Lightroom 4 users - Worth $100 more than Apple Aperture?

Now that some of you have gotten your hands on Lightroom 4 for a couple of weeks, I was wondering if it was worth the extra money compared to Aperture? The price cut and version jump makes Lightroom sound appealing, but the price of Apple's program is very appealing. Does anybody with experience with Aperture and the new version of Lightroom have any thoughts?

Lightroom 2 was worth $100 more than Apple's Aperture. Download the 30 day trial of both programs and see which one you like more. For me, Lightroom wins hands down.

Staszek wrote in post #14104217
Lightroom 2 was worth $100 more than Apple's Aperture. Download the 30 day trial of both programs and see which one you like more. For me, Lightroom wins hands down.

Agreed, plus the fact that LR3 was worth $100 more than LR2 and LR4 is worth $100 more than LR3.

tzalman wrote in post #14104301
Agreed, plus the fact that LR3 was worth $100 more than LR2 and LR4 is worth $100 more than LR3.

That's what I was thinking, I have no experience with either, just ACR and want to get a better system for workflow. I saw the price for Aperture at the App store and it made me think it might be worth it. I tend to use programs for years, so if the quality is better, I have no problems paying for it if it saves me time and improves quality.

i will state now i am an aperture user


i have played with both, been using aperture as my main photo software since version 1.0, tried every Lightroom beta that has been out as well, so can only comment on the beta versions. I purchased aperture as a boxed software when it first came out, so the current price is a bargain, and is something that Lightroom still cant match. Another thing to consider, if you have multiple macs, then the aperture purchased through the store can be installed on any using your apple id.

I find aperture a very simple way to manage everything, just leave it to do its work and it will look after all your files, contained in one easy to backup location. Lightroom on the other hand uses the file system you have stored on your computer.

Personally i prefer apertures approach to it all, i do keep trying out Lightroom every now and then to see how it is getting on and whether to switch, ultimately i am very invested in apples way of working and find it hard to transition back out of that, i like the simplicity of not having to worry about my file structure. I also find it easier to organise my photos in aperture.

I did find Lightroom to be simpler to achieve certain results when editing a recent batch of photos though, but still found myself resorting back to aperture with the exported edits, the edits were achievable, it was just quicker in Lightroom to find the particular adjustments. However i do not like lightrooms having to switch between library/develop to edit photos, aperture is much simpler for doing quick edits.

Its no secret aperture is a resource hog on your system, so depending on your machine that may be a consideration too. Cant comment on how lightroom performs though.

But from my perspective there is nothing in lightroom that is prompting me to change from aperture, books and gps intergration have been there for a couple of years now, and both are very simple to use in aperture.

For a new mac user looking for new software for photos, you cant go wrong with aperture at its current price point.

rupek wrote in post #14104575
i will state now i am an aperture user


i have played with both, been using aperture as my main photo software since version 1.0, tried every Lightroom beta that has been out as well, so can only comment on the beta versions. I purchased aperture as a boxed software when it first came out, so the current price is a bargain, and is something that Lightroom still cant match. Another thing to consider, if you have multiple macs, then the aperture purchased through the store can be installed on any using your apple id.

I find aperture a very simple way to manage everything, just leave it to do its work and it will look after all your files, contained in one easy to backup location. Lightroom on the other hand uses the file system you have stored on your computer.

Personally i prefer apertures approach to it all, i do keep trying out Lightroom every now and then to see how it is getting on and whether to switch, ultimately i am very invested in apples way of working and find it hard to transition back out of that, i like the simplicity of not having to worry about my file structure. I also find it easier to organise my photos in aperture.

I did find Lightroom to be simpler to achieve certain results when editing a recent batch of photos though, but still found myself resorting back to aperture with the exported edits, the edits were achievable, it was just quicker in Lightroom to find the particular adjustments. However i do not like lightrooms having to switch between library/develop to edit photos, aperture is much simpler for doing quick edits.

Its no secret aperture is a resource hog on your system, so depending on your machine that may be a consideration too. Cant comment on how lightroom performs though.

But from my perspective there is nothing in lightroom that is prompting me to change from aperture, books and gps intergration have been there for a couple of years now, and both are very simple to use in aperture.

For a new mac user looking for new software for photos, you cant go wrong with aperture at its current price point.

Yeah, I've heard mixed reviews about aperture, but have never tried it. I'm not too invested in any system one way or the other, so I could go either way. Thanks for the feedback.

Quick, basic edits and/or the application of develop presets can be done in the Library mode.

I think both programs are really well made. I use aperture a fair bit in the past but I've always just really like lightroom. Both are very easy to use and work great on Mac. You wont go wrong with either program.

One thing that keeps me using lightroom is all my friends use lightroom, so if i have any issues it usually gets sorted pretty quickly.

I downloaded both trials and went with Aperture. I think it just depends on which program follows your workflow the best. For me, I found Aperture to be much more intuitive and Lightroom much less so.

So, if you have been using lr for years and have thousands of photos edited in it, is it easy to transfer everything to aperture? Are the edits still there if you change?

Stefan

Stefan A wrote in post #14108520
So, if you have been using lr for years and have thousands of photos edited in it, is it easy to transfer everything to aperture? Are the edits still there if you change?

Stefan

Editing "metadata" is not shared between Raw processors. So, Lightroom/Adobe Camera Raw, Aperture, Digital Photo Professional, and others, each keep their own proprietary "info". Unless you convert to an image file the editing will be "unseen" by other apps.

If I were looking at doing something similar to what you are looking at, I'd definitely keep LR installed so that you can "revisit" old edited images. You could use Aperture for new work, or to totally rework an old image, but you can still fall back on an older pic with your edits intact!

I'm probably going to go with LR4, I did some looking at the UI and think it will be a good decision. From what you guys have said, it sounds like the classic case of Apple software being intuitive and easy to use vs. Adobe being very powerful, with a longer learning curve (and market saturation).

correct me if im wrong...but shouldnt Aperture be the same product as Lightroom 3? just with a different skin and dumbed down for simplicity...reason i say is Adobe back in day was last i checked an Apple only product, and until recently still worked better on an Apple than a PC.

Visual_Eyes wrote in post #14111986
correct me if im wrong...

You're wrong.

Adobe has been working fine on PC's for more then a decade.
Aperture is different then LR, both in UI and "under the hood". Largely a matter of personal preference, yet there are some things one does better then the other, and a few that are specific to either.

Visual_Eyes wrote in post #14111986
correct me if im wrong...but shouldnt Aperture be the same product as Lightroom 3? just with a different skin and dumbed down for simplicity...reason i say is Adobe back in day was last i checked an Apple only product, and until recently still worked better on an Apple than a PC.

Heh! I'll add in!

While it's true that the earliest versions of Adobe Photoshop were Apple only, starting in the late '80s, Photoshop was first "ported" into Windows in '92 with version 2.5.

Since then Photoshop for Apple and for Windows has been very similar.

However, Lightroom and Aperture have been developed separately. Apple and Adobe had similar "ideas" but each took their own direction.

Adobe had begun processing Raw files with the release of the Camera Raw plug-in for Photoshop 7 back in '02, and as the field of Raw development took hold, a lot of photogs wanted a workflow that took full advantage of the Raw format and that could work around developing Raw files and so Adobe, besides updating its Camera Raw plug-in, began working on the idea of a whole new application built around the Camera Raw "engine" with an integrated interface that would be completely different from Photoshop.

Apple had begun something similar but without the Camera Raw engine to go with -- they had to utilize other Raw processing tools, plus they weren't working with the Adobe team and so Aperture was only an Apple development.

Interestingly, the two products got their first releases at about the same time -- Aperture first in late '05 and the earliest version of Lightroom in early '06, but they still were unrelated.