Lightroom vs Aperture vs others???

[alexren6]

Hi,

I'm fairly new to more serious/amateur photography. I want to be able to edit my shots and I read a lot on the web on different kind of "darkroom" software... but honestly I can't make my mind! Would you have any recommandations between Lightroom and Aperture? I have a MacBook Pro with 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo with 4 Go Ram.

I don't have any experience with other editing software. Just very basic editing with PSP. Thx a lot! :)

[mlooman]

I used both and decided that Lightroom was better for me. I read at least 100 posted opinions on which one to get and to honest it was about 50/50. My best reccommendation to you would be to download the free trials of each and decide what works the best for you.
I liked that Lightroom will integrate with Photoshop (I do not currently use Photoshop, but the benefit of that for future use is a definite plus for me)
Lightroom does everything I could possible want to do for basic editing of my photos. Not to mention you can youtube anything you want to know about lightroom if you are stuck and you can find a post on what to do. Aperture is very hard to find online help/tutorial on.
I am very happy with lightroom. I am still learnining all of the ins and outs of this software and everyday I learn something new.
I have a macbook pro. :) Happy editing!

[alexren6]

Thx a lot. I am in the same spot with the comments online 50/50. But you are right there is lot more ressource on Lightroom. What version do you have? Do you if the most recent Lightroom 4 has less bugs? I read that Lightroom 3 had a few serious flaws when it came out. Thx again!

[mlooman]

I have Lightroom 3. the only issue that I have encountered is in the repair/clone edit mode. Occasionally if I have been in the program for a long time this mode will freeze. All I have to do is close out of Lightroom and go back in and it will work fine. Annoying at times but an easy fix. Phil Steele has a tutorial training program that will bring you through the whole program pretty well to give you a really good working knowledge of it. I think it cost me about 45.00 and its about 4 hours long. (give or take). I recommend it you decide on Lightroom to have an external hard drive to store all of your files on. It keeps your hard drive clean on your computer. Lightroom will always need to read the original files and when you edit it makes virtual copies which take up less room. (so you will need to have your external drive connected when using Lightroom) It works with Jpg and Raw files. Im not sure about Aperture and if it works with Raw or not.

[alexren6]

Thx a lot for your insight! Lightroom 4 is now in the cart!

[felinepurr]

Totally just ordered lightroom 4 as well! I have been using 2 since it came out and decided time for an upgrade. External hard drive sounds like an awesome idea.

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[jerryph]

I actually found Lightroom 4 is more resource intensive than 3. Where LR 3 was as smooth as butter on my PC and booted faster, LR4 is kinda jerky at times and "sticks" now and then. I like the new stuff that LR does, though... but it did take me about 1-2 weeks to get used to it.

[rutherford]

I have LR3 and it's a great abstraction away from an image editor like photoshop which is far too complex with little in the way of batch support. As a beginner to post-processing I found I could figure out most things intuitively too.