A couple weeks ago I wrote about my then tentative switch from Aperture to Lightroom. The following Tuesday Apple released Aperture 2. I downloaded the trial and after my initial 24 hours with AP 2 I decided I would probably stay with Lightroom. In the days since I’ve gone back several times to edit a few images in AP 2 and experiment more with browsing and searching. I think that because I spent nearly a year with AP I really wanted to stay with it, wanted to give it a real chance. After nearly a week I’ve confirmed my decision to switch to LR and have gone ahead and started moving the rest of my Aperture images over. Here's why.

Workflow and Speed
There’s no doubt AP 2.0 is an improvement in speed in both browsing and editing but I’m still seeing delays and the spinning beachball… less often of course but the fact that I’m still seeing it when I do not ever see it in LR says something about the basics. I can’t help but think that the drag I’m still seeing with AP, mostly during editing, is tied to Apple’s reliance on the graphics card for much of the workload. I’ve got a MB Pro with 2 gigs of ram, Core 2 Duo and it still just feels sticky to me. Using the Loupe or viewing at 100% feels even worse. I can and often do view my images at 100% in LR and it feels very smooth aside from the initial render of the image when I switch to the magnified view.

When it comes to browsing and searching, again there is no doubt that AP 2 is faster and smoother than its previous version. On the downside, I've also noticed that while I can very quickly scroll through thumbnails in my Aperture Library those thumbs are empty outlines and drawn in with the photo after a very slight delay whereas LR scrolls about as smoothly and images are already 95% rendered rather than empty outlines. As soon as I stop scrolling the 95% rendered images snap to focus. I prefer the method used by LR because I know as I'm scrolling where I'm at, there is zero wait for the thumbs to draw in and I can keep scrolling to where I want to be. While LR lacks Aperture's excellent smart groups I don't miss them much because searching is instant and because of the built in keyword and metadata browser which I'll get into momentarily.

I was a bit disappointed with Aperture 2 in regards to adding keywords and captioning which is another area that I still prefer the LR method. It is much easier to select a large group of images and enter the same caption by just typing it into the caption field and hitting enter with no need to go to the menu bar and choose batch change or even to use the short cut for batch change. I just select them and click into the caption field. While keywording large groups of images is fairly easy in Aperture it is even easier in LR to click a button in an already present sidebar or even typing into the keyword field rather than Aperture's drag and dropping of keywords. Not only that but Lightroom's browsing by keywords feature is fantastic way to actually use the keywords you've added. Just below the keywords section of the sidebar is metadata browsing which provides an easy to use list of criteria such as file type, lens, camera model, ISO, shutterspeed, and more for quick filtering of images.

One last thought regarding workflow, after editing I often like to DO something with images. Most often I like to upload to Flickr and upload to my own image galleries at Enchanted Planet. Aperture accomplishes this with Connected Flow's excellent Flickr plugin and via integration with iWeb and that is great. While LR also has an excellent Flickr plugin it is not integrated with iWeb or any other Apple application such is the iWork apps so I first have to export images to a folder then drop them into iWeb. However, and this has only become an issue since I started using LR, I can publish to a web gallery using one of the included galleries or downloadable templates. I've been fairly happy with letting iWeb step in for Aperture's very basic web export and was really hoping Aperture 2 would bring some greatly needed improvements in this area. Nope. Unfortunately there is nothing at all besides integration with .Mac galleries and the templates appear to be unchanged with there are no new additions. This won't do. With LR the default galleries are much better than Apple's defaults and, even better, I can download user created templates. In the first week of using LR I found and have been happily using such a template that has PayPal integration for selling images. As an example you can check out my gallery of song birds. I could have never done that with Aperture.

Image Editing and RAW Conversion Quality
Image editing and the quality of RAW conversion were both issues with Aperture, especially when compared to LR. With Aperture 2 Apple has done a fantastic job with RAW 2. The editing results are nearly identical with LR in terms of quality. The noise reduction is much better for images shot at ISO 400 or higher though I don't think it's quite as easy as LR to get the best results. With LR noise reduction and sharpening are all neatly available by default in the Details section of the Develop sidebar. With a couple of tweaks I am usually done in seconds. With Aperture 2 i can get those results but it requires adjustments in the RAW Fine Tuning then additional steps of adding noise reduction and edge sharpening sliders (not available by default) before I can even adjust those things. The results are improved over AP 1.5 and equal to LR, but the work required to get those results requires more steps.

In regards to image editing with AP 2 I have to mention the new Retouch Tool which can usually be used to replace the dreaded Spot and Patch tool. The Retouch Tool is fantastic with excellent results and very smooth performance... it is almost too easy to use!! In fact, the first time I used it I actually giggled aloud at how easy it was. There is no doubt that this tool is a huge leap beyond what LR has in the way of spot removal and healing. There are other new adjustments that I'm not going to go into other than to say that they are all well implemented and bring image editing up to par with LR.

In the end I've decided to stay with LR for two reasons: speed and much better web export. I'm certainly glad to see Aperture improving because it provides another option and will, no doubt, keep Adobe on its toes in regards to LR. Moving thousands of adjusted images around is far too much work to keep jumping from program to program. Now that I've seen AP 2 I am comfortable with my choice to switch to LR.


Technorati Tags: Apple, OS X, Macintosh, Mac, Aperture, Lightroom, iWeb, flickr

I've been using Aperture since March 2007. I wrote positively of my switch from iPhoto to Aperture and have greatly enjoyed the Aperture workflow as well as it's integration with iWeb and other aspects of the Mac OS. However, in recent months I become increasingly frustrated with it, primarily the slowness in searching and editing.

I'm using it on a MacBook Pro 2.16 core 2 duo with 2 gigs of ram. I have a relatively small library of 16 gigs which is organized so that each month is a project which is usually less than 600 pictures. The slowness begins with opening the program which takes far too long, usually 20 seconds, sometimes close to a minute. From what I've read my library is relatively small and I can't imagine how slow this would be with a library as large as some have.

In usage, editing is way too slow. Trying to use the Spot and Patch tool is an exercise in patience and doing it at a zoom of 100% in like watching a melting glacier retreat up a mountain. In fact doing anything while zoomed in is terribly slow. Sure, I can use the loupe but that tends to require more work with the trackpad. When it comes time to search or use a smart folder I often get a long pause, sometimes the spinning beach ball. Just switching between projects can cause delays.

When it comes to exporting, often the last step in the process for any image that is shared or used, anyone using Aperture with Leopard will encounter what is apparently a bug. Exporting images with Aperture (as well as iPhoto) results in much softer images, apparently due to the core OS technology used by these apps. Softness is not good unless it is intentional. I shoot lots of bird images and I want the details of the feathers to be as sharp as possible. Softness introduced by my editing software is not acceptable on any level.

Like many Aperture users I've been hoping for a serious update but have seen little evidence that one is coming. It might be tomorrow, it might be 6 months. About two weeks ago, I decided to try Lightroom which I had been avoiding because I really like the Aperture workflow and integration with iWeb and other aspects of the OS. I've also avoided the possibility of switching because in the 9 months I've been using Aperture I've put a good bit of time into editing, keywording, and captioning my images. If I switch to Lightroom I loose that work. 



After two weeks with Lightroom I'm fairly certain that I am going to make the the switch. With each day that I use it I import more images and organizing them into the same system I have created with Aperture. I'm still importing images so I can't comment on the speed of browsing and searching a full 15 gig library but with 5 gigs imported it is FAR faster to search and browse than Aperture. Even more important, editing is FAR smoother... in fact, I find it hard to believe how much faster it is. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I'm finding that the editing results are much better both before and especially after export. I've already mentioned that Leopard introduced a softness to all exports, but I think the differences I'm seeing even go beyond this.

Two of my favorite features thus far. First would be noise reduction which is fantastic and far superior to that in Aperture. As someone that shoots without a flash often in the deep shade of the woods I welcome this. If at all possible I avoid using ISO 400 or above due to the noise but with Lightroom I'm finding that I can eliminate most of this noise which means I can now shoot in conditions I would have previously avoided. Second, In just two weeks I'm discovering that the large community of Lightroom users includes a few that develop add-ons such as plugins and templates. There is a flickr plugin similar to the one for Aperture but that's not the end of it. There are folks actively developing fantastic templates for Lightroom's default Web publishing module. While the default web publishing is already much better than Aperture's being able to easily drop in a template is fantastic. I've already begun the process of building new PayPal linked galleries to tie into my existing galleries generated by iWeb. As an example, you can view my wildflower gallery.



There is more to say about this and I'll likely write about it soon. My suggestion is that if you are a frustrated Aperture user that you try Lightroom if you have not already. I was put off by the workflow at first but I'm finding that it fits much better than I thought it would. If you do give it a try I'll leave you with one final thought, a tip really. Much has been made of the module-based workflow of Lightroom which can seem a bit difficult at first. Here's the tip: you can hit the d key and jump right to the full screen develop module which is similar to Aperture's full screen editing which is a click of the f key. Different but not that different. Want to jump back to the grid of your Library? Hit the g key.


Technorati Tags: Apple, OS X, Macintosh, Mac, Aperture, Lightroom, iWeb, flickr

Before I continue with the theme of my switch from iPhoto to Aperture I thought I'd comment on the recently released iLife apps as they relate to image management and sharing. I've not used iPhoto yet but I'm sure I will before too long. I certainly won't be switching back but I do like to stay current in my skill set should the need arise that a client need training or help with troubleshooting. The iPhoto upgrade looks like a solid and useful upgrade but nothing earth shattering. Of particular note is that iPhoto continues to make back-up copies of each image the user edits which was my primary reason for switching to Aperture.

In regards to sharing images via the web, I'm happy to report that Aperture, with the recent update to 1.5.4 works just fine with the updated iWeb 08. I'm an avid user of Flickr and have been from the early days but I do not pay for the Pro account which means that only my most recent 200 images are accessible. I'm okay with that because I can still tag my photos and add them to group pools which is the point of Flickr, to share and comment on photos. Flickr is as much about social interaction as it is about images. Back in February I decided that for the purposes of sharing older photos, I would set up my own image archive here at MacProductive. My intention was to use iPhoto and iWeb. The main drawback was the size of the image output of iWeb: the files were gigantic, often twice the size of a properly optimized image. My work around involved the time consuming process of optimizing with Photoshop. Not the end of the world but the point of iWeb is to make the process quick and easy.

When I switched to Aperture I tried using the built in gallery creation of Aperture and was disappointed with the layout of the galleries as well as the web optimization. I'm not sure why this seems to be a problem for Apple. Rather than continue with iWeb for my photo pages I went in search of a third party solution. I settled on Myriad's Galerie photo gallery software and have been pretty happy with it. The images are optimized as they should be and updating changed galleries on my server is much easier than iWeb. I can also customize the gallery design as much as I would like and Myriad hosts a free commenting system too.

With the new release of iWeb 08 I was curious to see if Apple had addressed any of the items on my iWeb wishlist. They did improve image optimization in some instances and the new photo album features are mostly an improvement. The ability to preview the images in the albums by hovering over each one is fantastic though I think the slideshow is a bit heavy on the reflections. The final verdict is that my updated image galleries are larger because of new files and effects. I might be able to deal with that but Apple continues to make updating to non .Mac servers a pain. Still no way to upload directly to a server and publishing to a folder marks all files as updated so a selective upload of only changed files based on date is not possible. For now I think I'll stick with Myriad's Galerie. Would have been great to just be able to rely on Aperture and iWeb... oh well, maybe next time?

You can check out my growing archive of images at Dennyville or via my Flickr stream.

Technorati Tags: Apple, OS X, Macintosh, iPhoto 08, iLife, iWeb 08, Aperture

To continue with the process of my switch from iPhoto to Aperture I thought I'd briefly discuss a few issues I faced that may be of interest to other potential switchers. First up, can your Mac even run Aperture. iPhoto will run pretty well on any G4 or better, not so with Aperture. You'll want to check Apple's page for Aperture's hardware requirements. It requires a good bit of juice. Even if your machine meets the requirements you may want to close certain, resource hungry apps when running Aperture. When I'm not using Aperture I often run Safari, Mail, Vienna for RSS, iCal, iTunes, iChat, a text editor and an ftp cilent. When I start up Aperture I usually close every other app but Safari. I'm running on a MacBook Pro with 2 gigs of ram I notice a major slow down with those other apps open.

Next, importing images into Aperture and setting up the library can be a bit tricky. It's possible to import your iPhoto Library right from Aperture but the keyword import can be a mess. It is also possible to manually import the folders of images in the iPhoto Library. There is no "right" way to do it. My suggestion would be to experiment. I decided to take my time with a manual import of the folders into projects that were based on the folder names. I then condensed everything into projects based on each month's imports. I also reevaluated all my keywords and changed certain aspects of my keyword process. Because I was a bit uncertain that I was switching over for good I experimented with a partial import first and spent a week learning about the workings of Aperture.

In my experience, taking my time during the import process as well as learning during the process proved very helpful. I knew that all my images were still safe in my iPhoto Library and any mistakes I made could be discarded by simply throwing away my new Aperture Library. After one week I felt comfortable enough using Aperture and completed the transition. I spent the second week of the process importing the rest of my iPhoto library and tagging with my newly refined set of keywords.

You can check out my growing archive of images at Dennyville or via my Flickr stream.

Technorati Tags: Apple, OS X, Macintosh, iPhoto, iLife, Aperture

In my previous post I mention that I had switched from iPhoto to Aperture. I've been using iPhoto since the very first version and have always enjoyed it. Over the years, as Apple has improved it that enjoyment has grown. It's never been perfect but worked weåll enough for the number of images I worked with. However, soon after I purchased my DSLR it became very obvious very quickly that I would have to do something about storage of images. Not only were my images 2-3mb each, up from 500kb, but I was also taking far more. In fact, I'm taking 500 images a month rather than 500 a year! I expect that during the winter months I'll take fewer but regardless, my shutter is clicking far more often so saving hard drive space was my first and primary motivation in the switch.

As much as I enjoy iPhoto it does require far more hard drive space when editing photos. While most of my editing is very subtle I do edit almost every photograph. With iPhoto that means a copy is made of the original. Imagine, my monthly total of 500 images, averaging 2.5 mb that's 1.2 gigs a month. With iPhoto that would be nearly doubled!! I hope to begin to pair each months photos down to 300 images or less but that is still around 750mb a month. By comparison, Aperture's method of non-destructive editing results in a small text file of a few kb for each edit version. If I want to use my Aperture images in other applications such as iMovie, Keynote, or Pages I have to make previews of those images, which results in an additional file of 125 - 250 kb. I don't make previews for all of my images, just my highest rated so my previews are still under a total of 100 mb.

The actual process of switching was relatively painless but certainly required a bit of effort. I'll discuss that as well as some of the other differences between iPhoto and Aperture in a future post.

You can check out my growing archive of images at Dennyville or via my Flickr stream.

Technorati Tags: Apple, OS X, Macintosh, iPhoto, iLife, Aperture

I'm still around!! Been following the latest Mac news which, this summer, has of course meant the iPhone. I've daydreaming of the upcoming Leopard release which is certain to be an excellent upgrade based upon Apple's WWDC preview. My summertime is usually spent with a preoccupation with my garden and photographing it. This summer has been particularly fun because I purchased my first DSLR, a Canon Rebel XT! Also of note is my switch from iPhoto to Aperture. You can check out my growing archive of images at Dennyville or via my Flickr stream. Perhaps my next post will address the switch from iPhoto to Aperture? I've also been trying out Myriad's Galerie photo gallery software as a substitute for iWeb's image galleries. Much better!! Perhaps that also will be an upcoming post!

Technorati Tags: Apple, OS X, Macintosh, Canon, iLife, iWeb

After publishing yesterday's story about iWeb I did some more testing of the pages and I wasn't very happy with the number of incomplete page loads/errors I was getting on the photo set pages. It was pretty clear that the problem was the png thumbnails iWeb produced. Anytime you publish a page with images that use the stock iWeb image borders or drop shadows this will be a problem. Rather than render well optimized pngs or jpgs it renders huge pngs. My photo page thumbnails were each 40 - 60kb! Perhaps not a big deal with a highspeed connection but on dial-up it is unbearable. The trick is to drop the images in and resize rather than drop onto the nifty image placeholders. The downside is no neat reflection effects or graphic image borders but the upside is a page with well optimized jpg thumbnails of 12-16kb. The two themes which default to basic, no border photo pages are simply called "Black" and "White" though I did not test all of the themes. I had actually thinking of switching over to the black theme anyway so I was lucky. Much better and now even the largest photo set of sunsets loads much more quickly and without errors. If you prefer one of the other themes just set up your photo page then select all the photos and open the graphic tab of the inspector. Set the stroke to none and you're finished.

Tip number two concerns the slide-show produced when publishing a photo page to a server other than .Mac. The .Mac slide show is a beautifully rendered show based on Ajax. If you're publishing to your own server it's this terrible brushed metal window from the 2001 era. However, it is possible to download an alternative slideshow which is based on javascript and is free. Just download the file and decompress which will produce a folder called "SlideShow_assets". After you publish your iWeb site drop this into the main folder and replace the iWeb produced folder of the same name. Done. Of course each time you make a change to your iWeb site and republish, your alternative slideshow folder will be replaced again by the original iWeb slideshow folder so keep a copy of the alternative slideshow around in case you accidentally re-upload the iWeb version.

Last tip: visit Rowan Cottage. Just a nice little family iWeb site that happens to be loaded with articles about using and customizing iWeb. A fantastic iWeb resource and perfect compliment to Apple's iWeb discussion forum.

Technorati Tags: Apple, OS X, Macintosh, Mac, iLife, iWeb