Aperture vs Lightroom

I think it's less to do with driving sales and more to do with the fact that Snow Leopard is designed from the ground up to be 64-bit and to fully leverage the graphics card GPU and multiple processors in a way that current versions of OS X can't. To get the kind of performance that we want from these apps, with huge RAW files and massive HD video files, it's a necessity. That's why Apple went this way with Snow Leopard rather than another update with a lots of fancy bells and whistles. However, until Apple makes official announcements it's all just speculation.

That's only because you know how to use Aperture.

Absolutely. But my point wasn't that LR was less efficient than Aperture at producing a good version of the pic. It's just that while I was working in LR I was under the impression that the tools were allowing me to do something I couldn't replicate in AP. It wasn't the case.

Jade Leary wrote:

That's only because you know how to use Aperture.

Absolutely. But my point wasn't that LR was less efficient than Aperture at producing a good version of the pic. It's just that while I was working in LR I was under the impression that the tools were allowing me to do something I couldn't replicate in AP. It wasn't the case.

Sorry, I should have put a smiley face on that post.

DLS

Sorry, I should have put a smiley face on that post.

Nah... don't worry. I didn't take it that way at all.

Jan B. wrote:
Once a negative's scanned, it's digital. The only difference is that the file size is way larger, at least if the neg is a 4X5 scanned at hi res. Lightroom handles larger file sizes and Aperture, apparently, doesn't.

Aperture isn't 64-bit Cocoa, is it? Lightroom is. Could that explain some of the performance difference with very high res scans? Direct access to more RAM?

I think it's less to do with driving sales and more to do with the fact that Snow Leopard is designed from the ground up to be 64-bit and to fully leverage the graphics card GPU and multiple processors in a way that current versions of OS X can't.

That, and the fact that Apple neither has sufficient support for the drawing model of the International Color Consortium nor sufficient support for the drawing model of the Unicode Consortium that it is possible to use Apple's operating system and Apple applications to build properly repurposable portable page descriptions that combine PDF/A and PDF/X. Glitzy user interface is not helpful if the machinery that drives the whole thing isn't working.

/hh

I purchased the "Portraiture" plugin for Aperture for 200.00. I put a single keystroke on it to activate it. I use it, and it works well. Then I start using Lightroom and it has, built in, the same functionality, but in a much better framework in that the modifications do not generate 20mb files, the modifications, skin retouching largely, are part of the normal editing process and saved in the catalog (Project in Aperture terms). Apple is seems to be playing catchup with RAW support, with editing tools, etc although they were the first large company to popularize the whole non destructive editing paradigm, they seem to have lost the intellectual lead...

This tool is not going to make or break Mac sales to photographers, but they have already done us a favor by getting Adobe riled up enough to deliver Lightroom.

I would argue that if image editing is your primary issue, then you need neither Aperture or Lightroom. Anybody who has invested any serious time in using the DAM features in either application knows just how painful and time consuming it would be to cleanly switch from one to the other. In my case, I find Aperture's image editing quite adequate in 90% of cases, and sometimes more powerful than Lightroom: for example using the combination of boost, highlight recovery and highlights gives excellent control over dynamic range. I initially used LR 1, and recently tried LR 2 to see how all these new editing controls work ... well, I only tried the gradient tool, but I found it clumsy and very, very slow. My opinion is that UI developmemt was not prioritised in Lightroom (or more accurately, they went down the same "cool" but blind alley as Kai Krause back in the late 90s). LR 1 was clumsy, LR 2's GUI is groaning under the strain of far too many features (standard Adobe disease) and, well, heaven's knows how LR 3 will end up.

hey everyone,

i'm wondering regarding lightroom vs aperture how to chnage an exposure in only an area of a photo. this is possible with lightroom but so far haven't been able to do it with aperture.

any ideas?

regards

Yes, that is easy to do in Lightroom. You select the brush tool, and select Exposure. Set the exposure slider to lighter or darker and brush over the area you want to improve. I do not think that Aperture can do that function without going to Photoshop doing the edit and then ending up with another 20mg file on your drive 😟. Not a problem if there are only a few images, but if you're editing a hundred, Aperture suddenly seems inefficient.

David Mantripp1 wrote:
for example using the combination of boost, highlight recovery and highlights gives excellent control over dynamic range.

In Lightroom I think the equivalent would be Fill Light, Recovery, (plus optionally the highlight portion of the Tone Curve). These are all in the same place so it's just as quick as Aperture in this specific example, and shortcuts are available.

Ok, let's just stop beating a dead horse: Aperture can't do localized non-destructive editing. LR can. I'm really hoping we get this in the next version but for now that's the situation as it stands.

Now:

do not think that Aperture can do that function without going to Photoshop doing the edit and then ending up with another 20mg file on your drive

First, you're lucky if you're only getting 20mb files 😉
Second, Aperture includes the Dodge and Burn plugin that allows for several types of localized edit functions on top of... well, dodging and burning. So you don't need Photoshop if that's all you're looking to do.

Yes, Dodge and Burn is available. I just D&B and 900k file, one small tweek and now I have a 14mb file. And Yes, I agree, it is a dead horse.

I just D&B and 900k file, one small tweek and now I have a 14mb file.

You get 900k files? wow. Ok.

but if you're editing a hundred, Aperture suddenly seems inefficient.

I don't want this to devolve into a battle of the apps. But if you're a professional photographer, there's a lot more to efficiency than disk space which seems to be of great concern to you. In fact while I'd rather NOT create huge files when I need to do local edits, disk space is really not a priority factor at the price it is today. Now the ability to go back and tweak local edits... that's something I'd like.

Dismissing Aperture as inefficient is a bit easy. I think beyond dodging and burning it really is highly efficient at going through and preparing a large number of pictures. Again, it all comes back to workflow.

And Yes, I agree, it is a dead horse.

If that's intended to suggest Aperture is a dead horse, I wouldn't be so quick to judge until we see what's in the next iteration. If you were agreeing with me... you're absolutely right then 😉