Aperture replacing Lightroom

burancap

burancap

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All,

I just bought Aperture as I found Lightroom... well... frankly bewildering!

I may have not have given it enough of a chance, but life is short and I am an old dog!

Anybody else?
 
I tried Lightroom for a few months; even took a class to try to learn how to use it. Eventually gave up and moved to Aperture. Aperture is perfect for my needs and is, as all Apple products try to be, very intuitive to use. I love it.
 
I'm the opposite, I went from Aperture to Lightroom.
I was the same with Final Cut, but moved on to Premiere.
I can't ever see going back.
 
Well, I did just buy it. But, that purchase was based on my expectations being Jamie's experience.

I had come from using folders to hold RAW files, iPhoto to organize the JPG's, and PS, etc... to do my editing. LR was to replace an older rev of PS. I guess I liked the simplicity of iPhoto, organizationally speaking -and apparently iPhoto and Aperture play nice together.

BTW, I am not suggesting that Aperture or Lightroom is necessarily better or worse, rather I am admitting to being a lost ball in the high weeds with Lightroom! I even tried the tutorials.
 
I stated from the beginning of Aperture and in between I tried Light room. Every time i tried LR i found I am lost so I am keeping to Aperture. Si I find i am better with Apple.
 
I like Lightroom, but remember finding it difficult to wrap my head around at first. I think reading Scott Kelby's Lightroom book helped a lot, and showed me the backwards compatibilty of pretty much everything in Lightroom, that I have grown to love. I think that ability to be able to do things several different ways within Lightroom really appeals to me, and allows me to craft my workflow instead of having a specific way of doing things foisted on me like other software can.

I would like to like Aperture, due to its deep compatibilty within Mac OSX, but aside from my preference for Lightroom, I find Apples management of Aperture quite disconcerting and dislike the thought of investing time and effort in Aperture and my image library only for Apple to potentially jettison Aperture down the line.
 
I have both, but hardly use Aperture at all. I find its UI very difficult to understand and use. Lightroom's UI simply characterizes my desired workflow better.

Doesn't really matter which tools you use. Just use them well.

G
 
I have used both.

I try and avoid editing too much so organizing is what I really require, and Aperture is well ahead of LR in that capacity.

Aperture is a true database structure, loosely like Filemaker. LR is a spawn of Photoshop and needs generated from that user base.

Both have their strengths and weaknesses.

It's only a matter of time before Apple buys Adobe anyway 🙂
 
Thardy said:
What is the difference? Function wise.
Click to expand...

Not a lot, Lightroom is probably better for some forms of manipulation, such as linear gradients etc... The UI in Aperture for leveliing horizons is much better than Lightrooms.
They are pretty evenly matched, I switch to Lightroom for it's X3F compatibility, but I use a Merrill now, so back to square one.

Aperture has a better, more polished UI, but if you use both Macs & PCs (I'm Mac guy, so it's irrelevant), then Lightroom is obviously the best choice.

I'm on Lightroom now, and have no reason to switch. Ideally, they'd both use the same library format, and I could use both.
 
Aristophanes said:
...
I try and avoid editing too much so organizing is what I really require, and Aperture is well ahead of LR in that capacity.

Aperture is a true database structure, loosely like Filemaker. LR is a spawn of Photoshop and needs generated from that user base. ...
Click to expand...

Sorry, but this makes no sense at all. A Lightroom catalog is actually an SQLLite database. Aperture implements its own db simulation, but is not actually a database.

They both organize images in the same way at the user level. The UI is different but the implementation of user functionality is much of a sameness. Aperture is better at integrating with other Apple software products on OS X, like FCPX, iMovie, iPhoto, etc. Lightroom's integration is more generic, it's more single mindedly an image management and processing solution.

G
 
Godfrey said:
Sorry, but this makes no sense at all. A Lightroom catalog is actually an SQLLite database. Aperture implements its own db simulation, but is not actually a database.

They both organize images in the same way at the user level. The UI is different but the implementation of user functionality is much of a sameness. Aperture is better at integrating with other Apple software products on OS X, like FCPX, iMovie, iPhoto, etc. Lightroom's integration is more generic, it's more single mindedly an image management and processing solution.

G
Click to expand...

I meant more from a UI perspective where Aperture shows off some of what made Filemaker go, whereas LR is designed in large part assuming the user will pop in and out of PS. Aperture is not inherently laid out for a workflow, but as an asset manager.
 
I tried to email some TIFFS today to my daughter, but couldn't do it in LR. Kept getting error messages. I tried Aperture and it was a snap. YMMV. I like both programs, but need to learn them better.

Kent
 
I thought I would or could like Aperture, and it has some functions that LR lacks, but to my surprise, like most here, I found it confusing and I still have no idea how to manage folders etc. I find Lightroom much easier and more intuitive, both for managing files and for processing images.

Sharing a library with iPhoto form Aperture seems to have made a complete mess of my organization within iPhoto. I now have a workflow with Lightroom and will be sticking with it.
 
Originally, I tried both, but found Aperture to flow more naturally for what I do. I understand that the earlier versions of Aperture were quite slow, but I had a fast Mac Pro. I've used LR from time to time, but prefer Aperture. I really think that it is what you are use to. For added functionality, I use Aperture plug-ins. The lack of XTrans support had me looking at LR once again. I even purchased some components to build a Windows workstation. Now, I'm not sure what I will do. A recent discussion with a second level Apple tech told me to be a bit more patient with regards to the introduction of a modern Mac Pro. I think that they are waiting for the six plus core Ivy Bridge introduction in the third quarter.
 
Aristophanes said:
I meant more from a UI perspective where Aperture shows off some of what made Filemaker go, whereas LR is designed in large part assuming the user will pop in and out of PS. Aperture is not inherently laid out for a workflow, but as an asset manager.
Click to expand...

LOL!

That's probably what makes Aperture an annoyance to me. FileMaker is fine when a db design is simple, and blows chunks for anything more complicated.

I use LR to work my photos from camera to completed product, so workflow design is critical to me. Aperture's workflow is all over the map.

BTW, I almost never use PS at all anymore. I've only got it installed on one system and will likely not install it again on any new systems I acquire. LR does the whole job for me.

G
 
Great stuff everyone! Lots to sleep on tonight for both sides. For a curveball, I also like to use Gimp and let good old external folders handle the management!

P.S. MODS: I genuinely meant for this thread to land in the "Photo Software" subforum!
 
tom.w.bn said:
The organizing feature in Aperture is weak.
Click to expand...

This is a good point and actually what drew me away from LR! In the really short time I have now used Aperture, I am comfortable getting around. However, editing is editing -organizing is critical.

As mentioned, I drop my cards (RAW+JPG) or film scans into folders, then drop the JPG's into iPhoto for viewing. I can then edit the RAW's from the folders as culled. iPhoto and Aperture can apparently share libraries, but to get started I decided to keep them separate (my iPhoto library is shared with SWMBO).

What is best practice -or rather, what do all of you do?
 
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