Lightroom or Aperture for Mac users?

[temp0]

Honestly, I use both. Theres good points between both of them, I have yet to find anything bad about any really. I originally load my photos into iPhoto, and then go to Aperture and load the photos through iPhoto and sort it out through there. Lightroom allows you to edit photos more easily, through the use of presets that you can download from the internet. I'm pretty sure Aperture has this ability too but I have yet to find any good presets. So pretty much... I enjoy using both aha.

To Nicole: Lightroom allows you to shoot thethered. You just have to set the settings to allow it to happen.

[Jim Cutler]

PC users are always going to choose Lightroom over Aperture. But I'm a Mac only photog, and I prefer Aperture 2.1 . I own both and keep up with the upgrades. I prefer the layout and workflow of Aperture. I bought a bunch of plugins made for Aperture that let me do 99% of everything within the program. If I ever need to send an image to photoshop it's just a right-click on the image to get there. When I finish my Photoshop manipulations I SAVE in photoshop and the image is automatically saved back to Aperture.

It's wonderful that Mac users can select between two very strong programs, Aperture and Lightroom.

[Nicole]

Originally Posted by temp0

To Nicole: Lightroom allows you to shoot thethered. You just have to set the settings to allow it to happen.

I was under the impression that in order to shoot tethered with a Nikon you basically required another piece of software (Camera Capture Pro) unless you want to use an automator action (which always too it's sweet time the one time I tried to use it). Aperture does a much smoother job of it (even though when I tried it on the demo sometimes it stopped recognizing my camera midway through )

[wycombiensian]

Originally Posted by Jim Cutler

It's wonderful that Mac users can select between two very strong programs, Aperture and Lightroom.

I agree. I use Aperture (and am an Aperture Certified Pro), and love it. But there are a couple of editing adjustments I wish I could have from LR - the gradient mask for example. But the flexibility of the workflow in Aperture won me over in the 1.5 version, and I've been with it since.

But it's a lot like Canon/Nikon or (for cyclists) Shimano/Campagnolo - if you can work out which one works better for you, then go with that. But you can't go too far wrong choosing either of them.

And having them both available I hope keeps both companies on their toes.

[sftl99]

When it comes to photography, I am merely a hobbyist hoping to improve. I tried both and wound up using Aperture because of its organizational capabilities. Additionally, I use Facebook a lot, and my wife uses Flickr a lot. The plug-ins for Aperture for these two sites were far better with Aperture than they were with Lightroom.

My brother is a professional photographer and he uses Lightroom. Although, he hasn't purchased version 2 yet so he's way behind all of us.

[LauraBean]

Coming in a little late here, but I tried the trial versions of both and ended up going with Aperture. It felt more intuitive and straightforward to me, and I love the integration with other iLife apps, which I use a lot (iWeb, Pages, and a little iPhoto for calendars, etc.). I do miss the Lightroom presets occasionally--they were fun to play with--but for the most part I have no regrets about choosing Aperture. And the tutorials at the Apple site are great for getting a handle on it.

[cabrown]

I'm going to raise the dead here...

I read the thread. I'm still on the fence. I have a few questions for you Mac users out there.

I saw a demo of Aperture 2 at an Apple store the other day. One of the features that allowed me to wrap my head around the purpose of either program was that you could call an advanced photo editor, such as Photoshop, from within Aperature 2, edit, then save directly. I currently use GIMP. Does Lightroom 2 allow you to use a photo editor of your choice or does it only play with Adobe products?

I've been reading a bit about the digital negative, DNG, file format. How important is this to consider? Do both products export to DNG?

Aperture is US$100 less expensive than Lightroom 2. Do you really get that much more with Lightroom 2 to justify paying MSRP US$299 versus US$199 for Aperture 2?

Are there any other issues between the two I should consider? I understand there are demos for both, but I'll not get to either before I upgrade my G5 to OS 10.5 (yes...) Most of my photos are currently managed by iPhoto. More recent photos are managed manually. If I need to remove Lightroom or Aperture from my system is the process easy to do without destroying my photo "libraries?"

Thanks!

[rediguana]

Originally Posted by cabrown

Does Lightroom 2 allow you to use a photo editor of your choice or does it only play with Adobe products?

No you can use others. I've set my Lightroom up to use PTLens as an external editor for correcting lens distortion. I haven't tested it with GIMP, but you should be able to set it up easily enough.

Originally Posted by cabrown

I've been reading a bit about the digital negative, DNG, file format. How important is this to consider? Do both products export to DNG?

I think it is quite important - when I import my raw files into Lightroom I automatically convert and store them as DNGs. You can export DNG's from Lightroom.

Originally Posted by cabrown

If I need to remove Lightroom or Aperture from my system is the process easy to do without destroying my photo "libraries?"

For Lr, mostly, yes. You can uninstall easily and the images will still be in the same folders. However, if you've assigned metadata that is kept in the catalogue, then that may be lost if you uninstall Lr. One nice thing about DNG is that it embeds a lot of the metadata so you are less likely to have that problem.

[jdepould]

I've used LR since Beta 1. Never really considered Aperture, although I did play with it at the Apple store.

[PKSon]

Originally Posted by Jim Cutler

It's wonderful that Mac users can select between two very strong programs, Aperture and Lightroom.

I agree with you on that, but the topic was about applications, not platforms.

So from an application's perspective, Lightroom can be used on both PCs and Macs.

I have five computers, 2 PCs, and 3 Macs. I use Lightroom on the iMac, MBA, and desktop PC. I don't have to adjust between programs or anything. I can use LR on all three. I think this is a huge advantage.