New Apple App Store - Aperture very cheap

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A new offering from Apple is the App Store on the Mac itself. I installed the new MacOS Update yesterday and played around with the App Store a little bit. Some nice helpers there for little money.

And then I noticed that they sell Aperture 3 in the App Store as well for a very reasonable price (62 EUR in Germany compared to 199 EUR before). As far as I know this version if for private non commercial use only.

Could be a nice opportunity for some who still hesitated to buy Aperture.
 
I saw that too. $79 CDN. And buying Lightroom was on my list this year. Not sure which is better and my review reading seems inconclusive.
 
My understanding is that Lightroom is more powerful, especially with DNGs, but that Aperture integrates into the iLife apps better.

I'm sticking with Picasa, but I have PS Elements somewhere.
 
damien.murphy said:
Hmm.. that's quite a drastic drop in the price of Aperture, I'm not sure whether I needed to know that :)
Click to expand...

I have lightroom and use iphoto for uploading to my mobileMe account. Aperture would be an even nicer uploader for mobileMe I think :rolleyes:

I'm experimenting with slideshows a bit and I think this is where Aperture is really good. But the Raw-Engine of LR is a bit better.
 
I read that Aperture does not have the function Sharpen during Export. So when you export a smaller version they photos are not sharp as they should be. LR has a solution for that so that you don't have to sharpen the photos after Exporting. But I didn't compare that behavior myself.
 
My issue with aperture is I could not get the trial to have the thumbnails on my second monitor but for the low price it may sway some from Lightroom. I wonder if there is a version 3 on the way?
 
tom.w.bn said:
I read that Aperture does not have the function Sharpen during Export. So when you export a smaller version they photos are not sharp as they should be. LR has a solution for that so that you don't have to sharpen the photos after Exporting. But I didn't compare that behavior myself.
Click to expand...

Do you mean import? Sharpening after "Exporting" doesn't make any sense. You'd sharpen before exporting, no matter what app you're using...
 
tom.w.bn said:
I have lightroom and use iphoto for uploading to my mobileMe account. Aperture would be an even nicer uploader for mobileMe I think :rolleyes:

I'm experimenting with slideshows a bit and I think this is where Aperture is really good. But the Raw-Engine of LR is a bit better.
Click to expand...

Yes, the raw version of Lightroom is a real killer function since LR3. I'm tempted to take another look at Aperture, but I'm just after upgrading to LR3 (from LR1), and especially like the new 'Publish Services' option and hope they consider adding to the services available thus far.
 
zumbido said:
Do you mean import? Sharpening after "Exporting" doesn't make any sense. You'd sharpen before exporting, no matter what app you're using...
Click to expand...

Technically spoken you may be right. But I don't know how Lightroom handles the Export option. I didn't touch the Sharpness Slider in Lightroom for a long time. When exporting small versions for the web I use the appropriate export options (sharpening for screen). When exporting for a photobook I use sharpening for print. When I print myself, I do this from within photoshop elements. There I do the appropriate sharpening manually. This export option in LR is good for 90% of the sharpening.
I think lightroom takes the output size into account when applying the right amount of sharpening. This is something you can't do when you use the Sharpness Slider in LR.

Perhaps I didn't understand sharpening right, but it looks ok the way I do it.
 
zumbido said:
Do you mean import? Sharpening after "Exporting" doesn't make any sense. You'd sharpen before exporting, no matter what app you're using...
Click to expand...


LR allows you to apply sharpening in the Export dialogue, so you can choose a "flavour" of sharpening suitable for web or print (matte or gloss paper), and set to low, standard or high. Roughly corresponds to output sharpening with PhotoKit Sharpeners Photoshop plugin. Sharpening also available in Print module of LR

Would be interested to hear if Aperture has any of this

Jim
 
Aperture and Lightroom are more or less the same. They differ in some features but at the core they do the same thing. I use Aperture 3, but I'm sure I would be happy using Lightroom.

For 80 bucks, it's a no brainer. There is no feature in LR worth the $120 bucks.
 
I started with Lightroom 1. When Aperture was released I wanted very much to use it, as it "thinks" more like I do. Plus the OS/iLife integration is top notch. Trouble was it was a slow, awful mess. When Aperture 3.0 was released I tried again. Slow, buggy, crashed - so I stuck with Lightroom.

After seeing the $79 price for Aperture in the App Store, I've been trying it (3.1.1) again. Much improved. It hasn't crashed feels as fast as Lightroom. I'm running a 27" iMac with 12GB of RAM, so mileage may vary.

I really like Aperture's DAM tools. They can be confusing at first, but are quite powerful. I manage 90% film scans in it, so absolute RAW conversion quality is less important to me. Many folks feel they're close enough, with a slight edge going to Lightroom. The editing tools are similar. Much depends on how they feel to individual users. If I had to compare off the top of my head...

I like Aperture for...

* OS/iLife/iPad integration
* Books/Slideshows
* DAM capabilities
* The UI more naturally fits my way of thinking
* Price

I like Lightroom for...

* Ecosystem (Tons of presets, plugins, and resources)
* Adobe tools integration (Photoshop)
* Crop and Rotate with same tool (I love this, not everyone agrees)
* Exporting options
* Publishing Services
* Noise reduction in LR3 is terrific

Lots of much deeper comparisons out there, but those are the pros of each for me.

Now that Aperture is usable for me again, and cheap, I've started a new library and am importing everything into it this year (until something breaks) and see how it goes. I'm even letting Aperture handle the files for me in the Library package, which goes against my grain a bit. Guess I'm all in.
 
For those who've used Picasa and Aperture, what does Aperture do (or do better) that Picasa doesn't?
 
Jim-st said:
LR allows you to apply sharpening in the Export dialogue, so you can choose a "flavour" of sharpening suitable for web or print (matte or gloss paper), and set to low, standard or high. Roughly corresponds to output sharpening with PhotoKit Sharpeners Photoshop plugin. Sharpening also available in Print module of LR

Would be interested to hear if Aperture has any of this

Jim
Click to expand...

Not that I can see. Sounds like a really bad idea for any work you care about--applying an adjustment at a point that precludes you from examining the result? Maybe I'm just not "pro" enough...
 
zumbido said:
Not that I can see. Sounds like a really bad idea for any work you care about--applying an adjustment at a point that precludes you from examining the result? Maybe I'm just not "pro" enough...
Click to expand...

I'm not sure it's about being "pro" or not, zumbido. But it's worth noting that nothing you do in LR is "destructive" and can't be undone just as easily as it was done in the first place. Also, while it's true you can't see LR's print or web sharpening until the files are output as jpegs or prints, I've seldom had problems with the result other than having occasionally misjudged the strength of sharpening needed in a file. It's not usually hard to guess, though, but if Aperture's soft-proofing is able to allow you to check on this it would be to it's credit. For now, the only way to soft-proof from LR is via a round-trip to Photoshop, and if you have PhotoKit Sharpeners you can see how they effect the image before outputting as jpeg or print while soft-proofing. But I have to say that although I always to soft-proof in PS before printing, I nowadays rely on LR's output sharpeners to deal with that side of the process and only use PKS for creative sharpening on files which need it (eg if I've had to majorly up-rez a cropped image, or as part of the general soft-proofing process)

So overall I see the easily accessed and controlled output (and input) sharpeners in LR as a major advantage in the programme - just one of the ways it resoundingly beats PS as a photographer's (not a graphic artist's) toolbox

Regards

Jim
 
I've used both tools, and switched from Ap2 to LR2, and from Ap3 to LR3. Aperture crashes not infrequently for me, while Lightroom never does. LR also has a nicer editing workflow, to my mind. Aperture was faster when browsing tons of photos.

Aperture also stores its photos in a package file, so you can't just browse them with the Finder if you want (I mean, you can, but not the standard way: you have to "Browse Package Contents", and there are certain things that don't work the same when doing that). Between the crashing, and the fear that a crash will corrupt the package file and lose me my photos, I feel a lot better using LR3. Here's to hoping that the Aperture price drop will put some price pressure on Adobe.
 
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