News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

March 7, 2007

software

Aperture or Lightroom: which is for you, which is for me?

Posted Mar. 7, ’07, 12:29 PM PT by Scott Silverman
Category | Software

Aperture vs LightroomI’m currently in the middle of a small dilemma. Over a year ago when Apple first released Aperture, I was pretty quick to pick it up. I had been looking for a good RAW image processing and organization application, and one made by Apple suited my style. However, Aperture has left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. The 1.5 update fixed many problems I found with the application, but it’s still a bit slow and sometimes awkward.

Thus, when Adobe stepped up to the plate last month with the final shipping version of Photoshop Lightroom, I was ridiculously tempted to swing. An introductory price of $199, tight integration with Photoshop CS2, and simply being an alternative to Aperture all attracted me to the software.

But as I learned from the O’Reilly Mac DevCenter’s article Which is Better: Aperture vs Lightroom? The Test Results, it’s not so much a question of which application is better, but rather which is better for you. O’Reilly sent two photographers out into the field, each armed with Aperture and Lightroom on a loaded MacBook Pro. Their two different reports ensued—one favoring Aperture, and the other Lightroom. If you’re looking to make the leap into the camera RAW field, then I would highly recommend reading both articles. Although I must admit, if you’re in a similar situation as me, then I’d probably just recommend trying both and really finding out for yourself (both companies offer free 30-day trials). I’m beginning to think that’s really the only way to go.


3 Comments

definetheline said:

The Aperture box looks soooo much better!

March 7, 2007 2:03 PM
tayker Author Profile Page said:

I never used Aperture but I've been using Lightroom since beta and love it. Plus, how can you beat 200 bones and what it can do with Photoshop? I've been using PS3 with my purchased copy of Lightroom and love what I can do with it.

March 7, 2007 2:42 PM
DanH said:

I have been using Aperture since last summer, and I quite like it except for one thing. It's brutally slow on my blackbook. From what I can tell, Lightroom is much better in this regard. So I'm thinking about switching. The big problem here is figuring out the best way to efficiently move my thousands of photos out of Aperture and into Lightroom.

March 7, 2007 2:50 PM

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