Lightroom Secrets - Latest Comments

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

davidjschloss — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:31:51 -0000

"I am really going to have to disagree with you on image quality. LR3 is well beyond any of its competitors in this area. I've also run images that range from well exposed through extreme noise and every time LR3 yielded the best results. That's at least what I have seen and, with few exceptions, "better results" is mostly a subjective assessment. ;-)"

Maybe that's part of the issue here. Better results aren't subjective. If you shoot test images in controlled ways then you can easily check for the color accuracy of your images, the artifacting resolved or not resolved by the RAW conversion engine and most specifically noise handling.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

Sean McCormack/Lightroom Blog — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:25:40 -0000

That's a big presumption David. Lightroom Preset stackability depends on how they were saved initially. If someone makes a preset that has all the settings included then, yes it will overwrite anything that precedes it. But if it only stores things it affects directly, e.g. Tone Curve settings, then presets can be cumulative. I've posted before that a good working practice is to only include the settings that the preset actually requires.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

davidjschloss — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:19:43 -0000

Sorry, I didn't see your comment earlier about the multiple libraries— the trainer would not have been drummed out for telling you to split libraries. Lots of people do. So many in fact that Aperture 3's library management tools now include exporting any project or folder or album as a library, and the ability to seamlessly merge or import that into your library.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

davidjschloss — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:17:29 -0000

Aperture 3 has presets Paul. And in Aperture they're stackable, while in LR they are not. In other words if you apply a vignetting and toning preset in LR and then apply a film simulation preset, you end up with just the film simulation preset. In Aperture, if you do the same thing, you can choose if you want the later preset to replace the former, or add them both together.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

davidjschloss — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:14:30 -0000

Confusion about the issue doesn't mean the issue exists. Set your preview images small and you'll get a smaller increase in size on the Library. I'd like to see what tests you peformed to tell that "Aperture still expands the Library at a quicker pace than Lightroom..."

This is certainly true if you're making books, as the template for a book would take up space, but then you're not talking about comparative things. LR would be taking up less space while doing less.

And the 500+mb installer space for Aperture, that's because it contains the resources for the features LR doesn't have. All the book templates slideshows, etc, all have graphics, and they all live in that.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

davidjschloss — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:10:55 -0000

Actually you can add text to any of the slideshows in Aperture 3. Additionally there are seven different Slideshow templates to choose from, and even the stock one can be customized in terms of background color, transition times, effects, ken burns, type, border, crop and more.

Re: What I’d Like to See in Lightroom 4

Nic — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:07:27 -0000

Lens distortion correction would be huge for me.

And if they got rid of the separation between library and develop. Sometimes there's library tools I want in develop mode, and vice versa.

Re: What I’d Like to See in Lightroom 4

facebook-600264407 — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:10:33 -0000

They still don't have the basics right. They need to add a keyword browser. Picture Navigation in Windows Live Photo Gallery is WAY better than lightroom. Just copy the left hand tab from Live Photo Gallery.

Re: What I’d Like to See in Lightroom 4

Mecworks — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:43:45 -0000

I'd like to see perspective/lens (barrel) distortion correction and dark-frame noise reduction.

Re: What I’d Like to See in Lightroom 4

rosewood — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:00:46 -0000

Facial recognition and facebook-esque tagging.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

Len — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:45:00 -0000

The URL for the review is http://www.photo-topics.info

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

Len — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:41:25 -0000

I edited five images in Lightroom and then I edited the same images in Aperture 3. It took 12 minutes in Lightroom and 15 minutes in Aperture 3. I videoed the tests and you can see the videos by going to my website http://photo-topics.

I also updated my Aperture 3 review. Aperture's performance is its biggest problem. Having to wait for the screen to catch up to your changes is just frustrating. Lightroom, for the most part, keeps pace with my brush strokes and slider changes. Aperture's PROCESSING spinning wheel is on way to much to allow me to be productive. As I mentioned before, I will be using Aperture 3 for my personal photographs and videos. It has some great features that Lightroom doesn't have.

Re: I Have Lightroom. Do I Need Photoshop?

genemcc — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:52:55 -0000

Open preferences and go to the External Editing tab. Set up pse in the additional external editor section. When you are done be sure to go back up to the dropdown and give editor preset a new name like "PS Elements". Now it will appear in the menu when you go to PHOTO...EDIT IN...

Check a previous article I did that has some screenshots of this process http://bit.ly/bJmZeW

I hope that helps!

Re: I Have Lightroom. Do I Need Photoshop?

chitom — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:53:08 -0000

Thank you, Gene... How does one set up an "alternate external editor"? I cannot find it in the guide... Thank you for your help...

Re: I Have Lightroom. Do I Need Photoshop?

genemcc — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:05:09 -0000

Hi chitom!

LR 2.x doesn't support pse 7. You can set it up as an alternate external editor though. Once LR 3 is fully released it should see pse 7.

Re: I Have Lightroom. Do I Need Photoshop?

chitom — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 14:56:47 -0000

I have a different problem... How do I get my LT 2.6 to recognize Photoshop Elements 7.0 as my outside editor? It recognized 5.0 but after I upgraded to 7.0 and uninstalled 5.0, I can't get my LT to recognize the upgraded version.

Re: Lightroom Gets The Red Out!

genemcc — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:27:57 -0000

Thanks Laura! That's a great point.

Re: Lightroom Gets The Red Out!

Laura Shoe — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:25:34 -0000

Great post, Gene! I would just add that if, after working on the second eye you want to go back and adjust the first eye some more, simply click back on the circle around the first eye to make it active, then continue to adjust it.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

genemcc — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:15:33 -0000

I'll agree to a RAW draw. LOL There are so many variables.

LR full screen has no other interface visible. No edges and half inch stripe at the bottom. LR has true full screen capabilities.

Yes, as much as I enjoy their products, Apple is a generally condescending company. "We know what you need and that's what we'll give you." They are a very secretive organization and don't reach out to their users for input. Case in point, a closed 2 year development cycle for Ap with no public beta or general user input.

The best thing that comes out of all of this is the competition. Ap pushes LR, LR responds, Ap goes one better, LR... and so on. Whether you are an Ap user or LR user, everyone benefits from the "features fight".

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

rockaway — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:40:49 -0000

Ap seems to have different RAW processing depending on camera model. May or may not be similar to Lr's camera profiles. Overall, all the competing tools are doing a good job these days -- especially when one considers that the final output is a print. In the printed output, it's fair to call it a draw.

Full screen = no other interface visible. Lr always has at least a quarter inch of interface visible around the edge of the "full" screen and a half inch stripe at the bottom. Very nice, but not quite full.

Condescending? Pros have been asking Adobe for these Aperture features for years: Soft Proofing, Tethered Shooting...

Glad to see the state of the art continuing to evolve.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

genemcc — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:10:36 -0000

Thanks Rockaway!

No. I didn't have the 3.0.1 update available when I took my initial look. These are first impressions until the final version of LR3 ships. I'm glad that the sluggishness has been addressed.

I will disagree with you on the full screen issue. LR operates in full screen mode very easily. When you go to full screen mode there's nothing else there but what you are concentrating on (image or library, etc.). It is fair to call it full screen because... it is.

Yes, Ap does allow for a referenced library similar to LR. Even so, Ap's reference implementation still grows at a quicker pace than LR. LR does provide easy tools to consolidate and move files distributed across multiple drives to one drive or one drive to many. LR will act on the source files and not just on the catalog references. Now, to be fair, I am intrigued by the vault concept and can see a value there when you have drive space to spare. With the plummeting costs of drives this gets to be less of an issue. It really only remains on space conscious laptop environments. I think LR can learn from this feature.

I am really going to have to disagree with you on image quality. LR3 is well beyond any of its competitors in this area. I've also run images that range from well exposed through extreme noise and every time LR3 yielded the best results. That's at least what I have seen and, with few exceptions, "better results" is mostly a subjective assessment. ;-)

I can sympathize with our windows cousins. I was a windows user for many years (and still am during the workday). Not being on windows for a pro app limits the professional who locks themselves into Ap. LR pros can more easily interact since LR is on both platforms. While I really like Apple's hardware and most of their ecosystem, I do find them to be a little condescending to the community at large.

Thanks for reading! I'll be taking another look later on. In the end, both Ap and LR are tools and the end user needs to pick the tool that fits them best.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

rockaway — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:43:03 -0000

Glad to see the comparo, Gene. Just a few notes from my end:

I hope you tested using the recently released Ap3.0.1 update. It fixed the performance issues that you reported.

I switched from Ap1 to Lr1 (then Lr2, now 3beta) when Lr was released, but Ap3 has changed my mind. I don't consider full screen mode a relevant reason to tip scales in favor of one or the other, but it's not fair to call Lr's implementation really "full screen". It's not.

In most of these comparisons that have popped up online, it's common to see disparaging comments about Apple's monolithic Library structure and how elegantly Lr handles this issue. This couldn't be further from the truth. BOTH APPS have given users a choice of a monolithic managed library or referenced files in OS folders for a long time. But Ap has a clear lead in this area with its ability to consolidate and/or relocate masters that are referenced in projects. With one menu command, Ap lets you pull together all of the files that you might have distributed across four different hard drives, and then relocate all of those files to a different or remote drive. Can't do that with Lr. I'm also not aware of a Lr equivalent to Ap's Vault feature, which maintains live backups across any number of remote servers. Yes, Lr can backup it's catalog, but not the master files. Ap makes this a set and forget feature.

But when push comes to shove, the most important feature for photographers is image quality. It's not correct to state that Adobe is clearly the leader in this area. I recently spent some time reprocessing a number of RAW files from several of my cameras in Ap3.0.1, Lr2.6, Lr3.0b, Canon DPP, and C1Pro5.1. I even tried to evaluate Bibble, but you can't get them to send an eval serial number, so they're out. The results of the test surprised me. Ap3's raw engine is clearly better than Adobe's RAW engine, and also better than C1Pro and DPP. Most of my testing was on high ISO files from Canon 7D, but I also tested with older 20D and 1DMk3 files. Ap renders files with less noise, and more detail. End of story.

Sorry about the cranky Windows users complaints, but Apple's just not interested in making pro apps for customers who don't buy into the Apple ecosystem. iTunes for Windows sells iPods and iPhones. Ap and Final Cut have proven to be compelling reasons for pros to switch to Mac. That's why you'll never see their pro apps on Windows. Your note about usage trends correctly states that pros are abandoning Windows in increasing numbers -- I don't blame them. Of course Adobe makes identical versions for both, but the OS integration of Ap with MacOS X is hard to dislike.

All in all, I think your comparo was fair, given that you don't write an "Aperture Secrets" blog. Keep up the great work!

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

genemcc — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 06:44:30 -0000

Thanks albertomaria!

LR2 handles large catalogs much better than LR1 did. LR3 promises to handle them even better. We'll have to see. I have seen quite a few reports of Aperture's overall sluggishness.

Don't dismiss LR's slideshow. There's quite a lot there. And you aren't limited to whatever Apple decides you should have. As for seamless workflow, I've found that FotoMagico does a marvelous job with slideshows and it reads LR catalogs just as easily as iPhoto libraries. It's worth a look if you do a lot of slideshow work.

LR3 will have no problems reading LR2 catalogs. That functionality is not currently active in the beta but will be in the final release. (The same issue arose during the LR1 to LR2 phase.) Adobe doesn't want you converting your catalogs wholesale to a Beta version. You should work in LR2 but test a few things in LR3 Beta. Once the final release drops you can go ahead and open then old catalogs in LR3.
I'm not sure what you mean by "splitted libraries". The transition between these two programs is not a simple task. Especially if you have a large collection of heavily edited work. But once you get to LR You'll be happy.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

genemcc — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 06:35:34 -0000

Thanks Andy!

I haven't looked at that application for a while. I'll have to try it out again to see if it has gotten better since I first encountered it.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

albertomaria — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 03:28:18 -0000

Most interesting and revealing Gene, although my greatest worry is to keep all the plugin-suit 5 for aperture into lightroom. I also found LR slower with large catalogs, but found a tip to optimise the catalog and files (a night job so don't attempt to do it during the day). The next obstacle is the interfacing with apple's ecosystem. iPhoto experience made slide shows a piece of cake and stunning for friends or customers. Nothing like that in LR. While web publishing is certainly much a pro in LR than in Apple's baby. I didn't quite understand the easyness of shifting between LR and Aperture with the splitted libraries could you explain? Moreover I saw that LR3 does not read LR2 catalog easily such as A2 with A3. Am I correct or missleaded? In any case I will read your final review and appreciate your professional and clear view. Thank you.