A (almost) turning point

I have done it again - left this blog for too long. That tends to happen when I have other personal projects going on. Let's see, we ran a major event for the company in Sep, served the country in Oct, planned and executed my Europe Trip in Nov, up-rooted my photo management software and planted myself on Lightroom. All 23k number of images!


Yes, I am a Lightroom user now. I used to think less of people who uses Lightroom as it is a primitive tool compared to Photoshop. However, after going through 2 long trips (2 weeks each) and having the need to sieve through about 5 thousand pictures, I get to think that there must be an easier (faster) way.


I got highly involved in ways that I never thought I'd be. I read in-depth product reviews, watched the products videos on it's applications and workflows, even downloaded the trials and actually use it. To top it off, all this while, doing it on both Aperture as well as Lightroom.


See, I am a Mac user at home. iPhoto has been an integral part of my photo library, and it does it beautifully. It recognizes all RAW files without complicated plugins or updates. I was amazed by it 3 years ago when I plugged in my EOS 5D. It handles my picture without the need for my intervention. I can merge and split events and albums freely. The later version can even recognise faces and keep record of locations in meta data.


iPhoto and hence Aperture win hands down on photo library management. Aperture also does a great job on its editing features. It uses quirky names for some of the functions, but I guess it is due to copyright by Adobe maybe? However, having used Canon's DPP as part of my workflow for a while now, I desperately need a software that can handle lens correction, especially barrel distortion! As a landscapist, barrel distortion is the worst of all. Horizons if not placed in the dead center appear bend and buildings curved. This, Aperture does not have! What a bummer. Adobe is still the more experienced vendor in this respect.


Sure, there are work arounds, like plugins by PT Lens and others. But the solution is not elegant. There would be copies created which defeats the purpose of a "non-destructive" editing software. Unwillingly, I bought the Adobe Lightroom.


And have since been re-visiting my pass photos, tagging them and removing unnecessary jpegs now that my RAW can be edited as is. In the process, I rediscovered some of my older pieces with a new lease of life. This was my first trip to USA, a business trip to San Francisco. It was 2004 - when digital photography hasn't quite caught up and film processing is still available. I would have brought my Contax but this being a work trip, I only have my Canon G3.