Aperture and Lightroom
POSTSCRIPT (to the last post): I have since tried to re-create this “look” in Apple Aperture (v2.0) but found I couldn’t “overwork” the dials as much as you can in Lightroom. Aperture seems to have very safe limits, even when you ignore the sliders and type numbers up to their highest value. I do think Aperture has a more “pure” approach to image processing… and the new RAW 2.0 conversions are very nice. But I think Lightroom handles shadows more delicately (it won’t crunch them as suddenly); plus it has curves. The tint wheels are too small in Aperture, I wish they were bigger as you can’t be very precise on such a tiny scale! The other thing that bugs me in Aperture is that you cannot reorder the modules, so that the processing happens in a different sequence. Lightroom also has this limitation, but it seems to be somehow less apparent, or maybe I need to get used to the tools…
If I wanted to go the full monty on rescuing highlights, for example, I would prefer that it did this before it went through the Levels adjustment (which is pretty much your last chance to change the shadows and highlights, contrast, etc).
I have read online that Aperture works in float, although the user manual seems to have no reference to this. If true, a float pipeline would mean you couldn’t end up clipping an image in the whites or blacks – information would be preserved module to module, so if you did two contradictory adjustments (say, brighten in one module and darken in the next), the detail in the image would not be adversely affected. In most Apple products, this means 32-bit float, and they have it implemented (and documented) in Core Image, Motion, and Shake.
The trouble with Aperture is that you don’t get far into the processing chain to see that it is not working in float, at least module to module. If you crank the contrast up in the Enhance module, but try to pull the highlights down using the quarter tone controls in the Levels module, you will see that your image has been clipped. In fact, I would say that one would be best off not to touch a lot of the controls in the Exposure and Enhance modules, and try and get it all done in Levels, so that you are not losing too much detail in your image.
Maybe I don’t know enough about the Aperture processing chain, but it would seem to be a little better if you could “optimise” the order the modules worked. Because working in float can have ramifications on speed, it would be nice if you could define the bit-depth that you want to process at, switching say, from fast 8bit to create a rough “thumbnail” look, to a more refined float-based render for your final image. It means a bit of a coffee break, but at least you would have the option. This is a similar way to how you would use Shake, but for some reason Aperture doesn’t get the stable-mate’s bit-depth goodness.
Of course, Aperture does a lot of other stuff quite well. The difference between Lightroom and Aperture (or C1, Bibble, et al.) is becoming the modern equivalent of shooting Kodak or Fuji.
I like both.