Aperture 4 Wish List

It seems to me that if you truly believed that Lightroom outperformed Aperture on almost every level, you wouldn't be hanging around in the Apple Aperture forum. When I ditch a bad tool, that's it — I move on.

I use both of these apps constantly. Lightroom has more powerful image adjustment tools — particularly the basic adjustments, and the way that you can push and pull dynamic range, restore overexposure, brighten shadows etc. Great for fixing poorly exposed photos. I never worry about sharpening or lens corrections or noise reductions, but I admit that Aperture needs improvement here. In terms of user interface and asset management, however, Lightroom is a poorly designed, frustrating relic, almost laughable in its backwards thinking. It wouldn't take much to get Aperture to catch up with Lightroom's image adjustment prowess, but it would take a change of product managers and a complete overhaul to fix Lightroom's asset management features and user interface. Apple will improve Aperture's image adjustment tools, but the Lightroom team refuses to even admit that Lightroom's modular approach is archaic and clumsy, and that its interface is a cluttered, blinking mess — a sad blight upon otherwise splendid Camera Raw technology — so there's little hope that Lightroom will ever match Aperture in this regard.

Worst of all, anyone who thinks Adobe won't start charging a subscription fee to use Lightroom is living in denial.

Don't get so caught up in version numbers — it's playing into Adobe's hands.

Don likes to trash Apple and Aperture at every opportunity

One Big Wookie wrote:

Don likes to trash Apple and Aperture at every opportunity

That's a pretty good sign that he's insecure about having committed to Lightroom. We all do this sort of thing sometimes. Hopefully when Aperture X is announced, he'll keep an open mind about it.

I just completed a photo trip where I used both Aperture and LR5. I agree that now LR has better image adjustment tools. A couple of versions ago, that wasn't the case, but there were several backlit photos on snow, indoor shots, etc. where LR was definitely better. However, the user interface and asset management are really user surly. After adjusting thousands of photos in LR5 it still irritates me to have to switch modules just to see what the light balance is on a given photo. I keep hoping that both programs will continue to be developed.

As for subscriptions? I thought LR would continue to be a standalone, but that package that Adobe is dangling in front of photographers includes PSCC and LR5CC. It is a foot in the door. I'm not going to spring for it as I don't like the subscription model, and also because the Photography offering if only for people who owned standalone versions of PS. Apparently everyone who spend hundreds of dollars more for the creative suites is just out of luck if they only want photoshop and lightroom. Way to stick it too your customers, Adobe!

At the moment, Lightroom is the one Adobe product which can be purchased independently of a Creative Cloud subscription, but it seems to me that the only way this will continue to be true is if Creative Cloud fails outright. I won't subscribe to software, period. I haven't updated to Lr5 yet.

Lr's single area of strength is it's Develop module. That's it. The Library module is a mess. Books - only has one printer option, and their QC is questionable. Slideshow - a joke. Web - even a worse joke than Slideshow.

I anticipate that Aperture will be updated with OS X Mavericis (as will iLife and iWork). Until then, Aperture remains my primary DAM and I only use Lr for those images that have exposure issues or are shot at 28mm or less.

Don Trammell wrote:

Not sure of your level of photography but this seems to be FUD central on several things here.

No agenda.

Merely responding to a comment that Aperture or Lightroom were the best choices for RAW processing.

I have been a professional photographer for 20 years using digital for 10. I use Phase One backs on Hasselblads and Canon at work and a Fuji x20 for family snaps. I shoot portraits and travel for lifestyle magazines etc. and make films.

I personally don't know of another professional that doesn't use Capture One for their work. Aperture and Lightroom are generally regarded for amatuer use as Mark pointed out. That said I have no idea of your level of photography.

At no time did I jump in to bash Apple. Please provide a link to a post I made where is simply bash Apple for no apparent reason... Second, I did point out the shortcomings of Aperture. Here's how it works. People, users, provide feedback to a company detailing the features they would like to have that a competing product has. This is called feedback... Sometimes companies listen, sometimes they don't. Apple is in the don't category as of right now. Neither you, nor your new acolyte can has any inside information about the vaperware called Aperture X. The fact that your acolyte continues to mention Capture One as the grail of RAW conversion shows a profoundly myopic view of the camera world and maybe iPhoto would be better suited to his needs. Some of us doing work require a bit more than what Aperture has to offer. I have agreed that LR5's modular concept is annoying and a pain but in the trade off between more advanced tools and an old piece of software that has not seen a major upgrade in about a year or so, LR5 simply wins out. Rather than being an Aperture apologist, maybe your efforts would be better sent writing to Apple asking is Aperture going continue to be abandonware. Just a thought...

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Clair de Loon.

@Jeff,

You say Capture One, I say Capture NX2... I use a Nikon for my work so why not use the RAW convertor designed by the manufacturer? Are you saying that Capture One can convert RAW's better than Capture NX2? At no time did I say Capture One is not a good product, it simply isn't as accurate as the algorithms from Nikon for their own cameras. As for pros, again subject to speculation and opinion. I know and shoot with plenty of pros who use LR5 for its processing tools, while many of use former Aperutre users have held out for as long as possible. I still have a working copy of Aperture on my Mac but I no longer process any images through it simply because Apple has not shown that they will support it and not matter how many cheerleading posts Mark Alan Thomas continues to post, no one has any idea other than Apple if they will support Aperture past tomorrow. One thing for sure, Adobe will continue to support LR(x) even if it is through the utterly stupid subscription model. Aperture is not a core business for Apple while graphic and photo suites are how Adobe makes their money. This can't be that hard to understand.

Why rant and rave about it when you have committed to a superior product made by a superior company for superior individuals?

Don

Are the ad hominem attacks really necessary? If you don't like/use/recommend Aperture, why keep coming back here? Is it just to taunt people?

FWIW, Apple has been on a hiring spree for the past six months or so for software engineers, technical writers ("instructional designers"), trainers, etc. - all that include the Aperture team.

Also, in a recent survey that Adobe sent out, one of the questions included "will you be upgrading to the next version of Aperture". Yeah - I got that same survey from Adobe ('cuz I own PS CS6 and Lr4 and 5) - their survey was to specifically find out why hobbyists/serious amateurs/semi-pro's weren't going with their subscription plan. I told them straight up my reasoning was their second year monthly pricing was out of wack. Adobe finally got the message...

Mark Alan Thomas,

You've failed to present one cogent argument. Here's a tip for you. You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts... You haven't given one fact regarding Aperture... So why discuss anything with you?

@OBW,

You made the first ad hominem or did you miss that? I didn't say that I did not like Apple products and the fact that you failed to produce a link showing where I had proves my point.

Now down to business, I too agree that the Adobe model is beyond stupid and doomed to fail... I for one will not be upgrading to anymor unless I can download a licesened application. As for Apple, if what you said it true, then we might be in for an Aperture upgrade but then again, Aperture is not a real money maker for Apple and you know as well as I that if it doesn't make money, Apple dumps it. Did you read about Cards that was recently dropped? Anyway, I do hope that Apple releases some sort of Aperture product in the near future...

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I bet you’ve been waiting for weeks to use the word “cogent”.