[jagra28]

Obviously, if I'm asking this question, I have a Mac.

I need a little more power when it comes to managing the photos I'm importing to my computer, and while I have CS5, I think Aperture or Lightroom might be a good way to go. As a Mac user, I'm inclined toward Aperture; as a student at a university with a site license for Lightroom ($80 vs. $170 for Aperture), I'm inclined toward Lightroom.

Anyone care to weigh in with some pros/cons of the two?

Thanks.

[Bob from Aus]

I can only say that Lightroom 3 has a lot of good things going for it. For what ever reason Aperature seems to be ahead on features like processing GPS tags. I see no reason (provided you have the space) why someone wouldn't have a desktop just for storing and processing and backingup images on an IBM compatible and do everything else on a Mac.

My wife has aperature and an mac notebook. She takes about 5% of what I do and I think her setup is a nightmare due to lack of hard disk space. it would be the same issue if it were lightroom and a windows notebook.

Which ever way you go if you take a lot of photos you need a lot of hard drives. I have 5 internal hard drives and plus six external drives. Once you have processed images it's a nightmare to start moving things between drives. You really need to work out what hard drive space you need over the next 3 years and then multiply by 4. (I fill at least one internal drive a year)

[Frogfish]

I love and prefer A3 to LR3 but there are major differences so you'll have to see which one suits you best. However also take a look at the excellent Bibble Pro 5 - it looks a lot like LR 3 but is incredibly fast in loading libaries and rendering edits (the fastest of any viewer/processing software I have ever used).

N.B. My A3 library is stored and accessed offline and when editing it's easy to just plug it into the USB port and away you go. You can still open A3 and view your photographs when not connected (but can't edit them).

[mtansley]

I've used both and now use Lightroom 3. For me, it works as I like it to work.

However, both of them do very similar things and it is a personal decision.

Download the trials of both and give each a hard workout.

[mysticcowboy]

If you don't go through the Apple store, I think you can still download a 30 free trial. You certainly can with Lightroom. Try them both. See which one you like. They're roughly equal in capability, though they work differently. If you have an older Mac, Lightroom will run much faster. With a current model, Aperture is fast enough.

[boriscleto]

If you are going to run Aperture make sure you have plenty of RAM. 4GB at a minimum, 8GB is much better.

[bbpeters]

Aperture is $79 through the app store.

[reeftool]

If you are going to run Aperture make sure you have plenty of RAM. 4GB at a minimum, 8GB is much better.

I'm not a Mac user but the above statement is true of Lightroom 3 also. It uses a lot of computer resources.

[Sperdynamite]

I used to run App 3 but I've switched to Lightroom. LR has an inferior user interface, and is slower. But it's got better processing tools in the develop window and ACR is pretty robust as a raw processor. I liked the lens corrections, grain effects, curves right in the tool bar, and integration with Photoshop.

I'm sticking with Lightroom unless Apple does something really crazy with Aperture. However I think they're marketing it as an iPhoto+ now, as opposed to it's launch as a Pro App. As much as I hate to say it (I'm no Adobe fan), it makes sense to stick with Adobe products when doing medium to high end imaging.

Oh and the "Find My Pictures" function in Aperture is so bad it drives me freaking crazy. It's very resistant to letting you create your own database around a system.

[Frogfish]

I used to run App 3 but I've switched to Lightroom. LR has an inferior user interface, and is slower. But it's got better processing tools in the develop window and ACR is pretty robust as a raw processor. I liked the lens corrections, grain effects, curves right in the tool bar, and integration with Photoshop.

NOT wanting to start yet another Mac/Pc war but A3 has a great lens correction for a few dollars via PTLens plug-in, has grain effect via a multitude of presets and curves is also right there in the tool-bar. The RAW processor is great too. I trailed all three (A3, LR3 and Bibble Pro 5) before selecting A3 (it just works better on a Mac). However for those people not really bothered about committing to A3/LR3 and who just want a fast (and I mean really really fast) tool (and are not bothered about adding plug-ins/presets) then there is nothing to come close to Bibble Pro 5 (which looks and acts lot like LR when you open it up). Speed-wise BP5 is a Ferrari compared to A3/LR3's Ford.

[twitch]

Aperture makes creating quality photobooks so easy even I can do it.... case closed

[mysticcowboy]

I'm not a Mac user but the above statement is true of Lightroom 3 also. It uses a lot of computer resources.

Yes, Lightroom uses resources but is noticeably faster than Aperture, especially if you have less than 8 GB of RAM.

[enoxatnep]

I'm mad at myself because when I bought my MacBook Pro in July 2010 I bought A3 "just because" and didn't even attempt the trial of LR. So I got really good at Aperture and figured out most of its features, but then started to get annoyed at some of its 'bugginess' (the darn thing just "wouldn't work" and would hang up and crash - not always, but often enough), its relative ineffectiveness with noise reduction, and lack of lens correction options and only then decided to give LR3 a try. There were other things about A3 that I found clumsy or not too intuitive but better in LR3, but I won't go into details. Needless to say, not long after I enthusiastically bought the full version of LR3. For the record, my experiences with learning A3 also made the learning curve for LR3 much easier.

Like Sperdynamite, I think the post-processing effects are better, especially noise reduction. I was particularly blown away by the lens corrections options. And being able to adjust tone and saturation by clicking and dragging on very specific portions of a photo just can't be beat. I also really like the Survey view mode. Overall, LR3 seems to give you more post-processing options, or maybe they don't - but in any case, to me they're just easier to implement and are more logically organized, so maybe it just seems like I'm getting more options than A3.

I've also read rumblings in many places that Adobe is committed to keeping LR a truly professional program whereas Apple seems to be dumbing things down more to the level of a consumer app, more like iPhoto on steroids. I strongly believe you get what you pay for; the extra $100 is getting you a truly professional RAW processing app that seems set on being the gold standard long into the future.

If you're really into geotagging or, as twitch mentioned, photobooks, then by all means stick with Aperture. Otherwise, LR3 to me has the clear advantages minus the "sexier" Apple interface. Lightroom 4 is supposed to come out early next year - not sure exactly when - so maybe it's best to hold off until then, or buy the full version of LR3 now and buy the cheaper upgrade then.

One last thing: I was annoyed at first by thinking I had to switch between the Library and Develop modes in LR3 by clicking on them at the top of the window; in A3, all I had to do was press "W" to toggle between modes. However, I later learned that all I have to do in LR3 to view photos in a grid is to press "G", to view a single photo press "E", then to develop/process the photo press "D". Not as quick as toggling, but still quick enough.

EDIT: I should add that the only really annoying thing I've found about LR3 is that their Clone and Heal brushes (Clone and Repair in A3) are far easier and quicker to use and much more flexible in A3; in LR3 I'm forced to do these in an external editor. If you're touching up blemishes, unwanted objects, etc. a lot, this is an important consideration.

[enoxatnep]

Yes, Lightroom uses resources but is noticeably faster than Aperture, especially if you have less than 8 GB of RAM.

For the record, even with 8GB of RAM, LR3 has never hung or crashed on me but A3 has (did) on several occasions.

[twitch]

I agree with most of what you've said except for the bit about "dumbing" down of Aperture, whoever said that is completely misinformed, it's FUD. The features are getting more and more powerful with every release not less.

I think the photobooks feature is under valued to be honest. Getting our images on paper is super important, and Aperture makes it incredibly easy; there's no exporting of jpegs and importing them into an external photobook piece of software like LR users have to do. Yeah it's possible to do, but how many LR users actually go ahead and do it? I'll bet Aperture users on average have more photobooks of their work than LR users. I'll take that every day of the week over avoiding round tripping to PTLens or DeNoise for the occasional image.

EDIT: Aperture integration with AppleTV is also very nice, and the new photostream feature integrates nicely too (apparently)