Apple Aperture vs. Photoshop CS3

[kristen_mcgrath]

I am in the process of buying a new MAC and was wondering if I should move to

the apple aperature program or upgrade to CS3. I do not shoot RAW if that

matters.

 

Does anyone prefer one over the other?

 

Thanks,

Kristen

[t_feltus]

hi k,

in my opinion it is a matter of how you work. cs3 is an upgrade from sc2, and if you are

comfortable working in folders in a pragmatic and organized manner, you may not get any

benefit from Aperture, however if you are like me, who is not good with a file cabinet, then

Aperture allowes you to organize things and work in a very non-linear and organized

manner. plus it does not damage your original files, as they always remain untouched, and

it does not duplicate them when you modify them. yes, if you do an event, and have 400

images to work through, you can chose them from a thumbnail and select the 20 you

need, then run an action on them, or in Aperture you can go through them and rate them,

then view the rated ones, and apply the same settings on all of them by shift-clicking

them right in front of you. then of course if you need to cut, blur, dodge and burn, you

can always open them to an older version of PS. bla bla, i ramble. also keep in mind that

CS3 is a slightly more expensive package than Aperture. try the demo of Aperture, and

watch tutorials on the apple site. if you have an older mac that does not support Aperture

1.5, then i am sure someone can send you an older version to test with (i doubt if Apple

would mind too much).

 

good luck,

t+

[peterlyons]

Aperture and Photoshop are not equivalent programs. If you need to do serious editing of an

image, you need Photoshop or some equivalent program (like Paint Shop Pro, etc.). Aperture

is more the equivalent of Lightroom; they're workflow programs, useful for doing batch

operations and basic editing, keywording, organizing, importing and exporting.

 

Personally I've been using Aperture now since January, and am very pleased with it.

[ellis_vener_photography]

I prefer Lightroom to Aperture and I've got both.

[bobmichaels]

I think the choice between Photoshop vs. Aperture / Lightroom is a function of how you edit and your ultimate output.

 

If you shoot 100 photos and want the best 50 with minimal hassle then Aperture is the workflow for you.

 

But if you shoot 100 photos and only want the best one, maybe best two, in their most polished and finished form, then a Photoshop based workflow is what you need.

[Uhooru]

I prefer Lightroom as well and have both. As far as comparing w/CS3, its really kind of comparing apples to oranges. Neither LR or AP allow you the editing and production capabilities of Photo Shop, it rules the roost in that area (IMO). If you only afford one, I would have Photoshop.

[saltcod]

I too have both and love Lightroom.

[Brad_]

>>> If you only afford one, I would have Photoshop.

 

Yes... As soon as you want to create/edit a layer, or even a simple 2-second dodge/burn

with a brush, you have to go into photoshop.

[wing8]

"if you have an older mac that does not support Aperture 1.5, then i am sure someone can send you an older version to test with (i doubt if Apple would mind too much"

 

I have a G4 power mac, I did not realize that an older version of Aperture will work on a older Mac. Which version?

 

thanks,

Jim

[rddelliott]

Jim:

 

I think it is a function of the video card, not the processor. You should check Apple's website for minimum requirements. My Aperture is slow even with a G5 Dual 2gig with 4 gig of memory.

[vincedistefano]

Also, if you hit the Apple forums and do a search for Aperture vs. Photoshop or Aperture vs.

Lightroom, you'll get tons of good info. I ran both in parallel for a while, and found myself

liking LR much better. But as others have said, you still need PS for anything beyond basic

image development. Lightroom does a very fine job on many tasks, well enough that I can

stay out of PS a lot of the time unless I really need to do image surgery or want to manipulate

pixels beyond exposure/contrast/color correction/white balance. FWIW, Aperture

performance was barely acceptable on my Mac Pro tower (2.6/4 gig RAM/512 vid card) and

basically not useable on my Macbook. Not so with Lightroom - runs great on both.