As I ’m typecast this , I ’m sit outside the exhibition Granville Stanley Hall at the Javits Center in New York , ascertain a stream of photographers , graphical artists and a bombastic group of art school day students pass into the packed hall atPhoto Plus East . I have always like this show — the focal point on imaging is right up my alley , and I like the mix of digital creature with the traditional stuff like light mathematical product and hymeneals portfolio .
Make no mistake , though , this is largely a digital show . The only place on the flooring where I saw moving-picture show was at Kodak ’s booth . The companionship was actually giving it away , which I guess is one way for them to de - accentuate their motion picture line of work ( something they keep reinforcing halfheartedly , as they alsokeep lose money ) .
Kodak ’s struggles aside , there ’s an energy at this yr ’s show that I have n’t seen in years past . The digital imagery world has always been a competitive one , but watching from the sidelines , I can evidence you that we ’re enter a whole new land . contention is alive and well , and the most prominent battleground right now is n’t between Canon , Nikon , and Sony , but between Apple and Adobe . The weapon system ? Aperture and Lightroom ( relieve me , Photoshop Lightroom ) .
If you go by number alone , Adobe ’s owning this show . Their cubicle is more consistently pack than Apple ’s , and they have a pretty heavyweight group of big - name photographers demoing Lightroom ( Apple does too , to be fair , and I ’ve had to wade through their packed cubicle on occasion ) . But a simple equivalence of numbers belie the fact that this is a battle that wo n’t be won here in New York , or in the next few months . Both company are gird up for a long conflict . ( I ’ve learn a number of masses tight to Adobe say that they keep find out “ We wo n’t allow that bechance again , ” a reference to Apple ’s Final Cut Pro take on the cinema market away from Adobe Premiere . )
Lightroom is very cool ; I ’ve been using it side - by - side with Aperture for month now , and as I watch Adobe ’s engineers respond to the public ’s response to the public beta program , it ’s apparent that they want to gain ground . Lightroom is alsobeta , which give it an reward over Aperture — you do n’t have to bribe it , you’re able to only try it for spare . That serve with the disappointment factor ; if you do n’t wish something , or recover a missing characteristic , Adobe can throw up their hands and say , “ hey , it ’s beta . ” And then , they can go direct their engineers to make this or that boast in .
Last night , at a press event , Adobe evidence preliminary ( and I meanverypreliminary ) variation of both the next Lightroom beta and Photoshop CS3 , which wo n’t ship until some metre next year . While they were very quick to coat the demos as “ things we ’re imagine about doing in some next release , ” the message was clear : “ We are the digital mental imagery experts , and we have plenty of stuff still left in the lab . ”
( And , to answer the interrogation in your head that stopped you in your tracks in the middle of that last paragraph , the Photoshop CS3 “ possibles ” include enhanced living for work out with video file cabinet , some very whiz - bang , gee - whiz alignment tool for build better image from multiple shots , aerodynamic support for mobile machine graphics cosmos , and a little bit more . Nothing deep enough to really weigh in on , other than to say that it was nice to see . )
The crowds at Apple ’s cubicle were decidedly smaller than the one over at the Adobe kiosk , but Lightroom ’s been in beta for all of this year , which has create an atmosphere around it that has yet to be tested by factual sales . But Apple is n’t just sit around back — the Version 1.5.1 announcement was welcome , but I heard more hoi polloi talking about the spare 30 - day download version , largely as a manner to take a saucy look at Aperture .
I ’m very happy with Aperture , and , when I speak informally with photographer who are using it , they ’re by and prominent happy with it as well . Most of the user I spoke with had jumped on the Aperture bandwagon in the past few months , and almost everyone cite the Version 1.5 annunciation as the catchment area going for them . Apple has done an excellent job on the mental image management part of the equivalence — and Aperture 1.5 ’s loosening of the image library restrictions made the conflict for a lot of citizenry . The fact that Apple has free three major revisions to Aperture in the past year is a strong statement about how much they want to win this battle as well .
What ’s great about all this is the fact that thereiscompetition . And that competition is pushing Apple and Adobe to create better products . It might not assist the relationship between the two companies , but it will aid all of us in the long run . I think there ’s still another class to go on this one , and it might end with Lightroom ( excuse me , Photoshop Lightroom ) and Aperture coexisting in some unearthly way .
