Aperture vs. Lightroom

This post is for photographers – as it airs some “dirty laundry” that is more about personal preferences than it is about results.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been using Apple’s Aperture photo management software to manage all of my photography. I left iPhoto behind in 2006 and jumped on the Aperture bandwagon. I’ve been pretty happy with Aperture for photo management. It’s done most of what I needed it to do.

After my HDR session at Stanford in early September, I had lunch with a friend who was a real Adobe Photoshop Lightroom fan – another Canon shooter who also enjoyed HDR.

Over lunch we talked a bit about Aperture vs. Lightroom – and his high satisfaction with Lightroom made me take another look. This was shortly after Adobe had shipped Lightroom 2.0 – with its new Develop module enhancements: the gradient filter and the adjustment brush.

So, I bought the upgrade (I had been an earlier Lightroom 1.0 customer) and began to explore Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 – and, subsequently, 2.1. I must say that those two new Develop module features (the gradient filter and the adjustment brush) are truly remarkable additions to Lightroom and have swung me over to using Lightroom 2.1 for all of my recent shoots. (For an introduction, be sure to view Julieanne Kost’s screencast on the enhancements to the Develop module in Lightroom!)

The ability to edit 99% of what I need to do in Lightroom – without resorting to any external editing – makes my workflow so simple. I’m a new Lightroom fan – and a frustrated former Aperture fan.

My sense is that this horserace will continue – with the folks at Apple eventually adding similar features to Aperture. Perhaps Apple and Aperture will win me back – but, in the meantime, Lightroom’s got my heart! Rock on!