Lightroom Secrets - Latest Comments

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.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

Andy — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:51:01 -0000

I do not think that Adobe should just focus on Apple Aperture. I have made the decision between Ligthroom and Aperture, years ago and I do not regret it or even would think about changing.
But for color, aperture, contrast or saturation I still prefer to use Phase One, especially for Digital Back RAW files. I personally believe for tip quality RAW converter Phase One is the benchmark not Aperture or Lightroom.
So perhaps you should do a review on Lightroom versus Phase One 5.1?

Re: How Fast Will Your New Camera’s RAW Files be Supported?

John Smith — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:37:17 -0000

But Aperture _does_ support DNG. It has for over 2 years.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

genemcc — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:37:07 -0000

Thanks, Laura! These are just initial impressions. Once the final version of Lightroom 3 ships I'll take another look.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

Laura Shoe — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:54:47 -0000

Great article, Gene - thank you. I can't agree or disagree because I don't have a Mac or access to Aperture, but this helps me to understand the differences better.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

genemcc — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:19:17 -0000

Sorry to hear that. I guess the OS switch is easier than the LR/Aperture switch. Yes, they have excellent plugins and I'm glad to see them finally bundling to bring down the prices.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

paulstorer — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:00:22 -0000

I tried that twice via Email and on the phone. I even tried the license key in the Lightroom Beta but no joy. I bought the whole set even though I only wanted Silver FX it was only a fraction more for the whole set of tools. I do like their noise reduction tool as well

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

genemcc — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:56:01 -0000

Thanks Paul!

You may want to check with Nik. I know when I switched from Windows to Mac I didn't have to repurchase any plugins. Perhaps they will do something similar if you switch from Aperture to Lightroom. All of Nik's filters have Lightroom plugins.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

paulstorer — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:19:09 -0000

I am / was a confirmed Aperture 2 user until I tried the Lightroom 3 Beta. At the moment I find I am using Lightroom 3 for most of my editing. I have set up and installed from other people lots of presets to simplify.

For me this is the one area where I think Lightroom wins - It's not something that many people pickup on but to have a set of presets you can apply to one or more photographs improves workflow speed. As a social photographer workflow speed is important and I don't want to drop in and out of photoshop to get the effect I want.

However - when I have done this editing I will pull the images into Aperture as I think the DAM facilities are better. I know the library gets big but a tip I got from an Aperture trainer (he has to remain nameless or he will be drummed off of Apples training team) was to split libraries and I find this works quite well. If I work on a laptop I will export a project to the laptop and re-import it when i've finished.

The big question for me is what will I do when Abobe release Lightroom 3 as an official version; do I buy?

The answer is probably no! I have invested in plug in tools for Aperture (NIK software) and to buy Lightroom means I have to buy these tools again or do without. One of the tools is Silver FX Pro - probably the best black and white processor on the market - It's not cheap so this will make me move to Aperture 3 rather than Lightroom. To me in someways it's reminiscent of the Canon vs Nikon arguement

Sorry for the ramble guys

Regards

Paul Storer
www.paulstorerphotography.com

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

genemcc — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:42:06 -0000

I agree Ian. I am always an advocate for choosing the tool that works best for you. Still, I think comparisons are useful in the decision making process. Aperture users who do the comparisons will miss nuances of Lightroom and vice versa. Taken as a whole, though, these comparisons add value to the discussion.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

Ian Eisenberg — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:50:38 -0000

But again this is a simple misunderstanding of what a package is. Right-click and choose show contents and you have access to the folder (since that is what a package is anyway).
I agree that it can be a difference in what you know and how you work. That is why I hate comparisons like this.
Both programs offer rich features that are considered "better" by one person or another. It is simply a matter of what you find works for you, so any article that goes through point by point will miss the mark. Your last sentence covers exactly what should be said. Download the trials and see what works for you
I as an educator have to stay concurrent with both applications. In class I will never recommend one app over the other. I show features and suggest people try them to see which works for them.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

genemcc — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:27:41 -0000

Thanks Ian! That is a good point. However, even when running with referenced files Aperture still expands the Library at a quicker pace than Lightroom does it's catalog.

This goes back to the ecosystem you're used to. I've never been a fan of how Apple piles everything into a package rather than folders. I understand that packages are useful for many things but users I talk with continually get confused by them when they are used for data. Packages for apps doesn't seem to be as much of an issue.

Re: Aperture 3: Is It Time To Switch?

Ian Eisenberg — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 23:53:53 -0000

Your review touches on the Aperture Library vs. the Lightroom Catalog while ignoring the differences. They are not the same.
If you choose to use a managed workflow in Aperture then all your images and the information used in finishing (retouching, adjustments, etc.) are contained in the Library. Lightroom's catalog does not contain the images and that is why the disparate sizes. Should you choose to use reference files (my preferred method and similar to Lightroom's catalog) then the file size does not become unmanageable.