Lightroom vs. Aperture

[Leah]

I've always used LR on my PC, but now with my new Mac, I'm considering Aperture. I'm not sure what I think of iPhoto. I preferred importing my photos in to a folder and am not sure how to do that on here just yet.

Who here uses LR and/or Aperture? Did anyone switch from one to the other? Which do you prefer?

[Lyd]

I JUST switched to Aperture from iPhoto. To be honest, iPhoto was working great for me for photo organization but I never used it for photo editing (except maybe fixing a red eye here and there). But, the most recent version of iPhoto (which looks really pretty and does some things really well) completely messed up my photo tagging system, so I reinstalled my older version until I could make the switch to Aperture.

So, Friday was when I installed Aperture, and I spent a lot of time yesterday getting all my keywords organized and making sure my iPhoto library imported properly. And, now I'm ready to get going. Just from playing around, I am really liking their Adjustment controls for photo editing. I know Lynnette also uses Aperture, and she's been using it for a little while, so she probably has some good tips.

I don't think you would ever regret getting Lightroom. I've only heard great things about it. But, it is much more pricey than Aperture, so that's something you have to weigh.

I'll be watching this thread to see what pointers others might have for using Aperture.

ETA: If you have been using LR for photo editing, you will not be happy with iPhoto. It will not be nearly as powerful as what you are used to. It should work fine for organization though.

[BrattyMeg]

Lynnette used Aperture. I'll try and find the blog post she did about it

[BrattyMeg]

here ya go
http://www.nettiodesigns.com/2012/03...pple-aperture/

[Leah]

Ooooh that's an awesome article - thank you Meg!

Honestly, I edit my photos all in ACR and then further in Photoshop. What I use LR for is importing, resizing and exporting. lol Pretty lame I know.

What about the equivalent of LR presets that you can buy, can you get something similar in Aperture?

[Nettio]

Thanks for linking that up Meg!

Yes, I switched from LR 2 to Aperture 3 last July and much like I don't miss my PC, I haven't missed LR either.

The only feature that annoys me is the way the import in Aperture deals with duplicate files. If you rename the master file name on import and don't reformat your card, it's not smart enough to realize it's the same file where as Lightroom had no issue with that. So now I just try to remember to reformat the CF card after I import images which I probably should have been doing anyway. But otherwise I've been really happy and I say the simplicity of the program makes up for the odd quirk here and there for me.

As far as presets, I know there are some out there if you google around but I never used LR presets either so it's not something I've looked into much. I just use the Edit in Photoshop link and do any special editing with the Totally Rab Rab Lab plug-in instead which is what I did in LR anyway.

Oh and I never used iPhoto since I already had LR when I switched, but from what I've seen most of the limitation issues people have with iPhoto aren't an issue in Aperture. It's much much more robust than iPhoto.

If you have any other questions, let me know!