Lightroom vs Aperture

[GreyhoundsRUs]

I am at the point where I am trying to decide if I want to upgrade to either Aperture or Lightroom. I am currently using iPhoto to organize and view all of my pictures. I use Photoshop for editing.

I am not very happy with the way iPhoto sorts and stores my pictures on the HD. Currently, if I am wanting to move a file to an external hard drive, the organization of my events are not maintained. This is because files are sorted by iPhoto by date.

I am having trouble accessing any information regarding how Aperture sorts/stores photos once they are in a project. Also, does that organization carry over to the exporting of pictures to an external hard drive?

Also, If I edit a photo in CS5, it does not change the "preview" in iPhoto. It is not until I select one specific photo, that it will change to the new edit. This is a problem because I would like to look at a couple similar pictures to see which best suits my needs. Does Aperture "refresh" the image to show new edits?

Thank you for your help!

[niener]

I'm bookmarking this thread to get back to later when I'm at my computer and have Aperture open.

[GreyhoundsRUs]

Sweet! LR has a 30 day trial, so I can answer most for myself from that end if need be!

[SoonerTexan]

I don't know anything about Aperature, so hopefully Niener has the goods.

I do use Lightroom, though. It works very nicely with Photoshop--you can right click an image and select "Edit In" and photoshop is an option. The basic editing power is great and "Presets" are similar to Photoshop "actions."

The Lightroom storage setup can be a little hard to wrap your head around. It doesn't store anything to "itself" (i.e. a Lightroom specific folder). It simply maps to the original image stored on your hard drive and stores all your edits in a "sidecar" file. This is great because it keeps the edits and the photo separate and is "non-destructive" editing. The downside is you really have to keep your files in shape. You need to do all moving through Lightroom or it can "lose" your files. I've messed this up myself and it isn't fun.

I'm also a bad bad bad girl who hasn't backed up her hard drive in a year. My laptop's hard drive is within a few GBs of being full...I cannot upload any pics and it is running really slow because of it at this point. I've been avoiding this task because moving stuff onto the hard drive involves merging libraries, etc. and it will take me a couple hours of uninterrupted time to do it right, so I've been avoiding it like the plague. I also upgraded from Lightroom 2 to Lightroom 3 in the middle of all this, so that adds more complexity.

Vgirl, this is why I haven't taken your pictures yet. That and the stupid heat I'm so bad...I've stopped taking pictures of N because of this.

So in a nutshell, I really love Lightroom, but do your maintenance!

[niener]

I think lightroom vs aperture is sort of like nikon vs canon -- they're both perfectly good tools that do basically the exact same thing. I just have Aperture because it came with a promo pack when I bought my mac.

I am having trouble accessing any information regarding how Aperture sorts/stores photos once they are in a project. Also, does that organization carry over to the exporting of pictures to an external hard drive?

I think Aperture does it the same way or very similarly to what ST described. Once you import an image into a project, any edits you make don't alter the original file. It automatically preserves your edits separately within the software (the "sidecar" concept ST mentioned) so that when you close and reopen the software any edits you have made are still there in Aperture but your original file hasn't been touched. There are a plethora of options for sorting your images in Aperture. After creating a new project, you can easily give them ratings (1- to 5-star) and view only those with a certain rating, or you can assign keywords to an image and create smart albums to view only images with those keywords. You can sort them by date, by rating, by filename, by keyword, by size, or do a custom drag-and-drop sort. Once you have them arranged the way you want them, you can change the filenames one by one or make batch changes to an entire selection (i.e. go from IMG_2543, IMG_2544, etc. to BeachTrip001, BeachTrip002, etc.) so that when you export your edited versions of the files they will maintain the same order in which you're viewing them.

Also, If I edit a photo in CS5, it does not change the "preview" in iPhoto. It is not until I select one specific photo, that it will change to the new edit. This is a problem because I would like to look at a couple similar pictures to see which best suits my needs. Does Aperture "refresh" the image to show new edits?

I *think* the answer is yes, if I understand your question. Any edits you make within Aperture you can see within Aperture in real time, including on the thumbnails (though I think thumbnails is a bit of a misnomer because you don't have to double-click on them to make edits, you just make sure the image you want to edit is highlighted and you can make changes to it while still looking at other "thumbnails" on the screen). You cannot see any of those edits outside of Aperture until you have exported your edited version of the image.

[GreyhoundsRUs]

You're more helpful than the people at the Apple store Two more questions: do you ever still use iPhoto? I don't know why I would, but I was just wondering what you did.

If you upload pics to a social networking site and then move them off of your computer, does it delete them from that site? (iPhoto does)

[niener]

You're more helpful than the people at the Apple store Two more questions: do you ever still use iPhoto? I don't know why I would, but I was just wondering what you did.

If you upload pics to a social networking site and then move them off of your computer, does it delete them from that site? (iPhoto does)

I actually have never used iPhoto before since I got Aperture at the same time I got my mac. I just peaked in there though and it looks like a more simplistic version of Aperture. My guess is that there are some similar elements between the two (like how to set up albums and smart albums) since both products are created by Apple. Similarly, since Lightroom and Photoshop are both created by Adobe they probably interface well together. I don't really use Aperture and Photoshop together -- I put everything in Aperture first to select favorites, organize, and do basic editing (exposure, levels, color correction, sharpening, etc) and then if they need further edits (retouching faces, funky actions, whatever) I open up Photoshop.

I'm actually not sure about the second question. My thought is it's more dependent on the social networking site and how it's reading the file. If a photo is uploaded to let's say facebook, then the image is housed within facebook so I'm not sure how deleting it from your hard drive would affect it appearing on facebook. Maybe if you could give me an example of a social networking site where you've had this happen I could try to see if I can replicate what you're describing?