When it came time for us to actually pony up the cash for the full version of Lightroom, we had a crisis of conscience. What if this wasn’t the right decision? What if we only thought Lightroom was All That? We’d been eyeing Apple’s Aperture for a while; the Quicktime videos on Apple’s site had been pretty impressive, and all our web searching had basically convinced us that we should at least give it a try. And there was a 30-day trial…what could it hurt?

As our Lightroom trial came to a close, we went ahead and downloaded Aperture. Unlike most trials, we actually had to get a trial license from Apple, but it was easy enough and we were up and running in no time. Well – not exactly no time. Aperture took quite a while to load and then grab our RAW files (even though we didn’t tell it to grab that many); we thought this was just because we were starting it for the first time, but future imports would reveal that Aperture, much like iPhoto, is a slow loader.

Aperture sports a weirdly disjointed interface that could use a little TLC from Apple’s design crew. The top of the screen shows a row of icons familiar to iPhoto users (Smart Folder, Book, Web Gallery, etc.) and several editing tools which seem to have been selected at random. Using the tools is a bit confusing, since clicking on them seems to have no effect; one needs to click the tool and then click the image to make a change. The sidebars seem both cluttered and insufficient. They’re different enough from both Lightroom and Photoshop that we are unable to find what we’re looking for. For example: how do we darken shadows? We wade through things like “Chroma Blur” and “Auto Noise Compensation” before we finally find a “Shadows” option, but the slider is already all the way over and our shadows don’t look the way we want them to. Clicking “Advanced” reveals a series of baffling options like “High Tonal Width” and “Radius.” We mess around with them a little, but soon give up in frustration. We miss Lightroom already.

Once we do get an image to look the way we want, we’d like to sync the adjustments with other pictures in the series. We’d like to, but we can’t figure out how. In Lightroom, there was a big, friendly button that said “Sync.” Where are our big, friendly buttons? Oh, Lightroom. We did not appreciate all you did for us.

The “Auto Exposure” button (on the right, under the histogram; it’s a little button shaped like a camera shutter) yields good results. No complaints there. However, our final images look sort of washed-out, and we find ourselves opening Photoshop just to tweak them. Isn’t that what Aperture is supposed to be for?

Want a breakdown? Here’s how Aperture fared in our battle for photo editing dominance:

• Interface elegance: Lightroom’s interface is intuitive and easy to understand for anyone who has experience with Photoshop. Aperture’s seems cluttered and confusing, and there’s a learning curve for new users. Winner: Lightroom.
• Automatic adjustments: This is where Aperture took the lead. Nine times out of ten, the automatic adjustment looked good, if not great. Lightroom’s automatic features are a bit more of a crapshoot. Winner: Aperture.
• Manual adjustments: the way Lightroom handles manual adjustments is identical to Photoshop, if Photoshop only handled pictures. All the sliders and graphs a digital photographer needs are right there. Aperture’s adjustment options range from too simple to too complex, with nothing in the middle. Winner: Lightroom.
• Revert to earlier version: In Aperture, the option to revert to the original is always a click away. However, in Lightroom, one can mouseover every step in the image’s history. Want to remove everything but the first levels adjustment? No problem. Plus, you can preview it in the left-hand thumbnail. Winner: Lightroom.
• Sync: Syncing in Lightroom? Easy. We couldn’t figure out how to do it in Aperture. That doesn’t mean it isn’t possible; it just means we’re impatient. Winner: Lightroom.
• View as slideshow: Now, you’d think this would be where Aperture took the lead, seeing as iPhoto’s slideshow feature kicks butt, and Photoshop’s? Not so much. Imagine our sadness when we clicked the “Slideshow” icon and then had to wait…and wait…and wait while Aperture built previews for each image. Ten minutes all told, and then the slideshow quit in the middle and we couldn’t figure out how to re-start it from the place we stopped. In Lightroom, you just click the “Slideshow” section and it’s ready to go. Winner: Lightroom.
• Save: Both programs make it easy to export images and customize file names. Winner: Tie.

We wanted to love Aperture, we really did, but there’s no denying it: Lightroom has our hearts.

Then, two things happened: we figured out how to disable iPhoto as the default downloader when the camera is connected, and we snagged a copy of Adobe Lightroom Beta.

First things first: turning off automatic importing in iPhoto. When we first set up the computer, we didn’t think twice about using iPhoto as our image-uploading default. Once we got the DSLR and started shooting RAW, we regretted that decision. Sure, it can handle RAW files. Sort of. But since you have to open the RAW files in Photoshop anyway if you want to take advantage of all the format has to offer, iPhoto is not the ideal place for them. Also, once an iPhoto album gets a few hundred images in it, it takes an unreasonable amount of time to load. We like instant gratification. Waiting for iPhoto to get fired up was driving us up the wall.

Turns out it’s the easiest thing in the world to disable this feature once you know what you’re doing. Just open Image Capture (in your Applications folder), choose Image Capture > Preferences and choose another default application. We chose Image Capture itself; it’s quick and snappy, and it has a preset for transferring images to the Pictures folder so we didn’t even have to set anything up. Sweet!

Next, we fired up Lightroom. The dark gray interface coupled with a truly dazzling array of sidebar widgets was a bit daunting at first, but we quickly realized that the options were similar to those in the Camera Raw import screen in Photoshop CS2 – just beefed up and arranged more intuitively. The Library screen, for example, has a “Quick Develop” section at the top right: you can make basic changes to your images right there using common settings such as white balance, exposure and cropping.

You can also continue to the Develop screen, which features all the robust image correction options in Photoshop (Curves, Color Adjustment, Lens Correction, Camera Calibration, and more). This screen also has a clever new feature: at left is a menu of presets which you can mouseover to preview on a thumbnail of your selected image. A similar feature is available for the image’s history. Want to see what that picture would have looked like without the color correction? Just mouseover that entry in the history and get an instant preview. Instant! We love it when we don’t have to wait.

After tweaking your photographs to your heart’s delight, you’ve got several options: create a slideshow, print your images, or publish them to the web. I went straight for the Web screen; we’ve been consistently disappointed with Photoshop’s web publishing features, so we wanted to see what Lightroom had to offer. This is what we came up with: click to see test album.

Everything from the background colors to the company name (you can type your name in or use your own logo) can be customized to blend seamlessly with your site, and publishing an album is quick, simple and painless. As it should be. We particularly like the ability to create a Flash album; it’s ideal for putting together a collection of images from a shoot to show to a client without worrying about resizing images for copyright purposes.

Verdict: Adobe Lightroom Beta kicks ass. Which is too bad, because now we know we’ll have to buy it when it goes out of Beta…

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