For the love of God, please, please add presets.
I did most of my editing this weekend using Apple’s Aperture. As a huge Apple fanboy, I really want to like Aperture, and in many ways, I do. But, how is it possible after Lightroom’s total domination over them in round one, has Apple not added presets to Aperture? I really don’t get it.
In Aperture’s defense, it does have the ability to take developments from one photo and copy them to others, but you aren’t able to save them, and if you close Aperture, those actions are gone upon re-opening. You could use an image as a kind of preset I suppose, and have a range of images with assorted “presets” applied to them, but it really isn’t the same.
It’s kind of a shame, really, because I like so many things about Aperture 2. It certainly is faster than the first incarnation, at least on my machine. The localized corrections are also nice. By far though, my favorite feature is the tethered shooting. My Nikon D80 worked right of the box, and a simple dialog box allows you to set naming conventions and folder locations prior to capturing photos. You can either take picture as always via the camera, or use the capture button in Aperture. It takes only seconds to import the image (I was shooting RAW and JPEG and didn’t really notice a difference), and you are then able to make adjustments. You can even leave the amazing loupe open, to instantly see fine details on your capture. All in all, very cool.
Which brings me back to the presets. With all these great features, how hard would it be to add presets? It has been the biggest complaint about the first version, and the fact that it is still missing as a feature is really just beyond belief. I haven’t really spent a lot of time with Lightroom 2 Beta, but it is clearly going to be a hearty update to the current workflow champ. To compete Apple had better release a 2.5 with presets before Lightroom finishes beta.
In conclusion, I’m still a huge Lightroom fan, but I’m going to keep and use Aperture 2 as well. For now anyway.
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