Aperture - Lightroom

I tried an earlier Windows beta of Lightroom and thought it was "pretty good". When I tried Aperture I was very impressed. I combination with other factors, I made the switch recently and purchased a 24" iMac with Aperture pre-loaded (since, I have updated to 1.5.1).

I have gotten pretty used to Aperture, but after reading the earlier thread on how it may not be de-coding Nikon's nef format accurately (for whatever the reason, Apples fault or Nikon's) I got a bit concerned. I decided it was high time to give the newest Lightroom beta for Mac a run. Now I think I may like it even better.

It seems to be a simplified image correction workflow, very familiar with how Bridge/ACR worked in Windows. Just better integrated.

Aperture scores points for asset management and versioning/exporting. But The image correction workflow... I don't know.

I'm thinking ahead to when Lightroom is out of beta and Photoshop is available and optimized for Intel-based Macs.

Anyone else see it this way?

--
-- Patrick --

PatrickD50 said:

I have gotten pretty used to Aperture, but after reading the
earlier thread on how it may not be de-coding Nikon's nef format
accurately (for whatever the reason, Apples fault or Nikon's) I got
a bit concerned. I decided it was high time to give the newest
Lightroom beta for Mac a run. Now I think I may like it even better.

Click to expand...

No idea who's fault it is - but I have tried several applications now and Lightroom and ACR read the WB value incorrectly as well. I also tried the newest LR beta and I think the interface is getting worse with every beta and the conversion quality is clearly not where Aperture, RawDeveloper and CaptureOne are.

PatrickD50 said:

It seems to be a simplified image correction workflow, very
familiar with how Bridge/ACR worked in Windows. Just better
integrated.

Click to expand...

True, it is similar, so if you liked that: fine. I never liked Bridge and ACR and for large volumes it is IMHO unsuitable. I hate the "modes" - in Aperture I can edit an image in every situation (full screen, book, journal, album) without changing modes, that is how it should be.

PatrickD50 said:

I'm thinking ahead to when Lightroom is out of beta and Photoshop
is available and optimized for Intel-based Macs.

Click to expand...

So far there is no indication how it will integrate with the rest of the CS suite... so: no comment. The recent renaming to Photoshop Lightroom makes me worried... Could we see them dropping ACR as a free part of PS in order to force people to buy a PS premium edition that includes LR? And, most important, there is no price tag yet and the RAW support is not finalised... Bottom line: nothing to really comment on.

Cheers,
Uwe

Well, at the time Bridge/ACR seemed to be the best all-around, but I agree the performance for editing many images was tanking my PC. Quite unbearable. Compared to that, both Aperture and LR are way ahead.

But I also assumed that Adobe had gotten Nikon's recipe for NEF and all was well. I assumed that LR would naturally be ok with decoding it.

I admit that I have not tried the other two. Guess I should.

Thanks for the insight.

--
-- Patrick --

I just downloaded the Aperture trial and intalled it on my Gg 1.8ghz w/ 2GB RAM and the stock video card a 5200.

I was worried that it would be slow as I had been warned that an upgrade to a premium video card would be advisable.

In short I am very impressed with it's speed and it's features. I did not get a chance to try all it's goodies but I like what I see.

I have been using LR and this is much faster. In addition I prefer the things like cropping and the color correction tools that I can enable/disable.

I am sure that once I figure out some of the workflow tricks and keyboard commands I will fairly fly through my work.

So far I have only tried RAW files in Aperture so I am wondering if I will be able to adjust WB on jpgs like I can in LR. This is a great feature of LR and helps me correct large numbers of JPGs.

Photomonkey said:

So far I have only tried RAW files in Aperture so I am wondering if
I will be able to adjust WB on jpgs like I can in LR. This is a
great feature of LR and helps me correct large numbers of JPGs.

Click to expand...

Yes - the only thing you can't use in Aperture on JPG or TIFF files is the "AutoExposure" button - but you can do auto-levels. All the other adjustment tools (including WB selection) work on JPG images exactly the same way they work with RAW images.

--
---> Kendall
http://InsideAperture.com
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/user_home

Thanks Kendall

Sorry to drag this a small step to the side, but as I just installed Aperture (last night) so I'm a long way from knowing the software. The demo movies expalin things well and I'm very excited, it looks quite amazing.

I shoot Nikon (also new for me - digital that is).

If it's true that Aperture is not 100% OK on converting NEF files, which is quite a surprise to me (considering how much I've just invested in all my new gear) what IS a good RAW converter. I don't really want to spend more money on the Nikon Capture (which I imagine would be the 1st answer) - how about photoshop ACR ?

If I do need to convert outside of Aperture what would be the best time (flow wise) to do it?

cheers
--
Stan-o-Stan

Stan-o-Stan said:

If it's true that Aperture is not 100% OK on converting NEF files,
which is quite a surprise to me (considering how much I've just
invested in all my new gear) what IS a good RAW converter. I don't
really want to spend more money on the Nikon Capture (which I
imagine would be the 1st answer) - how about photoshop ACR ?

If I do need to convert outside of Aperture what would be the best
time (flow wise) to do it?

Click to expand...

There are list of raw files that Apple supports - but I believe they support all of Nikon raws now, with exception of D40 (but they will in time).

I have been using Nikon Capture since V4 and now NX but sounds like you know all about that. There really is little reason to use any other raw processor than Aperture. Do recommend that you remain patient and give time to learn how the controls work in Ap. I prefer much more than ACR, but I never liked how ACR handled NEFs.

I still use NX on exception basis. There are images that benefit significantly by using D-Light and U-Point locally. Shadow and highlight adjustments in Ap (or any other sw, other than spending lots of time in PS) is not quite as flexible and capable as NX.

Generally speaking I do not use other raw processor than Ap now...

Cheers.

Stan-o-Stan said:

Sorry to drag this a small step to the side, but as I just
installed Aperture (last night) so I'm a long way from knowing the
software. The demo movies expalin things well and I'm very excited,
it looks quite amazing.

I shoot Nikon (also new for me - digital that is).

If it's true that Aperture is not 100% OK on converting NEF files,
which is quite a surprise to me (considering how much I've just
invested in all my new gear) what IS a good RAW converter. I don't
really want to spend more money on the Nikon Capture (which I
imagine would be the 1st answer) - how about photoshop ACR ?

Click to expand...

The white balance being off does not mean that it is not OK for converting NEF files (unless you really shoot a grey card at each location and set correct WB). It is pretty common that you need to adjust WB for RAW files - in many cases the value chosen by Aperture is not more off than the value measured by the camera - especially with indoor and available light images and correcting these using the WB tool is no big deal. Of course Aperture should read the value correctly, but several other applications do not do that either. Unless Apple comments on the issue, we will not know what the reason is.

Cheers,
Uwe

OK,

thanks guys for that. I see that it's no drama. I guess it's time to just get busy with the software...

thanks again
--
Stan-o-Stan

Hi,

For the moment use Aperture. Lightroom is beta and the final release will have a lot more Aperture-like features, plus more. Lightroom v1 doesn't look like it will not have the DAM features of Aperture, maybe v1.5?. Re-evaluate your situation when Lightroom is released. By then Aperture will probably be at v2! Competition is good for the consumer.

-- Robert.