Hey all, As I've begun digging deeper into the whole photography thing, I've started to look at workflow options. Being as I'm a mac user, I've got a couple really good choices: Apple Aperture and Adobe Lightroom. There are some pros and cons to each system for the way that I work (though I'll acknowledge I'm not an expert on Aperture and therefore not aware of some of the great interface streamlining), but I know that neither serves my end result - which is getting the pictures into iphoto so i can hand my lappy to my parents and tell them to take a browse. Of course, there are ways to do that from either program - but I was wondering what some of the more seasoned die-hards are using. Aperture? Lightroom? Why? Got a tip to share for either?
I use Lightroom, after having tried Aperture, iPhoto, Picasa (on Windows) and old-school folder-based organization for my photos. There are a number of reasons: Over Aperture: *tagging and metadata management feels much more natural, which is REALLY critical as it's a photo organizing app *faster *UI really works much better for me - Adobe apparently worked heavily with photogs to find out what they wanted in a UI and made it *faster *files are stored in a simple folder-based layout with changes stored in a single library file - very portable *faster *the five-step workflow approach feels a lot more natural - importing/viewing, developing, printing, export for web, and something else that I never use but I'm sure would be useful for people that want it *I could swear there are more developing controls You can download a free trial so try the thing out. Exporting a photo or batch of photos to a folder is easy and quick enough, so you can then drop them right into iPhoto for your folks to browse in. Actually, that fifth mode may be a browse/slideshow thing, so it may not be necessary at all. When I switched from Aperture to Lightroom, I didn't feel as if I lost anything, but really do feel like I gained a lot. The way that I can "paint" tags on photos really quickly was probably the biggest difference, since metadata is king in an organization app. I don't remember how it was handled in Aperture, but I know it couldn't have been done well as I never used it. Oh. http://www.suffix.be/blog/lightroom-iphoto-export looks rather helpful for you I've never used it but figured there must be something out there. Supposedly Aperture lets you mirror or reference the content in iPhoto, but I was never able to get it working properly. Truth be told, I was trying to get my photos out of aperture and into iPhoto (I really felt the interface in Aperture to be that awkward no matter how powerful) but never had much luck with that either. //edit: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=1613435&postcount=19
I've heard a few good things about Lightroom. It might be worth a try. I use the old fashioned folder method. My workflow is as follows: Put memory card in computer -> cut/paste all raw images to the designated folder -> Open Digital Photo Professional (Canon's processing software that ships with cameras) -> pick the images I want -> Basic image processing (minor exposure adjustments) -> Save images as TIFF files -> Do final manipulation in Photoshop. My folder layout looks something like this: C:\Photos\Christmas 2007\Raw. All of the processed images are saved in the subject's parent folder - in this case, "Christmas 2007," while all of the raw images are stored in the "Raw" sub-folder. When I want to find an image, I can open the "Photos" directory and locate any photo I want by looking for the event. It doesn't suit everyone, but it works for me. -monkey
I do more or less the same, except I use C:\5D\year\month\date and I upload backups of each month onto my webserver.
I think the thing that attracts me about Aperture is the "move it out of here" concept. I can edit my RAW files on my macbook, then vault them over to the external drive later - and keep full-res JPEG or TIFF copies in its place. Can I really do that with Lightroom? Can I detach from my RAWs and just go back to them when they're needed? The questions, the questions.
Yes same image workflow, except i just archive all RAW's by folder\date and do a backup and every now and then a third backup.
I've been tinkering more with lightroom as per Firehed's suggestion. I like it better than aperture in many ways. One, it 'flows' a lot better. However, I have the following niggles so far: * Backup/export/grouping of original files is NOWHERE near as nice as in aperture, where you can do it by project and vault/unvault them at will to anywhere you choose. * Aperture's Loupe feature is probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen, and I will have a hard time NOT using it for that alone. It's always available, anywhere at any time - be it thumbnails in the strip, the compare table or the light table. Adobe, take note!!! * Fullscreen mode in Aperture is WAAAAAY better. Hit F, the photo goes full screen. End of story. * Why have the "quick develop" in the Library section? I always have a hard time with this - I click it and start to edit, just to realize that I'm not actually in develop mode so I am missing half my things. If you're going to compartmentalize it, I think you should just compartmentalize - let me double click the image and end up in develop mode, where I can work on it. Anyone who can address these complaints (I'd bet there's a way for pretty much everything but the loupe), please let me know.
I agree with the loupe, though once you get to know keyboard shortcuts really well you probably won't miss it. The time it often takes the loupe to load more than offsets switching in and out of a full zoom mode. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it makes it into a future version of LR though - Adobe have given all 1.x upgrades free and they tend to add new features as well as do bugfixes. Last I checked, Aperture was a lot slower to receive upgrades, often has poor support for the new cameras (I think I switched over around when the 40D was first released; while I don't own one, I took some shots in a store with one only to find out that Aperture couldn't work with its RAW files), and just didn't feel right to me. I could never really understand the 'vault' approach with Aperture. Partially because one of the times I tried to set it up, it puked all over the place because I was trying to back up to a network share, or something like that. While I want to get an OS X-based server (or at least a Linux box, though that's really no better than my current XP Pro machine stashed in a corner), I don't yet have one and NTFS hates the @ character - something Aperture uses in all sorts of file and folder names. Which means there was no way for me to back up the entire library to my NAS. That alone was a deal-breaker for me. I'm with you on quick-develop. For me, it's worse because I'm always working on a laptop and I need to keep that top view-you're-in bar minimized to preserve screen space. No advice for that other than trying to ingrain your develop mode shortcut into your workflow. At the end of the day, you really just have to try both and see which works better for you. Some will prefer Aperture, and some will prefer LR. Hell, some are going to stick with iPhoto - it's got a lot of really nice, practical features that haven't yet migrated into Aperture (skimming, for one).
I LOVE iPhoto for so many reasons. that's why I'm keeping it as part of my final workflow. I expect to use lightroom and then move the final images over to iPhoto for display. The Loupe is an interesting thing - you're totally right about zoom in/zoom out. But I just wish I could have it done in THAT format. Then again, updates are updates and I'll bet it's in there by LR2. I probably won't BUY it until then. You make good points about the vault of aperture. The @ filenames are a bit of a problem. It's a limitation of an Apple only product - it's not designed with windows flexibility in mind. Now that I'm starting to toy with Lightroom more, I can see some benefits to its own methods - I just wish it could do them a little "cleaner". I'd like to import and have it all be in a package file, but then when I've made my edits and want to move them out, be able to just click something that is "Finished" or "Export" and have it turn them to referenced masters on my portable HDD. Then I can take the iPhoto version with me. Come to think of it, though, I'm sure I can probably do that, I just need to figure out HOW. Like you, most of my editing work is on my laptop - so I feel your pain with the screen space. But the other benefit to Lightroom is it's cross platform, so i suppose I could also do work on my desktop now if I set up a little NAS box. That could be worth its weight in gold, being as I have that nice Samsung 215TW display...
