MediaMentor's Photo Blog: Lightroom 3 vs Aperture 3

Friday, March 05, 2010

Lightroom 3 vs Aperture 3

http://www.photoradar.com/reviews/buying-guides/lightroom-3-vs-aperture-3

Adobe or Apple? If you're a photographer who uses a Mac for RAW workflow, which should you choose? Find out in our Lightroom 3 and Aperture 3 comparison...

Aperture has made profound improvements when you get into the nitty gritty of editing images

Photoshop may have just struck its 20th birthday, but in many ways it's less relevant to photographers than ever before. Not because it lacks power, features, or performance, but because photographers are now spoilt for choice by the two best workflow applications on the market. Aperture 3 arrived just over two weeks ago, while Lightroom 2 has been keeping pros happy for just under two years. Lightroom 3 is due to arrive before summer.

Lightroom 3 might not be out yet - but you can get it for free, courtesy of Adobe's beta program at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom3. It's effectively a full piece of software already – in our experience it's fast, stable, and offers a few decent new features over the current version of Lightroom 2.

But if you're a Mac user you're presented with a dilemma – Aperture 3 offers a raft of new features and, if Adobe's previous pricing is an indication you can expect to spend around £40 more on Lightroom. Should you splash out on Aperture 3 now or wait for Lightroom 3 to arrive later this year?