Aperture or Lightroom

bevin · Feb 2, 2009

For those of you who have used BOTH programs could you let me know which you prefer?

Cheers

mindy-lynn · Feb 2, 2009

I didn't know aperture was a program?

jglovac · Feb 2, 2009

Ya it's a program for the mac.
I mostly use aperture, but I also use lightroom as well.
They're both pretty much the same for the ability to edit the small things. Although with a mac I find it easier to use aperture because with it being an apple program, it's a lot more integrated with other programs.

sultan · Feb 2, 2009

Yup, Apple Aperture is a program

(its a photo workflow program, specializing in RAW)

I use Aperture and personally prefer it over Lightroom because the interface is more "normal" and I'm used to it. They are both good, and have their strengths and weaknesses. Try the trials and see which one you prefer. Its totally subjective.

P.S. I don't know about Lightroom because I haven't used it on a large screen, but I know that Aperture needs a good graphics card to run smoothly (on a large display). The 7300 GT that came with my Mac Pro struggles to perform some tasks in Aperture with my gargantuan 30" ACD. However, it runs very nicely on my old white 17" iMac with a 128MB X1600 because the screen is small.

bevin · Feb 2, 2009

Yayh, thank you for your input. I have a MacBook, with a Gb of RAM coming(to bump it up to 2Gb) so hopefully it will be sweet.

I am in the process of downloading both trials but since I'm such a noob the only think that will be a factor for me is how intuitive they are to use, how easy it is to sort through and delete photos and then some basic editing. I thought I'd check to see if there's much of a difference when it comes to more advanced editing, though I do have PS so I gues it doesn't matter too much.

Aperture is cheaper so so far that's winning

chrisburke · Feb 3, 2009

lightroom is a far better program. the work flow is much nicer and I found it to be a lot more user friendly (i could do just about anything right away, whereas with aperture, i had to read a lot first).

I gave aperture an honest try (for about 2 weeks) then tried lightroom for the same... i just found it a lot easier to use lightroom, and there is a LOT more help out there for lightroom... lightroomkillertipsandtricks is an amazing podcast that i found about a year after i started using lightroom, and it completely revolutionized the way i used lightroom.

also in regards to you upgrading your ram in your macbook... if you go to www.canadaram.com you can get 4gb of ram for just over 100 bucks (CAD) and its 2 paired 2gb sticks... its the cheapest place i've found ram for mac computers.

tsaraleksi · Feb 3, 2009

Aperture really annoyed me when I've used it-- it just doesn't function with the same ease as Lightroom, particularly when it comes to file management.

inTempus · Feb 3, 2009

I have both, and I agree that Lightroom2 is a better overall program. Both will get the job done, I just prefer the interface and end results of using Lightroom2. I've actually uninstalled Aperture now.

chrisburke · Feb 3, 2009

yea, i was the same, i had aperture on here as well, for quite a while.. but just removed it last week cause i dont ever use it.

sultan · Feb 3, 2009

chrisburke said:
also in regards to you upgrading your ram in your macbook... if you go to www.canadaram.com you can get 4gb of ram for just over 100 bucks (CAD) and its 2 paired 2gb sticks... its the cheapest place i've found ram for mac computers.

I Canada Computers is cheaper - Canada Computers - Memory > Notebook Memory > DDR2 667 PC2-5300 : Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 200-Pin SO-DIMM PC2 5300 DDR2 667MHz Dual Channel Notebook Memory Low-Latency CL4 (4-4-4-12) (KHX5300S2LLK2/4G). - and thats low latency CL4 too. Its regular SO-DIMM memory and it works fine in any computer, mac or PC. But then, our friend here is American, so I don't think that Canadian stores would be of any use to him :lol: