Any amatuer photographers here use Aperture?

I use it quite a bit for color corrections and organizaiton (Though I am still learning about the latter in Aperture). I still use PS as well though, more familiar with the tools and interface.

For somebody in your position though, iPhoto will prob be more than enough. Aperture is geared more for higher usage and professionals. While you can give it a try, you will most likely not use most of the features that are available to you.

I use aperture primarily for all my SLR shooting, i still do a little photoshop here and there though. I usually just use iphoto when i shoot with my compacts. I love aperture, light table rocks for selecting your picks. The color and exposure correction is very good. Raw handling for Nikon and Canon is very good. Export is a real strong point as well. Its very powerful and configurable. I much prefer aperture export to photoshop. But Aperture loves a big monitor thats for sure. I have a 24" lcd and I use every square cm of it and could definitely see getting a 30" if i could afford it (and somehow justify it to my wife!).

Very nice software for a good price.

I mainly use Lightroom, but just tried Aperture to make and order a photobook. I really love this feature in Aperture which is absent in Lightroom. iPhoto will do books too but Apertue is entirely customizable and you can add text.

I'm also a lightroom fan. it runs much better on my aging G4 laptop than Aperature did. For your needs I'd say iPhoto is probably the best choice. if you're not looking to do color corrections and adjustments and you're not shooting with a camrea in RAW format there's no advantage to using Aperature over iPhoto.

I'm really surprised no one has done the lightroom photo book plugins yet, but I imagine they are not far off. I think Adobe relased the API spec for lightroom plugins a little whiel back so I bet there will be a slew of stuff soon enough.

I'm an Aperture user myself, although I picked it up at educational prices, so it wasn't as steep of an investment.

iPhoto was okay, but I found it a bit too limiting for my purposes, and wanted the greater flexibility involved with Aperture.

Mind you, I'm also shooting with a higher-end 10MP camera (Sony DSC-R1), so the extra power of Aperture is worthwhile for RAW image processing and other features like this.

I looked at Lightroom as well, but I greatly prefer Aperture's library and cataloguing features. Lightroom does the actual post-processing better (in terms of being easier to use), but Aperture can perform the same functions and provides a better model for keeping your content organized.

Aperture is a very very good program for cataloging, organizing and review. It's main knock is it's resource overhead, gigantic. If you want to use it's features smoothly you need horsepower. The loupe is just the cat's ass as far as cool features go that's for sure. It's not a great laptop program as it really needs the real estate of dual monitors to be utilized fully. I love it for sure, but I find I use Lightroom more and more out of the studio.

iPhoto should be avoided if possible.

Great thread!

I'm not a pro, but take a lot of photos, (1000+/month), and find iPhoto very limiting in the managing category, plus I find it a bit on the slow side.

I just loaded Aperture on my MBP and will try it out this weekend. We use it at work and, yes, with two monitors, it's makes sorting and editing a pleasure. I've also used iView MediaPro.

Anyone have any opinions between Aperture and iView?

I'm no pro either, and I'm just getting to learn what it can do but, The Gimp (a free program) does just about anything you could want to do to photos. I haven't used PS but I've heard it's quite comparable.....I've been having fun with it anyway: ) Just something you may want to check out.

Aren't you guys missing Photoshop Elements 4? It's a lot less expensive & coupled with iPhoto for presentation is ideal for Unpros & non snooty pros. BTW I've been taking photos for the last 50 years around the world & nobody has complained yet.
TTFN, TeeC

jhollington said:

Lightroom does the actual post-processing better (in terms of being easier to use), but Aperture can perform the same functions and provides a better model for keeping your content organized.

Click to expand...

Aperature can do a small amount of what Lightroom can do .. until Aperature has "targetted" adjustment modes like lightroom does (for saturation. luminance, curves) and a greyscale mixer that's as good as Lightroom's they'll have a hard time getting me to try Aperature again.

Just my $0.02 as I see a lot of people saying "they both do the same thing" .... but they don't do it in the same way Sure you could do, by hand in aperature, what the targetted adjustment tool does, but it's soooo easy in Lightroom

Well, to be fair that's sort of what I meant by "in terms of being easier to use."

Lightroom even in beta form had some huge benefits over Aperture v1.0, and I actually used the Lightroom beta (staying with iPhoto for my actual library catalog) until Aperture got to v1.5. Mind you, I also haven't given the actual release version of Lightroom a good run for its money, as I'm more than happy with what Aperture does for me right now.

Prior to the recent Lightroom upgrade to 1.1, the members of the Aperture camp were saying the Aperture's file management system was superior to Lightroom. Library, Projects, Folders, Smart Folders - all in all a better way to manage photos.

My question is, does the recent upgrade close the gap between the two applications and are they now roughly equal in terms of that functionality?
Thx.

TeeC said:

Aren't you guys missing Photoshop Elements 4? It's a lot less expensive & coupled with iPhoto for presentation is ideal for Unpros & non snooty pros.

Click to expand...

As a professional photographer, I can't imagine using iPhoto or PS Elements anywhere in my arsenal.

I know a pro or six and not one who makes their living exclusively from photography would consider either software.

Amateurs, semi-pros, absolutely. Pro? Not a chance.

It has nothing to do with being snooty, either. It does, however, have everything to do with functionality and a streamlined workflow.

FeXL said:

As a professional photographer, I can't imagine using iPhoto or PS Elements anywhere in my arsenal.

I know a pro or six and not one who makes their living exclusively from photography would consider either software.

Amateurs, semi-pros, absolutely. Pro? Not a chance.

It has nothing to do with being snooty, either. It does, however, have everything to do with functionality and a streamlined workflow.

Click to expand...

As a retired professional and still somewhat serious amateur the only issue I have with Elements is the screen clutter, particulary versions 3 and 4. I still use version 2 and revert to version 1 and OS9 if I have a lot to do in a hurry.

Have not tried LightRoom yet as the price is a bit high for these old bones.