The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

LR vs. Aperture for MF?

iiiNelson

Well-known member
I was a HUGE Lightroom 2 user and it was really the only option for me when I was primarily shooting with Micro 4/3 if I didn't want to get stuck with Silkypix. I loved it plain and simple. I upgraded to LR3 when I got the M9 buuuuut...

By that timeI won a free boxed copy of Aperture 3. Apple is doing a much better job at supporting new cameras more quickly than they did with Aperture 2. That was the main reason Aperture was never a true option for me before. They didn't support the full DNG standard or lens correction profiles prior to Aperture 3 without haveing to "hack" the program.

Which brings me to Capture 1. Admittedly the last version I used was C1 4 which came with my D-Lux4. I could get good results out it but it didn't "work" with my brain AT ALL. That being said if I were going MF I would seriously consider learning the RAW processor that your camera was "designed"for. That mean C1 for Phase One, Leaf, or Mamiya and LR3 or Aperture 3 for Leica.
 

Vincent Goetz

Subscriber Member
Before I got my Phase One I used a combo of Lightroom 2 (and then 3) with Photoshop. LR did an excellent job of sorting and filing, whereas PS did the grunt work.
After I got my Phase One I bought C1. I don't use Lightroom at all currently, and I rarely use PS. C1 does it all, quicker, better, and easier. It has features like dust removal that are so obvious and yet Adobe has not incorporated it into their software modules.

This is being written by someone that was at the 20th anniversary of PS. I know what Adobe plans for LR are, and it will be a superb product as they develop it. But C1 stands above it currently and I will continue to use it until I see a reason to migrate back to an Adobe product. I rather doubt that will be anytime soon...
 

Anders_HK

Member
Thanks Anders. Does Capture One also serve as an 'digital asset manager' or does it simply serve as a raw convertor/editor? Looks like I need to read up on the Phase One site...
Capture One does not but nevertheless have in my experience the most brilliant default means for organizing files and setting up "project directories" with subfolders. It also works when you copy the "project directories" to a new location. Please check Phase One tutorials on Capture One Pro.

On other hand for someone looking for a photo manager Phase One now also have Media Pro as a compatible option.

When going with medium format digital, I suggest to consider the critical is the step up in image quality. Thus it can be assumed that one trade off image quality if going with a more general converter such as LR or Aperture, which is not working with an emphasis of e.g. Phase One or Leaf backs. Leaf now being a Phase One company means per my understanding that Leaf engineers are involved in decoding methods in Capture One, thus results should be warranteed compared to LR and Aperture and the likes. However, Capture One is also highly reputable for other cameras since Phase One apperant also specialize on state of art tool for those.

The tutorials on Capture One really tells you well of the software. When I looked at Capture One around 3-4 years ago I honest did not like it at all. Since then it has improved. I tried it again the other year and was impressed to point of being blown away of it matching my brain; photographically inclined.

If we speak of Leica S2 or Hasselblad backs, then perhaps their recommended software are the ones that are most suited. I do not know.

What I can say about the Afi-II 12 (internals same as Aptus-II 12) is that it is not the number of pixels itself that impress me. Sure they are more, but the important is better colors, a finer gradation of colors, larger DR that makes it a significant improvement to my older Aptus 65 and likewise per my impression over the Aptus-II 10.

Regards
Anders
 

Wayne Fox

Workshop Member
A few things ...

Aperture is cheap now, only $79, and I believe can run on any machine you register in your iTunes account.

Lightroom is by far the most useful tool when it comes to local adjustments. C1 can do many things now with theirs, but it's a pain, slow and not nearly as versatile. No graduated filters, brush is pretty much blow it to 100%, the brush tool only shows you the entire area being affected but doesn't have a second ring to show you where the transition from 100% starts so it's hit and miss and you can't do anything very accurate. However, for pure conversions, I think it's the best, and the color editor is incredibly powerful.

So I love LR, and my main procedure is everything gets imported and organized on my machine with LR, I often do quick edits to see what files I like best, but then move to C1 (for my Phase files). In C1, I have one master session file, and basically I just use the Library list to navigate through my files. I don't bother with the session folder structure, I set specific folders for my conversions to be stored, or I tell C1 to store them with the original files.

Often I'll open the converted tiff file back in Lightroom and do some serious tweaking there with local adjustments, and then will open that in Photoshop including the LR adjustments for things more easily done in PS (usually as a smart layer), including creative sharpening, some luminance masks, etc.

One thing I can't figure out is keywords and ratings created in LR do not show up in C1 and vice versa. Even if you tell LR to update metadata, seems it won't store it in the actual file. I thought this was a standard so it should work. That would make my workflow even easier ... rate them in LR and then only have those show up in C1.
 
I'll agree with Wayne. I love Lightroom. I love Capture One Pro. I use LeafCapture to uncompress(only non LCC critical files) for use in Lightroom. If you are shooting with a technical camera with LCC's then Lightroom loses, period.

I use Lightroom for easier processing and some of the extra tools that make it much faster to me. I have seen a comparison done to the same file in both Lightroom and Capture One Pro with the same adjustments. Hands down Lightroom loses. Image quality is night and day better when processed in Capture One Pro. I'll use the canon wide glass compared to Leica M wide glass. Yes, it is that much better. And sometimes you need that. Sometimes, being on the computer 8 hours vs 24 is worth a loss in quality depending on the final use. Only you can make that call.

When Capture One Pro ads a couple more Lightroom features to it's tool kit, Lightroom will go away from my and I'm sure many computers. Imagine (multiple) white balance linked to your local adjustment layers... Etc. They are updating features often. Yes, I predict more time shooting, less time in the darkroom.

Robb Williamson



A few things ...

Aperture is cheap now, only $79, and I believe can run on any machine you register in your iTunes account.

Lightroom is by far the most useful tool when it comes to local adjustments. C1 can do many things now with theirs, but it's a pain, slow and not nearly as versatile. No graduated filters, brush is pretty much blow it to 100%, the brush tool only shows you the entire area being affected but doesn't have a second ring to show you where the transition from 100% starts so it's hit and miss and you can't do anything very accurate. However, for pure conversions, I think it's the best, and the color editor is incredibly powerful.

So I love LR, and my main procedure is everything gets imported and organized on my machine with LR, I often do quick edits to see what files I like best, but then move to C1 (for my Phase files). In C1, I have one master session file, and basically I just use the Library list to navigate through my files. I don't bother with the session folder structure, I set specific folders for my conversions to be stored, or I tell C1 to store them with the original files.

Often I'll open the converted tiff file back in Lightroom and do some serious tweaking there with local adjustments, and then will open that in Photoshop including the LR adjustments for things more easily done in PS (usually as a smart layer), including creative sharpening, some luminance masks, etc.

One thing I can't figure out is keywords and ratings created in LR do not show up in C1 and vice versa. Even if you tell LR to update metadata, seems it won't store it in the actual file. I thought this was a standard so it should work. That would make my workflow even easier ... rate them in LR and then only have those show up in C1.
 

mvirtue

New member
As a long time Aperture user (Yes, I suffered through Aperture 1 and still use it) I think the Aperture vs LR really boils down to how the tool fits in with how you work. Aperture did a better DAM job when I trialed LR. And the flow through LR just felt wrong and I really wanted it to work as I really wanted to junk Aperture.

Now shooting MF, I've come, back, to C1. I find it great for single image adjustments. It's clunky as all get out when I've feed it one of my normal jobs ( Canon 1DIII/1DsIII dance images) and using it to cull/sort/separate is slow and tedious and I haven't even tried to get output from C1 on a per routine basis yet.

The output I've gotten out of C1 has exceeded Aperture.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Wayne

If you are working with native raw files, LR writes metadata setting in the catalog file and writes out metadata as .XMP sidecar files, not into the raw files themselves. C1 would need to be able to parse and use the .XMP metadata for ratings, etc, to transfer from LR.
 

dchew

Well-known member
I too use C1 for developing MF files, then export/import to Lightroom. Like Wayne, i prefer the local adjustments in LR. Also, I find spot removal to be slow in C1, and I sometimes get strange results. Often I will give up and do spot removal in LR after tiff conversion.

Dave
 
I too use C1 for developing MF files, then export/import to Lightroom. Like Wayne, i prefer the local adjustments in LR. Also, I find spot removal to be slow in C1, and I sometimes get strange results. Often I will give up and do spot removal in LR after tiff conversion.

Dave
Dave I've noticed this in C1 too -- it's just as if the program is deciding that what I try to remove isn't really a dust spot so it refuses to remove it.

When removing spots from an entire session though, IMO C1 can't be beat.
 

Wayne Fox

Workshop Member
Wayne

If you are working with native raw files, LR writes metadata setting in the catalog file and writes out metadata as .XMP sidecar files, not into the raw files themselves. C1 would need to be able to parse and use the .XMP metadata for ratings, etc, to transfer from LR.
I assumed that, however it seems some metadata should be able to be written into the file itself. If I add keywords to a file or a rating, shouldn't I have an option to put those in the file so every program can see them? I assume that's one thing Phase is trying to do with the EIP format, and maybe Adobe with DNG, but right now it's a pain.

Of course you have two competitors which both hope you would just use their product, so no real motivation to cooperate.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
I assumed that, however it seems some metadata should be able to be written into the file itself. If I add keywords to a file or a rating, shouldn't I have an option to put those in the file so every program can see them? I assume that's one thing Phase is trying to do with the EIP format, and maybe Adobe with DNG, but right now it's a pain.

Of course you have two competitors which both hope you would just use their product, so no real motivation to cooperate.
For JPEG, TIFF, PSD and DNG files, metadata is incorporated into the files themselves according to the various (and many) standards for each format, including Adobe's eXtensible Metadata Platform specifications (see http://www.adobe.com/products/xmp/ for details about XMP ... it's designed to be a cross-platform metadata encoding standard which many manufacturers participate in).

However, native raw files, because they follow proprietary manufacturer rules and are undocumented, are treated as read-only by most software. So appended metadata cannot be enclosed in the original file (who could tell what it might break without testing all possible combinations of metadata and files!). Lightroom writes it into .XMP sidecar files for others to use, Aperture stores it in their own library structure ... i don't know what C1 does, but i'm pretty sure it is never putting it into the native raw files themselves.

Adobe is a stronger player in the industry which gives DNG and XMP a more secure footing as an industry standard for these sorts of things. After all, Adobe is also the custodian for TIFF format specifications, which is the most generally used "standard" image file format out there besides JPEG.
 

Anders_HK

Member
C1 can do many things now with theirs, but it's a pain, slow and not nearly as versatile.
There are differing views of course which tells that we all have tad different preferences. While C1 could add a tool for making selections more intelligent like LR/Camera Raw (which they hopefully will), I still prefer the way I can work with adjustments and all else in C1 compared to LR/Camera Raw. Lets bear in mind that C1 adjustment functions are also new and they thus will likely keep adding more and more in next coming versions...

Speed? I am on a Macbook Pro 17" first generation unibody with 4GB but else full spec including SSD. I can say that during adjustments I barely notice change in speed between working on my 80MP Afi12 files compared to 28MP Aptus 65 files! C1 is FAST. Perhaps this is chiefly because it utilize the graphic card directly? The time I do notice slower is when it does not matter too much, during import and processing.

Regards
Anders
 

Wayne Fox

Workshop Member
There are differing views of course which tells that we all have tad different preferences. While C1 could add a tool for making selections more intelligent like LR/Camera Raw (which they hopefully will), I still prefer the way I can work with adjustments and all else in C1 compared to LR/Camera Raw. Lets bear in mind that C1 adjustment functions are also new and they thus will likely keep adding more and more in next coming versions...

Speed? I am on a Macbook Pro 17" first generation unibody with 4GB but else full spec including SSD. I can say that during adjustments I barely notice change in speed between working on my 80MP Afi12 files compared to 28MP Aptus 65 files! C1 is FAST. Perhaps this is chiefly because it utilize the graphic card directly? The time I do notice slower is when it does not matter too much, during import and processing.

Regards
Anders
by slow, I was not referring to the speed of the computer or the program. I was referring to the time it takes me to create effective local adjustments. The brush itself does not show you what it's doing. Try this ... create a large area of an adjustment with the mask on. Set it to erase, and set the hardness to 100 ... now click. Even though there is no transition the brush guide is useless in letting you know where the edge of the brush is. Despite being on a 12core mac with 24gigs of ram, drawing a local adjustment and using the mask as a guide has to be done extremely slowly. Often it's easier to just swipe quickly and then hit command Z and try it again of you missed.

So even though the new adjustments are useful, and for simple things OK, they aren't anywhere close to the effectiveness of those in LR. Using them is slow and challenging, although I do use them more than I thought I would. It would be much easier if the brush itself applied at various densities like LR, instead you have to stack multiple adjustments on top of each other. Works OK, but again slow.

I hope you are right .. I hope they keep getting better so they are more useful. But for now, I find myself using local adjustments on tiffs rendered from C1 in LR or ACR. I don't think this a big quality problem, no worse than doing it in PS, and pretty much what we've been doing for a long time.

I like C1 and use it. I think I get truer renderings and appreciate the abilty to make direct edits in a levels dialog so I can truely set a white point, and not just a psuedo white point like I get with LR's exposure slider. I do think C1 should read .xmp sidecar files to pull in some metadata (and really believe the metadata portion of all raw files should be standarized, open and accessible to any program I would like to give access), and I hope the local adjustments will get much better.
 
R

ringthane

Guest
Just wanted to thank everyone for tossing in their .02. It's definitely giving me an idea of what I'm getting myself into!
 

gogopix

Subscriber
Ha! It'll be great to know how to process that unremoveable spot :):)
someone else mentioned C1 and PS in tandem. The workflow I've settled into is
1. Put files in a sanely defined folder (camera-series-date-a few keywords")
1a.Copy the raw folder to another drive, WITH the folder name)
2. Open and Rate in C1, trashing the "no star' pix [remmebr I have a copy of all raw, and actually a second archive on DROBO)
3. Adjust and process to a Prophoto tiff 16 bit in Develops (I usually only process 3* and above) (this gets a exposed WBed, cropped, enhanced-clarity, MINIMAL sharpening and NR if needed (or defer to Neatimage) as needed pix)
4. Open in bridge and keyword the 'developed' files (ratings, keywords are flaky in C1; maybe Guy knows, but ratings stick but keywords don't in processed files)
5. Go to PS with the ones for printing now, and save as whatever in a folder for the shoot (tiff for Qimage, jpg for an older Kodak, and/or web)
5a. Heal, clone, maybe image size or compose for a collage. Otherwise, C1 gets the developing ALMOST to a printable image...but the spot removal, esp the context sensitive? no.
6. Open in Qimage and print to size

That way I get 3 copies of keepers over 3*, copy of all raw 1* and above, and an archive of all. I also have a develops files of best IQ, and usually a "put on my site" set of 2000 pixel, jpgs) and I can find all in ACDSEE with folder search, keyward, date, shoot, category etc.

Sounds complicated but isnt

Now, It took me a lot of trial and error. I would love to be ablke to see a workshop to avoid the PS step, but the tools and ad ons like Genuine fractals, Neatimage, Fcoalblade and a few others for special work cant really be done in C1. However, IF they just got the healing brush and a good outliner, then I wlould only need C1 and Qimage. (

ACDSEE really does a good job for viewing though, and d\searching on keywords works well in PS Btridge.

Regards
Victor
 

dougpeterson

Workshop Member
I assumed that, however it seems some metadata should be able to be written into the file itself. If I add keywords to a file or a rating, shouldn't I have an option to put those in the file so every program can see them?
Only if you want multiple programs to be allowed to (constantly) make write commands to your raw files. That sounds like a great recipe for (occasionally, but not rarely enough to be ignored) corrupted files.

The only time I want a program to make ANY write command to my raw files is when I specifically ask it to (which means I know I have a good backup already and will pay attention for any signs of trouble). That's one of the central reasons many software packages use sidecars (or central databases).

Now some XMP can be shared with C1. Check in the preferences menu.

Doug Peterson (e-mail Me)
__________________

Head of Technical Services, Capture Integration
Phase One Partner of the Year
Leaf, Leica, Cambo, Arca Swiss, Canon, Apple, Profoto, Broncolor, Eizo & More

National: 877.217.9870 *| *Cell: 740.707.2183
Newsletter | RSS Feed
Buy Capture One 6 at 10% off
 

dougpeterson

Workshop Member
by slow, I was not referring to the speed of the computer or the program. I was referring to the time it takes me to create effective local adjustments. The brush itself does not show you what it's doing. Try this ... create a large area of an adjustment with the mask on. Set it to erase, and set the hardness to 100 ... now click. Even though there is no transition the brush guide is useless in letting you know where the edge of the brush is. Despite being on a 12core mac with 24gigs of ram, drawing a local adjustment and using the mask as a guide has to be done extremely slowly. Often it's easier to just swipe quickly and then hit command Z and try it again of you missed.

So even though the new adjustments are useful, and for simple things OK, they aren't anywhere close to the effectiveness of those in LR. Using them is slow and challenging, although I do use them more than I thought I would. It would be much easier if the brush itself applied at various densities like LR, instead you have to stack multiple adjustments on top of each other. Works OK, but again slow.

I hope you are right .. I hope they keep getting better so they are more useful.
I don't think there is any argument that LR has a lead right now in the ease/speed of local adjustments.

I would argue that the quality of local adjustments (color accuracy with strong adjustments, noise/detail rendition, the fineness of control, the ability to apply moire reduction locally, the ability to render localized color-editor changes etc) is higher in C1.

By the way, you may find local adjustments in C1 less frustrating once you start using the "m" shortcut key to manually turn on and off the mask (depending on your needs) rather than relying on the auto-show-mask feature. The new "copy mask from" command also helps when you have to stack multiple layers to accomplish a goal.

But clearly the UI of local adjustments is something that can and should be improved (opacity, gradients, faster drawing), and given that they only released the very first generation of Local Adjustments late last year I'd expect to see some pretty great improvements in this area in the coming months.

Doug Peterson (e-mail Me)
__________________

Head of Technical Services, Capture Integration
Phase One Partner of the Year
Leaf, Leica, Cambo, Arca Swiss, Canon, Apple, Profoto, Broncolor, Eizo & More

National: 877.217.9870 *| *Cell: 740.707.2183
Newsletter | RSS Feed
Buy Capture One 6 at 10% off
 

dougpeterson

Workshop Member
I don't have time to review my entire workflow, but my personal catalog/workflow works like this:

C1: Import/Edit/Adjust/Rename the images as a session
C1: Process the Selects to 16 bit to the output folder of the session
PS: Open anything that needs retouching (e.g. liquify, texture painting, object removal) / Save
C1: Process the 16-bit TIFFS (so that retouching is included where applicable) to two final-uses:
---- Facebook: Small JPGs with watermark
---- Client-DVD: Large High Quality JPGs

I then burn a DVD with the JPGs, upload the Small JPGs to Facebook, and then delete those files.

I empty my session trash (by now I can be sure whether I needed to use a crap image for a head/hand/texture/etc).

I then Import the 16-Bit TIFFs to an Aperture Project. I copy/paste the name of the session. My C1 Sessions and Aperture both have six categories (Weddings, Nudes, Fashion-Portrait, Landscape, Life, Other) so there is very little effort to keep them coordinated.

The upshot is I can keep the super-select retouched images in a catalog for catalog-required-tasks such as:
- pulling the years best images for marketing
- making books/albums
- showing potential wedding client's complete weddings

There is no need (in my personal workflow) to have instant access to a raw file behind a catalog'd final image. I VERY rarely would need to go back and retweak a file starting at the raw stage (I do my photoshop in layers, so if I screwed up retouching I could simply reopen the layered TIFF in PS from Aperture and re-shop it as needed). Not having the non-select images in the catalog is huge boon to me; keeping the size of the catalog done, and the "riff-raff" out.

This basically separates the files into:
- Raws / Movies*
- Finals

There is not anything about this workflow that I hold up as the only way to workflow-happiness. It is specific to my needs, and I could do it many other ways. Just one of many ways to skin a cat that works really well for me.

P.S. I tried really hard to move my entire wedding workflow to Aperture 3 when it came out. I consider myself a pretty high-level users of Aperture, and I simply could not get my workflow done as quickly as in Capture One. Reducing 1200 images down to 300-400 images, adjusting them, applying some styling, adjusting similar images to matching exposure, retouching as needed, and creating a client DVD, a watermarked facebook album takes a lot of time in any program. But it takes me much less in C1.

Note I'm biased as my job title includes "Capture One Guru" but I assure you that when I'm taking a Sunday afternoon to catch up on wedding processing that I will use whatever the heck will give me very good results in the shortest time possible. For me, right now, that's C1.

*5DII video clips

Doug Peterson (e-mail Me)
__________________

Head of Technical Services, Capture Integration
Phase One Partner of the Year
Leaf, Leica, Cambo, Arca Swiss, Canon, Apple, Profoto, Broncolor, Eizo & More

National: 877.217.9870 *| *Cell: 740.707.2183
Newsletter | RSS Feed
Buy Capture One 6 at 10% off
 
Top