Adobe and Apple have a Picture Editing Brawl going on of epic proportions. The market is not huge maybe half a billion a year in totals software sales. But the bragging rights of having the most photographers and image takers using your software must be worth this Brobadingnang brawl.

It is important to note that both Aperture and Lightroom are not just full-image photo editors but also are photo storage managers as well. And this is photo storage on a basis not seen before in most image processing software (including the legion of albums and catalog programs) because all edits to all the photos are stored in a database and then applied dynamically when the images are brought up for viewing or exported from Aperture or Lightroom. Why do this - well the original .RAW or JPG image is preserved

Now let us make another point, a full-image photo editor is a limited photo editor - it does not have the range of capabilities of a full photo editor like Adobe Photoshop or Corel's PaintShop Pro. As we shall see below such essentials as paint brushes, masks, layers and effects are missing. Rather a full-image photo-editor is devoted to taking a camera raw or jpg image direct from your digital camera, processing the .RAW/.TIFF (or file to allow basic full-image edits such as:
1)Image Transformation - cropping, straightening, flipping and even perspective/lens distortion corrections;
2)Exposure Control - goes well past Brightness, Contrast and into Recovery (overexposed/bleached out areas are repaired), Fill Flash (darker tones are brightened and saturated as if a flash fill had been applied to the original), Black Point (selective application of black point recovers burned out areas) and other exposure corrections;
3)Color Corrections - again goes beyond HSL-Hue Saturation and Lightness controls and adds a number of Hue sensitive corrections like Vibrancy(subtle hues outside a selected hue tone are differentially re- or de-saturated), Hue Selection (only these hues are subject to HSL changes) and other subtle color;
4)Photo enhancements - these are a range of "adjacent bit effects such as sharpening, blurring, smoothing, etc. And this is where Aperture and Lightroom differ. Neither offers a full range of capabilities that one would find in Photoshop but they are both adding more. For example Aperture adds Definition which increases the contrast at boundaries and edges in the image;
5)Photo Retouching - uses patch and cloning to remove specific imperfections - dust, lint, dandruff, or other objectionable spots from the image. This is not trivial to do because in order to preserve the original image all brush stroke info - size, placement and exact stroke positioning, correction settings, etc have to be recorded in the Aperture or Lightroom databases. This can become extremely large quickly.

So even with this and other adjustment capabilities, both Aperture's and the Lightroom full-image editors deliberately stay away from offering brush stroke operations like masks, color-brushes, and other special-effect brushes because to guarantee original image integrity, gigantic amounts of brush stroke edit data would have to be stored - and the time to restore an edited image for viewing starts to become prohibitively long as anyone who has seen the Action or History tools used in Photoshop or Corel Painter well knows.

For the same reason, Layers and Masks, have not yet appeared in either product. This opens up another kettle of fish, overlapping and non-overlapping layers, that are just becoming available in Photoshop and other high end photo-editors. I expect these some basic but popular mask or selection features to start to appear in either Lightroom or Aperture but these may have to wait for faster processors.

So full-image photo editors offer both more and less. More correction operations particularly in Exposure Control and Color corrections than are available in Photoshop (although it closes the gap quickly with each new version) and other high end photo-editors. But distinctly Less in paint brushes, masking, layering and a whole library of special effects and filters.

Another essential common point between the two editors is that they both import from the same broad range of file types: RAW for most cameras(each gets a moment ray advantage), JPEG, TIF, PSD and DNG. Aperture 2 adds GIF and PDF. Both support projects/libraries and user selected albums/collections. Both support non-destructive preservation of original images..

On the output side, both programs offer export in the same formats with Aperture 2 adding GIF and PDF. Both programs allow users control over printing, Web site creation, and production of books and catalogs. They differ in how they do this and what features they offer. However, since I do most of these operations elsewhere - Photoshop for Printing, Dreamweaver for Web delivery, and online websites for books and catalogs, I will not make detailed comparisons here. I like the ability in Lightroom to add my own print configuration presets; I prefer the book/catalog tools and templates in Aperture 2.

Both programs also offer a comprehensive set of IPTC and EXIF metadata support along with several user rating and identification systems - colors, numeric, and tagged. I prefer the Lightroom filtering on tags and navigation on metadata. Aperture does more for customizing what metadata is to be seen.

As you can see, the two programs have a lot of common features. So having determined the key capabilities of both Aperture and Lightroom, lets look at what is new and innovative in Aperture 2.

Aperture 2 Features

Apple has on its site a list of 100 new features and enhancements for Aperture 2. This contrast with Adobe, which has been sending out free .1 point improvements to Lightroom every 2-4 months or so. Currently Lightroom is at version 1.4.

Many of the new features in Aperture are in response to Lightroom (and vice versa).
The following features match or better(++) Lightroom:
Advanced RAW processing - improvements incorporate OS/X Leopard routines
Basic DNG file support -
Black Point - for exposing light details in shadows
Clone tool - added to Patch for touch ups, accuracy of both improved
Definition - adds local contrast at edges, increasing clarity and reducing “hazy” detail
Devignetting/Vignetting++ - remove or add vignetting effects
Recovery - highlights bleached out can be restored
Rule of thirds - guide for cropping
Speed of Imports - notably improved in Aperture 2
Spot and Patch retouch- revamped and much improved


Unique to Aperture 2:
Hot and Cold Spotting- red shows pure white, blue pure blacks in making tone fixes
Keyboard shortcuts - easily remapped with keyboard image + dialog box
Magnifier Loupe - for quick checking of image details is very handy
Tethered Shooting - Pros really like direct-into Aperture capability for studio work

Biggest Improvement

There is no doubt in my mind that the biggest improvement in Aperture 2 is the interface. Now
I admit I like the Lightroom interface with its left, right and bottom panels that hide or flip out at the click of a button. Also the panels contents change depending on whether users clicked the Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print or Web mode arranged along the top right of the interface.

I like simple point and click operations that allow me to expand my workspace in such a fashion. And Aperture 2 solves this problem in a new way. The Inspector (see screen shot on left)with its tabs for Projects, Metadata, and Adjustments panels, can be hidden or invoked with simple keyboard clicks. I appreciate having all the attributes and properties of a photo quickly at hand as in the Inspector.

But there is more. In the Image Viewer mode, there is a toolbar strip along the bottom that allows users to get at additional adjustment commands and dialogs. This is where one can go for the most frequently used operations.

The Browser has been improved with a filmstrip mode of operation. The filmstrip can use the new Fast Preview mode that uses thumbnails immediately to speed up browsing through your images. You can also position the filmstrip at either side or the bottom of the screen.

This facility is extended to allow the filmstrip to be dragged and dropped along either edge or along the bottom of the screen. And then with a single key, one can cycle between Viewer only, Browser only, or Browser and Viewer modes of operation. Very nice.

In general Aperture 2 has made speed of operation and navigation a priority and it really shows. There are a number of small touches that are very useful like snapping guides in Light-table mode, easier to use layouts for the Filters and Retouch dialogs, and easier navigation in the Book and Web output modes.

In sum, the interface has gone from a bit clumsy at times to very effective for use on a regular scale. And of course add to this the Applescript and Automator capabilities to really streamline workflows in ways that Lightroom can only approximate, and here you have one of the key attractions of Aperture 2.

Summary

Clearly from the list of improvements Aperture is playing catchup to Lightroom in many features - most notably speed of operation, better RAW processing, and a more amenable UI layout. However, there are still leave behinds such as no robust curves tool, more complete noise and sharpening function . But on the other hand the Magnifier Loupe, Tethered Shooting and Automation of Workflow will be attractive to a lot of pros along with the $200 price versus Lightroom at $300. So there are trade offs to be made, but you can hardly go wrong with Aperture 2.
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