Import & Browse Test: Aperture vs Lightroom vs Photo Mechanic

[Anonymous]

Almost every assignment I do is deadline driven. Sometimes I even show images from a wedding that I’m still shooting. Speed is important to me. I’ll never complain that something is too fast. I’m always wanting it to move faster.

Aperture 3.3 has dramatically improved the speed in which we can look at photos not already in the library. Aperture 3.0 gave us the ability to browse, adjust and export images before they were even all finished copying from the card to the hard drive — this was a massive leap forward in productivity. Now, the Aperture team has taken Aperture 3.3 to the next level with dramatic improvements to handling the embedded JPEG file. They have made the speed in which the images draw to screen much faster.


It made me wonder; is Aperture faster than the other apps pro photographers use to do this? Adobe has recently made made Lightroom 4.1 available. I hear it’s more responsive, and I want to know for sure. Many pro photographers still swear by Photo Mechanic for their deadline photo browsing and metadata duties. They perceive it to be faster than Aperture and Lightroom. Are their perceptions correct? I want to know.

The results might surprise you… http://www.apertureexpert.com/tips/2...-mechanic.html

[Forgiss - Sean Nel]

According to the Adobe guys the other night, the massive speed increase in CS6 is because of a completely reworked imaging engine. I am surprised that it fared so badly in this test, especially as part of the live demo was how they scrubbed through 1080HD footage from a card, on the fly during ingest (import with FW800 CF card reader) because of the way the new imaging engine renders on the fly. It was honestly better than what I have ever seen.

Obviously video and Images are two different things, but I expected Lightroom to show the same speed improvements CS6 Premier and Photoshop displayed.

[jab2]

Great, another unscientific test that proofs nothing. They obviously did not check what is displayed, the embedded jpg, or a fully rendered image from the RAW.

Some converters display the embedded jpg on import, that is until you zoom in. LR renders the display size which is set in the settings so that it is ready when you want to work on the images. I think the default setting is 1:1. So LR does a lot more work, and disc writing, than necessary for just importing and displaying.

[Anonymous]

Great, another unscientific test that proofs nothing. They obviously did not check what is displayed, the embedded jpg, or a fully rendered image from the RAW.

Some converters display the embedded jpg on import, that is until you zoom in. LR renders the display size which is set in the settings so that it is ready when you want to work on the images. I think the default setting is 1:1. So LR does a lot more work, and disc writing, than necessary for just importing and displaying.

Did you read the whole article? The whole point was that aperture is loading the embedded jpgs so you can quickly review your photos and make selections even before the file has been imported off the card. This is a big deal for people like me who shoot under deadline and it's the reason I almost made the move to photomechanic.

[jab2]

Did you read the whole article? The whole point was that aperture is loading the embedded jpgs so you can quickly review your photos and make selections even before the file has been imported off the card. This is a big deal for people like me who shoot under deadline and it's the reason I almost made the move to photomechanic.

In LR under the File Handling tab on the Import dialog box one have a choice of 4 different Preview Render options, a)Minimal, b)Embedded & Sidecar, c)Standard and d)1:1. One should expect an import speed difference between these 4 options. Nowhere does the article state that they changed this setting, so one must assume they ran the test at the 1:1 render setting. Obviously in this scenario LR will drag against the programs that display the embedded jpg.

On reading the posts below the article Joseph and Thomas admit that the default was used. Thomas ran the test again at the embedded setting and dropped the time to 11 minutes. Still not great, but it is no surprise, as it is well known that LR is slow on imports. With regards to skipping images when browsing, as far as I can gather LR displays the embedded jpg on the filmstrip, but the rendered preview in the main panel. These two images are thus from two different file sources, so it is perfectly plausible to see an image in the filmstrip and move to it, as it is read from the embedded jpg in the RAW file now on the disc, but not have the rendered image written to disc yet, and thus unavailable for display in the main window. This is also the reason for a longer import time, as LR does not read the embedded jpg from the RAW file and display it, it first write it to disc and then read that file to display it. It thus write two image files per RAW file.

Note, I do not say LR is lightning fast on imports; it is not, but I still stand by my original statement that, as the test was done in the article, without understanding the workings of the different pieces of software, and using the correct settings, it was unscientific.

[Leo Theron]

Did you read the whole article? The whole point was that aperture is loading the embedded jpgs so you can quickly review your photos and make selections even before the file has been imported off the card. This is a big deal for people like me who shoot under deadline and it's the reason I almost made the move to photomechanic.

LR also shows you the card… you can select/deselect BEFORE the import starts - and you can start working on the images after the first one is imported.

This reminds me of an IT guy many many moons ago who had a lot to say about a flight planning program segment in a meeting where we were about to make a purchasing decision. He was upset when I said that his statement is of little value as he has never coded, used or applied the tool in question.

In this case - what do we expect? The testers are Aperture experts - not LR experts! AND they have to look after the interests of Aperture - or am I missing something?

And last but not least, it is a real unscientific test, IMHO

[Leo Theron]

And last but not least - if you are really pushed for time - why would you wait till you have your 500 images on your card before you start import and your selection/weeding process?

You should import your first images halfway through - and when you are done shooting the last batch of 250 images - you can do what needs to be done!

Simon? What say you?

[Forgiss - Sean Nel]

Something that is very nice on the 5DmkIII (I suppose this was a nikon feature years ago) is the ability to rate images on the card as you go along (sorry, a bit off topic) These show up in bridge or lightroom.

I thought it's a gimmic but in a high crunch environment, I have found my self making selections already on the card while chimping inbetween... just as a general guideline... but I have found that it did speed up my process quite a bit... obviously not possible in all environments

Sorry for jumping off topic

[jab2]

One sometimes think you understand an issue that is confronting other people. Only later do you realize you had no clue of the finer details.

Reading Jeff Cables blog post on his workflow at the London Olympics made me realize the importance of quick review for some jobs, and why Photo Mechanic exists and excel. To be fair however, one cannot really compare Lightroom/Aperture with Photo Mechanic in the role Jeff, and most other Photo Mechanic user use it.

Read the 8th paragraph.

Williams, BTW I see the new Version 5 is coming out this Monday.

[Anonymous]

One sometimes think you understand an issue that is confronting other people. Only later do you realize you had no clue of the finer details.

Reading Jeff Cables blog post on his workflow at the London Olympics made me realize the importance of quick review for some jobs, and why Photo Mechanic exists and excel. To be fair however, one cannot really compare Lightroom/Aperture with Photo Mechanic in the role Jeff, and most other Photo Mechanic user use it.

Read the 8th paragraph.

Williams, BTW I see the new Version 5 is coming out this Monday.

Nice article though I can't help but wonder if he didn't omit a "not" from

It does do all that fancy retouching that the other applications do, but it is perfect for going through hundreds or thousands of images and finding the "money shots".

Anyhow, as someone who does a lot of quick review myself the speed of the latest Aperture is nothing short of phenomenal. Like Photo Mechanic users I also have quick keys set up for all my captioning (though Text Expander) so I'd have to ask a PM user exactly what advantage they believe that app offers. Also, if I was correct in guessing that Jeff omitted that "not" I also have a whole slue of retouching tools at my disposal which means no round-tripping to PS.

I've made it my mission to make sure that, unlike this year, I don't miss the next olympics so maybe I'll ask Jeff myself in Rio.