On iMac, Apertures or Photoshop

M

Martylaa

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Name
Martin
Edit My Images
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Just starting out looking at programs for the iMac, should I grab Apertures for50 quid of the app store or buy Photshop?
 
They do two different things really although there is a fair bit of overlap.

Aperture is an organisational tool that's capable of basic editing(underselling this a bit, it does a lot!). PS is for extensive editing.

I use aperture for 99% of stuff and use photoshop for the tiny number of things that aperture doesn't do, or doesn't do well. Mainly that would be HDR, stacking or panoramics for me personally though others will do much more in depth editing with PS that aperture couldn't dream about.

If aperture is still less than £50, I feel it is a no brainer. My mate reckoned that it had gone up though. I can't check prices as I already have it so it doesn't show current price when I look on app store.
 
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Neither - buy lightroom. It will do basic photo editing and most importantly it will catalogue your photographs for you. I hardly EVER have to push a photo out to photoshop - 99.999% of what i do is in lightroom.

I am using OS X too by the way.
 
dubcat said:
Neither - buy lightroom. It will do basic photo editing and most importantly it will catalogue your photographs for you. I hardly EVER have to push a photo out to photoshop - 99.999% of what i do is in lightroom.

I am using OS X too by the way.
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Same here, Lightroom is definitely a way to go. i do all post editing in it, hardly ever touch PS.
 
I believe Aperture is a good bit of software. Its my go to programme with a card full of images to import. Basic editing can be done in there but if its in need of more editing I will open them up in PS.
 
Although I'm an Aperture user - and it fulfils all my (admittedly basic) needs. However, if Lightroom were < 100 I'd prefer to use that instead.

I find Aperture 3 can be just a little bit clunky sometimes. When I trialled LR I was blown away.

Can't complain about Aperture 3 though as it was only about £50.
 
I use Aperture and find that it's only real weak point is high ISO NR....I am an amateur though so my demands are not the highest! I am going to buy the Nik Software Dfine plug in to sort the NR.
 
Beardy said:
I use Aperture and find that it's only real weak point is high ISO NR....I am an amateur though so my demands are not the highest! I am going to buy the Nik Software Dfine plug in to sort the NR.
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Ah that's a point actually, I kept thinking it was me not really sussing out how to do NR properly within Aperture!

Thanks for the solidarity on that issue ;-)
 
If you have kids or grandchildren of school/collage age (or know anybody that does), you can pick up a "student and teacher" version of Lightroom for £69.95 from software4students.co.uk

I've used them a couple of times and found them to be very good, and saved me an absolute fortune!!

Cheers
Aled

(CS5 extended is only £166.40)
 
I had a look at that software4students site, and despite my kids being of school age, their school wasn't one of those listed sadly. Good prices though!

I did look into getting them on the list, but the school would have had to help and of course weren't really interested in doing so. I found it slightly less hassle to just get Aperture.

It's a shame that Adobe don't have a company home use program like Microsoft.
 
Steelfish said:
I did look into getting them on the list, but the school would have had to help and of course weren't really interested in doing so. I found it slightly less hassle to just get Aperture.
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That's a shame, I'm one of the governors at my son's school, and see this type of thing as a service that schools should be encouraged to participate in. I'd write to your headmaster/mistress if I were you and encourage them to get on the list, even if you no longer need the service, others may benefit from it. Surely it can't be that much hassle for them.

Cheers
Aled
 
Steelfish said:
Ah that's a point actually, I kept thinking it was me not really sussing out how to do NR properly within Aperture!

Thanks for the solidarity on that issue ;-)
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Yeah I thought it was me doing something wrong too. I downloaded a trial or LR 3 and the Nik plug-in for Aperture to see what they were like. Both miles better.
 
I have used software4students before I will look into that deal right now, mucho thanks
 
Aledafis said:
That's a shame, I'm one of the governors at my son's school, and see this type of thing as a service that schools should be encouraged to participate in. I'd write to your headmaster/mistress if I were you and encourage them to get on the list, even if you no longer need the service, others may benefit from it. Surely it can't be that much hassle for them.

Cheers
Aled
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That's what I thought, but after speaking to them they really weren't keen as they saw it as doing me a favour. I was kind of annoyed with their attitude so I never took it further, perhaps I should do now.

Beardy said:
Yeah I thought it was me doing something wrong too. I downloaded a trial or LR 3 and the Nik plug-in for Aperture to see what they were like. Both miles better.
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I was about to check out the Nik software until I saw it was $99. eek. Also as we're chatting about plug-ins and Aperture, I sometimes find with a couple of my plug-ins that the plug-in will crash if you've just set it to work on a newly duplicated version - is that something you've seen?
 
Aperture user here, and find that I now very very very rarely need to use anything else, at £45 it's a total bargain and even more so when you think it does the same thing as Lightroom which is £210. Even if you need to but the Nik-plug-in it's still £60 less.

I've use the Topaz De-Nosie plug-in which is good and £49
 
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One of the reasons I recommended lightroom is that if you end up moving to windows then you will not have to go through a learning curve as lightroom is the same on both operating systems.
 
Lightroom and photoshop for me and I'm on a mac too. Love the Nik plugins for photoshop too. It all gets a bit expensive if this is a hobby for you so youll have To decide how much you need each.
 
Had aperture 3, hated it. Its bloated slow and doesnt flow anywhere near as well as Lightroom.
 
download a trial of each and see for yourself.

I'm in totality the opposite camp as SamP, as I hated they way lightroom flows, it's each to there own.
 
still learning the basics in post processing but have to say I find aperture 3 easier to play with than lightroom 2 & PS4 which I have on the other laptop, and like to edit on the mac as the quality of the image is so much better even though the 2 machines are similar spec
 
I can't recommend Aperture 3 enough. For most people on a Mac, there is no reason to use anything else unless. As Graham said above, it doesn't do panoramas or HDR that I'm aware of (maybe via plug in). As far as color, tint, levels, curves, sharpening, burn/dodge, noise, etc it does all of it. If you find that you use Photoshop for normal photography functions, then aperture will get the job done with much less fuss AND it will catalog all of your photos for you.

For me, I was an iPhoto user with the occasional use of GIMP for brushes level editing. Aperture gave me full iphoto (basic photo editing) plus brushes and various other bits. There is a lot more to aperture than most realize and it takes a little while to learn it. For straight photography applications, I don't need anything else.

I trialed both aperture and Lightroom for the full 30 day trial, editing the same pictures in both. For me, it was a no brainer with aperture, and that was before the price drop. I even had paid $180 for the student edition of Aperture a couple days before the app store dropped the price down (and I promptly returned the expensive copy).

Thanks,
Rick
 
casts_by_fly said:
I can't recommend Aperture 3 enough. For most people on a Mac, there is no reason to use anything else unless. As Graham said above, it doesn't do panoramas or HDR that I'm aware of (maybe via plug in). As far as color, tint, levels, curves, sharpening, burn/dodge, noise, etc it does all of it. If you find that you use Photoshop for normal photography functions, then aperture will get the job done with much less fuss AND it will catalog all of your photos for you.

For me, I was an iPhoto user with the occasional use of GIMP for brushes level editing. Aperture gave me full iphoto (basic photo editing) plus brushes and various other bits. There is a lot more to aperture than most realize and it takes a little while to learn it. For straight photography applications, I don't need anything else.

I trialed both aperture and Lightroom for the full 30 day trial, editing the same pictures in both. For me, it was a no brainer with aperture, and that was before the price drop. I even had paid $180 for the student edition of Aperture a couple days before the app store dropped the price down (and I promptly returned the expensive copy).

Thanks,
Rick
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+1 for Aperture, its a cracking software package.

Phil
 
I bought aperture and love it. But I did recently get a trial for lightroom nd it's pretty good, i might even say a little easier to get on with.
 
I have tried lightroom 3 but prefer aperture. I use photoshop as and when I need it.
 
I use aperture plus a couple of plug-ins for 99.9%. There are a couple things I fire up CS5 for, but I can't remember what they are. Tried lightroom and it was pretty good but I prefer aperture.
 
Which nik plugin people getting I believe complete collection is £250
 
Aperture for me. I've got Photoshop but very rarely use it.
 
When Lightroom 2 and Aperture 2 came out I tried both and got on best with Lightroom, at the time the cost for upgrading my Lightroom 1 was the same as moving to Aperture, starting fresh now I think the price difference would sway me to Aperture.

I assume you are also looking at Photoshop Elements, rather than Photoshop CS5 which is a lot more advanced (and priced accordingly).

Elements and Aperture work well together, using Aperture for the organisation and the bulk of the editing and only going to Elements for really advanced editing. If you find that you like to spend ages processing images to perfection Elements may be the application for you, if you'd rather spend as little time processing as possible Aperture or Lightroom with be much more suitable.
 
rookies said:
Which nik plugin people getting I believe complete collection is £250
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i just started using Silver Efex Pro 2 for Lightroom few weeks ago and it is absolutely brilliant. Highly recomended for anyone into B&W photography.
 
Craikeybaby said:
When Lightroom 2 and Aperture 2 came out I tried both and got on best with Lightroom, at the time the cost for upgrading my Lightroom 1 was the same as moving to Aperture, starting fresh now I think the price difference would sway me to Aperture.

I assume you are also looking at Photoshop Elements, rather than Photoshop CS5 which is a lot more advanced (and priced accordingly).

Elements and Aperture work well together, using Aperture for the organisation and the bulk of the editing and only going to Elements for really advanced editing. If you find that you like to spend ages processing images to perfection Elements may be the application for you, if you'd rather spend as little time processing as possible Aperture or Lightroom with be much more suitable.
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The nice thing about Aperture is that, at the moment at least, it can be bought with PS Elements and you'd still have spent about £80 less than if you were to just buy Lightroom. When I chose A3 over lightroom it seemed to me that they were both regarded to be equally accomplished with people generally preferring one or the other so when one of them is a quarter of the price of the other, it makes the decision a little easier.
 
Well I bought Aperture 3 from the app store and downloaded it straight to the iMac for £45, after reading reviews think it will serve my purpose fine.
 
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