Software

I have figured out a work around for this problem. I use Nikon NX sometimes to process my raw file. In Aperture right click on photo and pick show in finder. Right click on image in finder and choose Photoshop or Nikon NX. Process photo and open PSD or tif in Photoshop. Go back to Aperture click on photo click on External Editor (I have this short cut icon in my tool bar). Take the layer from the Photoshop processed image and put is on top of the Aperture file, go to layers and flatten image, finally save file. It is a great experiment to process it in both Aperture and Photoshop and see witch you prefer.
This also works with making a panoramic image. I first in Aperture “stack” my images for the panoramic. After I make my panoramic in Adobe Bridge Photoshop tools. Go back to Aperture click on first photo click on External Editor. with the Aperture file in Photoshop change the image size to match the Panoramic image drag the layer over and flatten image, Save and done.

Today I just updated my D3 firmware and now I can adjust my focus point brightness witch is a nice feature. There are also some other small fixes and the highlights play back display is easier to find in the menu. It now has vignette control for certain lenses and I turned on that on.

Nikon NX I also updated with the 1.3.3 I am not sure of the details of the changes yet I am just getting to learn the software now. I am very impressed so far and wish I could use it to process my raw files while using Aperture or Lightroom.

After comparing some photos that were processed with Aperture and Lightroom I thought the Aperture RAW photos looked better than the Lightroom when just opening the photos with out tweaking anything. The colors looked the way I remembered them and the photos where much better looking. The only thing with the Lightroom photos it was easier to delete more photos because they where just not as pretty and I need to get more aggressive about deleting more photos.
I also prefer the curves control in Lightroom.

I am not the most geeky person I am surprising myself to be writing about this. I am hoping by writing it down and putting it out there that it will help me choose. I have many years of photos I need to key word and organize and my photos are scattered on too many drives. I am sure allot of photographers have this problem. I was tying to use bridge for this and it was doing a very poor job of it. Crashing all the time and half the time you just didn’t know what Bridge was doing. Bridge was beyond slow for me. The final straw is when updated to CS3 I lot most of my ***** staring system and losing hundreds of hours of work.
So the main choices seem to be Lightroom or Aperture any other suggestions? I was also going to try Portfolio but I have been waiting for them to send me a password for more that one week. You can not e-mail for help with out a password and when I called for customer service and technical help they say they can not answer at this time. So do you with Adobe if they can create a bad software like bridge do I dare use Lightroom. Aperture took months to support new cameras like Nikon D3. Witch made it impossible to use there software.

I am grateful that they each let you try out there software to see witch you like. My husband is using Lightroom mostly because Aperture was not supporting the D3 and he needed something NOW! On thought that if we wanted to teach he could be the Lightroom guy an I could be the Aperture gal but I just want something that works the best.

Down to nic-picking each one-
1. I wish I could use the software with my Nikon NX because I prefer this raw converter over all others. But sometimes with a mostly blue photo I would prefer Lightroom or Aperture. I would like to have the choice but Aperture will only send out a tiff and not a raw file. Adobe wants only you to use their software so you can only export out to Photoshop. I can with each use “show in finder” and then I can right click and open the file in Nikon NX but it is no longer being organized so what is the point.
2. Aperture does not support the Meta data Contact Page like – who is the photographer and how can they be contacted. I found this out when submitting photos to the BBC photo contest. So how should you go around this this seems like it would make the photographer look very unprofessional and maybe lose sales. Even tho I was trying out Aperture I had to create my keywording in photoshop so that I would have my contact info in. And even if the file had the contact info in if you were exporting out of Aperture you would have no contact info because Aperature does not support this.
3. Aperture will let you make dupe key words like antarctica and Antarctica I had have of my with caps and half without for the same word. Lightroom doesn’t let you do this.
4. Aperture had randomly made dupe photos and put them is a different folder.
5. Lightroom some times makes mistakes about bringing in photos it already has in the library this happen to my husband ( http://www.davehartleyphotography.com/ )after he changed his laptop time. When traveling we change the clocks on our cameras and laptops so we know when the real time of the photo is.
6. With Aperture if you hit control z on too many times it takes you to a completely different photo and you no longer have the photo you are working on in you monitor. But I had a similar problem with lightroom while tagging photos, or changing search filters.
7. Aperture is faster that Lightroom in every way.
8. Aperture does not let you create your own cropping aspect ratio, Lightroom does, being a fan of the panoramic this is a bummer.

List of what is better about Aperture – key wording is easier, Loupe is great, versions or stacks works better, and everything is faster.

list of what is better about Lightroom – better panels for raw converting, targeted adjustment tool, better straightening tool, Lens correction vignette correction works better