Mac photo management software

[topaz]

As I mentioned on Facebook a couple of weeks ago, recently I learned the hard way not to trust iPhoto for anything, ever. At some point in the last few months it lost the original (raw) files of every photo I've taken since 2005. I'm still trying to figure out just what might have happened, but it looks like it occurred at around the same time I moved my photos from a MacBook Pro running Leopard to a new iMac running Snow Leopard. The problem looks a lot like this (minus the Aperture issues), or this, or possibly this.

The worst part is that the failure was not immediately apparent, since the thumbnail images are all still intact and iPhoto doesn't immediately alert you if there's something wrong like a missing original. So my spot checks on the library after I moved it to the new machine all passed, and I deleted the archive from the old machine months ago.

So anyway. I'm in the market for a new Macintosh photo management tool and am willing to drop some real money on it. I want a tool that:

• does something reasonably smart if I dump a lot of photos into it without guidance (e.g. if I took 1,500 pictures over the weekend and don't have six hours to spend sorting them right away)
• is flexible about how I organize photos when I choose to (i.e. doesn't pathologically insist on saving every batch of photos in a meaningless "event", like iPhoto)
• has solid basic photo editing tools: crop, rotate, curves, color levels, etc. I don't absolutely need liquid rescale or content-aware fill; for that I can always fire up the GIMP
• good metadata management a plus (tagging, keywords, etc)
• isn't going to forget one day where the last five years of pictures went (this is kind of a deal-breaker, now)

Any recommendations? Lightroom, Aperture, something else? Do you like the workflow your tools offer you? What about them?

Comments

Lightroom is Love

[mangosteen]

I've been using Lightroom for dealing with industrial-size (>1000) batches of photos for the past few years, and have been very happy with it.

To go through your points:
- Yes, it will DTRT if you just dump a ton of photos in... which is to say that it will ask, but it will do sensible things like dump them in folders with dates on them, or rename with a custom name and a sequence number.

- As above, it's very flexible about organization, and has the extra level of "Collections" in order to allow you to organize photos independently of your file structure.

- Yup. Solid basic photo tools, including spot removal.

- Will do tagging, keywords, 1-5 stars, pick/reject, etc.

- Has not forgotten where things went.

The Aperture vs. Lightroom debate is a matter of taste. I get the impression that Lightroom is a more linear workflow than Aperture, but that works just fine for how I work.

Re: Lightroom is Love

[nacht_musik]

Clarification: I agree with everything M said, with the caveat that Lightroom is a photo processing tool, not an all-purpose graphics editor, and there are many many things GIMP or Photoshop can do that it cannot. Including liquid rescale, content-aware fill, and keystone/spherical correction. Lightroom does have a spot removal tool, but you have to supply the cleverness about where to clone pixels from/to.

Also, "the first one is free". Try the free Lightroom 30-day trial, which is a full non-crippled version of the software -- but only if you're able (as you are in this case) to shell out the money for it at the end of the trial, because it's likely going to get you hooked. :-)

Re: Lightroom is Love

[inahandbasket]

Fourthed.
Lightroom is the cat's pajamas.

[coraline]

lightroom is the way and the, er, light.
someone finally hired UI DESIGNERS to make a piece of software. it's very very nice. and there's a trial download :)

[penk.livejournal.com]

I'm intrigued by the discussion here - I also have large photo archives that I don't want to lose, and I also do not trust iPhoto - there's too much "we cover up the complex bits" in bad ways there.

Am I missing a version problem - is lightroom only $79? That would make it worthwhile - I'm constantly stung by "Oh, just use photoshop!" "You giving me the $500 I need for it?" "uhh, no. But it's a great tool!" mindset for most adobe products.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

The "upgrade" for Lightroom 3 is $80-100, that's probably what you're seeing. The full Lightroom 3 for Mac is $285 at Amazon. (http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-65064073-Photoshop-Lightroom-3/dp/B003739DVY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1289922116&sr=8-2)

There's a "student-teacher" edition available for $80. I may see if we can apply our homeschooling magic to this.

[naiad.livejournal.com]

You should totally be able to get the student-teacher edition. And if you can't get it yourself, you probably know someone who works at a college who could get it for you ;)

Aperture

[mr-privacy.livejournal.com]

I've been using aperture for a couple of years, and find it much more flow-full than lightroom 3 beta was.

From where I sit, LR had a bit too much "we mapped out the use cases and mapped each to a screen with a set of tools" Aperture is more "here are your photos, everything rotates around them."

That might be familiarity effects, but Aperture has a downloadable demo version, too.

OTOH, it hides your photos in a magic folder type of .aplibrary which the OS then doesn't let you open in the finder. Under that is a normal file-system based database with files & xml edits. They nominally pay lots of attention to photog concerns about originals, but if iphoto just screwed you, you might not want to give apple another chance.

[khedron.livejournal.com]

I have no comment, I'm just watching the discussion. I've read lots of reviews of both Lightroom & Aperture, and it does seem to come down to a matter of personal preference. I haven't used either -- well, apart from downloading the Aperture demo, and liking how side-by-side comparison works in there.

AFAIK, either allows multiple libraries (so you can take your laptop on a trip, take a 1000 pictures, work with them a little bit, and then attach it to your main library at home). I'm afraid there's no tech spec checkbox for "does not break my heart".

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Lightroom is love.

Photoshop elements

[rikpierce.livejournal.com]

From mom actually

Not pricey and it works - does all this.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

I enjoy JetPhoto Studio as a way to organize my photos and upload them to my website (www.sheeri.com/photos if you're interested). It has great editing tools, and because it only works with one album at a time it doesn't die after about 1,000 pictures, as iPhoto tends to do.

It also reads more metadata than iPhoto tends to - I get real "date photo taken" dates from JetPhoto, when iPhoto is blank. I don't do a lot of high-tech organizing, but from what I remember it isn't great with tagging and keywords and such. Maybe newer versions are better?