Aperture 3 or LR 3 - Drat!

Darn you Apple. I had a plan that was coming together so nicely.

LR 1.4 has been struggling on my iMac since the OS upgrade so I've been running LR3 Beta, expecting to pay the $100 upgrade when it is releases. I was happy. I even figured out how to get NR enabled.

Then Apple has to go and surprise me with Aperture 3.

I downloaded the trial version and have been playing with it, doing A/B comparisons between it and LR3. I'm finding that Aperture is better. I can edit in full screen mode. Aperture's NR is better. Aperture's RAW conversion is better. I get better results faster in Aperture.

Dran you Apple. Now I have to spend $180 to buy your product rather than $100 to by the inferior product from Adobe.

If you can, I'd wait.

LR3 is in beta... so, along with the improving NR over what the beta already has, demosaicking may even improve beyond LR3's improvements and there may be more enhancements to IQ. In short... LR3 that we see isn't finished. But then again we don't have a DEFINITIVE answer as to when it will be released, so it may be one of those waiting games. (Though I will say that some of those "extras" that aperture offers are compelling... hope Adobe is paying attention.)

I would not call LR an inferior product. Quite the opposite, at least in my case, Aperture 3 has been bug city for me. When I tried to upgrade my trial version to 3.01 to fix the issues I was having (e.g. massive VM usage), it would not let me apply it.

You have to believe that Adobe has an eye on the competition. Wait for LR3 before making any decisions that lock you into one or the other.