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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Lightroom or Aperture?
David Sokol, Photographer
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Reading | MA | USA | Posted: 12:41 AM on 08.16.06 |
| ->> I'm in the process of a possible purchase and wondering what people's opinions are on either Aperture or Lightroom (or stick with Photo Mechanic for now?). |
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Delane B. Rouse, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Washington | DC | US | Posted: 12:56 AM on 08.16.06 |
| ->> Stick with photo mechanic! |
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Michael Hickey, Photographer
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Kokomo | IN | United States | Posted: 1:21 AM on 08.16.06 |
->> Photo Mechanic and Aperture/Lightroom are not really comparable.
Photo Mechanic is mainly for sorting, choosing, captioning and sending.
Aperture/Lightroom are archival, raw processing and image management programs. They offer the benefits of Photo Mechanic, Photoshop, Portfolio/Cumulus all rolled into one and really much more.
I personally use Aperture and absolutely love it for certain things. It's not perfect, requires lots of memory and it bogs down on really big projects, but if you keep the projects and folders moderately sized it's really a breeze. I'm still on a PPC and I'm anxious to work with it on an Intel where it should be even faster. It's definitely not a Photoshop killer, you'll still need PS for extensive image enhancement and Aperture doesn't operate like any other program on a Mac I've ever used so the learning curve could be a little daunting but it's not difficult, just different. |
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Chris Ivin, Photographer
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Sydney | NSW | Australia | Posted: 2:47 AM on 08.16.06 |
->> well - you haven't really said what you expect or need to do with your software.
I shoot RAW mostly these days and
use Capture 1 (www.phaseone.com) for processing and
Thumbs+ (www.cerious.com) for cataloging/batch captioning and Photoshelter for archiving.
I've looked at LightRoom but its way too slow in the Beta version to be usable (IMHO) |
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Cameron Davidson, Photographer
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Arlington | VA | USA | Posted: 7:10 AM on 08.16.06 |
->> "->> Photo Mechanic and Aperture/Lightroom are not really comparable. "
Well, actually Photo Mechanic is pretty important to any of the programs. Aperture does not allow you to rename the images within file header - it uses a side bar file.
I've been using Aperture with Photo Mechanic. The first step is to rename in Photo Mechanic, add the ITPC data I need - including a technique where I place the file name in the keywords file in case a client "renames the file" from the name I've given it from the shoot to "blond with arm raised" or something descriptive like, "image upper left page.jpg." (which has happened)
When you rename your files before import into Aperture - it carries those names and data within the file - not as a sidecar. If you "loose" your data - either in the Library or sidecar - you are back to square one with the original camera defined names. "_F1N3498.tif" versus "michael_hickey_001.tif" is a lot easier to find if needed.
So, there is a place for both programs. Photo Mechanic excels at creating quick simple web galleries and as a base editing program.
At the moment, you need to do this before importing the files in to Aperture. Maybe in the future this will change. For me, it is worth the effort to make sure that the files are properly named with the ITPC data embedded into the file.
PM is an exceptional program at doing what it does best. It is not a do-everything program - but often times, it is the right tool for the job. Simple and easy to use. |
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Michael Hickey, Photographer
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Kokomo | IN | United States | Posted: 7:46 AM on 08.16.06 |
->> Valid point Cameron, but if the file header was actually renamed than Aperture couldn't brag about NEVER altering the RAW file. I think it would be relatively difficult to lose the sidecar files since they are all self contained within the Aperture archive, plus you should be backing up with the Vault and then you can feel even more at ease.
I'll be the first to admit I still use Photo Mechanic quite often, our office prefers the proofs we get out of PM and my workflow is sort of tied to it for now, but Aperture keeps creeping in more every day. |
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