Aperture 1.5 vs. LIghtroom RAW edit features comparison

I'm very interested as well. I have used LR Beta 4 and I love the interface and quality of conversion - but - I'd love to have the complete workflow of Aperture - but - if the RAW processing isn't up to par with LR, then I'll have to go that route.

Yes, a trial period would be great. I want to see how well it runs on my G5/Dual 2 and hate to spend that kind of money if it won't perform well.

Hello,

I think we cannot speak of a general quality of conversion. This depends very much on the camera model. I use Nikon D1x and D2x and find the conversion of Lightroom terrible. It just does not look like an image. The same is true to Adobe Camera Raw. Capture One Pro besides Nikon Capture gives me the best image quality with Nikon Cameras. But Aperture really competes since 1.1.2.

I think LR Beta 4 did not add too much benefit in comparison with former beats. This despite the buying up of RawShooter. LR will become a good application for use with Labtops and will be seen by many pro shooters (using windows machines). But Aperture got a speed boost now and can be used with older machines too (like the g4 PB or iMac G5). Plus it offers true multiple dislay support which is just great to use.
Regards,
eberhard

www.eberhardgronau.com

So... if I'm happy with images processed in ACR (from my D1x or D200), then I should be very happy with Aperture?

My 2 cents....

I have been using LR since Beta2 on MBP. I just took the plunge to Aperture 1.5 and can share my thoughts on this. Just so you know, I would never have bought Aperture, if Apple did not implemented the referenced open library (pre 1.5). And even now there is a problem with the library implementation that I hope they will fix/change in the future.

Pro for Aperture 1.5
- Stacks
- Versions
- Effective Use of 2 monitors (MBP and external monitors)
- Edge sharpening
- HUD
- Ease of search using keywords and other criteria
- Integration with iLife if you use it
- Cycle time between updates so far (impressive!)

Cons
- Referenced library gets confused when the master images are stored on networked or external HDD (have to reconnect)
- Lacks controls for BW/Greyscale mixer (only RGB control and not RYGCBM like in color mode)
- No curves to adjust local contrast and brightness (gamma)
- Lack of white balance presets (e.g., daylight, flash,...)
- When External Editor is used, the TIF file that gets exported and re-imported is not stored in Master File directory but in Aperture Library and has to be re-exported out to have direct access to the edited file (or save as from the external editor)

Pro for Lightroom B4
- Develop module has full color, grey channel mixer and halftone controls
- Ease of exporting slide show as PDF file
- Flexibility in printing from LR
- Curves can be adjusted either by moving the curve itself on the graph or by placing a cursor on the image location of choice and use the arrow key to move up or down
- Raw Shooter features are starting to show up (Vibrance and Saturation)
- One of the best and easiest SW to convert color images to BW/Greyscale with full control (and w/o using layers)

Cons
- User interface actually feels better on XP rather than on Mac (I have both versions)
- Library, Shoots and Collections and Keywords setup and usability are bit awkward compared to Aperture
- Cannot drive 2 monitors with different content (I just move my LR to the larger external monitor but cannot setup so that I show library files on one and develop on other)
- No versions or spot healing, yet (will be included in v1.0)

These are just a few things that jump out at me as I thought about both. As you may have noticed I have not compared the raw processing for either above. That is because I find both to be poor compared to Nikon Capture (NX and 4.4.2) and I have never liked ACR either. While it is true that you can get a similar result from ACR, LR or Aperture it just takes much more time to get there - IMHO. And there is nothing like U-Point for any of these other than NX.

As for the user interface, my sense is one gets used to anything he/she uses all the time and quickly become proficient at it. So I think UI is not a driver, as long as it is not so bad that one just does not want to use it (which is not the case of LR - many on this forum will argue that it is repulsive and worse but we are on Aperture forum...).

In the end, I bought Aperture because there is no trial version for it and it had enough of things I liked about it. I will miss LR's ability to do greyscale mixer when my beta copy expires. Depending on the final price, I may just buy it for my PC, since it is sharing my master library anyway.

My hope is Apple will get more serious about raw processing and bring in new capabilities with upcoming releases as well as fix some buggyness on this release of Aperture (e.g., losing referenced file connections, versions lost in albums).


I guess it was bit longer than 2c.....

Cheers

Mac OS X (10.4.8) XP Pro

As a pro shooting with Canon Ds markII I would not consider Lightroom because the RAW conversion is so bad. As is ARC. I´v understood that it´s the same with Nikon.

Nice write up.

As for the WB presets, you can now create your own presets. Just create a set. Getting the temp values for common lighting is jsut google search away.

Yes you are correct. You will have to import the file to see the CS2 edited file. If for some reason, you just cataloged the jpeg or tif file and were using Aperture to handle file management aspect for additional edit and ended up using CS2 for further edit, you can directly edit the jpeg or tif file and save as before. Just update your preview and will reflect the updated changes.

Just one other thing. If you do find that your referenced master file link gets confused (in my case, I am using an external HD for master file location and have two partitions on my MBP. My MBP thought the master resides in the second partition for some reason when the external drive was disconnected), make sure that you reconnect from library rather than project or album. For some reason, once you reconnect from library, it retains the connection info whereas if you reconnect from project or album, it gets confused again, and again...

Cheers

Mac OS X (10.4.8) XP Pro

I've been using Lightroom quite intensively, and I would agree with many people that it has a pretty good RAW developer module. However, the module in Aperture in just as good if not better, IMHO, I think some things aren't as obvious as in LR.

To be really up front about this, I'm leaning toward Aperture more and more each day.

Some things that have been brought up that were pro-LightRoom were:
- Good tonal control (curves)
- BW mixer

For my purposes, these were major pro's for LR as well. However, Aperture especially since 1.5 has a lot of good useability in this regard as well.
- Tonal control: The levels control is very powerful, and can get pretty much all the same results as curves. However can be difficult if you're used to curves. With 1.5, I've made presets with my most often used curves. All I need to do is select the preset and fine tune as needed. (e.g. Std S curve, Expand highlight, compress shadows presets with varying strengths)

The trick is how to make the actual presets. There is a good guide about translating a curve to a levels adjustment at:
http://insideaperture.com/Site/Inside%20Aperture.html

- Grayscale mixer: I personally prefer the Aperture mixer more. The LR mixer by default has more adjustability, however I find that the controls are just a little over engineered at least for my taste. I'm quite happy with just an RGB adjustment in Aperture. Similar to the tone controls, making a few presets quickly allows me my most often used combinations.

I also prefer how presets are accessed on Aperture vs Lightroom.

The Highlight and Shadow are also a lot more powerful than in LightRoom. Overall, with the proper setup and customizations, I'd say Aperture has a more powerful RAW developer than lightroom.

I also find that the Exposure, Contrast, Brightness controls in Aperture work as they intuitively should. Lightrooms controls produce a fairly different output.

When it comes to DMR, then Aperture is king.

I like LR B4 except that it doesn't have the feel of a Mac app. I use it on a iMac G5. I am still seating on the fence as to which one I will purchase. My concern about Aperture is simply that at the Apple store it is loaded only on the most powerful Mac. Will it slow to a crawl on a G5?

I won't get exhaustive here, but I've been using LR since Beta 1, and AP since the day it shipped. Here are my hot buttons:

- LR Print module is very nice for creating, formatting, and storing print sizes and presets. As of yet they do not have an equivalent "Picture Package" feature than the one in Photoshop, but according to the developers, its comign in the future. AP has no equivalent.

- LR is noticably faster on PowerPC hardware. I have a dual-core 2.3Ghz G5, 4GB RAM with a high-end graphics card (bought specifically for use with AP) and an older 1.3Ghz Powerbook w/2GB RAM. On the G5, AP is sluggish, and can easily be brought down to chunky rendering, and on the Powerbook, it really isn't usuable for significant editing unless you have a HUGE pot of coffee and an even more HUGE amount of patience.

- AP really excels with version management, the project / folder / album hierarchy, and stacking capability. Apple has really shown the way with these features, and these were great from day one.

- AP's lift & stamp capability has some nasty bug in it which I discovered today, which corrupts your database -- I didn't have it until 1.5. If your photo shoots are about 5 minutes long and you shoot less than 20 pics, then you'll be thrilled with AP. If you take 250 images in an hour (like I do), and want to lift / stamp simple RAW adjustments throughout your photo shoot, you have a decision to make: attempt to use lift and stamp, or stick a pencil in your eye. You'll likely wish you chose the latter. On the flip side, LR sync capability (its equivalent) is very fast, compared to AP which is fairly slow when it does work, though I'll cut AP some slack here, it has to create new versions while LR doesn't.

- LR adjustment controls are more responsive than AP controls. I cannot speak for Intel hardware, but slider movement in AP is only smooth after an initial chunky movement -- in other words, when you first grab a slider, it doesn't respond immediately, but after it does respond, movement is smooth. I believe this is due to the littany of operations taking place on new version creation. Several months ago I traced the sql database operations taking place when an adjustment was made that created a new version, and let's just say its probably less complicated to bring the space shuttle home from orbit than it is to create a new version -- a HUGE number of database operations were taking place.

So what's my verdict? Well, I haven't given every feature of either the once over, but the well-beaten paths in my workflow leave me with the following opinions:

- RAW adjustments: LR
- Version management, stacking, project structure management: AP
- Rating and sorting: either
- Book tool: AP
- Printing: LR
- Web: haven't checked out AP 1.5 web features yet, but prior, I preferred LR for the Flash web pages.
- Slideshows: AP, for two reasons -- the ability to make quick version edits and project / album organization makes assembling the slideshow easier, and because LR has some weird rendering issue that takes a second or two to render images in your slideshow, leaving them pixellated for half the time they are displayed when playing the slideshow.
- File management: in general, LR. But I'll give credit for AP's vault management.
- Price: LR (for now).
- Support: LR (just because the developers interact with some regularity with the user base, and Adobe's approach).
Overall workflow: neither. Both are great apps that seem to have some isolated but important gaps in common workflow needs. In LR, the gap is need to quickly create and adjust versions. In AP, its the lift / stamp problems, and printing deficiencies.

Winner: neither. Take your pick. My sense is that AP has the best feature breadth, but LR seems more stable, what it lacks in feature it offers in solid implementation of what is there (which is odd, as you wouldn't expect the Beta app to beat the app that has been GA for a year now in the quality category).

My 2 cents. There's a whole forum of people who will disagree with me. But this has been my experience.

Hope that helps.

Brad

G5 dual-2.3Ghz, 4.5GB RAM, Nvidia 7800GT Mac OS X (10.4.6) Powerbook G4-1.33GHz-17", 1GB RAM, Radeon 9600-64MB

I've read in several posts that the RAW editing
features in Lightroom are considered superior to
those in Aperture.

For those who have used both tools, and in particular
those who now have Aperture 1.5 and Lightroom B4, can
you share you opinions on the difference between the
two tools in their latest versions, with respect to
the RAW editing capabilities only? Are the two tools
getting closer in terms of capabilities for RAW
editing, or do folks still feel that Lightroom has
significant advantages? Or does Aperture now have
some advantages?

I always thought Aperture had some advantage, mostly because it offered Spot & Patch tools and also good version support (versions are important I feel for editing to have the abilitly to freely try different edits and see them side by side). Also I think underlooked is the importance of versioned RAW conversions, the ability to choose when the RAW converter is updated to move forward with the new converter or leave older images as they are for stability of conversion. When adobe updates the ACR engine in Lightroom will you have a choice to go ahead or not while still being able to use new features of the application?

However there were aspects of Lightroom that I missed in Aperture, and happily the main one is now included - selective color adjustments. If I could have had only one tool added to Aperture that would have been it.

A strong bonus is the edge sharpening tool which is really nice and something Lightroom currently lacks. It also eliminates one need for masks that people were calling for.

As another poster noted, really Aperture has almost the equivilent of Curves in the Levels tool. This tool is very misunderstood by most people, because they are so used to Photoshop Levels and think it is the same thing. It's not at all, and I feel it's actually a more intuitive way to adjust curves if you have not been brainwashed by years of Photoshop work into thinking curves are natural in operation.

Turn on the quarter-tone controls, and note that you can move both top and bottom arrows on all the control points in the curve to start to get a feel for what it can do. Basically it's like Curves where some operations can be done with fewer control points. Some unlearning has to take place but once you get the hang of it it's very easy to use.

At this point I feel Aperture has a pretty good edge in editing tools, but we still do not know what v1.0 of Lightroom will hold. Then again we do not know the price either, and that should be a concern for those using it as if it were free.