Lightroom, Darkroom, Aperature, Photoshop

[doug_holcomb]

I've been reading a whole lot about all of these programs... from what it sounds

like, you cant go wrong with any of them. I will be purchasing one of them in

the near future but cannot for the life of me decide what one. The issue of

system requirements is, well, not an issue at all.

 

Help please.

[mendonphoto]

I've only used Photoshop and Lightroom - but I can tell you that at least those two programs are not interchangeable. Lightroom is designed to help you sort through a lot of photos, make basic and low-level adjustments, and then convert to tiff/jpg. Photoshop is designed to do much more in-depth editing on one photo at a time.

[colin_mattson1]

<p>Demos are available for all of them. Download, see what you mesh with, and buy

accordingly. Aperture and Lightroom take very different approaches, so it's definitely worth

trying both of them before sinking the cash.</p>

<p>You'll probably end up needing Photoshop regardless of what else you're using, so it's

pretty much a gimme. Whether you actually want or need something like Aperture or

Lightroom is a matter of personal taste: I work much faster using Aperture and Photoshop

together, but I <i>could</i> use only Photoshop (and save $300 in the process) and still get

good results.</p>

[daan_barnhoorn]

To get the "best" out of the Lightroom / Photoshop CS combination, you have to consider

switching to a ProPhoto RGB workflow.

[randy_johnson3]

You might want to start with the Photoshop Elements. It's a scaled down version of Photoshop and costs < $100. Many of the things you learn to use there transfer to the full Photoshop if you ever want the more advanced features. Photoshop is the standard software out there so you can't go wrong learning it.

[ellis_vener_photography]

"To get the "best" out of the Lightroom / Photoshop CS combination, you have to consider switching to a ProPhoto RGB workflow."

 

Daan,

 

There's a pretty good argument to be made that to get the best out of your camera in general shooting raw and using ProPhoto and a 16 bit per channel workflow is a pretty good idea period.

[doug_holcomb]

I love how fast threads get responses, thanks guys. I don't have much experience with the raw format, but it is something high on my list because of its obvious benefits. I've owned past versions of photoshop and loved it, I was unsure if the other programs would replace it.

 

Does anyone use aperture?

When I first started using my PowerBook a few years back I played with, Iphoto. and i hated it. the way it stored my photos in a million folders on my hard drive drove me nuts, such a mess... I' curious if aperture is the same format.

[jacob_brown]

<b><u><A href =

http://tinyurl.com/32obzw

>"Do Aperture Users Need Photoshop?"</a></u></b> <p>

[godfrey]

Aperture is quite different from iPhoto in almost every way. I have an evaluation copy that I've

experimented with a bit. Some of my photographer friends rave about it.

 

But I find myself more comfortable with Lightroom. Do the 30-Day Free Trial and see if it

works well for you.

 

Godfrey

[patricklavoie]

In case you dont want to read all the text that Jacob post a link.

 

here is the answer form it;

 

<..To answer the question I posed initially, I think that yes, Aperture users do still need Photoshop. Even if you?re like me and 80% (or more) of your workflow is now exclusively in Aperture, that other 20% matters a lot...>

 

I also use Lr and CS3 and feel comfortable. liek others said, you can download a copy of it and try it for 30days.

[daan_barnhoorn]

"There's a pretty good argument to be made that to get the best out of your camera in

general shooting raw and using ProPhoto and a 16 bit per channel workflow is a pretty good

idea period."

 

A 16 bit ProPhoto RGB workflow isn't always necessary (unless you shoot a lot of saturated

yellows) and comes at some risks when converting into sRGB or aRGB (banding, virtual colors,

etc).

[ralph_jensen]

These are all bold statements.

[patricklavoie]

yeah how come everything is in bold suddently?

[daan_barnhoorn]

Must be really important ;-)

[rddelliott]

I tried both Lightroom and Aperture. Lightroom for me was much easier to learn and I am a Mac user. I use Lightroom to manage photos where in my opinion its strength lies. Aperture would not run on my G5 without a new video card and would not run at all on my Mac book. Lightroom was not a problem on either. I use Photoshop for my RAW conversions and further adjustments as it has more adjustment features than Lightroom.

[neelphoto]

</B>Turned off the bold.

[neelphoto]

</B>This should do it.