Aperture vs Lightroom - An O'Reilly "Inside Aperture" Field Test

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A Need For Speed

At the beginning of the week, I started off with empty libraries for both Aperture and Lightroom. I also disclosed the hardware I'd be using as being my 15" MacBook Pro with 2GB RAM, a 2.0 GHz Dual Core processor, and a 100Gig 7200rpm drive. The machine also has the upgraded video card, just in case you were wondering.

One of the biggest concerns in the Aperture community has been performance. Well, I have to admit here, I really wish Aperture would work as fast as Lightroom. But, I should follow this statement up with a few explanations. First of all, Aperture, on my machine, runs nicely, especially when I'm working with a minimal library. In fact, with a mostly empty library on the local drive, I really have little to complain about performance-wise. However, when it comes to loading my Master Library, which sits on a 500GB LaCie, USB drive, things begin to slow down. Aperture takes its sweet time initializing, and shutting down. I usually end up walking away from the computer to do something else.

Lightroom, on the other hand, seems to zip along well. I've yet to try importing a giant number of images into Lightroom (like say 80,000), but I have a feeling that while it may slow a little, in the long run, it'll still run faster than Aperture. And here's why:

Lightroom seems to do just about everything in the background. It even tells you so by displaying a progress bar in the top left corner of the workspace. Aside from doing really well with background tasks that are internal to the application (like thumbnail processing, and development image processing), Lightroom really shines by taking care of just about every export task in the background. Export a web page and it runs in the background. Export a set of images to the desktop, and again, it runs in the background. Although there aren't any export plugins available for Lightroom as of yet, I imagine when they finally start showing up, they'll work in the background.

I really, really, REALLY, wish Apple would take the hint and send more of these tasks to the background. In fact, I'd probably use the Vault for my Master Library if I didn't have to wait all day for it to complete its task.

As for overall speed, these things are hard to gauge. With minimal libraries, they both seem to work pretty well. One interesting behavior I noticed recently is that when I load up my Aperture Master Library (the big one I have on the LaCie) with my girlfriend's MacBook (2.0 GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB drive), Aperture actually seems to run faster. In fact, I just tried this for the first time last night, and I was amazed. I have no idea what's going on here, or why it would be faster on a machine with an inferior video card, but it seemed to be significantly faster and actually a pleasure to use. I may have to talk her into a trade if this type of behavior continues!

Just Tell Me Which One To Buy, Micah!!!

First of all, I'm not going to tell you which application to go out and buy. Obviously if you're using a PC, the choice is already made (well there's always Picasa). But, if you're still unsure which application you want, take these last few pieces of advice and do with them what you will.

I'm sure you've realized which application I'm championing. I really like Aperture, on a number of different levels. I think it's a well-rounded program that's much further along in its development than Lightroom is at the moment. Aperture gives me an environment I can really enjoy working in, and one that makes perfect sense to the non-linear way my brain likes to work. The machines I use seem to work well with Aperture, and I think sometime in the near future we're likely to see a serious speed upgrade.

I also think Lightroom users have a lot to look forward to. The application is indeed feature rich, and if it seems to fit the way YOUR brain works, then by all means, go out and get it. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Let's all remember that both of these programs are essentially babies. In fact, all of digital photography is still basically in its infancy. The next five years or so are sure to be filled with all sorts of advances and new-fangled ideas. Programs like Aperture and Lightroom--applications that are leading the way in digital imaging software--will hopefully continue to ride the tech wave, and get better and better. We're very lucky photographers these days. We have some of the most amazing tools we could have ever imagined, and we continue to ask for more. If we stick to our guns, the possibilities are endless.

Aperture vs Lightroom Blog Posts by Micah Walter

Special Event: Aperture Vs. Lightroom

Aperture Vs. Lightroom: Let the Games Begin

Aperture Vs. Lightroom: Day 1 - Lightroom's Library Module

Aperture Vs. Lightroom: Day 2 - The Rainbow Filter?

Aperture Vs. Lightroom: Day 3 - The Develop Module

Aperture Vs. Lightroom: Day 4 - The World in Black and White

Aperture Vs. Lightroom: Day 5 - Ready for the Web

Lightroom Vs. Aperture: Day 6 - Exporting Images

Aperture Vs. Lightroom: Day 7 - River Rotations

Lightroom vs Aperture Blog Posts by Michael Clark

A comparison: Adobe Lightroom vs. Apple Aperture

Lightroom vs. Aperture: Versions and Stacking

Lightroom vs. Aperture: Loupe Views Compared

Lightroom vs. Aperture: Synching Adjustments

Micah Walter is a freelance photojournalist, writer, and teacher from Washington D.C., and a graduate of the photo tech program at the Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York.

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Showing messages 1 through 7 of 7.

Noise Filtering and Plug Ins for Noise Filtering
2007-03-12 19:30:18 tomgregg [Reply | View]

I have trouble with noise as I hav ethe old Olympus e-1. Especially at wedding shoots with guys in tuxes and dark suitsin available outdoor lighting(afternoon). The easiest way I have found to fix this is just to filter it out with a great program I found called Noise Ninja. I wish I could figure out how to get it to work directly in my Aperture workspace or get a plug-in liek the one available to work in photoshop. Any Info out there? Is it possible yet?..thanks tomgregg

Answer to your question
2007-03-07 14:22:32 MicahWalter [Reply | View]

Well, certianly, if you aren't concerned with preserving your PS work except for in jpeg form, your best option woul dbe to do something like a roundtrip, where the original jpeg is sent to P-shop as an exported Jpeg, you then do you PS work on it and save it as a Jpeg, and its sent back to Aperture.

This may work in the short term (Ben long has some good articles and a podcast about this on the site) but in the long run you are throwing away your PS work, and also potentially losing quality when resaving the jpeg.

Disk space consumption when editing externally
2007-03-07 11:18:34 liyanage [Reply | View]

I have been using Aperture for a while and there is only one real issue for me, but unfortunately that is a real killer and I am wondering if switching to Lightroom would solve this for me.

The issue is that editing images externally uses up huge amounts of disk space quickly. I use Aperture together with Photoshop a lot. I shoot more JPEG than RAW and when I edit a picture, the 5MB JPEG turns into a 30 or 40MB the TIFF or PSD version. I try to avoid it by doing as much as possible in Aperture, and I like the controls there, but stuff like Liquify has to be done in Photoshop.

I really can't justify 30-40 MB additionally per image. With the less important pictures, I want Apertur to send the file to the external editor in JPEG, or even better send it to the editor in a lossless format but store the result coming back from the external editor as JPEG. I almost never do multiple external edits, so this would be fine for me. Sometimes I even want to edit the original, i.e. I don't even want an automatic copy to be generated.

Is such a space-saving workflow possible in either program?

Aperture Faster on MacBook?
2007-03-07 09:27:07 rachelblackman [Reply | View]

If you had an original-revision MacBook Pro, this actually makes sense that it might be faster on the MacBook. Due to overheating concerns, I gather that the performance of the MBP's video card was scaled down in the initial releases. (In fact, I think someone even posted about that here on Inside Aperture a while ago!)

The later-released MacBook and newer MBP revisions apparently don't have this problem (though a newer MBP should smoke the MB, I'd think).

As for the comment on USB versus Firewire, he'd probably see an improvement, but not necessarily a dramatic one. Firewire's fast, but an original-revision MacBook Pro only has Firewire 400, not 800. USB 2.0 runs at a theoretical 480Mbps; while Firewire 800 will leave USB 2.0 in the dust, Firewire 400 is just slightly slower than USB 2.0 in theory. That said, Firewire 400 generally pegs its upper range more regularly than USB 2.0, which almost never achieves its theoretical top speeds.

really hope someone from Apple is reading these!
2007-03-06 20:15:11 ianmcc [Reply | View]

both articles are great reminders of what Apple needs to do to elevate their program to the next level...

great work!

Wow. More Great stuff
2007-03-06 18:45:21 Cycomachead [Reply | View]

I really agree w/ the part about the interface. Also I've never understood why you need a filmstrip and a viewer in the same module. And It also bugs me why Lightroom has huge grey block around each thumbnail in the Library module.

With that said Aperture is not perfect. I do agree that it needs a little speed bump, but its not too bad on my MacBook, I only have 1gb RAM, non C2D. I also only use JPEGS. And I do really wish that Aperture would do more in the background.

Also Micah I think you would see a big speed improvement by using a FW drive, vs. USB 2.

Wow. More Great stuff
2007-03-06 18:45:15 Cycomachead [Reply | View]

I really agree w/ the part about the interface. Also I've never understood why you need a filmstrip and a viewer in the same module. And It also bugs me why Lightroom has huge grey block around each thumbnail in the Library module.

With that said Aperture is not perfect. I do agree that it needs a little speed bump, but its not too bad on my MacBook, I only have 1gb RAM, non C2D. I also only use JPEGS. And I do really wish that Aperture would do more in the background.

Also Micah I think you would see a big speed improvement by using a FW drive, vs. USB 2.