Lightroom VS Aperture

Now that I have a D-SLR, it's time to learn to classify all these shots. I'm looking into either Adobe's Lightroom or Apple's Aperture. I would love to have feedback on the two.

In the days when I'd scan my photos, I would use photoshop a lot so I am used to their interface but from their website it looks very different than photoshop.

I own a MacBook and I love the iLife suite. In fact, I use iPhoto for family pictures taken with our P+S camera. Is Aperture as integrated as iLife?

Thanks for your feedback!

C.

Try them both, free trials of each are available for 30 days.

I use Lightroom but, I have a PC.

Never seen or tried aperture but it is a similar program from what I gather.

I believe that your affection for Ilife makes the descision for you....
Aperture.
feature for feature there's little to seperate the two...until you factor in Mac-centric items such as intergration with osx, ilife, applescript, automator....
here's a good read to get you started......
http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/aperture/

I suppose you are right Don. I love me Mac and I love iLife. The only reason I hesitate is because I've been using photoshop for years and I'm used to this software and I assumed it could be similar.

Thank you for the link! It looks very interesting.

Tyr summed it up best: I must test both to see how they "feel". I'd still love to hear about everyone's experience (I saw your review Tyr whilst doing a search; fantastic!)

I'm happy with lightroom though I've not used aperture.

It's not photoshop type software but it does help me get the best out of my images.

Hmmm... I've been testing both aperture and lightroom tonight but I can't decide on which I prefer.

I love aperture's loup while I like Lightroom's B/W button.

To tell you the truth, I find both software complicated and I don't really understand how they work. Because I use iLife it is somewhat simpler to use Aperture but I don't really know what to do with it. I feel like it was much easier to manipulate images in photoshop; especially using curves and levels. Plus I miss using the dodge/burn tool.

Does anyone know what the lightbox is used for in Aperture?

the lighttable is familiar to many "Old school" pros that layed out thier slides on a light table for sorting, viewing an making selections...
The light table in aperture is meant to emulate that type of workflow, and to the best I've been able to discern, works especially well with multi monitor set ups. I've used it a couple times, with my projector, having images and stacks on the projector display, and contols on my laptop.
on a 30 " cinema display is where it'd really show it's worth.
have you tried the auto stack and stack features? the lift and stamp?
do you know how to "round trip" an image from aperture to photoshop then back to aperture?

I see... I never used a light table in that way when I was doing traditional photography (but then again I only shot 35mm). I would just use it sometimes to look at my negs & just put my prints on a table to decide on the sequencing.

It makes sense but I "just" have a 17" Macbook pro and no extra monitor so I guess it's not going to cut it for me. (Mind you, I LOVE my MacBook and the fact that I can use it anywhere)


No, no and no.
I've seen them in tutorials but I haven't found them in Aperture. It may be because my aperture version is in French. I live in France and my hubby is French so I use French software. It isn't a problem for Photoshop because I know where everything is but I suppose it's trickier with new software.

Ok... Ok... I'll still test it a little more before giving it up.

The first thing you need to understand is this...Aperture and lightroom are workflow tools NOT photoshop replacements...

for those who only use photoshop to do color, density, cropping, raw processing, noise reduction, and sharpening, you will find aperture does all that. Apeerture allows you to make your adjustments on one image (including raw, straight out of the camera without any other processing) and then click the lift tool, select all the other images (hundreds at once if you choose) and stamp those adjustmens to as many images as you selected (ie you shot dozens of images under similar lighting conditions, and all of them need the same color balance). It will complete the task in half the time it would take photoshop to launch, never mind opening a file.

for those who need layers, masks, and other advanced photoshop features, you select you images in aperture, righ (or control) click the selected images and select "open in external image editor" (which you set up as photoshop in you preferences) do your photoshop majik, and close the image in photoshop and it turns up in your aperture library, as a version of your original. your original is still there, unaltered. that's round tripping.

set you metadata and keywords on import or after import.
it helps to think of a stack as being a stack of prints or slides...when you're sorting them.

set the auto stack feature and your images will be sorted for you...for example set the auto stack to 3 seconds and all images shot within 3 seconds of each othe wind up in a stack (burst mode shooting, but intervals can be set for longer as well) you then go through the stack, choose the best one by checking it, and close the stack. now the only visible image from the stack using space on your screen, is the best one.

You are absolutely right; I'm starting to see this as I'm playing with aperture.


This is amazing! It must be much faster than doing automation in photoshop. I got to learn how to do this! I've found the video tutorials but I've only watched the first two.


Oh la la!!!!! Really?! I don't do any saves in photoshop? No export? Nothing?!? I've got to try that!


I've got to learn more about that because I don't see the differences between some features. What's the difference between légende, keyword, etc... etc... I will figure it out on my own because it's all French terminology.

Don you've been soooooo helpful! I was about to stop using it without realizing all the wonderful features aperture has.

May I abuse of your time just a little more and ask 2 questions (if you don't have time I truly understand).

1. I understand that my "original" RAW image is never altered but I'd like to keep the RAW image and next to it a copy where I can tweak the levels, etc... That way I could compare. I would also like to have 1 colour and then 1 B/W.

2. Speaking of B/W, what is the best way to make a B/W in aperture? A sepia or blue tone image? Is it possible to to duotone like in photoshop?

Thank you so much for all your help!

Don, you are a STAR!!!!!!

you can create a new version, and do the side by side comparison easily.
you can duplicate a master image if you choose.
whenever you edit an image, your original is untouched.

goto your adjustment hud, click the little symble in the corner to get more tool options....from there you'll find the monochrome mixer. That is the black and white panel that really works amazingly well.
tint and toning can be done using the color controls.
I haven't tried duotoning, in aperture and not sure if it does that...

Thanks for your help, I did find everything.

It is possible to do duotone. The option is located right underneth the B/W function. In French they call it "couleur monochrome" (perhaps monochrome colour in English). I don't think it supports pantone colours like photoshop but you would only really need that for professional printing.

Is it possible that in the trial version it is impossible to export an image into photoshop? Because in my image menu, the function to do tha is unavailable...

open aperture.
click on "aperture" in menu bar.
in the pull down menu click on preferences.
in the pop up box, under output, it has a space called external editor. click the choose button, and in the window that pops up you can navigate to photoshop and click choose.

I've done duo tone twice, both times with sets of images for printing large volume runs of calandars, both times in photoshop.

Ok, I did that and it worked. I tried looking in the Aperture's help menu and it says I have to save the image in photoshop. In which location do I save it? The changes I did in photoshop never appeared in aperture.

The more I play with aperture, the more I like what it can do but at the same time the more I don't know how to use it... if that makes any sense!?!

I looked for training on Apple's website and in France, a 2-day Aperture training costs 800€