ask dr. lazyweb: raw workflow software

[dr_memory]

Dear friends who are better versed in such things than I:

Adobe Lightroom or Apple Aperture?

For context: I have been shooting with a DSLR in jpg mode for about 1.5 years now.  Mostly I’m looking for something that will let me (a) process a ton of photos quickly and painlessly and then upload them to flickr, and (b) let me quickly correct basic stuff

Comments

[sol3]

Lightroom - better on resource usage than aperture, better licensing (can have it on two machines, good for primary machine/smaller machine when travelling setups), quicker on updates to support raw processing for new cameras. It's got less flash and bling than aperture, but I found that I worked far faster in lightroom than aperture. I re-did a comparison between the two when aperture 2 came out and found that to still be the case.

Oh - also, Lightroom 3 beta is currently available, for free, until april 2010 - and has, among other things, new functionality for syncing with flickr.

[lightcastle]

Oh - also, Lightroom 3 beta is currently available, for free, until april 2010 - and has, among other things, new functionality for syncing with flickr.

I beg your pardon? Having got a free trial of 2.5 (I have no mac, so cannot say anything about Aperture) I am delighted and all my whining about why RAW is just a useless hassle has been taken back with a sizable order of crow.

Emacs

[mr_privacy]

I mean to say, aperture + Flickr export.

I find the UI & workflow in aperture a lot nicer. Sol's comments about resource usage: not false. But sometimes heavy leads to better use patterns.

Re: Emacs

[sol3]

one of these apps I can use on a netbook while i'm travelling to do culling and pre-editing of photos before I get back to where I have heavier hardware :)

Re: Emacs

[mr_privacy]

heh. I actually use aperture on my macbook with a 2ghz core duo, but it has convinced me to drop $$ on a top end imac i5.

I really prefer the workflow of aperture. it seems a lot smoother to me.

[funcrunch]

Lightroom is awesome, and this plug-in will allow you to upload to Flickr from it directly, quickly and painlessly.

[lightcastle]

*yoink*

Thanks for that. :)

[whitebird]

I personally know of more people who use Lightroom than use Aperture. And most, by a wide margin, are Mac users.

I'd probably use Aperture, but I haven't had a chance to look at each package yet. (Nor do I have a RAW camera.)

[edit] That said, there's also a free trial of Aperture, so make your own decision:

http://www.apple.com/aperture/trial/

PS: RAW

[mr_privacy]

You can do a boatload more to correct images that are captured in RAW. Take some with your white balance manually adjusted incorrectly in jpg and raw, and try adjusting them. It's pretty eye opening.