Aperture Vs. Lightroom: Day 4 - The World in Black and White
by Micah Walter

One of my favorite added benefits of shooting in RAW format is the ability to set my camera to Black and White and still have the color information preserved. To do this, all I do (on my Canon 20D) is pick the B/W Parameter setting. As long as I am working in RAW format, all I am really doing is "viewing" the picture in B/W on the LCD screen. I'm actually still shooting in color.
This really helps me to visualize what the image would look like if I were shooting in B/W. It helps me to see the differences in tone, and allows me to "think" in black and white. Later, if I decide I really needed a color image, I still have the RAW file and all is well.
Both Aperture and Lightroom (and I suspect a number of other applications) handle the B/W images from my 20D in essentially the same way. When I begin to import the images I see the thumbnails in B/W. Then after a bit of processing time goes by, they all turn to color. I don't know exactly what is happening here, because, well, I never cared to ask. But, I presume the RAW file's built in thumbnail is coming up first in B/W, and then Aperture and Lightroom are processing their own thumbnails and ignoring the B/W setting.
To be honest, I'm totally fine with this behavior. If I really did want B/W, all I would need to do would be to change them back to B/W in Aperture or Lightroom. This is where things begin to differ a little in the two apps.


In Aperture, I can convert an image to B/W in a number of ways. There is no obvious "Turn me to B/W" button that I know of, but I know from my experiences a number of easy ways to go grayscale. I can either turn my saturation down to zero, or I can select the Monochrome Mixer option (found in the + menu at the top of the Adjustments Inspector), or I could pick one of the B/W presets such as Sepia Tone. Once I have my first image set to B/W, I can use the Lift and Stamp tools to easily apply the setting to the whole shoot.
In Lightroom getting to this same point is a little more obvious. Select an image, click the Develop Module, and under Treatment, select Grayscale. Then, to apply this setting to the rest of the shoot, just hit Command-A to select the entire set, and hit Sync... at the bottom of the right hand Panel.
I'm going to stop here to make two observations. First, in Lightroom, when I click Grayscale, I get something very close to what I was looking at on the back of my camera. In Aperture, if I hit Monochrome Mixer, I get a pretty flat B/W image. Second, Aperture takes its good sweet time rendering the thumbnails back to B/W on my MacBook Pro. I'm not really sure why this is such an intensive process for Aperture, but it does take some time. What I notice in Lightroom is that there is a good deal of processing going on there as well, but LR seems to be just a little more graceful about it. When I scroll down in Grid View in LR, the color thumbs on the screen quickly convert back to B/W, whereas in Aperture it seems to be converting images with some unknown agenda. At first I thought it was going from the bottom up, but then it seemed to be processing them at random. I'm still not sure what is going on with that.
I told myself I wasn't going to be doing any speed comparisons here, but I can't help myself. LR is just faster in this regard, and for those of you who are wondering, I began the week with empty libraries for both Aperture and Lightroom and have added the same number of images to both libraries.
Okay, enough about speed. Lets move on to B/W processing. First I should say, I am not a real pro at making B/W conversions. I have been shown a thing or two by colleagues, and I have made a few B/W prints from digital files, but that's about it. Color has pretty much dominated my work for the past few years. That said, I do love B/W and have been having a ball today, rediscovering how much fun it is.
So I began by importing an image set that I shot of a small party in my neighborhood into Lightroom. I shot the party with the B/W setting on my 20D (mostly for the fun of showing the pics on the LCD to the guests) and after the color versions showed up in LR I followed the steps to convert them back to B/W that I mentioned above. I also imported the same images into Aperture and applied the Monochrome Mixer to the set using the Lift and Stamp tools.
My goal here was to pick an image I liked and see what I could do with the various controls in B/W. Just like yesterday's post, I am mostly interested in which program's controls are more intuitive, and which seem to lead me down the path towards a nice image.
Lets begin with Aperture. First off, the picture I selected turned out to not be from the party at all, but instead a picture of our new puppy on our porch that I shot just before leaving for the party. What is interesting about this picture is that it was shot at ISO 800 for a half second. I just set the camera on the ground and hoped the puppy wouldn't move too much. The second reason I thought this might make an interesting example is due to the fact that the lighting was all coming from a couple of overhead fluorescent tubes that had been covered in a green gel. So for all practical purposes, the light was already monochromatic. I don't expect you will find yourselves in a similar situation anytime soon, but, one of the things I really like to work with is odd lighting, and I really enjoy trying to make the best out of a less than ideal circumstance. In fact it was the green lights that got me thinking in black and white to begin with.
In Aperture I have no trouble getting the image to a point where I am happy. I take advantage of the exposure, levels, and highlight and shadow sliders to make the image pop a little more than the original RAW shot. I also added some sharpness, and played around with the Monochrome Mixer. Because the lights were all green, the only slider that had any effect here was the green channel slider. So I bumped it up a little and it seemed to add a little brightness. I tried playing with the noise reduction sliders but I didn't see too much of a difference, so I left them unchecked. I then cropped the picture a little and I was done.
In Lightroom I had a very similar experience. However, I did have some fun playing with the Curves tool. Also, I saw a fairly positive effect from the Noise reduction sliders.


Top image processed in Aperture, bottom in Lightroom.
After reviewing both shots I see that for whatever reason, I got a slightly (in my opinion) better result from Lightroom. Maybe it had to do with my working in full screen mode with nearly no surround vs. Lightoom where I had a gray surround and a couple of Panels open. I'm really not sure, but I do like the Lightroom version better. Could I replicate the Lightroom version in Aperture? I would think it would be no problem at all.
After I finished playing with the puppy picture I tried converting a color image of a horse to B/W (see the shot at the top of this post). I wanted to try out some of the color mixing capabilities. My results were good, but inconclusive. Both Lightroom and Aperture, in their own unique ways seemed to do the job. I was able to exaggerate the tones in the sky to mimic a red filter simply by adjusting the Blue channel in the color mixers. It seemed to work in both Aperture and Lightroom equally well.
So, that's about it for tonight. It's getting pretty late here in the Caribbean, so please excuse any grammar issues this time! Tomorrow, I am doing this restaurant shoot in the afternoon. It will probably involve some lighting setups for food shots, a few basic interior shots, and maybe some environmental portraits. I am just hoping they let me eat the food I shoot, and drink a couple of beers on the house.
30 Comments
Micah 2007-02-22 20:19:16 |
PS I forgot to mention, I spent a good portion of the morning drooling over the new Canon 1D Mark III that was announced today. All I have to say is... Whoa! |
David Medina 2007-02-22 20:29:47 |
Hope you are enjoying your time in the Caribbean. At least for this week you are my neighbor (I am in Puerto Rico). Thanks for confirming what I need to hear. Both tools do their conversion job well. It comes down to what tools fits in ones workflow and style of working. For me it is Aperture for shure.
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Roger 2007-02-22 21:35:09 |
I noticed that in both test shots, the cocktail and the puppy, your lightroom version is a little brighter than your aperture version. Lighter exposure, or maybe more shadow detail on the subject, or maybe a touch overexposed in the background, depending on whether you like it or not.
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Daniel Mendez 2007-02-22 21:46:49 |
You can easily do the conversion to BW in Aperture by pressing ctrl-m.
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Daniel Mendez 2007-02-22 21:56:01 |
== I had the same observation as Roger regarding the brightness (before his post showed up) and that led me to the test I posted below, where you can do some minor tweaks to get the images look almost identical (and perhaps better shadow detail in Aperture?).
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AlexK 2007-02-22 22:05:09 |
As someone already pointed out, Ctrl-M is the "obvious" Aperture way of selecting greyscale. The menus let you pick a few filter presets (the default is sort of film-like in its R:G:B mix). As for speed: when I change a single image to b&w in aperture, it's pretty dast. I do get the impression, though, that lift-and-stamp is a bit slow. (Maybe due to the way the database is organized? Or the code just isn't optimized? Dunno.)
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Roger 2007-02-22 22:57:38 |
whoops, sorry Daniel, you're right. |
Jan Steinman 2007-02-22 23:06:39 |
In both the comparisons I've seen so far, I prefer the Aperture version -- even before reading which is which. It seems to me Lightroom is blowing out highlight detail.
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Erik J. Barzeski 2007-02-23 00:45:26 |
I too prefer the Aperture version of the image above. The floor, as others mentioned, is "gone" in the LR version.
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Gio 2007-02-23 01:01:34 |
Generally I prefer the contrast in the LR version, but it's gone a bit far in the foreground - that's operator error, Micah, or maybe the lighting, like someone said. LR's TAT is gorgeously artistic. One neat trick is to drag vignette to the left - which burns in the corners - and makes up for these programs' lack of selective adjustment (such as in LightZone and Capture NX). But while the controls are better in LR, what you can actually achieve in each program is close enough not be be a tipping point.
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Frederic 2007-02-23 05:00:07 |
I'm finishing a 4 months trip in Australia, N-Z and Japan. I used aperture, Macbook pro and ma canon 350D. All photos have benn shooted RAW. For me the prob with aperture is the speed ! Straightening a pic in full screen is a real nightmare! Based on this blog a download LR and it is faster, metadata are clear (metering, lens, ...) BUT I hate the library module and miss the full screen edit mode. Nothing is perfect .. or aperture 1.6 perhaps ;) |
Micah 2007-02-23 05:14:00 |
Wow, it's pretty cool to wake up and see all this discussion going on! For those of you who commented about the comparison of the two puppy pics there are two things going on here. One, I'm on a Mac, and my monitor is set to gamma 1.8, so if you are viewing on a PC, or have your Mac set to a higher gama, the highlight region will probably look pretty blown out. Sorry about this, its hard to please everyone!
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ian 2007-02-23 05:56:11 |
As much as you don't want to make comparsions on speed,... I am with you, I can't help it! LR just runs way faster, renders thumbs way faster. Wish I knew as well. I WAS a die hard Aperture fan, but since I loaded the LR trial to follwo along with your reviews, my faith has been shaken.
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Rodney 2007-02-23 06:29:29 |
A great post. But I like the results from Lightroom much more so than from Aperture. Also, remember, you have more experience with Aperture, yet got the better results from Lightroom with little experience! Think of what you can do once you have as much experience with Lightroom in the future. This, to me, is a great sign. :) |
David Medina 2007-02-23 07:35:38 |
While LR has a lot going for it on the Develop module, Don't forget that is based on ACR which ships with PS CS3, so Aperture with PS CS3 is a winning combination, and still get the best of what LR has to offer.
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Anonymous 2007-02-23 08:57:52 |
I'm really enjoying this series. Being a recent Mac convert my first reaction was to go with Aperture. But there were a few things that just didn't seem intuitive to me coming from a Photoshop background -- namely the organization of Aperture took a while to get used to. In the end, I can live with either system.
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Gio 2007-02-23 09:02:12 |
"I would say, wait until PMA... I suspect Apple may still blow us away (again) with Aperture 2.0 or something in that line."
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David Medina 2007-02-23 09:59:34 |
Gio,
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Allan W. 2007-02-23 10:31:41 |
I much prefer LR's image controls, although in this area Aperture's 1.5 update seemed to improve things a bit. I just think that Adobe's imaging experience shows here, with the smoothness and control one gets for adjusting tonalities in images. An example here.
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Gio 2007-02-23 11:05:16 |
David
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Doug 2007-02-23 12:18:27 |
I'm currently undecided about which product to purchase, currently evaluating both on my G5 dual 1.8 Mac.
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Daveed V. 2007-02-23 14:41:27 |
Micah: I think it would be worthwhile talking about the "target adjustment tool" combined with the "Grayscale" mode -- I think it's a pretty revolutionary approach to processing in general, and especially effective to B/W conversion. I don't think Aperture has anything that matches that.
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David Medina 2007-02-23 19:28:31 |
Gio, I fully agree.
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Mark 2007-02-24 04:00:35 |
This is starting to get really interesting! Unbiased, factual, head to head comparisons by actual working photographers are sorely lacking on this subject and I'm truly benefiting from this discussion.
Just some more factors to think about. I've tried Aperture and am just beginning to play around with LR. Still too early to tell which I like better... |
Jim N. 2007-02-24 05:44:27 |
Daveed V.,
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Beatrice 2007-02-24 08:28:39 |
Mark, Aperture is full of presets in the adjustment panel! You can have one for EACH adjustment. You can even lift and stamp those adjustments (including crop and straighten) to other images. Does LR do that? I tried a beta version about six months ago, so I dont recall. I am loving APerture and wont give LR a second glance. The b/w images above are so close that it seems it comes down to personal preference. Without knowing which app did the work, I still prefer the pup on the top pic which happens to be Aperture. Go figure. Either way, its users choice here - they are both incredible tools and you'll find one is better because it fits the work that you do, not what I do. |
Gio 2007-02-25 09:07:54 |
Beatrice, with LR you're not slowed down by having to go through lifting and stamping. You just apply adjustments to all images simultaneously - it's called Auto Sync. Why l&s anyway - you can download LR in the time it takes Aperture to complete its stamping. |
Daveed V. 2007-02-27 18:42:49 |
Jim N.: Thanks for the tip!
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James E. 2007-03-06 14:25:19 |
This has all been very helpful for me. I finally bit the bullet and jumped into digital a few months ago. At the time, LR was only available in beta, so I went with Aperture. I have two main questions right now:
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Micah 2007-03-06 14:43:00 |
James, Welcome to digital! - If you are using Aperture's Managed Library, the files are stored within Aperture's Library Package, but they are still there in their original form, and you can get at them easily. The whole concept behind Aperture and Lightroom is to never touch your original Master files, treating them with the same care as you would a negative.
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