Aperture vs Lightroom

davidar75 wrote:
I was looking for a good program for editing and storing photos and recently bought aperture 2. ...Is there any neat things that aperture can do that light room can't?

The Aperture/LR professional app category is really about managing the process of capturing, RAW converting and managing modern digital camera professional image capture.

It is not really about neat things, what Aperture IMO does much better is the overall professional workflow. I have further text on this topic but it is on another box, so I will add another post later.

In any event I strongly recommend that concurrent with running an Aperture trial (and on a MacIntel with 3 GB or more RAM) every digital photog with adequate computer hardware spend $33 and work through the tutorial CD Apple Pro Training Series: Aperture 2 (Apple Pro Training Series) by Ben Long, Richard Harrington, and Orlando Luna (Paperback - May 8, 2008), Amazon.com. Note that the value is in the tutorial, not in using the book as a manual. The time spent learning modern digital image capture workflow via the tutorial is invaluable.

Note that IMO a cursory examination of Aperture usually turns out to be mostly a waste of time, or leads to bad workflow habits or folks simply do not get it. Carefully working the tutorial is by far the best way to learn this new killer app category.

-Allen Wicks

And with the new Iphoto out, why didn't they put some of those features in an update or something for aperture 2?

traditionally they test out the stuff like that is the cheaper/free programs (sorta a long term beta) then roll better versions of them into the pro apps in the next full version.

yes...

but understand my perspective. I process 30-35,000 images a year. I shoot only RAW. And it is a business, not a hobby, for me. For managing, processing and primary workflow, it is very good. When I need more image clean up, I open from Aperture into Photoshop..(photoshop is a giant plug-in for Aperture).

SierraDragon wrote:

In any event I strongly recommend that concurrent with running an Aperture trial (and on a MacIntel with 3 GB or more RAM) every digital photog with adequate computer hardware spend $33 and work through the tutorial CD Apple Pro Training Series: Aperture 2 (Apple Pro Training Series) by Ben Long, Richard Harrington, and Orlando Luna (Paperback - May 8, 2008), Amazon.com. Note that the value is in the tutorial, not in using the book as a manual. The time spent learning modern digital image capture workflow via the tutorial is invaluable.

SierraDragon is totally correct in everything stated. I would only add to also check out Richard Harrington's Aperture 2: Quick Tip Video Podcast (free on iTunes).

SierraDragon wrote:

In any event I strongly recommend that concurrent with running an Aperture trial (and on a MacIntel with 3 GB or more RAM) every digital photog with adequate computer hardware spend $33 and work through the tutorial CD Apple Pro Training Series: Aperture 2 (Apple Pro Training Series) by Ben Long, Richard Harrington, and Orlando Luna (Paperback - May 8, 2008), Amazon.com. Note that the value is in the tutorial, not in using the book as a manual. The time spent learning modern digital image capture workflow via the tutorial is invaluable.

SierraDragon is totally correct in everything stated. I would only add to also check out Richard Harrington's Aperture 2: Quick Tip Video Podcast (free on iTunes).

sure got to Adobe.com

it is not just some book you read ... it is a tutorial designed to show you how to effectively use aperture from capture to output ... if you like the foo-foo features of iphoto, use iphoto, it was free ... as allen has stated this app is about "managing the process of capturing, RAW converting and managing modern digital camera professional image capture" ...

But after playing around with light room for a week I've noticed that it has some way better features for the extra 100$.

The preference photographers have for one app over the other isn't about the amount of features. It's about Workflow. With a capital W. This app is geared towards professionnal photographers with deadlines to meet and clients to please. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying Aperture is perfect or that I don't care about so-called features - I get giddy when I read specs for a new app version. But after trying both Lightroom and Aperture in their 1.x incarnations, I went to Aperture without a hint of hesitation based on workflow and interface alone.

Would I like being able to save presets without jumping through hoops? yes. Would I enjoy the additional tools LR offers for image editing? sure. But I recently (last week!) downloaded the latest version just to see what I was missing and didn't find anything to make me switch. Nothing. And the vaunted speed advantage has pretty much disappeared in LR 2.0 from what I experienced.

But hey... knock yourself out. If you like LR better go with LR.

The photo editing is obviously better than what you can do in IPhoto... but is it really 200$ better?

Yes. Way, way better. And again, it's not just about editing. I think you're having a hard time seeing the advantages simply because - I'm guessing - you're not using these tools to make a living. Believe me, it's night and day.

In an earlier post I analyzed thusly:

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Group A
Aperture is Apple's pro app for RAW images capture management. Lightroom is Adobe's pro app for RAW images capture management. iPhoto is Apple's free entry-level app for images capture management.

Group B
Open-source GIMP or inexpensive Adobe Photoshop Elements are for basic to intermediate image editing, adequate for most photogs. Very expensive full Adobe Photoshop is for pro graphics work and very advanced image editing. Other free and/or low cost editors are also available. Many folks consider the open-source GIMP a superior app to PSE.

Two apps are needed. Digital photographers ideally should own and learn reasonable competence with one app from each of groups A & B above. Note that Aperture and GIMP/PSE are in different groups.

IMO the evolution of a digital photog is to start with iPhoto and quickly outgrow it. After that I recommend that the next step is to own both Aperture and GIMP or PSE.

If one advances to the point of doing really advanced graphics work the upgrade from GIMP/PSE to full Photoshop is easy enough, just expensive and with very substantial additional learning curve. I use the full Design Premium Creative Suite, and the upgrade to CS4 from CS3 is so expensive I am staying with CS3.

Bridge is Adobe's pro app that comes with full Photoshop and manages files handling within the Creative Suite. I do not include it in Group A above because it is far inferior to Aperture and Lightroom for digital photographers managing DSLR image capture.

Bridge is a file-management app, not a database. The folks who like Bridge are usually very experienced Photoshop graphics folks (often coming from a long history with film scans, which involves totally different workflow than modern DSLR capture) rather than primarily digital photogs.
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Note that PSE should not be used for RAW image conversion because the RAW conversion engine in PSE is a compromised version of ACR, not the complete version of ACR found in full (very expensive) Photoshop. Use Aperture or camera vendor (e.g. Nikon) software for RAW conversion prior to PSE edits if PSE edits are necessary. In my case for 98% of pix Aperture does it all, no external editor required. Like e2photo said, Photoshop has become a giant plug-in for Aperture 🙂.

-Allen Wicks

BTW I use both . . . I like aperture better tho

no, I think what everybody is saying is that if you read the Aperture book, you'd find out what it can actually do, as opposed to what you think it can do.

Agree the recommendation on the Aperture book - it really helps make use of the Aperture features.

which may be a bit too much to ask on the apple website I guess!

Well, it's not so much that it's an Apple website - just that it's an Aperture forum and we're sorta here because we prefer... Aperture!

That said there are a lot of comparisons out there that do a pretty good job of explaining the pros and cons of both apps. I don't have a link handy but it shouldn't be too hard to find...