Lightroom
Lightroom 2.0 Beta And Aperture 2.1
2008-04-04
Thomas Fiztgerald compares Lightroom 2.0 Beta To Aperture 2.1.
Undoubtedly in response to pre-empt any traction by Apple’s rapidly updated Aperture 2 software, Adobe has released a beta of the next version of its competing Lightroom, now at 2.0. As always, comparisons abound, and as always fans of either software will draw their respective lines in the sand.
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Aperture 2.0 vs. Lightroom 1.3 At High ISO
2008-02-25
James Duncan Davidson compares the performance of Aperture 2.0 and Lightroom 1.3 at 3200 ISO. He's a Canon user.
At the Money:Tech 2008 conference a few weeks ago in New York City, I mostly took the high ISO approach and shot almost exclusively at ISO 3200 with my Canon 1D Mark III’s. Of course, an ISO 3200 image has noise in it. The question is how well does the combination of camera and RAW processor render that noise.
CNET Is Asking Which Is Better: Aperture Or Lightroom
2008-02-23
This article on CNET asks you to vote:
The good news is that there's some competition again for software to edit and catalog raw images, the detailed and flexible file formats from higher-end cameras. The bad news is that anybody buying the software has a harder choice to make.
Handy Cheat Sheets For Aperture And Lightroom
2007-12-05
Greg Newman has cheat sheets for Aperture and Lightroom on his site. His screen shots take you to Flickr, so don't go there.
What you really need is to look for the links under the images and download the ZIP files, two for Lightroom (Mac and Windows) and one for Aperture. After unzipping you'll find a large PNG image for on-screen use and a PDF for printing.
A Quick Look At Photon 1.0
2007-11-05
Photon is a RAW workflow utility designed to do one thing well: let me view and sort my images quickly before I import the good ones into a more heavyweight tool like Aperture or Lightroom.
As soon as I put my card into a reader, Photon starts reading and converting RAW files, putting thumbnails into the area on the left. I can start working with images right away: no need to wait for the download to finish. Photon maxed out both my CPUs as it downloaded at about 7MB per second from my USB card reader.
Across the top are stacks: general purpose bins for images. The currently selected stack populates the thumbnail pane, so clicking on a different stack shows me a different set of images. Each card initially goes into its own stack.
To process my images I scroll through the thumbnails with the left and right arrow keys and restack the images using whatever criteria make sense for me. Each stack has a single-key short-cut, called a hotkey (the numbers 1 and 2 in the screen shot above). I can reassign these to any keys I like. 7, 8, 9, X might relate to ratings. I could add a stack called T for trash and another called P for print. If I were shooting a wedding I could assign hotkeys for different locations or people. There is no need to drag and drop images, just pressing the hotkey moves the image to the stack assigned to that key and shows the next image in the viewer. I can process 1000 images with only 1000 key presses this way.
Zooming is simplicity itself: I click on the image and it zooms to 100% with the click point at the center:
I let go, and it returns to a scaled view. To make zooming persistent I can move the switch bottom right.
Once I have my images sorted, I am ready to export the images to disk. Since many of my images have no value and were either moved to a junk stack or skipped over, I only save some of the stacks. I can save the original RAW, or opt to have Photon convert to JPG, TIFF, or a number of other formats. Once done, I am ready to import my surviving images into Aperture or another application or process them further, maybe adding GPS data or keywords.
I found this 1.0 release of Photo to be stable and fast. There are a few rough edges to the interface and a need for refinement in some areas. Photon is short on features -- but that's good. It does what it claims to do well, and there is plenty of functionality that can be added later once customers start telling Green Volcano what they would like to see. The demo version does everything except save stacks.
As soon as I put my card into a reader, Photon starts reading and converting RAW files, putting thumbnails into the area on the left. I can start working with images right away: no need to wait for the download to finish. Photon maxed out both my CPUs as it downloaded at about 7MB per second from my USB card reader.
Across the top are stacks: general purpose bins for images. The currently selected stack populates the thumbnail pane, so clicking on a different stack shows me a different set of images. Each card initially goes into its own stack.
To process my images I scroll through the thumbnails with the left and right arrow keys and restack the images using whatever criteria make sense for me. Each stack has a single-key short-cut, called a hotkey (the numbers 1 and 2 in the screen shot above). I can reassign these to any keys I like. 7, 8, 9, X might relate to ratings. I could add a stack called T for trash and another called P for print. If I were shooting a wedding I could assign hotkeys for different locations or people. There is no need to drag and drop images, just pressing the hotkey moves the image to the stack assigned to that key and shows the next image in the viewer. I can process 1000 images with only 1000 key presses this way.
Zooming is simplicity itself: I click on the image and it zooms to 100% with the click point at the center:
I let go, and it returns to a scaled view. To make zooming persistent I can move the switch bottom right.
Once I have my images sorted, I am ready to export the images to disk. Since many of my images have no value and were either moved to a junk stack or skipped over, I only save some of the stacks. I can save the original RAW, or opt to have Photon convert to JPG, TIFF, or a number of other formats. Once done, I am ready to import my surviving images into Aperture or another application or process them further, maybe adding GPS data or keywords.
I found this 1.0 release of Photo to be stable and fast. There are a few rough edges to the interface and a need for refinement in some areas. Photon is short on features -- but that's good. It does what it claims to do well, and there is plenty of functionality that can be added later once customers start telling Green Volcano what they would like to see. The demo version does everything except save stacks.
Aperture Marketshare At 5.5% Among Pros
2007-10-31
John Nack's blog at Adobe has some interesting discussion on the results of a survey carried out by InfoTrends. I can't find the survey on the InfoTrends web site, but it shows about 4:1 Lightroom to Aperture use overall and 2:1 among Mac users.
Most pros use just Photoshop. Hard to believe, but I suspect that their workflow is simple. Also this only surveyed pros in North America. No word on the many users like me who have outgrown iPhoto and other tools.
Most pros use just Photoshop. Hard to believe, but I suspect that their workflow is simple. Also this only surveyed pros in North America. No word on the many users like me who have outgrown iPhoto and other tools.
Aperture: Dual Monitor Podcast
2007-09-21
Ken Huth has a podcast called ApertureCast that broadcast its 12th edition today. He talks to Ron Cronk, a photographer who has switched from a PC with Lightroom to a Mac with Aperture. He's using two 20" monitors and likes it very much. I have an iMac 24" and no second screen, so I've not had a chance to try this. He also shamelessly plugs my book.
Aperture vs Lightroom
2007-02-23
Now that Lightroom 1.0 has been released, the reviews and comparisons are starting to come in. Ars Technica has a review called In Search of The Perfect Workflow and O'Reilly has two writers doing real-life comparisons, working with the tools over an extended period of time to find out what they think.
If Adobe sends me a free copy, I'll give Lightroom a try and write some artciles. The 30 day trial is much too short to get into an application of that size to any depth.
If Adobe sends me a free copy, I'll give Lightroom a try and write some artciles. The 30 day trial is much too short to get into an application of that size to any depth.
Adobe Lightroom: $199, Available Mid-February
2007-01-30
Adobe Lightroom is now final. Adobe is now selling Lightroom on their site for a special introductory price of $199 ($299 after April 30th). Availability is mid-February for the English version and late-February for the French version.
For some reason they are displaying the names of many (all?) of the beta participants. The other odd thing is that I could not find a logo for Lightroom. What happened to the branding? Or is it all Photoshop now?
James Duncan Davidson on the Aperture 1.5 Color Control
2006-10-05
James Duncan Davidson comments on his blog about the new color control in Aperture 1.5 (just the top half shown):
and compares it to the one in Lightroom, now, ahem, Photoshop Lightroom:
I agree with what he says. However, he omits one major problem with the Lightroom tool: when a person goes to adjust colors they do it one color at a time; but the Lightroom tool is organized by attribute first and then color second. So to adjust one color you must jump about between the sections, hoping you don't click the wrong slider in error. Aperture gets this right and provides the color attribute controls for each color next to that color and does so using a cleaner layout.
and compares it to the one in Lightroom, now, ahem, Photoshop Lightroom:
I agree with what he says. However, he omits one major problem with the Lightroom tool: when a person goes to adjust colors they do it one color at a time; but the Lightroom tool is organized by attribute first and then color second. So to adjust one color you must jump about between the sections, hoping you don't click the wrong slider in error. Aperture gets this right and provides the color attribute controls for each color next to that color and does so using a cleaner layout.
Aperture vs. Lightroom
2006-09-05
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