Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software
Aperture vs Lightroom
I am solidly in the rank amateur category of photographers, which is why I have never had reason to look into either Aperture or Lightroom. My camera doesn't even shoot in RAW.However, James Duncan Davidson earns his way by shooting photographs and as such has used both Aperture and Lightroom (which is in beta). He compares and contrasts the two, though there is no clear 'winner' in this battle. Aperture is able to handle a huge volume of photos fairly well, but Lightroom's printing options are miles ahead of Aperture's.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Frank said 2:09PM on 9-06-2006
Yes I can say Lightroom has great printing options. Both apps run very slowly on a powerbook G4. I know Aperture is designed for at least G5 machines.
I think Lightroom is easier to learn.
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Adrian Ziemkowski said 11:12AM on 9-07-2006
I agree though I appear to have strong opinions on why.
Aperture's library management is king. Lightroom's adjustment tools are amazing. And both applications are next to terrible at each other's strong points.
I too ended up sticking with Aperture mainly because my photos were getting lost in the mix in Lightroom's terrible library management and because I paid for Aperture so I feel sort of bad not using it.
The show stoppers for Aperture, for me, include not being able to export the raw file to Photoshop (since it does after all fail when it comes to raw adjustments, as much as I wish it didn't), having sub-par levels adjustments, and not being able to manage the filesystem yourself.
The show stoppers for Lightroom, besides library management, come in the form of no website export (I'm not about to upload PDF contact sheets for client review), lack of version stacks, and difficulty in applying all edits to versions (so they show up in say the photoshop generated website).
I think both applications will be top-notch killer applications for photographers in a year (maybe two), as they learn from each other... as really they'd be pretty much perfect if you combined them.
-Adrian
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