Lightroom 2 or Aperture 2.0?

[jagphoto]

I have my Macbook Pro and have heard recommendations for both of these editing softwares. What do you think?

[Sonny]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say......Lightroom 2.

LR2 seems to be a huge favorite among photogs.

[AndrewCCM]

LR2 wins for me.

[Hogleg 44]

For speed, efficiency, beauty, and help availability, Lightroom 2.
A few more more Bells and Whistles, and very pleasing output too. But sooo sloooow, Aperture.

[d2creative]

In Aperture, when you click on a photo and make adjustments, it automatically makes a duplicate thumbnail and groups it with the original. Very easy to click back and forth between the two to see your changes. How do I get Lightroom to do this? I prefer Aperture's interface but I'm stuck using Lightroom until Apple puts out an update for the D700 raw files.

[jagphoto]

Thanks for all of this info! I am going to see if there are any other responses, but Lightroom looks good so far.

[AndrewCCM]

Originally Posted by d2creative

In Aperture, when you click on a photo and make adjustments, it automatically makes a duplicate thumbnail and groups it with the original. Very easy to click back and forth between the two to see your changes. How do I get Lightroom to do this? I prefer Aperture's interface but I'm stuck using Lightroom until Apple puts out an update for the D700 raw files.

There is a way to do that... I am not on my editing machine right now, or I'd look it up. I believe it's called stacking or something similar. There is also a before/after comparison mode.

[Sonny]

Originally Posted by d2creative

In Aperture, when you click on a photo and make adjustments, it automatically makes a duplicate thumbnail and groups it with the original. Very easy to click back and forth between the two to see your changes. How do I get Lightroom to do this? I prefer Aperture's interface but I'm stuck using Lightroom until Apple puts out an update for the D700 raw files.

In the Develop tab, right click on the photo and choose Create Virtual Copy

[d2creative]

Originally Posted by Sonny

In the Develop tab, right click on the photo and choose Create Virtual Copy

Ya, but it looks like i have to do that BEFORE i make any adjustments. Can it not do it automatically for me the first time I make an adjustment? That's what Aperture does. Aperture also put extra space between your different images, but keeps the original image/versions together. So its very easy to scroll through your images and see the ones that have adjustments. This is the kind of thing I'm looking for with Lightroom.

[TXhummer2]

Lightroom puts "change icons" on the views, but changes are in a database, not on the images. Check this out:

http://blog.jontehero.com/2008/02/ap...-aperture.html

[d2creative]

Originally Posted by TXhummer2

Lightroom puts "change icons" on the views, but changes are in a database, not on the images. Check this out:

http://blog.jontehero.com/2008/02/ap...-aperture.html

Maybe I'm misunderstanding but aperture keeps all it's changes in a database too and doesn't apply them till you export. I make adjustments to individual images one at a time and I want to be able to quickly see which images have adjustments applied. A little bitty icon in the bottom right corner doesn't help much. The link your provided is about making presets, not really what I was looking for. Interesting link though.

To add something to the OP's question, I still think Aperture has the best DAM system. They make it so much easier to make new folders, to import your photos, and to organize and access them. Overall I find Aperture much more user friendly and Mac-like.

[AndrewCCM]

Being Mac-like doesn't make it better. :)

It's a preference thing. Download both and play with them. Then make your choice. I am a LR user since pre-beta 1.0 so I am biased. I have used Aperture several times and just don't get the same productivity out of it. But that is me...

As far as seeing which ones have edits and such, there are all kinds of filters you can apply or tagging. I just hit a number which will color code it. It's not as automatic as Aperture, but one keystroke doesn't slow me down. I also like the extensibility of the 3rd party add-ons, web templates, etc that are showing up everywhere online in LR.

I will say this though...I have LR2 on both my Macbook Pro and my PC. I have had a few issues with the PC version crashing on me after editing large imports between LR and CS3. Nothing that isn't corrected by just relaunching the app, but I do think it's memory management needs to be improved a bit.

I don't use it on the Mac near as much (90% of my editing is done on a PC), so I cannot definitively say that it doesn't happen on the Mac too...

[PaulP]

Lightroom has a before/after viewing mode in the develop library. I don't have LR2 up but on LR1.4 its at the bottom left of the image window and has the before/after controls.

I color code mine to show the level of editing done similar to Andrew above. I don't find it slowing me down at all.

I have no experience with Aperture since I am solely PC based.

Paul