DPP vs Aperture vs Lightroom

I shoot raw and raw only.
Currently I use DPP for raw adjustments and PS for other stuff.

Should I move to Aperture or Lightroom??
Why or Why not?

I can, of course, speak only for myself, but I have moved from DPP to LR because of LR's tool set, the free rotation tool, the Digital Graduated Density Filter and the Local Adjustments Brush. The last two are masking tools that make localized edits possible. I now have much less reason to have to go to my pixel editor and that means less need to export and store tifs or jpgs. All I need is the RAW and LR's database and I can generate a conversion whenever (and not until) it is needed.

P.S. Almost forgot to mention the superior highlight recovery.

All three apps have good quality and a good reputation. DPP is, for a free app, quite capable and many people like it for its ability to quickly match an out of camera jpeg and for some ways in which to them it handles noise better.

I haven't used Aperture because I'm not a Mac user, so no comment there!

I began using Lightroom with its Beta version and once it stabilized I have been quite happy with it as the center of my workflow. All in all, I think it has a great recird fir adding excellent new tools and capabilities (it keeps up with Adobe Camera Raw in PS for its Raw processing engine and tools) and for me I've never felt the need to use another Raw processor. Plus it has simple ways of saving for Web and other ouputs and for printing, etc. The advances of LR2 in the local edit capabilities have put it firmly in the lead in the sense that you can do more in your Raw processor than ever before and have even less need of resorting to Photoshop than ever before. Plus, I'm quite happy with the Library/organizational features, and the fact that everyting is integrated into one interface, instead of always hopping from one dialog to the next for every task.

My advice, though, is not to take the above recommendation but to download the free trials of Lightroom and Aperture and give them each a good thorough spin.

I hate the layout of LR. I can't get passed the modal view. Also I can't seem to get good colors from LR.

DPP time and again produces the moat accurate color for me. I guess that's because it's Canon software. It seems to produce jpgs that are of better quality for some reason. However I like using aperture because of the added tools. It has way better highlight recovery, rotation, etc etc. It just has MORE. Also has organization which DPP has none and zoombrowser sucks.

I still use DPP for most of my pics. But if I have one where the highlights/shadows need work, aperture comes through better.

Aperture and Lightroom are more workflow management tools. If you don't need the extended workflow coverage, ACR gets you the LR tools. Don't know about aperture.

If you shoot high volume, I can't imagine doing it with anything but LR.

I haven't used DPP at all, but I have used both Aperture and Lightroom (LR on both PC and Mac). You have to have a majorly fast computer to even consider using Aperture, because if you don't have a good graphics card and about 4GB of RAM, it's going to be slower than all other RAW processing programs on the market. Aperture has a very good workflow, I like it more, in some cases, than Lightroom. However, at the same time it feels less professional, more clunky, and less refined. Lightroom has a myriad of color management and levels options, while Aperture lacks that. Aperture also stores your files in a "vault" for backup purposes, and I've heard some reports of those vaults getting corrupted to the point of someone losing all their files when they thought they had a safe back up.

Currently I use DPP and iPhoto (latest versions of both). I looked at Aperture in the Apple store and played with it a little. I really didn't think I was getting anything better than what I already had, especially for spending $200 on it. <heresy>In fact I thought I had more flexibility with iPhoto than I had with Aperture.</heresy> I've never played with LR.

Apple allows you to try Aperture free for 30 days. I'd suggest playing with it in a store for a few minutes if you can. If you like it, download it and try it. If it works for you, then you're good! If not, then no loss. For that matter, Adobe allows you to try LR. Likewise with Aperture, download it and play with it. see if it works for you. If you try either of these, make a duplicate set of some of your photos and play with them in the trial program to see how it works.

I forgot that Aperature is on Apple pc's .. which I don't have...

tzalman wrote in post #8723287
I can, of course, speak only for myself, but I have moved from DPP to LR because of LR's tool set, the free rotation tool, the Digital Graduated Density Filter and the Local Adjustments Brush. The last two are masking tools that make localized edits possible. I now have much less reason to have to go to my pixel editor and that means less need to export and store tifs or jpgs. All I need is the RAW and LR's database and I can generate a conversion whenever (and not until) it is needed.

P.S. Almost forgot to mention the superior highlight recovery.

Highlight recovery is what I feel is the big plus of LR. Tried Aperture when I first got my camera and liked it, but at the time wasn't sure I liked the import functions and stuff. LR has been great so far. Pair that with Elements and you have a pretty good tool-set for much less than 'big boy' PS.

for the OP,

download the free trial. its a full functional trial. so you get to decide for yourself

moved from DPP to LR because i like that LR literally has lessened my need of PS

I had been using Picasa, but was not thrilled with the color adjustment. So I went to DPP and the colors and exposure were great, but it lacked other simple tools, and the interface sucked. I downloaded a trial of LR and all I can say is "wow". It does everything I want it too. If i really need to get medieval on a picture i can take it into Gimp. The color adjustment is great in light room and the best part for me is a brush tool that does all sorts of things I would have had to go into gimp for. I hate buying software, especially expensive stuff like this, but when my LR trial runs out I might have too.

Snowshooters wrote in post #8726104
If i really need to get medieval on a picture i can take it into Gimp.

Ha ha....sometime's it's just so hard not to make Pulp Fiction references, isn't it?