photoshop elements 10 for mac

<p>now that elements has a catalog capacity for mac, am thinking about using it rather than aperture, has anyone been using the mac version yet...also, how large do you think a catalog can be, before it's too much for the programs to handle? has anyone used both programs, and what are your thoughts? i also have the full photoshop, but rarely use it, thanks, virginia</p>

<p>Since I tried and didn't like a Canon programme I have been using Windows Explorer to sort and hold my files and I expect Mac has something similar .. [ a file is a file is a file etc] though I do quite like the thumbnails I've found in Windows 7 to find a shot, more graphic than a title :-). Capacity of WE is the size of the HD.</p>

<p>I can't imagine why you would want to move from Aperture to the Organizer. I use Aperture and teach a class on Elements and Lightroom. Perhaps if you can let us know what it is about Aperture that you find limiting? In very general terms, Library size in Aperture and Catalog size in the Organizer will be "limited" by 1) RAM: the more the better and 2) your hard drive. Ideally you want all of your media and a separate drive from your OS. Caching images that are stored on the same hard drive as the OS can really slow things down if you have a large Library.</p>

<p>@ JC Uknz, if using Windows 7 Explorer is working for you great. But the paradigm behind using something like the Organizer or Lightroom (no Aperture for Windows) is to get away from the traditional and often "messy" folder hierarchy system. One example, you could have the same image in <em>multiple </em>folders within Lightroom, but the image only exits <em>once</em> on your hard drive. I might have a folder for vacations pictures and a folder with pictures of my wife. Using a traditional folder hierarchy system, I need to have two copies of the image if I want it in two locations. By using a DAM program, I can simply have the image in as many folders as I want because these folders exist within the program and simply "link" to the ONE image on my hard drive. It takes a bit of getting use to, but once you do, it's great!</p>

<p>Thankyou for that explanation John but having the file in just one place scares me somewhat .. it suggests that things are infalible and after a recent HD crash* ... well :-) Windows 7 is the pits after working with XP ... I have two machines ... a recent purchase [W7]and 'old faithful' [XP]. Any messiness in my system I blame on the operator :-)<br>

*My own fault .. a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.</p>

<p>In class, my first advice is to find a workflow that works for you. So if yours is working, great. I might point out that hard drive failure isn't an "if" but a "when". All hard drives will fail at some point. One of the nice things about using a DAM program is that you can automatically create a back up which contains not only all of your image, but the ratings, tags, organization, simply everything you have done within the DAM to organize your images. Nothing says you have to use a DAM program (again,it is whatever works for you), but in doing so, you save yourself time and hard drive space by being able to <em>find</em> the images you want quickly and at a later date. Using a program certainly doesn't prevent hard drive failure, but they do give you easy ways to make back ups so that recovery is faster and easier.</p>

<p>virginia,</p>

<p>If you have Photoshop, and hence Bridge, and Aperture I don't see a reason, or useful application, for another DAM.</p>

<p>Having said that I am not a huge fan of Aperture, it is very processor and storage happy, whatever computer you have, Aperture will run slower than either Bridge or Lightroom.</p>

<p>John talks a huge amount of sense too, sort out why what you have isn't working and backup everything. Hard drives are so cheap and plentiful and cloning software free that to not have complete backup strategies for everything, including your own boot volume, is crazy.</p>

<p>thanks for all the responses, john, the aperture seems to run really slow and often turns itself off unpredictably, although i have all my images stored on an external hard drive. i have about 40 thousand raw files in the catalog now...remember when i used elements some years ago, this did not happen, also i have found the elements easier to use and easier to understand the manuals. doing much of my photography while travelling, i have been using a macbook which i had maximized in terms of ram, power, memory, etc, but wondering if that is part of the problem, maybe i need to upgrade to a macbook pro, or a desktop? or just have more than one, and smaller, catalogs?</p>

I recently upgraded from a standard 2008 white MacBook to a 2011 MacBook Air and Aperture's performance has greatly

improved for me. Before, it was liveable, as long as it was the only thing I was running (and if I made a point of going and

making myself a cup of tea after starting exports). Now, I can run Aperture alongside any other programs I want and

compared to what I had before, everything is pretty much instant.

<p>virginia,</p>

<p>The best, and cheapest, way to upgrade your Macbook to perform much better is to dump your CD drive and fit a <a href="http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/drive_bracket/datadoubler/">data doubler</a>, this allows you to put a second hard drive in the laptop and you can then split the OS and apps from the actual user generated content, you can even get a case for your discarded CD drive so it is still 100% usable via a USB port.</p>

<p>I use a MBP and recently did the data doubler thing, I am now running a 1TB internal drive for photos, music etc and a 120GB SSD for the OS and apps, I also partitioned the SSD to give me a 20GB scratch disc for photoshop. The speed increase has been marked.</p>

<p>In an earlier comment I mentioned the processing hog and catalog inefficiencies of Aperture as being my main complaints with it. I just compared the statistics on them both on my laptop. Both reference the same 25,000 images in the same place, that is, neither catalogs contain any actual images, the Aperture catalog contains far fewer image adjustment statistics yet is 25.5GB in size, the Lightroom catalog is a mere 260MB, 1% the size! With both programs open and at rest Aperture is using 460MB of real memory, Lightroom is using just 143MB. I believe Apertures inefficiencies are one of the main reasons it hasn't taken off like Lightroom did even though it was re;eased two years earlier.</p>