I'm sure that all of you have heard about Aperture (from Apple) and Lightroom (from Adobe). Some of you have certainly used the beta of Lightroom (now shipping the final version, with an initial price of $199). And I'm also sure that some of you have bought Aperture. For those who haven't had hands-on experience with either of them yet, the question I hear most frequently is, "What are they?" It's a good question, since I don't think even Apple and Adobe are sure what they are yet. Download tool? Image management system (with strong metadata features)? Editing package? Print and web gallery tool? All-in-one?
Aperture was introduced in the fall of 2005. At the time it was priced at $499 and described by Apple as "the first all-in-one post-production tool for photographers. Built from the ground up for professionals, Aperture offers an advanced RAW workflow, powerful compare and select tools, nondestructive image processing and versatile printing and publishing." The initial version required a tremendous amount of horsepower to run. My G5 dual 1.8 GHz tower wouldn't even run it because the video card wasn't up to the job. The Powerbook G4 1.5 GHz would, but slowly (most current generation Intel Macs will run it fine, including my MacBook Pro). Despite all that, there were some great user interface features. The fact that it could collect all of your images and let you work from a single Master file was also appealing, doing away with multiple copies of the same image.
Shortly after Apple's debut of Aperture, Adobe got into the act with the announcement of a similar package, Lightroom. Breaking with tradition (and most likely in an effort to keep Mac users from getting too strongly wed to Aperture) Adobe soon released a beta version, which, not surprisingly, was Mac only. Months later a Windows beta was also released.
Over the last 18-months both programs have undergone major changes. Aperture's experienced the largest improvements, in both speed and image management. It's also dropped considerably in price, down to the current level of $299.
What are Apple and Adobe trying to do? It's simple - they want to bring photographers into their software "camp" and keep them there. As more photographers discover the power of RAW and make that their file format of choice, workflow becomes more complicated. While these programs will work with JPEG and TIFF files, where they shine is in handling RAW files.
What most people will see as the strengths of these two programs lie in two areas: file management and batch processing of RAW images. Both make the process of adding metadata (what we often refer to as IPTC or XMP), sorting, comparing and organizing images much easier. A job that many of us have been doing for years with Photo Mechanic (www.camerabits.com). The other big deal with these programs is the ease with which they let you apply global changes to a group of RAW images. Often referred to as batch processing, you can select a small or large collection of images and add or change caption information, white balance settings, color space, contrast, sharpening, resolution, color changes, format, etc., then have that done to all in the group. In addition to batch processing, both programs let you quickly move through a group of images applying fast global changes to each individual image. Sort of like iPhoto on steroids, but available on Windows too and working on RAW files.
The other feature both programs share that will help some and confuse others is in how they handle multiple versions of the same file. The goal is to keep photographers from ending up with several (or several dozen) of the same image file scattered across their computer. You start with a "Master" file, then changes you make to that (in either program) are considered "Versions." Those versions are made up of metadata attached to the Master file, which means they take up very little hard drive space, as opposed to additional TIFFs or JPEGs. The downside to this is if your workflow uses the same filename for various formats. Let's say that you like to shoot RAW plus JPEG, a common option with today's digital SLRs. If you import a folder of those images into either program, all you'll get is the RAW files as the Master. They both ignore the JPEG. What if you build PSD files in Photoshop and keep the filename the same as the original JPEG or RAW (after all, it's a different file when it has the .PSD suffix attached). Again, too bad, both programs will only import one of those files into their database. There is a workaround, by separating the various formats into individual folders and importing them that way. Of course, that adds to your work, and removes the advantage of keeping those files together in the first place.
There are other downsides. Neither program in their current versions allows you to make selective changes to an image during editing. In other words, if your image is perfect or requires only an overall change, no problem. But if you want to darken just the sky, or lighten a face, or apply selective sharpening, you can't do it in Aperture or Lightroom. Another problem is if you shoot in RAW format and want to take the file generated by your manufacturer's camera (CR2 for Canon, NEF for Nikon, etc.) and open it into that manufacturer's raw processing software (Canon Digital Photo Professional or Nikon Capture NX). You might want to do that to get their color processing, or unique features offered only through their software (like the Dust Off feature). Aperture will allow you to export the Master file (original) out to another location on the computer, at which point you can then open it with the manufacturer's program. However, any work you've done in Aperture will be lost. And with Nikon Capture, any changes you then make to that NEF file won't be recognized if you then re-import that file back into Aperture.
Lightroom is even heavier-handed about this. If you want to take a file out of Lightroom in its original format, and that format is not TIFF, PSD, JPEG or DNG, you can't. Period. You must first convert it from the original RAW format to one of those formats in the process. Doing that, or course, defeats the whole purpose of opening it into the manufacturer's software. Since Adobe is promoting DNG as a "universal" RAW format, they'd like to see you adopt that and forget about whatever unique options the other RAW processing software packages might offer. Not surprisingly, doing that ties you even more tightly to Adobe and whatever they do in the future.
So what does all this mean? Are either of these programs a big improvement for us, the photographers? As with many things digital, the answer is "it depends." Everyone's looking for one solution to all their digital imaging needs. We're not there yet, and may never be. I always tell people to find the best tool for each job. If one of these new programs does that for you, great. The core set of tools for me remains Photo Mechanic for download/organize, Photoshop paired with manufacturer's RAW software for editing, and iView MediaPro for cataloging and database. I'll continue to watch both Aperture and Lightroom and look at how they can help me be more productive, which at this time is with quick global changes.
Once again we're reminded that there's only sure thing about digital photography - it's constantly changing.
