Mac users, did you choose Aperture or Lightroom?

[Pindy]

I bought Aperture last year when I started getting back into photography, which I run on a Mac Book Pro. I have learned quite a bit about the app from the training book by Ben Long and the other fellow whose name eludes me right now.

I notice the program is by far the slowest I own and bogs down the entire machine just to do routine things and even when standing idle, the fan will come on and cause everything else in the computer to bog.

I bought LR when there was the $199 deal on, as I use Photoshop for curves, USM and the odd composite or layer work, and I thought the integration might be superior. I think LR also has some better editing features. But I have a few thousand photos in Aperture, and although I really like the app, the speed just makes me want to not open it in the first place.

Those of you that compared the two and settled on one, which was it? Why?Obviously all my settings will be lost if I switch (no, I don't want to import effected JPEGs if I can have the RAW files) but that was hours of work to get the important photos to the place they are now, WB, levels, exposure-wise. The draw of Lightroom is that it feels like a very capable app that's not too slow.

FWIW, I mainly use Aperture to organise and for basic contrast and WB chores.

What to do?

[ntt]

I tried both out on my MacBook Pro core2duo and settled on Aperture.

Aperture is definitely slower than Lightroom in general use. However, there are some work-arounds if, like me, you prefer the toolset and workflow of Aperture.

* when browsing images, turn off the adjustments panel, viewer and HUD

* turn off previews unless you need them ( you can always choose to generate them later )

* use multiple libraries if it suits your style

From the sound of it, image preview generation is probably what is slowing you down and causing the computer fan to come on when you aren't doing anything. Try turning that off and see how it goes.

[Pindy]

Thanks for your reply. I am aware of the previews thing and have turned them off. I still suffer from almost farcical reductions in speed despite taking this precaution.

[photobanks]

I notice the program is by far the slowest I own and bogs down the entire machine just to do routine things and even when standing idle, the fan will come on and cause everything else in the computer to bog.


Strange this, as I have tried out both and settled on Aperture because I preferred the interface, and it ran a lot faster!!!

Michael

[W.W. Webster]

I still suffer from almost farcical reductions in speed despite taking this precaution.That's because Aperture is a farcical app with serious problems! :rolleyes

I assure you there is no way to get acceptable performance out of Aperture if you are a serious user. I've got a very fast Mac Pro configuration and I've tried everything. In addition, the Spot and Patch tool has major defects, but Apple is unwilling even to recognise this, let alone fix it.

In my opinion, Aperture is an absolute disaster. Rumour has it every line of code is being rewritten for v2.0, but Apple is already totally discredited for me with this product.

My advice would be to do as I did - bite the bullet, kiss your sunk cost in Aperture good bye, and move over to Lightroom. I concluded that my frustration with Aperture was just not worth it. Now I'm riding the wave with Lightroom as this already competent program picks up momentum. It just works, and some enhancements due in v1.1 in the next few days will improve it still further.

In your case, as a Photoshop user, you can also be assured of good LR-PS integration into the future.

Good luck! :thumb

[thebigsky]

I couldn't get on with Aperture at all, I found it fiddly, counter intuitive, slow and frankly irritating.

I tried Lightroom and was instantly won over, it suited my workflow and didn't get in my way at all.

Charlie

[digitalpins]

I have a white Macbook with 2gb of ram, superdrive and a big hard drive and I have tried or used both but I prefer Aperture yes lightroom seems faster but Aperture is not slow at all to me runs just fine on my Macbook. I notice my fans kick on when running Aperture and computer gets warm but thats about it. I really like aperture over lightroom. LIghtroom is a very good program but Aperture is awesome to me. If you have a apple store near you check out their free Aperture class its pretty cool they give you all kinds of tips.

[timnosenzo]

I love Aperture. I tried Lightroom before Aperture and just didn't care for it at all. I really like Apertures ease of use, workflow options and how is manages files so I don't have to think about it.

FWIW, Aperture runs fine for me on my 2.16ghz MacBook Pro w/ 2GB RAM.

[Pindy]

Just noticed this rather long article in Macworld this morning:

http://www.macworld.com/2007/06/features/digitaldarkroom/index.php?lsrc=mwrss

[W.W. Webster]

Just noticed this rather long article in Macworld this morning:Thanks for this link.

Not a lot to disagree with here. Just your regular 'on the one hand, on the other hand' features summary designed to offend neither advertiser. :wink

What isn't commented on is the relative performance and stability of the two products with a substantial image database and extensive/intensive image management and manipulation - i.e. in real life. That's where there's a world of difference IMHO.

[Pindy]

I know what you mean—the organisational aspects of Aperture are really good.

[CatOne]

Thanks for this link.

Not a lot to disagree with here. Just your regular 'on the one hand, on the other hand' features summary designed to offend neither advertiser. :wink

What isn't commented on is the relative performance and stability of the two products with a substantial image database and extensive/intensive image management and manipulation - i.e. in real life. That's where there's a world of difference IMHO.

I have Aperture and its performance in Intel machines I've found to be quite good. When I was away for 3 weeks in Antarctica, I took maybe 9,000 shots, edited it down to about 5,000, and performed color correction, levels, spot/patch (damn dirty sensor!), sharpening, shadows/highlights, and horizon leveling, and performance was very good. This was the 1st generation MacBook Pro as well. I was working amidst throngs of Lightroom users (Heck, the whole team -- Schewe, Reichmann, Resnick, Johnson, Atkinson were beta testers and advisors)... and Aperture was just as fast for me on that machine.

When I came home and imported them to my Quad G5 with 7800GT... it was kinda painful... it was definitely slower than the MacBook Pro was. Not sure if it was the smaller screen size or what. I have since upgraded to an 8-core Mac Pro and performance is quite good. Yes, this machine is a monster, but performance is certainly adequate. And at any rate, it's tens of times faster than an ACR/Photoshop combo would be, simply for workflow reasons.

I absolutely prefer the organization/management interfaces of Aperture (the stacks and compare functionality is fantastic), while I prefer the editing functionality of Lightroom (specifically because its curves is so much more intuitive than Aperture's "quarter tone sliders", and because the targeted adjust tool is AWESOME). Aperture's sharpening is way better at the moment, but as the ACR 4.1 changes move to LR 1.1 this advantage will go away.

Still... it boils down largely to how you like to work -- Aperture is a very free-form workflow, and Lightroom is a strictly modal workflow (i.e. you organize HERE, you edit HERE, you create galleries HERE, and you print HERE). I will say, the ability to edit/adjust/color correct an image when you're in the *middle* of a book is very, very useful -- you want to brightness match two photos on the same page -- go right ahead. Some people will STRONGLY prefer one workflow to the other, and I say the only way to really know is to try both programs out. On good Intel hardware, the performance thing shouldn't be much of an issue. On PPC or older hardware, it most certainly will.

[Pindy]

I'm beginning to think I need to fully un-install/re-install it, because I don't remember it being this bad at the outset. I agree completely with the workflow comment; that's gonna be your main deciding factor. I think I prefer the freeform thing myself, I just want performance that's average. An original MacBook Pro should be enough. I've heard it said that video cards are a major factor, so maybe a desktop with an insane card would help a lot but it just shouldn't have to be.