2008-02-07
Switching from Aperture to Lightroom?
I've been using Aperture since March 2007. I wrote positively of my switch from iPhoto to Aperture and have greatly enjoyed the Aperture workflow as well as it's integration with iWeb and other aspects of the Mac OS. However, in recent months I become increasingly frustrated with it, primarily the slowness in searching and editing.
I'm using it on a MacBook Pro 2.16 core 2 duo with 2 gigs of ram. I have a relatively small library of 16 gigs which is organized so that each month is a project which is usually less than 600 pictures. The slowness begins with opening the program which takes far too long, usually 20 seconds, sometimes close to a minute. From what I've read my library is relatively small and I can't imagine how slow this would be with a library as large as some have.
In usage, editing is way too slow. Trying to use the Spot and Patch tool is an exercise in patience and doing it at a zoom of 100% in like watching a melting glacier retreat up a mountain. In fact doing anything while zoomed in is terribly slow. Sure, I can use the loupe but that tends to require more work with the trackpad. When it comes time to search or use a smart folder I often get a long pause, sometimes the spinning beach ball. Just switching between projects can cause delays.
When it comes to exporting, often the last step in the process for any image that is shared or used, anyone using Aperture with Leopard will encounter what is apparently a bug. Exporting images with Aperture (as well as iPhoto) results in much softer images, apparently due to the core OS technology used by these apps. Softness is not good unless it is intentional. I shoot lots of bird images and I want the details of the feathers to be as sharp as possible. Softness introduced by my editing software is not acceptable on any level.
Like many Aperture users I've been hoping for a serious update but have seen little evidence that one is coming. It might be tomorrow, it might be 6 months. About two weeks ago, I decided to try Lightroom which I had been avoiding because I really like the Aperture workflow and integration with iWeb and other aspects of the OS. I've also avoided the possibility of switching because in the 9 months I've been using Aperture I've put a good bit of time into editing, keywording, and captioning my images. If I switch to Lightroom I loose that work.
After two weeks with Lightroom I'm fairly certain that I am going to make the the switch. With each day that I use it I import more images and organizing them into the same system I have created with Aperture. I'm still importing images so I can't comment on the speed of browsing and searching a full 15 gig library but with 5 gigs imported it is FAR faster to search and browse than Aperture. Even more important, editing is FAR smoother... in fact, I find it hard to believe how much faster it is. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I'm finding that the editing results are much better both before and especially after export. I've already mentioned that Leopard introduced a softness to all exports, but I think the differences I'm seeing even go beyond this.
Two of my favorite features thus far. First would be noise reduction which is fantastic and far superior to that in Aperture. As someone that shoots without a flash often in the deep shade of the woods I welcome this. If at all possible I avoid using ISO 400 or above due to the noise but with Lightroom I'm finding that I can eliminate most of this noise which means I can now shoot in conditions I would have previously avoided. Second, In just two weeks I'm discovering that the large community of Lightroom users includes a few that develop add-ons such as plugins and templates. There is a flickr plugin similar to the one for Aperture but that's not the end of it. There are folks actively developing fantastic templates for Lightroom's default Web publishing module. While the default web publishing is already much better than Aperture's being able to easily drop in a template is fantastic. I've already begun the process of building new PayPal linked galleries to tie into my existing galleries generated by iWeb. As an example, you can view my wildflower gallery.
There is more to say about this and I'll likely write about it soon. My suggestion is that if you are a frustrated Aperture user that you try Lightroom if you have not already. I was put off by the workflow at first but I'm finding that it fits much better than I thought it would. If you do give it a try I'll leave you with one final thought, a tip really. Much has been made of the module-based workflow of Lightroom which can seem a bit difficult at first. Here's the tip: you can hit the d key and jump right to the full screen develop module which is similar to Aperture's full screen editing which is a click of the f key. Different but not that different. Want to jump back to the grid of your Library? Hit the g key.
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