thomas fitzgerald.net

When Aperture first launched it was touted as being the solution to the workflow problems of modern digital photographers, solving the issues of working with hundreds or thousands of Raw files. Adobe’s Lightroom followed shortly thereafter making a similar claim. Both applications combined a database for organization with raw processing tools for developing digital images. They both seemed like an ideal solution for the problems of dealing with the masses of files that the digital era of photography presented. Yet, a recent survey showed that a large percentage of photographers (over 60%) were still sticking to their existing workflows and applications. So is it just inertia on the part of seasoned Photographers or is there a little more to it? I have been doing a lot of processing of digital photographs recently and I think I have figured out what might be one of the main issues that may be holding back more widespread adoption of both of these programs.

Both Aperture and Lightroom were built with the idea of being able to catalogue and handle large quantities of Raw files. In other words it is like being able to have all your negatives constantly at hand. The irony is that it is the combination of database and raw processing that are these applications strengths that may be putting people off. I’m willing to bet that the majority of photographers like to process their images then put the originals away. With Aperture and Lightroom your Raw files are constantly online. In a way it is like your post processing is never finished. It’s like always viewing your “negatives” instead of dealing with your finished prints. Raw files can take a lot of space, and even with the relatively low cost of hard drives these days you can still run out of space quickly. Yet the space is not really the main issue here, it’s more of an habitual mind set. People want to process their shoot, put the originals away and then just have the finished processed files to keep in their database. Thats the way people workd with film, and how many worked with digital before either of these applications came along. Although there are ways to do this with both Lightroom and Aperture, existing workflows of using bridge and camera raw or some other raw processing application seem to suit this way of working better.

Like I said though, there are ways to make this kind of workflow work with both Aperture and Lightroom. Both can generate high resolution previews which remain in the database if you move the originals. In Aperture you can choose the “relocate masters” command to move the raw files to another location and archive them off. An even better alternative is to export the whole project and save it to another location, thereby keeping your raw edits intact. In Lightroom you can just move the folder where the originals are stored and the previews remain in the library. Both of these options have their problems though. Aperture does not let you work with the previews to the same extent Lightroom does. You can’t export the files out of Aperture (except through the systems media library) or create books, web pages etc without first re-connecting to the masters. Lightroom does let you do more with the previews, but there is nothing equivalent to Apertures project structure so it’s harder to archive individual projects in the first place.

What I’ve ended up doing with older projects is to export the masters as jpegs, archive out the project, delete it then re-import the jpegs into a new project. I’m sure this process can be automated too thanks to Aperture’s scripting and Automator capabilities. What would be ideal though is an “Archive Project” function, which would do something similar. Archive off the Raw files with adjustments intact and replace them with full resolution jpegs, perhaps with the option to keep any edited files (such as PSD files) online. I think this would go a long way to addressing what I personally find to be a shortcoming of the software.

Both of these programs are great tools, both relatively young in their respective life spans, and will take some time to become the mainstream way of working. I don’t want anyone to think I’m railing against either application because I think that they are definitely the way forward, but I also think they should address the mindset of people who like to work this way rather than try and get the photographer to adapt to something that may seem alien to them. A few extra functions should make it easier for those with the edit-process-archive mindset to work with the programs better. Perhaps for version 3? In the mean time I’m off to do some Applescript coding.