be worth having both softwares.

I could not decide between Capture NX2 & LR but I quite like having both as they are both excellent softwares and compared with the cost of a high end body like a 7D the software cost is not much when you consider how useful good quality software is.
 
Thing is Lightroom and aperture are effectively both designed to do the same job. Which is a different job than capture nx.
 
Aperture.

I agree with everything Jean-Paul says, and to be honest if your on a mac I can see no reason why you would buy Lightroom, and that's before you consider the price difference.

The Aperture brush system is far better than Adobe layers approach IMHO , but will concede that I believe lightroom to have much better noise reduction control than aperture.

The reason Lightoom is more popular is only because Aperture is MAC only and I suspect far less pirated.
 
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I can't really say I have any experience at using Lightroom, but I can definitely say that Aperture is non-destructive. On top of that, it's intuitive to use. Plus, if you DO need the editing features of something like CS5, you can set that up as an external editor, in which case it will create a duplicate version of your image in psd format anyway.

And only 50 quid? Well worth it, in my book.
 
dejongj said:
Thing is Lightroom and aperture are effectively both designed to do the same job. Which is a different job than capture nx.
Click to expand...

cnx2 is a bit like the "develop" screen in LR but it writes non destructive edits to the nef itself rather than to a catalogue. view nx2 is like the "library" screen in LR and the two apps work as a team together
 
I have Lightroom on my PC and Aperture on my MacBook Pro. They both have their good points, but if I had to choose, Aperture wins because it's loads cheaper, and the layout of it seems more intuitive. I prefer how you can do sharpening, and use more plugins with Lightroom but they aren't killer features for me.

At less than 1/3 the price of Lightroom, Aperture is pretty much a must have program for a Mac owning photographer. You could always download the month long trials of both to try them out.

Gregory Hicks said:
Its non districtive to photos if you edit them, simple to use, good basic featured such as organising images and creati catalogues, i used to be a fan of apatire and ca4 photoshop, light room is the real deal!!!!!
Click to expand...

That sounds exactly like Aperture, so your argument for Lightroom is rather poor.
 
redddraggon said:
<snip> I prefer how you can do sharpening, and use more plugins with Lightroom but they aren't killer features for me. <snip>
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You can do sharpening in Aperture as well - as part of the raw conversion as well as in pp...
 
Catdaddy said:
You can do sharpening in Aperture as well - as part of the raw conversion as well as in pp...
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I know, but it's the "how" that's important. I prefer how you can do sharpening in Lightroom, when you hold the "alt" key down, I can't see a similar way of doing it in Aperture.
 
redddraggon said:
I know, but it's the "how" that's important. I prefer how you can do sharpening in Lightroom, when you hold the "alt" key down, I can't see a similar way of doing it in Aperture.
Click to expand...

Not being familiar with Lightroom, I wouldn't know... seems easy enough in Aperture though - just selecting the filter from the drop down list and adjusting a couple of sliders... I think you can even brush it in or out, can't you? (Can't quite remember...)
 
redddraggon said:
I have Lightroom on my PC and Aperture on my MacBook Pro. They both have their good points, but if I had to choose, Aperture wins because it's loads cheaper, and the layout of it seems more intuitive. I prefer how you can do sharpening, and use more plugins with Lightroom but they aren't killer features for me.

At less than 1/3 the price of Lightroom, Aperture is pretty much a must have program for a Mac owning photographer. You could always download the month long trials of both to try them out.

That sounds exactly like Aperture, so your argument for Lightroom is rather poor.
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My argument is poor, get a grip on your self, i was asked an opinion so i gave mine!! If you dont like what i have to say then dont read it.
 
Gregory Hicks said:
My argument is poor, get a grip on your self, i was asked an opinion so i gave mine!! If you dont like what i have to say then dont read it.
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Everything you said that was so good about Lightroom was also true about Aperture, so how does it make your argument convincing?
 
redddraggon said:
Everything you said that was so good about Lightroom was also true about Aperture, so how does it make your argument convincing?
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Im not a sales man, im not covinsing fhe op to buy a product, I was giving my opinion !!
 
The only problem I've ever encountered with Aperture is with the current version (v3.1.2) when it comes to working on large panoramic shots. I have a file that's 18000 x 3000, and zooming in, it just hangs. Apple ARE aware of that, though, so hopefully they'll be releasing another update soon. But the same file in v3.1.3 works fine...
 
Catdaddy said:
Not being familiar with Lightroom, I wouldn't know... seems easy enough in Aperture though - just selecting the filter from the drop down list and adjusting a couple of sliders... I think you can even brush it in or out, can't you? (Can't quite remember...)
Click to expand...


For me that's a HUGE plus for Aperture.

You can brush in or out different amounts of sharpening (or any other adjustment) to different parts of a image WITHOUT the need to mess about with layers.
 
Catdaddy said:
The only problem I've ever encountered with Aperture is with the current version (v3.1.2) when it comes to working on large panoramic shots. I have a file that's 18000 x 3000, and zooming in, it just hangs. Apple ARE aware of that, though, so hopefully they'll be releasing another update soon. But the same file in v3.1.3 works fine...
Click to expand...

So they have addressed your problem then :) unless there is a typo in your first version number ;)

By the way the latest version is 3.2.1 there were two very quick updates in October due to Snow Leopard issues with 3.2
 
whiteflyer said:
So they have addressed your problem then :) unless there is a typo in your first version number ;)

By the way the latest version is 3.2.1 there were two very quick updates in October due to Snow Leopard issues with 3.2
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Oops - typo... the error was introduced in 3.2 and is still there in 3.2.1... Well spotted, and apologies!
 
Im an Aperture user, and I had the trial of Lightroom. They're pretty much the same deal, LR may have a slight edge as it looks a bit slicker and is Adobe software.
I do like Aperture for it's simplicity and user friendly interface, and is pretty much on par with LR technically.
 
whiteflyer said:
You can brush in or out different amounts of sharpening (or any other adjustment) to different parts of a image WITHOUT the need to mess about with layers.
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You can do this with Lightroom, although it "limits" you to brushing in Exposure, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Clarity and Sharpness.

What LR also gives you is masking on the global sharpness setting which allows you to threshold where the sharpening is applied by default. This helps limit sharpening to edges and allows you to mask out areas that may have contrast noise in them.
 
arad85 said:
What LR also gives you is masking on the global sharpness setting which allows you to threshold where the sharpening is applied by default. This helps limit sharpening to edges and allows you to mask out areas that may have contrast noise in them.
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Pure win.
 
arad85 said:
You can do this with Lightroom, although it "limits" you to brushing in Exposure, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Clarity and Sharpness.

What LR also gives you is masking on the global sharpness setting which allows you to threshold where the sharpening is applied by default. This helps limit sharpening to edges and allows you to mask out areas that may have contrast noise in them.
Click to expand...

Yes same in aperture. There are two different "global" sharpening methods which can be used in combination with each other. Then there is also the brush version for further detailed adjustments.
 
When Lightroom 2 and Aperture 2 came out it would have cost me the same to upgrade Lightroom or to start fresh with Aperture, I downloaded both trials and found that I preferred some areas of aperture but because I'd been used to Lightroom right from the start I'd already got into the Adobe way of thinking, so carried on with Lightroom.

Now that there is a big price difference, I think i would be tempted to go for Aperture if I was in the same situation.
 
Well it's not the 100% same process, but the same resuts, as Jean-Paul described above.

Aperture does not have masks, brush in or out the ajdustment you want, to see were you are brushing there is a colour overlay. There is also the sharpening adustment and a seperate edge sharpeing adjustment.

You could do a global sharpen, than add another sharping adjusment to do the extra bits at a new level of sharpness.
 
acetone said:
Win for what ?, you can do just the same in Aperture
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acetone said:
Well it's not the 100% same process, but the same resuts, as Jean-Paul described above.

Aperture does not have masks, brush in or out the ajdustment you want, to see were you are brushing there is a colour overlay. There is also the sharpening adustment and a seperate edge sharpeing adjustment.

You could do a global sharpen, than add another sharping adjusment to do the extra bits at a new level of sharpness.
Click to expand...
That doesn't sound the same to me. You don't have to brush anything in. Moving the slider in Lightroom allows you to threshold where the sharpening is applied. See here as the first description I stumbled apon:

http://www.image-space.com/Lightroo...l_Sharpening_Mask/Visual_Sharpening_Mask.html
 
I see what you mean now, I'm not at home now, but will look how the edge sharpening works in Aperture to see if it's simular
 
Aperture edge sharpen does the same thing in that you can control the amount and area in the same way, but it does not show you the mask, which I can see to be VERY useful. so yes that's a plus for Lightroom, a £130 plus I'm not so sure.
 
acetone said:
Aperture edge sharpen does the same thing in that you can control the amount and area in the same way, but it does not show you the mask, which I can see to be VERY useful. so yes that's a plus for Lightroom, a £130 plus I'm not so sure.
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I have no axe to grind - just want people to understand what they are getting. The impression I get is they are pretty equivalent.
 
I won't try to talk you into lightroom as I've not use aperture, but my thoughts....

I love lightroom. Even non techie me understands it. I like the catalogue system and the keyword tagging so I can find everything. I like the plug in thingies I have, I like it linked to mapimailer to send pics directly to my email. I like it linking to flickr and other websites. I like that I can edit pics and it will republish on the websites I posted them on. I like the web template thingy that makes updating my website easy. I like the colour coding thingy. I really like the batch editing tools.

Stuff I don't like? No layers. But I have cs5 for that if I need it :)
 
This is an old thread but in late 2013 with newer versions of Aperture and Lightroom, which is considered the best now? And why, please?
 
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