for the mac users - lightroom or aperture and/or photoshop

I use Aperture for organizing/archiving/m​etadata and Photoshop for all other edits...

I have Aperture and Lightroom. Started with just iView and CS2/3 but then went to Aperture. Slick interface but..... I have issues with its treatment of DNG files (poor - doesn't fully support them and not well documented what it doesn't do). I also think LR does a better job of raw conversion and certainly better in its noise reduction (Apertures is terrible, IMO).

For both you need CS3.

J

I have both Aperture and Lightroom. Feature for feature they are very close but for my taste, the interface and presentation of Lightroom is better.

Can't tell about Aperture. I have Lightroom and I love it. Also have PSCS3 and use it much less than when Lightroom was not there. However, it's necessary as soon as you want to target just one zone in your image, or for more advanced post processing.

Permagrin wrote in post #4123118
I have aperture and lightroom and PE4 on all my macs. I used to use aperture all the time until lightroom updated to 1:2. Now it's lightroom all the way with effects ect. in photoshop. Lightroom can just do more than aperture (and it's faster...for some reason, even with 2gb of ram, in an equal size gallery, aperture just runs much slower than LR).

Aperture depends heavily on your GPU, which is why I think I'm going to switch to Lightroom. That and if I find myself in a win/osx environment, lightroom will be far easier to manage if I used it. I really liked it's develop module, but have shied away because of the whole module system.

But I'm trying it for the third time now. I never really could give it a chance because of my familiarity of aperture shortcuts. But I'm becoming concerned with the speed of Aperture, as I can't justify buying a mac pro. And if I ever go a mac mini route, lightroom is at least still usable.

I've been in the conundrum myself... I keep my photo's on my external, and both progs want to import and store on the computer... Aperture wants to treat each import like a new project, and that drives me nuts. I want it to store all my photo's as one giant library... How do I set that up?

Lightroom is nice, but it does the same thing..Is there anyway to set it to monitor an external folder, and archive there, without importing off of it?

shesgotthepic wrote in post #3031031
I have tried both. Before lightroom apeared on the market I was using the trial of aperture. Then the lightroom beta hit so I used that.

I had issues with how lightroom got more and more bloated so went back to lightroom (edited to add - I mean aperture) but I don't like how it stores images. With lightroom it's so easy to just tell it that I want the latest shoot in it's own directory.

Then again - when it comes to fixing sharpness issues I find I get a better result in photoshop. so now my workflow includes that as well.

Now - what do you guys use?

What are the pro's and cons of each app?

Do you use one of them or do you stick to just photoshop?

Do you use photoshop elements or is it the full pro app that is it?

I'm still juggling trials and betas and am trying to figure out where my money should go for licensing.

She

Here's a link to an earlier post I made asking a similar question.
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=438170

Like you, I'm trying to decide where to spend (and not waste) my money for a post processing arrangement that meets my needs. Both aperture and lightroom have lots to offer but I am finding that DPP and Photoshop Elements really meet most, if not all, of my needs. I'm a Mac user and I like Aperture but I fear for future support. Adobe is IMHO the leader in this business and I would lean toward Lightroom over Aperture if I had to choose between the two today. While DPP is not as "slick" as the other two I believe it is more than adequate in conjunction with Elements. If Aperture 2.0 comes along soon I'll be giving that a close look. Elements 6.0 for the Mac is due out in March and I an anxious to upgrade to that. Good luck!!

Any of the programs that handle the library in a database will work that way. You can surely just use folders and Bridge or Zoom/ImageBrowser or DPP, depending on your processing needs. There are other programs like Capture One that are widely used and liked.

I use Lightroom and have my whole library organized and once you get used to it then you can really tap into the ability to use metatags and search and find images instantly based on keywords or criteria.

Lightroom does not make you create projects. It imports to the folder of your choice which is no different from just copying images from a card to a new folder on your machine except that you have the added bonus of the power of a database behind it.

I love Lightroom and I own Aperture as well. To me the interface and intuitiveness of Lightroom is far better, but if this type of RAW editor and library organization tool doesn't work for you then there are other options.

TMR Design wrote in post #4735932
Any of the programs that handle the library in a database will work that way. You can surely just use folders and Bridge or Zoom/ImageBrowser or DPP, depending on your processing needs. There are other programs like Capture One that are widely used and liked.

I use Lightroom and have my whole library organized and once you get used to it then you can really tap into the ability to use metatags and search and find images instantly based on keywords or criteria.

Lightroom does not make you create projects. It imports to the folder of your choice which is no different from just copying images from a card to a new folder on your machine except that you have the added bonus of the power of a database behind it.

I love Lightroom and I own Aperture as well. To me the interface and intuitiveness of Lightroom is far better, but if this type of RAW editor and library organization tool doesn't work for you then there are other options.

Thanks for the input. It sounds like LR is the way to go.. If you could tell me how to have LR keep my files on my external, and not import them to the computer when I add them to the library, I'd greatly appreciate it. I can't find the option anywhere...

"Import photo's on their original location"

SCMedic wrote in post #4735652
I've been in the conundrum myself... I keep my photo's on my external, and both progs want to import and store on the computer... Aperture wants to treat each import like a new project, and that drives me nuts. I want it to store all my photo's as one giant library... How do I set that up?

Lightroom is nice, but it does the same thing..Is there anyway to set it to monitor an external folder, and archive there, without importing off of it?

You get benefit out of letting Aperture manage your library, but that makes it very difficult to keep photos on multiple drives - a big, big problem if you have a large library. There is a third party piece of freeware that will work perfectly for what you describe.

Try this:
http://www.completedig​italphotography.com/?p​=417

Then when your external drive is attached, the external "folder" in your aperture library is grayed out.

That said, this is much easier in Lightroom. Not as sophisticated, but a heckuva lot easier to deal with.

J.

I use Photoshop and Lightroom, after having trialed both Lightroom and Aperture. Aperture feels sexier and has more "evolved" UI concepts, but Lightroom is no slouch and performs better on my laptop...it feels a bit more lean and mean to me, which I like. I also manage data and assets pretty carefully (16 years of digital habits die hard!) so I find Lightroom's ability to have both Collections (arbitrary groupings within its database) and a mimicry of the folder structure on my hard drive works very well for me.

The broad feature parity between Aperture and Lightroom makes the choice an intensely personal one.

I am a deep retoucher and effects guy, so just having Lightroom without Photoshop feels like driving a Ferrari without an accelerator: You can get all comfortable with how things look, but you can't push things as far. I've got all my shots on a RAID but keep my Lightroom Catalog/Library on my internal HD (backed up every day at 1am to a different external); this way I can still do presentations, slideshows, and keywording on the road without having to lug 150+ GB of high-rez images around.

DPP
Photoshop CS2/CS3
Lightroom rarely

For image quality alone I've found Adobe Camera RAW, Then Noise Ninja then NIK sharpener pro. Nothing beats it. The only problem is if you have loads of images, there are many RAW apps out there with smooth workflow solutions. Aperture is good but very system intensive on the computer.
For file management iView is superb.

peatoire wrote in post #4737813
For file management iView is superb.

.... agreed. Until Microsoft bought them. Now, not so much.

J.