Aperture 3 and Lightroom 3

Submitted by maz on Tue, 10/12/2010 - 12:02

Almost two years ago I graduated from iPhoto to Aperture for managing my photography collection. There were too many files for iPhoto to cope reasonably, and I felt I needed more flexibility and power to post-process. When Aperture 3 was released, I duly gamma-tested and then upgraded, and apart from its ability to crash more often than Aperture 2 I would say that the upgrade has definitely been worth it. I've also heard a lot of good things about Lightroom 3, and decided to give it a spin in trial mode, in much the same way that I evaluated Canon's Digital Photo Professional for its ability to develop the RAWs that come out of my Canon 7D.

Here is a picture from my Salford Quays reconnaisance shoot taken at ISO6400.

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"4277","attributes":{"class":"media-image size-medium wp-image-1269116579","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","width":"300","height":"200","alt":""}}]]

IMG_3942 (processed in Aperture 3)

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"4281","attributes":{"class":"media-image size-medium wp-image-1269116578","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","width":"300","height":"200","alt":""}}]]

IMG_3942 (processed in Lightroom 3)

You can clearly see the lens correction at work in Lightroom, and if zooming in to 1:1 scales we can see the noise correction in Lightroom 3 is impressive:

Aperture 3Lightroom 3 [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"4285","attributes":{"class":"media-image alignnone size-full wp-image-1269116577","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","width":"256","height":"256","alt":""}}]][[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"4289","attributes":{"class":"media-image alignnone size-full wp-image-1269116576","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","width":"256","height":"256","alt":""}}]] [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"4293","attributes":{"class":"media-image alignnone size-full wp-image-1269116574","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","width":"256","height":"256","alt":""}}]][[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"4297","attributes":{"class":"media-image alignnone size-full wp-image-1269116575","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","width":"256","height":"256","alt":""}}]] [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"4301","attributes":{"class":"media-image alignnone size-full wp-image-1269116573","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","width":"256","height":"256","alt":""}}]][[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"4305","attributes":{"class":"media-image alignnone size-full wp-image-1269116572","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","width":"256","height":"256","alt":""}}]] [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"4309","attributes":{"class":"media-image alignnone size-full wp-image-1269116570","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","width":"256","height":"256","alt":""}}]][[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"4313","attributes":{"class":"media-image alignnone size-full wp-image-1269116571","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","width":"256","height":"256","alt":""}}]] Aperture 3Lightroom 3

The noise reduction in Lightroom 3 is impressive... and I'd consider using Lightroom, except I actually like the noise. Maybe it's because I was raised on black and white films and the texture of gritty grain, but there's just something I prefer in the way that Aperture has presented this image. Of course I could have the grain back in Lightroom by dialling the settings down, but the library management features of Aperture seem to win on that front. That said, Apple ought to improve its offerings for sensor noise reduction if it is to keep up with Adobe.

Tag:

Category: