Filed under: Software, Reviews
Lightroom vs. Aperture - What's Best?
Now that Adobe has officially shipped Lightroom (as we recently mentioned), the natural question is: which one is better, Lightroom or Aperture? Of course folks have been playing with the Lightroom beta for quite some time, so this is not new question, but Derrick Story over at MacDevCenter posts on two new series by professional photographers writing for O'Reilly comparing the two software packages. He links to the first post Micah Walter's series for the Inside Aperture blog, and to the start of Michael Clark's initial comparison between the two on the corresponding Inside Lightroom blog. Neither has yet revealed their final conclusions, but it should be interesting to see where they both go. On a related note, Macworld podcast 74 features a discussion of the relative merits of the two packages by Rick LePage (as does this earlier post on TUAW). From what I can tell so far in many of these discussion, the answer to the question is not going to be entirely straightforward, with one package clearly better than the other. It is more likely that the answer will be something like: it depends on what you want your workflow to look like, and how you want to interact with your images. So TUAW readers, what's your take? Which one do you prefer and why?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Brady said 8:50PM on 2-19-2007
Personally, I prefer Lightroom - simply because I use Photoshop so regularly. The two work together seamlessly - and I have found that Adobe's experience designing software for the professional visualist (i.e. graphic designers, photographers, etc.) has been far superior to Apple's, with the noted exception of Final Cut Pro (which in my opinion blows Adobe Premiere out of the water).
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Adam Mercer said 8:56PM on 2-19-2007
I use Aperture for managing my photos, I tried the early betas of lightroom but it didn't really fit my workflow. I'll probably download the trial of the final release and see whats changed, but it'll have to be good for me to switch away from Aperture now that I've got my workflow established.
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Harry said 9:16PM on 2-19-2007
ive used both and ive found that aperture is just more polished but you need photoshop, aperture is amazing at organizing and editing but photoshop has things that you cant live without, like unsharp mask and de noise features
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David Schloss said 9:24PM on 2-19-2007
Actually Aperture has two sharpening tools that use the same unsharp masking based tech as Photoshop, sharpen and edge sharpening. (It can also do sharpening on a raw image based on the characteristics of that particular sensor).
Noise reduction is also available in Aperture (in the Adjustments pane or Adjustments HUD).
Also keep in mind that while lightroom has been spending the last year trying to get out to v 1.0, the Aperture team's been working on version 2.0, and they've clearly got some lead time on Adobe.
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Sherrod said 10:21PM on 2-19-2007
I tried Lightroom before it went final, but I found it wasn't nearly as intuitive or as full-featured as Aperture. It has the basics and necessities covered to be sure, but it lacks the amount of possibilities Aperture enables. I will try the Lightroom final, but like Adam said, it would have to be damn good for me to switch. However, it might help potential switchers if Adobe had an Aperture to Lightroom transfer utility.
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Jeremey said 12:40AM on 2-20-2007
I've used Aperture and pre-1.0 Lightroom extensively and so far I prefer Aperture. I've been playing with Lightroom 1.0 and they've improved some things, and I think it's a great app, but I prefer Aperture's workflow and toolset.
For instance, full-screen mode, HUDs, and the loupe are all things I like better in Aperture, and I use them alot. Also Aperture's Vault backup system is really nice, and because I do some editing in Photoshop (via external editor in Aperture), my final PSD files live in my Aperture library (which rocks) and thus they get backed up into my vault(s) automatically.
I'm hoping Lightroom causes Apple to add some features to Aperture soon, particularly the tone curve editing and split toning.
Lightroom is a pretty clear winner in the web export category, and Aperture really needs to catch up there... but otherwise, Aperture is the better tool for me.
BTW, regarding the comment about working with Photoshop, so far I've preferred Aperture's Photoshop interaction to Lightroom's (though I haven't tried it in 1.0 yet). Aperture gives you the option to send files to the external editor as PSDs, whereas Lightroom would send TIFF (but maybe I missed the choice on this?).
Up until recently, I also thought Aperture had a noticeable edge in RAW conversion quality, particularly in smooth tones like skin. With 1.0, it looks to me like Lightroom has improved and I have a very hard time distinguishing them now (after I remove the default sharpening in Lightroom).
:)
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Pat Serrano said 2:11AM on 2-20-2007
I must say that I Lightroom fits my workflow better. I like the UI and I like the controls for editing. But I like Aperture better for the organization, now that it allows me to store the files how I like, instead of in a database file.
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Andrew Morrell said 2:16AM on 2-20-2007
I've been using both, on and off, but I plunked down the cash for Aperture back in June.
For me, Aperture is still a better overall workflow application. Either I've adapted to it's simplicities, or they fit my needs to begin with, but when I recently downloaded the last beta of Lightroom, it was more awkward than I expected.
For example, the rating system - which I rely on heavily in Aperture and has become 2nd nature to me - is a bit clunky in LR.
I guess I've become very comfortable with Aperture, and Lightroom doesn't have enough killer features to turn my head away.
But - Apple - please make the export options/dialog box as intuitive and simple as Lightroom's. That is the most noticable positive for LR.
Andrew Morrell
www.photonoise.net
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c_h_a_o_s said 2:38AM on 2-20-2007
I tried both and used both side by side before finally settling on Aperture a couple months ago. I love Photoshop, so Lightroom feels intuitive -- LightRoom feels like photoshop. But it also felt like getting my photos in, organized, tagged, backed-up, and exported where they need to go was a much simpler affair in Aperture. Aperture seems to shine in the workflow department and that's what sold me. I guess this is what sells people on FinalCut too. Not so much a good interface, a good way to get stuff done.
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Macintologist said 2:53AM on 2-20-2007
I'm impressed with Adobe NOT requiring online activation in order to register Lightroom. Hopefully this is a new trend among big software developers as they see a lengthly activation process as only hindering legitimate software owners and not the pirates who end up circumventing them.
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Goobimama said 6:44AM on 2-20-2007
Aperture all the way...
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Chris said 6:53AM on 2-20-2007
I've also used both for some time now, and I do prefer Aperture in almost every way, but only by a very margin. From a user interface and workflow standpoint, I think Aperture is better. I do wonder how many more Photoshop-like settings will come to Lightroom. Clearly Adobe could do this to take some competitive advantage. As of right now, I adore the "Vibrance" setting in Lightroom, and wish Aperture had something similar. I expect there will be more settings like this one to come...
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Jeremey said 8:47AM on 2-20-2007
mungler: Lightroom's Develop controls work like Aperture's... there is no ordering of operations. If you use split toning to go sepia, you can change just that or you can turn that module off and on.
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Doc Multimedia said 8:49AM on 2-20-2007
I've been using Lightroom since it went up on labs. At first I didn't really use it very much, but soon it became a mainstay in my workflow. I don't think I'd ever purchased a 1.0 release, but I preordered this one as soon as it was announced.
I really like the changes they made between b4 and 1.0, and am sold on the product.
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Daveed V. said 10:12AM on 2-20-2007
I fairly extensively tested both Aperture and Lightroom (LR), and until LR B4.1, the two were fairly close with different strength. Aperture's important plusses for me were a couple of features like stacks and nondestructive healing. However, LR 1.0 now has those features two, and Adobe manages to better implement the healing than Apple. Aperture still has a few other strengths (like the freeform light table, the and the more intuitive loupe tool (unfortunately, the latter is sluggish even on my MBP C2D), but in my experience it just doesn't make up for the completeness of LR 1.0.
Some of LR 1.0s strengths for me:
- The import dialog is both simple and very full-featured, even allowing re-organization of existing folders into a date-based folder tree (that is not "owned" by LR) -- this is a change from B4.1.
- Survey mode to quickly identify "picks", plus explicit support for selecting and batch-deleting pictures with a "reject" flag -- another change from B4.1.
- The best set of RAW development controls bar none. Features like the "vibrance" control (inherited from RawShooter) and the "targeted adjustment tool" are genuinely useful. (And the healing tool can be applied whiile at any level of zoom; something that turned out to be a bit of a frustration with Aperture).
- A super-simple yet very flexible Print module (Aperture's printing features are quite the let-down after having gotten a taste of LR's; I'm sure that Apple will address that in the next release).
(I think the LR 1.0 web module also beats its Aperture counterpart, but I base that on seeing demos only. I've not used those features myself yet.)
So IMO, Lightroom went from "worthy competitor" in beta 4.1 to "clear leader" in 1.0. PMA is coming up next month: Maybe Apple will respond with some cool upgrade, but the LR deal right now ($199 vs. $299) is sweet enough that I've made my choice. There are rumors out there that Adobe might actually produce an update to LR relatively soon to address the need to "merge" field-work done on a laptop into the main database. (Beta 4.1 had some support for that through "Binders", but LR 1.0 dropped that feature.)
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Alex Morse said 11:21AM on 2-20-2007
Lightroom outperforms aperture hand over fist on my G5 and my core 2 duo. There is really no comparison between the two.
I like Aperture's broader feature set, but it's pretty much unusable to me speed wise.
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Al said 11:28AM on 2-20-2007
Received my copy of Aperture in the mail this morning after trying both in recent months. Aperture just matches my workflow and needs much better even though I was very impressed with Lightroom. Hopefully the competition will drive both companies on make the products even better.
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pronvit said 11:46AM on 2-20-2007
here is my comparison
http://ww2d.org/blog/?p=14
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mungler said 6:30AM on 2-21-2007
Ok, a scenario:
Im in Aperture, and I take a photo and do:
change to sepia
straighten
crop
exposure adjustment
I then decide I dont want sepia after all. In Aperture I just turn off that change.
I try to do the same thing in Lightroom. Now, am I wrong, or do I have to undo ALL my operations to get back to the point I applied the Sepiatone?
Isnt that, yknow, a bit dumb?
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Aleks said 7:45AM on 2-23-2007
I'm an Adobe loyalist (photoshop certified) and even part of the national association of photoshop professionals but I've found that Lightroom is buggy with my D50 and D200 cameras when it comes to shooting with RAW and custom white balances.
This also occurs in iPhoto but for some reason not with Capture NX and Aperture. Take a look at what I mean:
http://homepage.mac.com/aleksivic/.Pictures/screenshots/aperturelightroom.png
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