New Adobe app to take on Apple's Aperture - Page 3

LightRoom is one Adobe app that I will think about purchasing. At least, some night, I will download it. It is nice to see them come out with it for the Mac first, even if it is a 'beta'. A clever way to keep the fishes on the line.

I too hope it spurs Apple to work on developing Aperture in to a top working programme. The Woz was right back some months ago when he said(in that interview, if one reads the whole) that Apple too much is for going on to the next thing, that they need to work on maturing software.

I became frustrated with Adobe, after they ditched FrameMaker(thankfully, Mellel is aimed to pick up on book making). They should sell FrameMaker(the Mac version), or give it away. And, with the costly updates to Photoshop. I realised, why do I, a mere amateur, need Photoshop, if Elements or other programmes are around. As the pro David Brooks pointed out, most people only really need Elements, and so Adobe came out with it. Good move.

But, LightRoom, hmm. I really don't need two such programmes, and I prefer to support Apple.

Adobe caused much chafement and resistance in me when they would develop more for the windos versions. Why are fonts a problem in programmes in OS X? Adobe is using its font handling, which seems geared more toward the windos version, but has been 'ported' to the Mac. It does not use OS X's own, from what I understand from some pros, simple fellow that I am. Perhaps someone here(who has hung around Adobe) can better inform me.

But I am going to give LightRoom a good look. If only it didn't take so long on a dial up to download 111MB. I am not any pro, just an amateur. But it would be helpful to have a simple worthwhile tool for organisation.

Read this http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits.ars/2006/1/2/2286 article.

Thanks for the link. Yes, I thought about Final Cut, while I was writing that.

For Adobe, Lightroom is an earth-shattering new kind of app. Its user interface is light years ahead of any other Adobe app. Much easier to use than Photoshop.

But the more I play with it, the more I realize how much less sophisticated it is than Aperture. Superficially they look the same, but Lightroom just isn't very deep. No wonder they're talking about a cheaper price ($299 or $399).

P.S.--If you happen to be in the Twin Cities any time soon, I can give you a CD of the download.

Those are my thoughts exactly. Anybody who's had reasonable time to try out both products should realize that, unless more features are added and more interface cleanups are done, Lightroom is a very lightweight competitor to Aperture.

Some will argue that the result (better RAW conversion) wins over function...and that's their opinion. My opinion is that it doesn't...especially considering RAW conversion is something that can (relatively) easily and rapidly be tweaked while user interfaces are much more difficult to change.

If RAW conversion and Aperture speed is a problem, these will be fixed within a year. Sure, Aperture has higher requirements than Lightroom...but that's because it does more. Nobody will be complaining about speed when they're running Aperture in all it's CoreImage glory in a year when the computers that are shipping all have excellent graphics cards and multicore Intel processors.

Lightroom is not great. I know it's unfinished but the Loupe tool is unfinished - it's not easy to zoom in or out - it's just a zoom tool like Photoshop - no better. There really should be an easy way to enlarge and reduce. The workspace is cluttered and anti-0intutive. However, this application is light and fast. It just doesn't offer the organisational tools the Aperture does - it's not as neat and doesn't have a light table either!