After outgrowing Apple's iPhoto for my digital darkroom and photo storage needs, I started a search for an alternative option. First, I tried using Aperture by Apple, but apparently the video card on my Powerbook wasn't enough to handle the program. Seemed silly to limit the software to users of super high-end systems, but whatever -- Aperture gets awful reviews anyway. Finally, I tried out the beta of Lightroom and have been really impressed. It does a great job working with both RAW and JPEG formatted pictures, including an intelligent system for allowing me to revert back to the "negative" version of an image from before I changed it. The system uses "sidecars" for the changes rather than actually holding two complete versions of most pictures as does iPhoto. The organization system makes sense and allows for several different schemes for keeping track of photos. I can tag them, rate them, sort them and even adjust the EXIF data through a well thought out interface.
Overall, I rate Lightroom highly and serve notice to Apple that they need to seriously improve iPhoto if they hope to keep up with Adobe.
Labels: photography, software
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