In my previous articles on this subject, I did my best to give you a reasonably objective opinion on the relative merits of each programme, however, I will admit that as I am an Aperture user, and I have preferred Aperture for a long time, I think that I was a little biased in that direction. However, recently I have started to give Lightroom another look for my full workflow, and I have to say, I’m beginning to see that maybe it might be the better choice for me after all.
I had been using Lightroom for its excellent print module but not much else. Lately though, I’ve been using it as my primary workflow tool. It started when I took some landscape pictures and I had some images with some mis-matched exposure between the top of the frame and the bottom. Normally I would have to export the image to Photoshop and then maybe do another version, export that and do a blend between the two. It occurred to me though that the gradient tool in Lightroom would handle the situation perfectly. So just as an experiment I brought my whole set of images into Lightroom.
Whatever your views on either piece of software, you really do have to appreciate the power of the develop module that. As a quick mea culpa, I had written before how I thought that the develop module was just camera raw and in conjunction with bridge you could achieve the same results. This is true, but it does definitely help having everything integrated, so I suppose I was selling Lightroom a bit short on that one. The things you can do with the develop module are amazing. The gradient tool alone is worth the price of admission. Combined with the paint tool you can do great selective editing. And how cool is selective editing, well, here’s an example:
(Image Above: Before)
This was a pretty bland image until I played around with it. This is entirely done in lightroom using the gradient and paint tools (and vignetting and well, pretty much everything else in the develop module).
(image above: after tweaking)
There’s something about this that never occurred to me before about these tools. What makes it so good, perhaps even better than trying to do the same thing in Photoshop is that the selective tools in Lightroom are working on the Raw data (I’m nearly certain this is the case based on the results I’m seeing). They are not working on the clipped RGB data. What do I mean by this? Well, the raw file can contain information beyond 100% white. So you can bring the exposure back into range if it’s slightly over exposed (depending on the camera). When you export an image to Photoshop you are then working on the RGB data contained in the visible range. Anything above 100% visible white is clipped. The same thing happens in Aperture if you use the dodge and burn tool, or most of the plug ins for Aperture. They create a Tiff file and you’re working from that rather than the Raw data.
Technical talk aside, the results speak for themselves. I was blown away by the images I was getting. Another thing too that I had glossed over before, was the new camera profiles. One of the things that had driven me mad about Lightroom was the way it changed the colours after you imported your images. Well, you can mitigate that a bit by using the camera profiles. They are basically a bunch of colour profiles that Adobe has created for each camera based on that camera’s built in picture modes. While they don’t give exact results, they are pretty close. If you set up a preset containing just the camera calibration settings for your camera you can have it apply that on import, and then you don’t have to worry about the colour shift as much. Of course, if you use multiple settings in a single shoot you’ll have to tweak them manually, or if you use custom settings in your camera you won’t get the same results but it’s a big step up and the results are much more accurate. I had found the default way Lightroom rendered files from my D90 in particular to be way off and disconcerting. This solves that problem for the most part.
Another issue that I’ve managed to find a way around is the sharpening and noise reduction. I have always found that Lightroom creates a fake looking almost mosaic like smearing on fine detail in Images. It always seemed to me to make the images very artificial compared to other Raw converters. However, I’ve found a way around that by tweaking the noise reduction and sharpening settings, so I now have them rendering the similar to way they would in Aperture. Well, almost. It should be noted though, that Nikon’s own Capture NX does a much better job than both of these at rendering NEF files, although I have not found the same with Canon’s (unbelievably bad – well, on the mac anyway) raw processing software.
There are still a few things that I really don’t like about Lightroom. The biggest one is the export modules. In particular the Flickr export module. It has to be one of the worst interfaces I have ever seen. I know this is not made by Adobe but a third party, but all the export plug ins look the same so I can’t help but suspect that this is a limitation of the SDK. I hope they address this, because as it stands its atrocious. The only thing is, there’s a way around this. You can set up an export preset to export your images to a temporary folder and then have it launch the stand alone flickr upload tool.
All in all I’m happy with the results I’m getting with Lightroom. I think If Apple had developed Aperture more agressively I probably would have not even given Lightroom a second look, but I’m a big believer in using all the tools at your disposal, rather than sticking with the one out of brand loyalty. I still believe that Aperture is a better organisational tool, but I don’t organise my Images that well anyway. Of course I’ll change my mind again once Aperture 3 comes out, but that’s another post for another day !
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I’ve used both quite a bit, consider them both to be great programs, but I keep coming back to Aperture. For one thing, and this is most important, I prefer Aperture’s RAW conversion to both DPP and Lightroom. You’d think DPP would be best, but it’s a third behind Aperture and ACR (Lightroom). Aperture’s conversions with my 5D Mark II just look more natural. They’re not too sharp, too vibrant, too anything. They’re just right.
Aperture’s edit tools are good, if not Photoshop level, and with the plugin architecture I no longer need to leave the app for things like HDR or 3rd party noise reduction. Throw in in the organizational tools (a must with tens of thousands of images) and Aperture edges Lightroom for me.
I agree. DPP is terrible. It’s a disgrace that Canon ships that as their software solution.
I don’t disagree about Aperture’s organisational structure either. It’s way better than Lightrooms. I’ve used Aperture for the longest time, and I guess it was part boredom that led me down this road – but I am very happy with the results I’m getting.
I think a lot of it is camera dependant too. I’m getting gorgeous images from my D90 in Lightroom, but I struggled with Images from My 5D so maybe that’s a factor too.
Funny. If you hang out in pro photography forums you will find that virtually everyone thinks DPP KILLS Aperture and slightly edges out ACR. DPP is held in the highest regard because of its awesome color fidelity.
Ratty,
A lot of photographers do like DPP’s colors. It has great initial punch. It also fully supports the Digic 4 technologies (Auto lighting optimizer, Highlight tone priority, Peripheral Illumination, etc.) and camera profiles. These are things that no third party app can utilize. But…
DPP’s initial punch isn’t the most natural look unless you dial it back. You can easily match that punch with Lightroom or Aperture with a couple of adjustments, and can set those up as automatic presets. You can adjust the conversion on a camera by camera basis in Aperture and get a profile for each of your cameras with little effort that match DPP. That’s what you get with DPP, but there’s still far too much you don’t with DPP that you get with both LR & Aperture. If DPP is your RAW converter you have to use other software tools as well.
I’ve been to a lot of the forums you probably have visited, and better still I know a lot of professional photographers besides myself. Many of them hate DPP. Many of them love DPP. Many posters in the forums hate using DPP. Many love it. Many Windows based photographers bash Aperture without having used it. Many used version 1 and (justifiably) decided it was worthless. Many are ardent Adobe guys from years of Photoshop and won’t consider anything but ACR. Quite a few even prefer Capture One.
Bottom line is there isn’t one RAW converter that “virtually everyone” agrees is best. Taking all things into account (organizational tools, editing tools, conversion quality across multiple cameras, plug-in architecture) I find Aperture to be the best tool for the job. It’s much better than DPP at recovering hightlights. Is it vastly superior to the others? Nope, but it edges them out. They each have their strengths and if I spent a ton of time in Photoshop still I’d use Lightroom.
FWIW I’m certified in Aperture & Photoshop. My opinions are based on years of working with digital images and not from the opinions of fanboys which inevitably populate forums.
I couldn’t agree more with KBEAT. It’s funny how many pro photographers insist DPP is better, but my 5d2 raw files do look better “out of the box” with aperture than any other converter.
For a long time, there has been a pro photographer belief that canon’s “skin tones are too yellow” – 95% of the time when I hear this from people, I ask them if they are shooting RAW and what they are using – and they are using ACR. It’s just not as smooth of an interpretation as aperture is.
I give lightroom another chance every once in a while, and I do really wish aperture had some real-time localized or selective color adjustments. I do some video work too, and if they just implemented the keying and vignetting adjustment tools from Apple Color, I would be very happy.
The thing is, the aperture workflow for doing the post on a wedding is so much better than any other option, I figure v3 is going to be a real defining moment for aperture as openCL is around the corner.
In the end, I tell photographers who ask me “Lightroom or aperture?”:
Do you shoot fashion, landscapes, or senior portraits? – Lightroom
Do you shoot sports, events, weddings, news, or anything that on average has more than 100 images per shoot, and requires a lot of editorial decisions? – Aperture
I disagree with the author that Lightroom has an “excellent print module”. I think the lack of ability to do soft-proofing and gamma warning correction means that whatever printing gets done is hit or miss at best. The number of failed prints that come out of Lightroom before getting it “dialed in” versus Photoshop made me wonder why Adobe bothered to put printing into the system at all, really.
I recently purchased a Canon EOS Rebel XSi and I have been considering Lightoom after using Aperture for a while. I had a collection of 22,000 pictures that for Aperture’s organization features has helped me tame it, however even with the export of 16-bit files to Photoshop for the use of the 14-bit RAW, I’m not sure which to pick. I tried Lightroom back at 1.0, and it wasn’t multi-threaded then, yet now Aperture is still 32-bit, and I’d like to use the 12GB of RAM.
Since I don’t have a huge collection to import and I am essentially starting fresh with a DSLR, I am going to give Lightroom another look as well.
The top “untweaked” image is a far better so I’m not sure why I should listen to your opinion. The bottom looks like a teenager ran it through Picnik.
About the same reason I should listen to your comment, mr. random internet person with an attitude.