Lightroom vs. Aperture: One Year Later

[E. John Thawley III]

The big Lightroom Beta thread is nearly a year old. At the time, JT & a few others were praising and optimistic about where Adobe was taking the product. But based on recent threads, Apple's Aperture seems to have been put into service instead.

I've been doing a lot of on-line reading about the differences between the two. And I'm having a hard time committing to either.

So where are we? Who among us has sampled the fruit from both trees? What is your preference? Why?

Thawley III - ready to make a change, but not sure what it will be...

[John Thawley]

Well... if you're running a Windows platform, you have no choice. Aperture is available only for the Mac.

I can only comment on the Lightroom final Beta... the major complaint I had, they've changed. That was how it managed files. At the time, Lightroom insisted on managing your file location for you. Now both programs allow you to "reference" your files from their current location. For me, this was important for two reasosns... first, I have a good system of file/folder management. Second, it at anytime I want to unsubscribe from this workflow philosophy, it won't be an issue. In other words, I can give up Aperture tommorow... and go right back to my old workflow unaffected. Except... that ain't gonna happen.

Both programs are very similar. And... I will flatly state... pay me now, or pay me later. You will eventually move to this genre of workflow. I know everyone looks at all the features and say's... "oh.. well I can do that with my xxx program." And to another feature or function... "oh... yeah... well, I do that with my yyy program." and "I have a action that does that." and so on... and so on.

I will tell you, both these programs put the flow in workflow.

For instance... I have my Metadata set up the way I want it .. fully customized with exactly the information I want and the empty fields I want. When I ingest a card, I assign that Metadata preset and all my files now have copyright, contact info, date, locations etc. embedded. They are also named with my naming convention.

Next... I sort the thumbnails. As I sort, I view them anyway I want .. from a thumbnail view to a paned view or a full screen view. I tag the rejects.. and/or rate the keepers with three or four stars. Prior to this, I've set up two "smart" folders within the project. One called "picks" the other called "final picks." The 3 and 4 star images automatically sort in the "picks" smart folder. Next step, I look at the 3 & 4 smart folder. As I go through them, I do adustments on the fly... no "opening".... just adjusting them. Once I know I want that adjusted image, I give it 5 stars. This goes on throughout the weekend... and when the weekend is over, I have a folder sitting there with all my finished work. Sure... I can drag and drop to another folder... but that takes remembering... and time... and COPIES images from original locations. The smart album is just like a playlist in iTunes. And... the adjusted images are only "versions." They're not really images at all.

The next step for my final picks smart album is to export the versions to the form of final output I want. For instance... my only gallery that uses "Gallery" software. I click on the album... select export versions... I chose the online connection... the album I'm putting them in. I tell it the size I want and to add my watermark. I click ok and walk away. Depending on the number of images, in no time they are in a gallery on the web... Done!

So.... back to E. John's question. I decded I like the concept of a work flow based environment. I opted out of waiting for Lightroom because I felt Apple caught Adobe with their pants down and already had a year on them. I think Aperture has a broader base of users at the professional level. Lightroom seems to have put a lot of resources in to cutsie output features... like web galleries and slide shows. Where both programs intergrate storing, sorting, rating and adjustment, Lightroom goes into a sales pitch about their "Four" panel desktop. There is the organizing panel, the editing panel, the web gallery panel and the slide show panel. Aperture, on the other hand has focused on allowing you to seamlessly intergrate your storage/sorting activities right along with your editing and adjusting steps... the desktop and interface is fully customizable and only one or two key strokes from different views of your work. They utilze floating heads-up like displays... I can hit the T key and see EXIF data of the image I'm looking at or... hit the ` key and bring up a loop. Hit F and see the image full size... hit Z and zoom in 100%... hit F again and toggle off the full screen view. While I'm in fullscreen view I can have a floating film strip of thumbnails... I can hit the H key and bring up the Adjustment HUD and tweak an image on the fly... it's absolutely endless... and all done with simple quick key strokes.

Like any good program, it has a learning curve. I more I use it, the more I learn... and the more effiicient I get.

Regarding the Lightroom web gallery features and slideshow features, I find these to be fluff. There are plenty of good purpose built slide show programs and web gallery software. Both features are limited in their functionality and left me feeling the program was dumbed down... and less of a professional tool.

I'm in my sixth month with Aperture now. I'm even more impressed with it than I was after the first month. I do 90% of my editing right in Aperture. My Photoshop work is pretty much limited to "surgery"... mostly cloning things out or up-sizing for offset print out put. I've really become comfortable with Apertures image adjustment tools. I found the change to be simply a matter of learning the "pressure" of the inputs to each tool.

So.... short answer long, I'm totally committed to Aperture.... and seeking to become Certified. I can only warn those considering the change to stop looking at these programs and thinking about Photoshop. You need to look at these as a total working environment for managing your images as they come out of the camera.

For me it's been a truly liberating experience and change.

JT

[Dennis Murray]

So the big question for me is....from card out of the camera to having photos ready to put on-line or show customers, are you faster now with Aperture than you were in your past life of whatever viewer you used + Photoshop, and is the product better?

I do show much spec shooting for print sales at this point that I would like to get faster from camera to pushing the photos to the web (or the studio I do high school sports for).

[John Waugh]

No doubt about it. By a speed factor of 3 or 4.
Quality is better as well.

[John Thawley]

So the big question for me is....from card out of the camera to having photos ready to put on-line or show customers,

See... you already missed a step. It's not "from card out of camer to having photos READY to put online." It's from card out of camera - to online.

I did a day job on Thursday... out of state. I got home around 10pm. Shoot was about 1000 images. Two clients had images online (24 for one and about 50 for the other) FULLY POST PROCESSED by 11AM Friday. I started work on them around 9:30AM Friday morning.

For event shooting or sales, this is a must have work flow.

One of the things I heard on a Podcast with someone from the Aperture development team was that for input between versions 1.1 and 1.5 they relied most heavily on feedback that got from sports shooters. He added that sports shooters probably have the toughest workflow deadlines of anyone and were the perfect testing platform for Apertures user interface and functionality.

JT

[Dennis Murray]

See... you already missed a step. It's not "from card out of camer to having photos READY to put online." It's from card out of camera - to online.

I did a day job on Thursday... out of state. I got home around 10pm. Shoot was about 1000 images. Two clients had images online (24 for one and about 50 for the other) FULLY POST PROCESSED by 11AM Friday. I started work on them around 9:30AM Friday morning.

For event shooting or sales, this is a must have work flow.

One of the things I heard on a Podcast with someone from the Aperture development team was that for input between versions 1.1 and 1.5 they relied most heavily on feedback that got from sports shooters. He added that sports shooters probably have the toughest workflow deadlines of anyone and were the perfect testing platform for Apertures user interface and functionality.

JT

Well, for me shooting events I'm posting my selling galleries to Printroom - and they have their own software that ingests jpg's, does a resize and uploads just a thumbnail and a small (I have it set to 800 px on the long side) jpg. So I would need to get to the ready-to-ingest point for printroom fast with up to 1000 or so images. (That's why for this stuff I'm shooting jpg's, along with the fact the cameras I have are faster in jpg).

I'd love to be able to shoot raw for this stuff - but the speed of my current computing system bars processing a lot of raws quickly. I know, you get 9/10 of what you get from raw from a jpg - but I'm just a little bit better working with raws when it comes to getting my white balance and color right (and high school stadiums and gyms always have challenging light).

[E. John Thawley III]

Well, for me shooting events I'm posting my selling galleries to Printroom - and they have their own software that ingests jpg's...
Apple's getting a lot of 3rd party plug-ins for stuff like that. Printroom's not yet supported, but Photoshelter & Flickr are:
http://www.apple.com/aperture/resources/exportapi.html

John: Great/review update. Two questions - are you shooting mostly RAW or jpeg? Is Aperture as good for a jpeg shooter as RAW?

[John Thawley]

Apple's getting a lot of 3rd party plug-ins for stuff like that. Printroom's not yet supported, but Photoshelter & Flickr are:
http://www.apple.com/aperture/resources/exportapi.html

John: Great/review update. Two questions - are you shooting mostly RAW or jpeg? Is Aperture as good for a jpeg shooter as RAW?

I shoot mostly jpeg, however, I did shoot some RAW this past Thursday. I had actually forgotten about the RAW images ... they were some group shots at the end of the day. Aperture treated them without any discrimination and they simply appeared in the workflow along with the jpegs. The only difference was the choices of image adjustments in the adjustment HUD... and even that was not immediately apparent. And my adjustments simply created a "version" just like with the jpegs. It may have given me some incentive to shoot more RAW.

I think that Apple handles RAW at the OS level, though. It's part of the operating system. This is a good place for it, but does limit Apple's ability to address a lot of particular cameras. Since it would continually require updates to Tiger, they seem to stick with the more "popular" cameras.

The Aperture plug-ins are coming fast and furious. Because of Apples "Automator" program, there are a lot of simple tasks being automated a lot of pro useers. I use the FTPPro plug-in, and the one for Gallery and another for PhotoShelter. But you're right E. John, they're out there for:

Aperture To Final Cut Pro
ApertureToFTP
ApertureToFTP Pro
ApertureToGallery
ApertureToPBase
ApertureToPhanfare
ApertureToSmugMug
ApertureToZenfolio
Digital Fusion
Digital Railroad
Flash Album Exporter
FlickrExport
Getty Images
iStockPhoto
Lightbox XMP
Photoreflect
PhotoShelter
PhotoUpLink
Pictage
Random Wok
SmugExport
Soundslides
YouSendit

Two excellent Aperture resources are Inside Aperture (http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/aperture/) and Aperture PluggedIn (http://www.aperturepluggedin.com/)

[Jason Tang]

John,

How do you set Lightroom so that it leaves the image files where they are? I have mine all organized just as you do by dates and would like to leave them where they are. I looked in Lightroom and all I could see was an option to auto import the images. Any suggestions?

[John Thawley]

John,

How do you set Lightroom so that it leaves the image files where they are? I have mine all organized just as you do by dates and would like to leave them where they are. I looked in Lightroom and all I could see was an option to auto import the images. Any suggestions?

I use Aperture. The choice there is referred to as "referenced files" or "managed files" - Managed is where you all the program to take care of folders and storage locations. Referenced is where you tell the program where you want them and how you want the folders named. ... etc.

John

[Mark Scheuern]

Jason,

When you do a File->Import from disk, the dialog box that opens will give you a choice of file handling options. Choose "Import files at their current location" and the Lightroom database will reference that location.

[Jason Tang]

I can only comment on the Lightroom final Beta... the major complaint I had, they've changed. That was how it managed files. At the time, Lightroom insisted on managing your file location for you. Now both programs allow you to "reference" your files from their current location. For me, this was important for two reasosns... first, I have a good system of file/folder management. Second, it at anytime I want to unsubscribe from this workflow philosophy, it won't be an issue. In other words, I can give up Aperture tommorow... and go right back to my old workflow unaffected. Except... that ain't gonna happen.

This is where I got the impression that you were able to just reference the files in Lightroom.

[Jason Tang]

Jason,

When you do a File->Import from disk, the dialog box that opens will give you a choice of file handling options. Choose "Import files at their current location" and the Lightroom database will reference that location.

Thank you Mark! That's exactly what I wanted to do.

[E. John Thawley III]

UPDATE
I fianlly decided to get Lightroom. Not really my first choice, but I'm committed to building a workflow around it. The decision was base on four factors: its Adobe (and likely to gain global acceptance), its dual platform, the college where I teach just bought 50 licenses, and Adobe has better educational pricing. (So that's what most of my students will get...)

So there it is.

I'm still a died in the wool Photo Mechanic user. Since there is no way LR or Aperture can touch PM for speed, I will continue to use PM for the initial edit/sport.

If any of you have seen seminars/tutorials/white papers/etc with serious Lightroom based poweruser work flow tips, please post them here. I'm not very gifted at figuring all this out on my own and like to leave it to the real computer doods to forge the trail.

Thanks