Aperture, Lightroom or something else?

Having both Aperture and Lightroom I don't see any significant difference in the final image between the two. I use Aperture because I works more like I think than Lightroom. (So how much faith can you put in a product wich thinks like me ...)

Gary
 
I need to retract my offer to upload those files I retained... you need a trial or real licence key to use them and you can't get the trial key anymore (and tbh I didnt feel inclined to upload 1.7Gb over the next 5 hours, tying up my minimal data access). Of course there are ways and means which I cannot reveal here. As a matter of interest, and for those who really do want to try out Aperture, the files can still be downloaded from the Apple Servers. They just dont link them anywhere.

(links removed, it occurred to me that Amin could get in trouble..sorry)
 
To complete the op request... Since u are already using photoshop elements... Another package to consider would be capture one. The is a full and light version of the sw. The light is around 99 dollars if I remember correctly. Don't remember what the differences are.. But they do have free trial period for their sw. If I remember correctly the founders are the ones that original did photoshop. Adobe bought the company they owned but somehow they kept the rights. They were the first large scale vendor to do a raw converter for Fuji xtran.. (Don't consider silky pix a major vendor outside of Asia).

Gary
 
Just bought myself a little MBA11. What a new world this is.... somethings are simpler and others simply baffling. But all is surely faster so far. I've been an LR user for years but am starting to trial Aperture. Why? Well it just seems to work better with the smaller real estate of the 11". Anyway, we'll see how they compare, but so far Aperture has not been discounted and is still a real option. I just need to get my head around management and workflow.
 
I was an Aperture user until last summer. Tried Lightroom and I find both the NR and shadow/highlight controls vastly superior. Otherwise, largely a wash, but those are pretty big to me in terms of both low light and DR. It took me a week or two to fully adapt to LR, but now I doubt I'll go back. I'd have expected a major reworking of Aperture by now, but haven't seen it.

-Ray
 
I use Aperture. I wouldn't say I'm competent with it but I keep learning. I recently learned that the reason it was being slow was that I'm RAW only (because you lot told me I should be) and it tries to load the whole massive file every time, but if I press P it'll give me a not quite so detailed overview to have a skip though and look, then if I want to edit I can press P again to get the full res image and footer with it. Has made life MUCH easier.

Aperture Expert is supposed to be brilliant and helpful. And some elusive rainy day when I have no urgent business to attend to, I may find out.
 
As a long time Mac user, I am firmly in the Aperture camp. It is a fine tool. Recommended for any serious compact mac user.

Correct. And therein lies the difference. Aperture was designed for Mac users. Lightroom was designed for photographers BY photographers.

I started off with Aperture, then moved over to LR, and have never used Aperture again.
LR was designed by, and for photographers, and once you get over the learning curve, everything about LR just flows and for me, leaves Aperture behind. I now have LR5 which has added and refined the software more toward the PS OS, so it allows me to stay in LR much more rather than have to go back and forth.

Hope this helps.

Murph.
 
Correct. And therein lies the difference. Aperture was designed for Mac users. Lightroom was designed for photographers BY photographers.

I started off with Aperture, then moved over to LR, and have never used Aperture again.
LR was designed by, and for photographers, and once you get over the learning curve, everything about LR just flows and for me, leaves Aperture behind. I now have LR5 which has added and refined the software more toward the PS OS, so it allows me to stay in LR much more rather than have to go back and forth.

Hope this helps.

Murph.

In fairness, I think Aperture is laid out and designed as well as LR and "flows" just as well. Actually somewhat better IMHO (this is all just opinion obviously - yours too). I think it was designed just as much for photographers, but obviously also with the Mac interface in mind. Which I consider a GOOD thing!

The biggest actual "advantages" I've found with LR is quicker raw support and the previously mentioned NR and shadow / highlight controls, which I find vastly better, maintaining cleaner images while being pushed a good deal farther than the equivalent tools in Aperture. And, as Nic says, these are among the primary reasons to be shooting raw in the first place, so I consider them rather compelling advantages. LR just has better algorithms for those functions - I'd have expected Aperture to have caught up by now, but it still doesn't come close IMHO.

But in terms of interface and "flow" I find Aperture at least as good but either one is fine once you adapt to it.

-Ray
 
LR was designed by, and for photographers, and once you get over the learning curve, everything about LR just flows and for me, leaves Aperture behind. I now have LR5 which has added and refined the software more toward the PS OS, so it allows me to stay in LR much more rather than have to go back and forth.

Thats good news. I have never really been able to come to terms with Aperture at all, despite its superficial similarity to iPhoto. I use iPhoto and Photoshop. If LR5 is more PS-ish, I may well finally make the switch. Didnt manage to do it with LR4 but I'm acutely aware of the shortcomings of my current choices (even though they work for me)

The only thing that holds me back and sends me back to iPhoto+PS is Photo stream which means I dont have to do messy transfers of the latest upload to the computer, if I want to play with it on the iPad. iPhoto (and Aperture if I could like it) make that process very streamlined.
 
Got to say I've been enjoying Aperture for the speed at which it handles files processing, but I just now tried LR on the Mac and :eek:. This is a completely different world. The utter speed!!!! No waiting for spinning little circles, stuck cursors and hung sessions....press button, result, next action... Oh I wish I bought this MBA sooner. To think of all the accumulated time I wasted watching my poor old confused PC battling itself. To be fair my old computers are long in the tooth by today's standards, but this Mac unit is pretty petite but man does it pack a punch. So I think I'll stick with what I know - LR - and reinvest lost processing time shooting....or researching the next purchase :blush:

Got to say though that if I weren't that familiar with Lightroom, I certainly wouldn't turn my nose up at Aperture....I think some folks on here might be being a little harsh.
 
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