Photoshop or Aperture?

<p>Is Photoshop or Aperture a better tool to edit pictures, especially in Raw?</p>

<p>Aperture has some editing tools and will allow you to edit your pictures for simple things like exposure, color balance, sharpness etc. but these tools are relatively crude compared to Photoshop. For example Aperture has no curves tool for surgical precision in editing. Where Aperture shines is as a photo organization tool. Aperture in fact has built into its preferences and menu a command that allows you to hand off the image to Photoshop where you do precise editing and when you do a save and close it has a pointer to the photoshop copy.<br>

So for fast basic editing Aperture is faster. For example, I took 300 photos at a field hockey game under generally the same lighting conditions. Once I edited my first picture, I copied all of my settings and pasted them onto the other 300 photos. Obviously things like cropping or straightening will have to be done on an individual basis.<br>

Photoshop has far superior tools for local edits like layers and masks that do not exist in Aperture.</p>

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<p>LightRoom is closer to Aperture than Photoshop is. Both Aperture and Lightroom are good programs which have free trials. There's been pro/con discussions before on photo.net if you want to check the archives.</p>

<p>thank you, that is very helpful.</p>

<p>Photoshop is fab for editing one image. Use it for that one superb shot for an exhibition print or for a web site.</p>

<p>LightRoom and Aperture are fab for managing and processing a collection of images. Use either to process the zillions of images you shot at that recent event to distill them down to a finished slideshow or set of prints for client or friends. </p>

<p>All three do Raw conversions. There are other competitors in each category.</p>