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Aperture vs Lightroom
#1
Hi,



I know there are plenty of entries in other forums, but I didn't see anything here. There is a reason why I ask here where I know people best.



Recently got an imac (moving over from windows) and am looking into imaging software. I had an aperture trial, now expired and still have a few days left on a light room trial. Still find it hard to make up my mind. The real cost seems the human cost: learning interfaces, converting/re-creating catalogs. I prefer out-of the box colours from the mac-software (also the simple i-photo seems to give great colours from Oly-files). Though the interface of lightroom seems cleaner (perhaps I am just used to the Adobe way of doing stuff). I essentially used both pieces of software as raw editors, haven't explored much else, e.g. image managment. Not having soft-proving in LR seems a big bug-bear to me (I print a quite a few inkjet images).



Most of my current files are from an Oly E-P1. I have Canon S45 raw files, which are unfortunately unsupported in Aperture <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='Sad' />.



Any comments would be appreciated.



Any idea about mixed workflows, it might be an idea to get a recent PSE10 license to have S45 capabilities.



Thanks in advance

Joachim
enjoy
#2
If you don't care about image management functions, you should have a look at C1 instead, IMO.



However, once you get used to a database centered approach (which I know from other switchers can be hard to accept, not just for images, but music, too), you might miss exactly this part in C1.



Personally, I went with Aperture, but not because of its RAW conversion qualities (I honestly think it's still one of the worst raw converters around), but because of its management functions, that I consider ahead of LR's, and its integration in other applications (like iLife and iWork, but also 3rd party applications). It's also quite easy to design and order photo books through Aperture (or iPhoto).



-- Markus
Editor
opticallimits.com

#3
[quote name='mst' timestamp='1319397767' post='12437']

If you don't care about image management functions, you should have a look at C1 instead, IMO.



However, once you get used to a database centered approach (which I know from other switchers can be hard to accept, not just for images, but music, too), you might miss exactly this part in C1.



Personally, I went with Aperture, but not because of its RAW conversion qualities (I honestly think it's still one of the worst raw converters around), but because of its management functions, that I consider ahead of LR's, and its integration in other applications (like iLife and iWork, but also 3rd party applications). It's also quite easy to design and order photo books through Aperture (or iPhoto).



-- Markus

[/quote]



Markus,



Thanks for your input. As usual highly appreciated.



Joachim
enjoy
#4
[quote name='mst' timestamp='1319397767' post='12437']

If you don't care about image management functions, you should have a look at C1 instead, IMO.



However, once you get used to a database centered approach (which I know from other switchers can be hard to accept, not just for images, but music, too), you might miss exactly this part in C1.



Personally, I went with Aperture, but not because of its RAW conversion qualities (I honestly think it's still one of the worst raw converters around), but because of its management functions, that I consider ahead of LR's, and its integration in other applications (like iLife and iWork, but also 3rd party applications). It's also quite easy to design and order photo books through Aperture (or iPhoto).



-- Markus

[/quote]



By the way, you have C1 integrated into your Aperture workflow? Will that fly?



J.
enjoy
#5
[quote name='joachim' timestamp='1319404898' post='12441']

By the way, you have C1 integrated into your Aperture workflow? Will that fly?

[/quote]



Not really. I collect all my images in the Aperture Library, but if I want to process an image in C1, I export the unprocessed RAW file and start from scratch in C1.



I could re-import the processed final JPG, of course, but it's a manual step that I usually skip. For most of my work the conversion quality of Aperture is good enough (I only do small prints), the only regular use C1 sees here is for the PZ sample images <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='Wink' />





You can integrate an external image editor in the Aperture workflow, like Photoshop or Pixelmator. However, in that case Aperture exports an already processed image (with all adjustments applied). But the result is automatically saved back into the library and linked to the original image as a variant, which is quite convenient.



Note that Aperture by default does a lot of rendering work in the background, which can seriously impact perceived performance. If you don't need preview images for all your pictures, you can switch automatic preview rendering off, which saves quite a few CPU cycles. You can still generate previews for those images you want to have available in other iApps manually (that's how I handle it).



-- Markus
Editor
opticallimits.com

#6
[quote name='mst' timestamp='1319397767' post='12437']

However, once you get used to a database centered approach (which I know from other switchers can be hard to accept, not just for images, but music, too), you might miss exactly this part in C1.

[/quote]



I use the database capabilities of LR for tagging, rating, comments and EXIF infos. But everything is stills stored in folders (directories) and this structure is not virtual but resembles the hard disk folder structure. This works vice versa, so directories created in LR are created on the HDD as well. IMHO this is a good compromise to get the best of both worlds with minor drawbacks and retains at least a bit of system independence.



Christian
#7
[quote name='joachim' timestamp='1319397278' post='12436']

Hi,



I know there are plenty of entries in other forums, but I didn't see anything here. There is a reason why I ask here where I know people best.



Recently got an imac (moving over from windows) and am looking into imaging software. I had an aperture trial, now expired and still have a few days left on a light room trial. Still find it hard to make up my mind. The real cost seems the human cost: learning interfaces, converting/re-creating catalogs. I prefer out-of the box colours from the mac-software (also the simple i-photo seems to give great colours from Oly-files). Though the interface of lightroom seems cleaner (perhaps I am just used to the Adobe way of doing stuff). I essentially used both pieces of software as raw editors, haven't explored much else, e.g. image managment. Not having soft-proving in LR seems a big bug-bear to me (I print a quite a few inkjet images).



Most of my current files are from an Oly E-P1. I have Canon S45 raw files, which are unfortunately unsupported in Aperture <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='Sad' />.



Any comments would be appreciated.



Any idea about mixed workflows, it might be an idea to get a recent PSE10 license to have S45 capabilities.



Thanks in advance

Joachim

[/quote]



Hi Joachim,



Maybe another alternative is fixing the way image looks in Lightroom by using input presets.

That is creating profile presets with these X-Rite colorchecker and having them applied to your camera files. I've found a few posts about this and it seemed rather convincing (A GH2 user http://e-p1.net/micro-four-thirds-genera...ssport%29/ )



I'm a bit curious as to why you don't like your lightroom output (i'm generally very pleased with it, a lot more than Adobe interpretation of Canon colors) and wonder if it's not caused by mac+lightroom not giving you the same win+lightroom output, although unlikely.



I think I'd check out these aspects before dismissing lightroom output just yet, especially if you own it already.



Hope this helps,

Sylvain
#8
[quote name='Sylvain' timestamp='1319465401' post='12456']

Hi Joachim,



Maybe another alternative is fixing the way image looks in Lightroom by using input presets.

That is creating profile presets with these X-Rite colorchecker and having them applied to your camera files. I've found a few posts about this and it seemed rather convincing (A GH2 user [url="http://e-p1.net/micro-four-thirds-general-discussion/gh2-custom-raw-profile-%28color-checker-passport%29/"]http://e-p1.net/micr...er-passport%29/[/url] )



I'm a bit curious as to why you don't like your lightroom output (i'm generally very pleased with it, a lot more than Adobe interpretation of Canon colors) and wonder if it's not caused by mac+lightroom not giving you the same win+lightroom output, although unlikely.



I think I'd check out these aspects before dismissing lightroom output just yet, especially if you own it already.



Hope this helps,

Sylvain

[/quote]



Hi Sylvain,



Thanks for replying to my question. No there is nothing really wrong with lightroom, I just think that the colours from aperture are better to my liking. A bit like the old Kodak vs Fuji debate of the days when we were shooting slide films. As with this old debate, I am not fully sure about the accuracy of either of them <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='Wink' />



No I don't have a proper Lightroom license. I downloaded a trial version and have a few days left on it. As I said I really like the interface, inparticular the implementation of curves.



What really bugs me about Lightroom is the printer driver. I have profiled my monitor with a spyder3 and am having a not so great match between monitor and prints. Typically way lighter on paper. Aperture has softproofing and that helps. Makes the process of choosing perceptual vs relative colorimetric more transparant. That was at least my impression while the trial lasted.



Best wishes

Joachim
enjoy
#9
[quote name='TheChris' timestamp='1319441602' post='12447']

I use the database capabilities of LR for tagging, rating, comments and EXIF infos. But everything is stills stored in folders (directories) and this structure is not virtual but resembles the hard disk folder structure. This works vice versa, so directories created in LR are created on the HDD as well. IMHO this is a good compromise to get the best of both worlds with minor drawbacks and retains at least a bit of system independence.



Christian

[/quote]



Hi Christian,



Thanks for replying. I have set my i-photo and the aperture trial to "leave the photos where they are" and this way I can build a directory structure. So I don't see a problem, but perhaps I missed what you intended to say.



Best wishes

Joachim
enjoy
  


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