Lightroom

[Johan_Elzenga]

I disagree completely. I've written a book about Lightroom, so I think I know what I'm talking about, but I use Aperture myself and I have no intention of switching. Both programs have their strengths and their weaknesses. I too have no intention to start a flame war here, but I do believe that saying things like "Aperture is not even a consideration for working pros like us" is not the way to start a objective duscussion. There are quite a few "working pros like us" who use Aperture, as can be seen from the stories at Apple's website. Don't try to put other people down for the simple reason they have another opinion than you have.

Heh, I did sign my previous reply, "my opinionated 50c", which is what this note was, an opinionated and personal viewpoint. This reflects my own experience, and was very much not intended to be an objective statement.

I'd like to apologize if anyone reading this felt I was putting down any other pros who don't feel this way Not intended that way at all.

I do however standby the undeniable fact that Aperture requires a very fast machine with much RAM to work efficiently, and LR does not. And LR has seamless integration with CS3 and is available for Windows. And has the marketing power of Adobe behind it, who also make nearly all of the main image manipulation tools we all use every day...ya know

Time will tell which application becomes the de facto standard for the job, but I still reckon the bulk of the pro end of the market will end up using LR in time.

Just my 75c worth

Best to all

Will

[RN_Blau]

Johan, I would like to settle on either Aperture or Lightroom (or just CS3 with Bridge). Since each is an organizing program, and does RAW conversions, it makes little sense to my workflow to keep playing with both. Do you know where I can find a good (thorough) comparison discussion? Otherwise I will start a thread (but I hate to go where others have already gone.

I use Macs exclusively so, for me, PC compatibility is not relevant.

[Johan_Elzenga]

I've seen some comparisons on the web, but I have also read quite a few invalid remarks about things in Aperture, based on lack of knowledge. For example: I've read that the spot removal in Lightroom would be much better than the one in Aperture, because Aperture only makes a big blur of it. In reality, Aperture's spot removal tool is far more sophisticated than the one in Lightroom, but also not immediately clear how you can switch between spot healing and cloning (click on the spot first, then option-click to select a source). In Aperture, you can even rotate the clone source or destination source independently, so you can even clone on the edge of a circle. There is no way you can do that in Lightroom. But it's true: the one in Lightroom is faster and needs less user interference in most cases, so in a superficial test that is all what people notice.

Lightroom is quite easy to learn, and Aperture defenitely needs a little more study. You do need to read the manual (under Help) to fully understand Aperture. My suggestion would be to try both yourself. The modal approach in Lightroom and the 'edit anywhere' approach in Aperture are quite different, and it's very personal what you like best. Some people like Lightroom approach because it's straightforward, other people like the Aperture approach because it's more flexible.

Both programs have evaluation versions.

[Martin_Doudoroff]

I second Johan. Both products have their strengths and weaknesses, and both have significant differences in "style." I own both, and while I have settled on Lightroom for now, I keep Aperture around for making books, easily ordering prints (sometimes it's a good option) and the odd project. I very much hope Apple aggresively pushes Aperture forward.

[RN_Blau]

If I were to, for example, import all photos directly onto my hard drive, and not keep the images in the library of either Aperture or Lightroom, can both work with the same original (providing that I don't save over it) and keep their own "versions" in their respective libraries?