So those of you who went back to LR... does that mean that LR has improved or simply that Iridient wasn't the best processor?
And for those who prefer PN, is the interface easy to learn? I don't mind the extra cost of another developer, but I know how to use LR and am hoping that a second option will be easy to learn.
I can comment on LR only. I was a long time Aperture user and switched to LR 4.4 for xe1 support for 2 years. Once Aperture supported XTrans I went back. The initial xe1 renders I was getting out of Aperture were very noticeably better (subjective of course but I don't view flat + a lot of work as a positive attribute). Last week I installed LR 5.5 and used it for 3 long days. Did about 200 varied images. Frankly, I was quite surprised. The initial renders were very good and very close to what I was getting from Aperture as I compared many of them side by side. For shadows, LR was doing a better job (an Aperture weakness with a poor shadows tool as well).
What's changed, a lot? I've gone from an xe1 to an xt1. Different laptop with a better display. A different version of LR. I seriously doubt the xt1 files are any different than the xe1's. Display is irrelevant as comparisons were made on the same display. People say there's no change to Adobe's conversions since 4.4, I question this. In any event, this work convinced me LR is a very acceptable tool for XTrans in its current state.
I also tried the film simulations and quickly forgot about them. Provia is quite close the Adobe's default render with a heavier hand in shadows. The other two I neither like in camera or in Adobe. Too much work to tame them down and balance them out.
Lightroom is still like working in a cramped dungeon that makes poor use of display space without shoving panes around all the time, its slower than Aperture on a 1.7 i7 Air (as in just walk away while its doing imports), its GUI and DAM is inexcusable given the resources Adobe has but I found it a perfectly acceptable converter and editor. Excellent colors, nice balance, very good editing tools which are easy to use. Other than Aperture, the only bundled DAM that's worth working with.
While it may not be fashionable to be supportive of Adobe on this forum, I believe they've made a lot of progress. There's no doubt there are apps out there that can pull out more detail. The current version of DCRAW as an example, PhotoNinja as another. But these apps basically give you a product that requires a lot of work to end up with a final image that's noticeably better than say an Aperture or LR default render. I don't print, I don't care to mess with apps that have no, or poor, DAM and I don't care for instability. Something that can't be said for many of the more fashionable apps.
With the demise of Aperture my view is I'm either headed back to LR or I'll go for a product like Photo Supreme and tie a few editors into it. Iridient is one I will look at, LR or PS has a good chance of being another. PN and DCRAW have been eliminated. I've used PN and don't care for it merely covering up blown out areas with some false color. C1 is a learning curve, not cheap and not all that stable from what I keep reading on a Mac. Perhaps I'm getting too old but I'd like a tool that saves me work, not creates more.
