Lightroom or Aperture?

I use Aperture.. Don't know how it compares to Lightroom though.

I'm still learning it but am sold on it..
 
I drank the DAM kool aide and bought iView Media Pro. As I don't shoot digital, the RAW tools that Aperture and Lightroom offer don't help me and I really needed a way to catalog my photos rather than manipulate them as I scan into Photoshop anyway. It's a really nice cataloging tool, runs on pre-Tiger Macs (haven't gotten around to upgrading from Panther and was waiting for Leopard but that's pushed till October), isn't a system hog and does what it should.
 
I bought Aperture because I had tried the first public beta of Light room and hadn't liked it much. Aperture has a very nice interface in many ways, but even on a new iMac with an enhanced graphics board and additional RAM, it ran slowly and I found it froze a bit more frequently than I would have liked. When the final version of Lightroom was released, I downloaded the 30-day free trial version and was converted in a half hour or so. I personally think it is superior to Aperture in almost every way. Maybe it is years of using other Adobe programs (Illustrator, InDesign, etc.), but I found the interface and the way it organized things to be more intuitive. It is complex, and does take some time to learn, but I like it much better in the end. It is much faster to load, and in my experience, much more stable. And perhaps most importantly, the image processing functions are more sophisticated. If you use Photoshop, too, the integration is really excellent.

Having had the experience of using both programs for several months, my choice is definitely Lightroom. But Aperture has many nice features as well, and I think issues of personal preference are involved. I can't remember if Aperture has a downloadable demo version or not, but I highly recommend you download Lightroom and try it for yourself. One more thing: lightroom is offering a promotion until the end of April, I think, which allows you to buy Lightrom for $199. That's a bargain.
 
I also didn't really care for the Lightroom Beta, but when I got my copy of Lightroom 1.0 (free for RawShooters users) I took to it immediately. It's now displaced Capture One as my Mac RAW converter. Aperture seems nice, but it's way too resource intensive and doesn't even (officially) run on my computer (G4 12" Powerbook).

j
 
really, REALLY prefer aperture over lightroom. it does require more computer however. if you've got the power to handle it go for aperture... they have an unrestriced 30 download demo.
 
As I understand it, these two programs are not directly competitive with each other. So a choice might depend on the needed functions. What does one do versus the other?
 
libra3 said:
Anyone using either of these two programs on a MAC? What's the story?:eek:
Click to expand...

I use Aperture on my Mac. It works intuitively, has all the features I need, also works well with Nikon's NEF (raw) files and first of all it is much much faster than Nikon's software (which I stopped using since I have Aperture.)

I don't know about Lightroom though.
 
Lightroom is a really great program. It's perfect for what I need..(basic photo editing and superior orginization.) I tried Aperture but it's way too slow on my Powerbook G4. Try both of them for free and see which one you like best. You should hurry though......If you decide on Lightroom, you have until April 30th to take advantage of their promotional price ($199).
 
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A program that hasn't received as much press, but looks interesting, is LightZone ... somewhat like Aperture and Lightroom, but with a fundamental 'zone system' approach. Their motto is 'Get back to being a photographer'. Don't know how good it is, but here's where you can find out more:

http://www.lightcrafts.com/products/lightzone/

Gene
 
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