I had a total freeze on Lion using NX2....it started to work and then did not. Is there any update on this (4/30/12)? Because it sounds like I better get learning Adobe....

When the dialog box about the catalog backup comes on the screen, SkintBrit, there's a button that says Choose location... (or similar). Click that and navigate to the drive you have space on. Hope you're enjoying it.

spraynpray said:
Good stuff - the fun begins! Shame we didn't manage to get together Skinty, maybe some other time.

Yes, let's try again during the summer hols, it'll be great to meet up.

spraynpray said:
People who archive for customers that might or might not take copies in the future may want to put the catalogue and library in the same place like a USB key or whatever though.

Well I fall in to that catagory. Remember also that I don't want to change the location due to a needless desire to play around with the defaults, my problem is that I have very limited space on my "C" drive. Have you spotted how to change the catalogue and library location?

All my non raw editing uses adjustment layers and layer masking (except for the shadow highlights tool which is non destructive in after effects)... That is where the meat is

SkintBrit said:
Well you'll all be pleased to hear my copy Lr4 is installed on my PC, (can't see how to tell it which drive to store the catalogue/back ups on?) I've finally dragged myself into the 21st century! Haven't tried your Kelby training yet sevencrossing, but two apps for the iPad entitled Lr Basics & Lr4 retouching seem informative, anyone tried them?

Good stuff - the fun begins! Shame we didn't manage to get together Skinty, maybe some other time.

I was talking to Chris Marquardt a few weeks ago (he does Lightroom workshops as well) and he advocated not worrying about setting up LR to have the catalogue in a certain place and the library in a certain place, he says just leave it to look after itself, there is very little point in playing around. I was relieved to hear I wasn't missing a trick.

People who archive for customers that might or might not take copies in the future may want to put the catalogue and library in the same place like a USB key or whatever though.

Well you'll all be pleased to hear my copy Lr4 is installed on my PC, (can't see how to tell it which drive to store the catalogue/back ups on?) I've finally dragged myself into the 21st century! Haven't tried your Kelby training yet sevencrossing, but two apps for the iPad entitled Lr Basics & Lr4 retouching seem informative, anyone tried them?

PSS2003 said:
Question is whether to go with Aperture or PS. ......
Also, if I'm going to consider applying a watermark to photos in the future, will this have any bearing on my software choice do you think?

Layers and masks are used in Photoshop, and they can be very complicated. Lots of books on the subject

Lightroom does not use layers and, if you starting from scratch, maybe simpler to learn than Photoshop

I dont think Aperture uses layers

Watermarks can be added in Lightroom and Photoshop, I am not sure about Aperture

I use Lightroom and love it

Many professional friends use Aperture are are very happy with it

As far as I can make out. Lightroom is more complicated than Aperture and less intuitive. Aperture is easier to learn but more limited

Hope this helps

As mention many time before down load a free trail and watch the Kelby Training Videos

Question - I'm pretty new to photography and I'm running a Nikon 5100, still in Jpeg format but reckon I'll switch over to Raw soon. I've been using iPhoto but its clearly a bit limiting. Question is whether to go with Aperture or PS. I'm keen and I'm being encouraged that I may well have an ability to sell in the future, I'm not so sure and is still really really early days for me!

I'm not great on terminology so I make my apologies now but when you refer to 'layers' in editing, what do you mean please?

Also, if I'm going to consider applying a watermark to photos in the future, will this have any bearing on my software choice do you think?

proudgeek said:
. Does LR do ANYthing that Aperture does not? I've read some posts here touting LRs file management capabilities, but Aperture is phenomenal in this regard in my opinion. In terms of PP, neither are Photoshop, but Aperture does most of what I need to do.
What am I not seeing? I'd kind of like to avoid the hassle of learning a new application, but maybe I'm missing some great life-changing feature. Let the debate begin...

I use LR4, As far as I can make out, the file management capabilities of both LR and Aperture are similar

LR sems better at PP than Aperture. So if you do not have CS5 then LR may be a better bet

Most friends with Aperture seem to finish off in CS5

with LR4 I rarely need to use CS5, apart from the major image manipulation, eg removing a black sheep from a wedding photo

In conclusion.

If you already have and are familiar with Aperture and CS5 I would not change

If you are starting from scratch, and do not have CS5 go with LR4

Remember, you can get 30 day free trail of LR then treat your self to a months subscription of Kelby Training and watch Matt Kloskowski lessons on LR4

Forget Elements it is slow and misses all the best bits of LR and CS5

Hi all,

As with everything, it depends upon you and what you do, what kind of time and money you want to invest and what your expectations are.

I teach Adobe software, so upfront, you know where I lean. ;-)

In _my flow_, I happen to use the CS family, but then I'm accustomed to separating in Bridge, then to loading 40-60 RAW images into ACR and doing most of my initial work there, then batching from Bridge, final in PS. It's surprisingly fast, if the light is reasonably consistent from whatever group of photo settings to photo settings there are, and it generally is.

Most of you reading this are 'one person shops' (and there's nothing wrong with that), so what you choose to get what you want is strictly a matter of what _you_ like to get what _you want_ (no matter what or how long - although that can get dicey), but some of you might be looking for work - and for that there is only one clear choice - Photoshop CS5 (soon CS6). You can get some cred from the Adobe Certified Expert program, and possibly get some additional work, depending upon where you live, in the digital darkroom. I certainly wouldn't pooh-pooh the idea.

It isn't a piece of cake, but it is food for thought.

My best,

Mike

Always ready with my opinion... and it is just like all the rest...
Started in iPhoto on a Mac. Aperture was next. I did not go to Aperture 3, but switched to Lightroom 3 about four, five moths ago. Now on Lightroom 4. Wow, while I cannot speak to the Aperture 3 improvements, I love the ease with which the files are processed in LR4. Import RAW into LR4, converted to DNG. Work on it, can back up and start all over with a click of a mouse. The export is then to various files on the desktop, one with full size imagoes for Flicker and PAD so folks can see the full size, or to an email file with smaller JPEGs. It just seems easier to do this with LR4 than I remember with Aperture. And the ability to literally airbrush or use masks in LR4 is far better than Aperture. Now if Aperture 3 has done all these things plus added all the geometric corrections, then maybe it is as good. But so far I am into LR4 100%.

I'm far from being an expert in Aperture or LR even though I have copies of both programs so I cannot write a long comparison of either one.(Got Aperture at no cost to me). What blew me over in Lightroom was Noise Reduction - much, much better than the algorithm in Aperture. At the same time I got LR I also tried Nik Define - their noise reduction plug-in and I liked it also more than Aperture's. Simply put, instead of using Aperture + Nik Define I opted to just use LR for all in one editing.

I've recently started venturing out of LR to Photoshop and I do like the flexability of the curves tool in Photoshop but that's about it.

I've got both I have Lightroom, Aperture, and we had to bite the bullet and buy photoshop for a recent project. Personally, I think Aperture is far better designed than Lightroom. It's what I do 90% of my editing in. My girlfriend (the real photographer) prefers lightroom. Of course she bought it back in the bad old days before we switched to Mac, so it was the only option. If you edit in a mixed PC \ Mac environment than its the way to go (Adobe is nice enough to include both the Mac & PC version on a single disk which is uncharacteristically nice of them).

Photoshop can do anything, but only after you watch a 30 min tutorial on how to whatever it is you are trying to do. I'd only ever use it as a last resort.

My last PS Elements experience was a few versions ago, so maybe things have gotten better, but if feels like they tried to cram a bunch of consumer oriented marketing gimmicks that compete w/ the real work of layer based editing. For my money, if you want Photoshop Light (or perhaps Photoshop - Useable Edition) you are much better served using Pixelmator, which I think is excellent. I've been using it since Version 1.0, and they have built it into a truly useful product. I only ever bother with Photoshop when I need to collaborate w/ others on something. Or if there is some feature that pixelmator is missing (like CMYK support). It integrates nicely with aperture and you can buy them both for about the same price as lightroom as well, which is a plus.

A valid point. But not to go all fanboy on you but I can't see myself using a PC for photo editing. I'm using one for work now (writing) for the first time in my life and let's just say I'm not enjoying the experience. Sounds like there are some things I should at least look at and keep an open mind about.

I am both a Mac and PC user. Aperture is more like iPhoto, and in some ways much more intuitive, so I can understand why you wouldnt like to learn new software. But it might depends on your workflow, because to be honest, despite Aperture's intuitive nature, I found my workflow of edits made much more sense with LR. I dont think anyone who choses to use Aperture has made a mistake, and you're crazy to use Aperture. Your friend sounds a bit like an "adobe-head", just as people who say similar things about Aperture I consider "mac-heads". Both are excellent pieces of software, both with plusses and minuses. (though if you read the individual communities of either youd think that the "other" one barely loads, from some of their comments).

A couple of things that you will get with Lightroom over Aperture: Larger userbase, more plugins. This is a fact when a software supports multiple OS. More and more plugins is a key component to a longevity of a software like this, in my opinion.

I think some of the lighting and highlights work better in LR than Aperture, but that could just be my imagination.

In fairness to Aperture, though, some of the features in lightroom have been in Aperture for some time. However, now that LR 4 has many of Aperture's features, if I were to choose now, I would have NO problems choosing LR. When I did choose about a year ago, I had a hard time making a call. I feel like I made the right one. Adobe HAS been playing some catch up, but I think they have.

Personally, I prefer a software that is cross platform. For example, if I had a ton of files to edit, I could imagine myself purchasing (or renting) a high end PC for just image processing, and if using LR, id have that option. With Aperture, I'd be limitted to my Mac. As a user who uses both OS's, I appreciate software that works on both. (BTW, I also blast PC only software).

If I could, I'd like reopen this. I'm a long-time (18 years) Mac user who's been using Aperture for about 2+ years (I shoot RAW only). To me, it's great, particularly the super-intuitive UI. However, I have a friend who SWEARS by LR. Tells me I'm crazy for using Aperture. (He's never owned a Mac, so I take it with a grain of salt)
So today he's sending me his copy of LR3 (multi-user license) and insisting I try it. To boot, he's also sending me versions of the NIK plug-ins (which will work on PS, LR, and Aperture). Those I'm psyched to try, even if I end up using them as plug-ins for Aperture.
So here's my question, to those who have extensive experience in both. Does LR do ANYthing that Aperture does not? I've read some posts here touting LR's file management capabilities, but Aperture is phenomenal in this regard in my opinion. In terms of PP, neither are Photoshop, but Aperture does most of what I need to do.
What am I not seeing? I'd kind of like to avoid the hassle of learning a new application, but maybe I'm missing some great life-changing feature. Let the debate begin...

I got my d/l link from the post here about CNX 2.3. I downloaded the 64Bit MAC version and purchased a key from Nikon. Works great. Shows as version 2.3.0. MBP shows 10.7.2

Here is the NR entry from December 20th: http://nikonrumors.com/2011/12/20/nikon-capture-nx-2-3-0-64-bit-and-view-nx-2-2-5-released-today.aspx/

HTH

Later,
Jeff

I too am running NX2 2.3 on Lion 10.7.2 without any problems . However I hardly use It, prefer Adobe CS 5 and Bridge
It really is time Nikon looked seriously at their Software, its like using Adobe CS2 in todays technology. in view of the new cameras Nikon are bringing out. It is time they matched there software to their cameras!

Time to abandon NX2 and look elsewhere methinks. Capture One produces very similar results, works with Lion 10.7, produces better results than CS5/Lightroom, Aperture and others.

My Nikon Capture NX2 has been running fine under Macintosh OS 10.7.x (Lion) for months. Today, I would not launch. Did numerous troubleshooting steps. Eventually, uninstalled. Now, it will not re-install. Called Nikon Tech Support. They said that NX2 will not run under Lion. Even if it does work, eventually, it will stop. Sorry 'bout that. Was given no update date.
So, if you're running NX2 under Lion, great. But, it may not work tomorrow.

@mirtos - I agree with You 100%, I was windows user since windows 3.1 and switched to mac when vista was launched, since that time I never had such stability problems as I faced on windows. I also understand Your point of view about Rosetta, and sure it wouldn't be a problem for apple to compile it into 10.7, but... OTOH dropping support for it forced developers to port their applications to cocoa, to 64bit and actually to utilize the power of new processors, no matter either they are intels or not. What's the need of having new fast machines if You can't utilize the power. I'm spending $$$$ not to use "old" technology only because some company is lazy enough to port their application to new platform. If I'm spending my bucks on new hardware I want it to be fully utilized. I'm not saying that I perceive apple the same way as I perceive microsoft as I don't, but I don't wanna start another mac vs. pc debate.
as for substandard hdd, trust me I'm more than angry about that, especially when I'm in a market to upgrade my setup with larger capacity drives.
any way I hope we gonna see a new 64bit Capture NX sooner than later.

Also, if you remember the whole "Mac vs PC" campaign, one of Apple's big statements was they wanted to protect the investment of their users so they wanted to make sure that what Microsoft did with Vista (caused a lot of XP programs to stop working), they wouldnt do. If you find old websites, they used quotes like: "You'll never see it, you'll never configure it, you'll never have to think about it. It's built into Mac OS X to ensure that most of your existing applications live a long and fruitful life." And, "Rosetta dynamically translates most of your PowerPC-based applications to work with your Intel-based Mac. There's no emulation. No second-class status. It looks and feels just like it did before. On a Mac, you'd expect nothing less."

Well, I suppose its a matter of opinion.

I accept that phase outs of old technology have to happen, I just dont like the way: Apple does it, and B. the media gives Apple a free pass, and villify microsoft when the same things happen.

I'm a software engineer myself (going on 21 years professionally, longer as an amatuer), and I just dislike a lot of Apple's policies in the last 10-12 years.

And you can say what you want about windows machines, but the intel architecure constantly was backwardly compatable. Apple used the argument that it made the intel line worse than the Power PC line, which had some validity, but then they forced everyone to upgrade to intel.

And it usually boils down to making consumers upgrade in very short timelines.

They did it with AirPort.
They did it with the iphone 3G/3gs support.

I think people give Apple too much of a free pass. Apple claims to be all about standards, but if those standards fly against their design concepts they push back harder than Microsoft ever does (it took them FAR too long to actually admit that HDMI is better than mini display port, for example).

Maybe I'm being unfair, but if apple faced the same scrutiny that Microsoft did, you'd see a lot more discussions about substandard hardware (hard drives) that go into their products.

@mirtos - if You think apple has problems with running old versions of software and hardware, what will You said about windows machines. IMHO, killing rosetta support was a good choice. as a developer myself I know that sometimes it's a time where You have to say: from now on I need to change my architecture, and there's no better way of porting apps to new architecture than by stopping the support. The new full 64bit architecture in lion gives a lot of pros, especially speed on the multi core architectures. I see it especially when I run the old PS4 and the new PS5, not even the launch time is shorter but also the whole picture edition is faster (especially with bigger - 500+MB files).

So waiting 6 years to break support isn't long enough? Sorry, but Nikon/others could have easily addressed the issue in 6 years. I couldn't bring myself to run software that out of date anyway.