Lightroom Vs Aperture

P

Peter Loew

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Sam
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Hi all,

I'm an amateur and more or less just starting out. I own a 450d and although my primary focus right now is to concentrate on my photography skills and developing my photographers eye, composition, framing etc skills (what I call raw photography) I want to start looking at post production of RAW files as well.

Currently I use iPhoto on my Mac to organise and store all my images (even edit casual party pics, etc) and will probably continue doing so unless someone can give me good reason to use another tool / method.

However, I have started shooting RAW from time to time and have been looking into using either Lightroom or Aperture to process them. I have done quite a bit of reading and reviews seem to suggest that LR is the slightly better product; but then professional photographers seem to say otherwise!

What is the opinion of this board as to these two pieces of software? Ideally I'd like to use something intuitive (for a beginner like me) but also something that will keep me going into the future as I get better, bearing in mind I use a Mac.

Thanks,

P
 
both are pretty capable and I regard them as equals. I prefer Aperture.

Why not download the demos of both and see which you prefer?

You could also use DPP Canons RAW converter which I think gives better results although the interface is somewhat out of date.
 
I use Lightroom 2, but before I bought it I tested both Lightroom 2 and Aperture 2, having used Lightroom 1 for a year beforehand made Lightroom 2 seem natural to me, however if you are using iPhoto I can imagine that Aperture will suit you better. To be fair they both do pretty much the same thing, it is just the interface that is different.
 
Out of curiosity; when doing adjustments in Aperture will that do any changes to the RAW file or is the RAW file kept intact?

I ask since I may be moving to Aperture, having used Lightroom for the past year.
 
Wail said:
Out of curiosity; when doing adjustments in Aperture will that do any changes to the RAW file or is the RAW file kept intact?

I ask since I may be moving to Aperture, having used Lightroom for the past year.
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I doubt it will change the RAW file, I would think that it would just produce a copy. Incidentally I moved the other way from Aperture 1.5 to Lightroom 2 :) Hope the laptop is behaving itself!
 
:) Thanks cowasaki. Incidentally, why did you move from Aperture to LR?

Laptop seems to be well behaved so far; but I have done a HUGE backup of everything, spending a lot along the way to ensure that my backups are all in order. In case of any other mishap then I will just move on to a new laptop and cannibalize whatever I can from this one.
 
Wail said:
:) Thanks cowasaki. Incidentally, why did you move from Aperture to LR?

Laptop seems to be well behaved so far; but I have done a HUGE backup of everything, spending a lot along the way to ensure that my backups are all in order. In case of any other mishap then I will just move on to a new laptop and cannibalize whatever I can from this one.
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Good idea, I moved because I was using CS3 extensively so it was more compatible, I wanted to keep the pictures in my file structure rather than all moved to one massive folder (I have since found out that you can do this with aperture !!) and I got the full lightroom 2 for £78 with a student discount :)
 
Actually, one of the reasons I chose LR was because I wanted to maintain common platforms for my PP applications, as much as possible.

I have been tempted with the price of Aperture, given the student's discount on that it retails for just under £60 .. and somehow :thinking: I thought LR2 was about £120 with the student's discount.
 
Sounds interesting, I think a trial version of each will do the trick!
 
MAKE A BACKUP SEPARATELY OF ALL YOUR PICTURE FILES BEFORE YOU IMPORT THEM INTO EACH PROGRAM AND MAKE A COPY OF ALL THE PICTURES YOU TAKE WHILST RUNNING THE TWO TRIALS!

Having had to help a couple of people out who have done the LR v APERATURE trial I cannot stress the above enough. If you do the above then you will not have lost anything when you eventually make your decision.
 
I have used Aperture 2 for the last year, It is a great bit of kit, fully compatible with CS3 with no problems what so ever.

RAW files are intact no matter what adjustments are made, the adjustments are applied to versions and not the master.

You can keep your existing file structure if you require and just importfrom that location the only things that will be kept in the aperture library are your vesions, the master will not be moved to the library just referenced. The only draw back to this is, if you are planning on using Apertures Digital Vault (Library Backup in built in the software) only your versions will be backed up not your referenced masters.

TO enable digital vault to back up everything you need to be running a managed library where masters and versions are stored in the library. Bigger library but with the cost of drives it is not a big issue, plus you get the belt and braces feeling of everything being backed up.

Nigel
 
Interesting post Nigel, and thank you for that; just that it now becomes harder to decide if I should stick with LR and upgrade to LR2 or just move over to Aperture. You've just made it that much harder for me to decide :p
 
Wail said:
Interesting post Nigel, and thank you for that; just that it now becomes harder to decide if I should stick with LR and upgrade to LR2 or just move over to Aperture. You've just made it that much harder for me to decide :p
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Sorry about that... if you have any questions re aperture do not hesitate to PM and I will do my best to assist.

If I can not answer the question I know several others that are quite handy with aperture.

Nigel.
 
Thanks. I will make a full backup of everything (Time Machine) and also of the individual photos that I import.

This should be interesting! Nigel, I might fire some questions your way in the next couple of weeks or so.
 
I used Aperture for about 6 months before moving across to Lightroom and if you're working with lots of files then it's seemed a lot faster to me. Aperture got clunky once the library got bigger new version might be different. I also found it difficult to trace original files at times in AP. Lightroom 2 is working amazing. Localised corrections are great and it's integration with Photoshop is very fast.
 
I have CS3, LR1.5 and Aperture 2 all running on an 24" iMac. I use Aperture all the time putting my Canon raw files onto an external 500 gig WD drive and importing them as versions into Aperture and work on all PP in Aperture and exporting the completed versions as Jpeg,Tiff,PSD in all sorts of prefixes depending what they are to be used as, I have exported an image up to 10 different prefixes (thumbnail Jpeg 800 x 600 Jpeg, 8 bitt tiff, 16 bit Tiff, watermarked etc) its so simple Aperture just works!1

If I need to do any major work to change an image I will do that in CS3, things like layers, layer masks moving things across an image like people or trees. However that is seldom as I try to shoot what I want and not shoot something that needs a shed load of PP work.

To some up Apple products work really well with Apple products as intended, I don't intend to upgrade to CS4 atm.

Lots of serious pro togs who work on Apple Macs usually use Aperture as their main PP tool.

However I am sure Lightroom 2 is a great product, both act a great DAM programs as well with their keywording functions.

Just my .2$ worth guys

Chris Gill
 
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