Not that likely that the post is really a versus post but it is about me switching from Aperture to Lightroom. My reasons and a short overview of my new structure in photography processing.
Over the last year I used Aperture 2 as my main library to organize and edit my photos. Not that long ago, a friend of mine — Windows user — bought his own DSLR — an Canon EOS 1000D — and wanted to get to know a great program to sort and edit his pictures. I suggested him Lightroom 2 and he tested it. Now his library runs with Lightroom and I got to see a bit of the capabilities of Lightroom. Thats most part of the reason I even thought about switching. All the features I saw. All the simpler things.
But I have to tell! Most of which had to be understood the right way. Last year as I tried Aperture vs. Lightroom the simple structure of Aperture — that you do not have to think about the files, they are just stored inside the library — was great. Now I understood why Lightroom does not do that. If you want to sort your pictures on your own. Now I use folders for project based sorting and catalogs for sorting pictures across different projects. And that already is in my view the main difference of the file handling. Second the backing up with Lightroom is much simpler too. Just sync two folders!
But not just the file handling was a reason to switch. One additional were the editing capabilities of Lightroom. The ability to add gradient filters or a mask brush are just awesome and now that I am used to them I can not imagine going back to Aperture which does not have that features. In Aperture I needed to export an image and than process a mask in Photoshop, now I can do most of the editing in Lightroom and just in occasion need to fire up Photoshop to add a watermark or do some fancy editing.
Over all I am very satisfied with Lightroom and can not imagine why I was using Aperture for so long! Even though, Aperture has it’s points! It is a great program and I still think that everyone searching an application to process his shots should download at least this two to test them with about 100 shots and than decide which to choose! If you are on Windows the choice does not depend between Aperture — which is Mac only — and Lightroom but there are still some to be tested — like Capture One or Picasa (which I will not recommend even if you are just a amateur photographer). Make your choice and I wish you all the best that you do not need to switch form one to the other platform with a mass load of pictures — I had to move over 10k pictures over to Lightroom.
I too am in the process of switching Aperture 2 to LR…loads of images to transer..wondering how it went for you and what problems you encountered…
The main problems I encountered during the process (I am done with switching) had been that I wanted to get the RAW files into Lightroom which ment that I needed to export edited pictures extra cause the edit ‘process / history’ between Lightroom and Aperture are different and not compatible.
In the end I’m happy with the switch! I discovered some great features of lightroom which I didn’t knew before using it for longer and I have the feeling that Lightroom runs a bit smoother than Aperture with pictures heavily edited.
Over all happy I did it!
Thanks Chris…pretty much what I thought, especially the raw file merge. I hate the thought o fmoving 40,000 images but I also am so frustrated with Aperture that any pain will be worth it…
Hi,
I just been through an excrutiating choice making on which (first) digital camera to get for about a month; I was an happy analog medium format guy… Somewhat hurried to showing my photos, but happy. Now after sleepless nights of reading the hundreds of forums, I got my perfect camera (EOS 5DII), and was very happy again testing what the digital cameras have to offer, until I find the canon bundle software sucked…
Now I have to make a choice on selecting/buying a Transfering/editing/sorting software… I hope I can get to more creative things soon… And Do I need Photoshop as well, for after processes?
I’m just in the process of testing out the two software out.
Very confusing. Some people are totally in love with Aperture, I was going to go for IT, but recently I find many are leaving for LR. Any pointers on what I should test out on both software? Is the speed that bad? I sort of imagined that since Aperture was a Apple product, it’s compatability with the system would be better than Lightroom… Is it not worth the time to test even? What are you guys going to miss in LR that Aperture had? Do you miss the full screen view for example?
Actually I have no idea where to start! Any pointers please!
I use 17″ MBP OS 10.6.1, 2.8 GHz Core 2 duo, 4GB ram.
Thanks,
Takeshi
I think I will cut/paste this message to post onto other forums as well.
I’d say that the choice is a personal one — just and only.
In my opinion Lightroom is faster than Aperture and has some more abilities — picture editing wise. Not to forget the color labels!
I am happy with Lightroom and am happy that I switched.
Photoshop is not necessary for everybody but some editing is just not available in Lightroom (for example better retouch or special lightning / textures)!
I am happy to use Photoshop CS4 for that.
Thx for your time
I’ve just begun to make the switch from Aperture to Lightroom.
I found I was completely uninspired by Aperture which is strange for me to say about an Apple product. Little things made it difficult to keep track of photos/projects and there didn’t seem to be even half as many organisational options as I’ve found in Lightroom.
The colour flags/picks/rejects etc make it easy to import/filter/dispose all in one swift movement. By using this I can set up easy smart collections to filter the imports. Colour tag all the photos that still require me to filter through with a yellow tag, then all the picks with a pick flag.
I found Aperture lacking in ways to automatically filter your shots, other than keywords/filenames and this proved problematic when trying to organise stock photos/the sites they are uploaded/rejected/accepted at.
I do like the integration aspect of Aperture more however, and it will take time to get used to not being able to find photos as easily on Mac OSX, but I figure any photos I’ll be sharing/slideshowing I will just import into iPhoto and be done with it.
I think Lightrooms links to Photoshop in the end edge out the integration for me. I find I barely need to load up Photoshop anymore in Lightroom as a lot of it’s most useful functions (when batch editing photos) are right there in Lightroom.
I haven’t finished my transition just yet, but I definitely think Lightroom is significantly better than Aperture, and with Lightroom 3 on the horizon and not a peep out of Apple about a new Aperture I can only see the gap in quality further increasing. Come on Apple, step it up!
I prefer Aperture 3 against LR 3.
With LR you have (eventually) to buy Photoshop CS4. There goes $1000 against $200 of Aperture which has LR PS in one package.
Aperture in easer overall. And almost the same adjustments. No candy enhancements.
Sorry Adobe prefer Aperture.
Well, I need to disagree on that! Post processing wise both LR and Aperture are pretty much the same and neither one of them replaces Photoshop!
And except the really neat features like Faces and Places, Aperture 3 has really not that much new to come around with and: I downloaded the 30 day trial and noticed that it needs way more RAM (I have 4GB) and totally stresses out my MacBook — LightRoom 3 does not!
I am staying with LR for now.
Hello dude , This is amazing posting for my homework from college Do u have twitter account ?? i want to follow your twitt . Good bye
@Georgeanna Haer: Of course I have Twitter: @cspiegl