Software Suggestions for Apple Mac Pro

[josheudowe]

I use a new Mac Pro (lots of ram ... 16GB and 1TB of storage) and would like to find some new software for

inventorying and cataloging my photos. I've been using iPhoto, but I've been told that Aperture is terrific. Is that

something I should invest in and learn to use or is there a better solution out there?

 

I'd like to store photos, create libraries, have great backup options/features, as well as some basic image

manipulation options. I also have Photoshop CS, so this is more for creating libraries, backing up, etc.

 

Thanks -

[ronald_moravec1]

Lightroom was made for you. I think Aperture also.

 

I just load folders by event and date into Pictures using the format 2008-09-04 Florida Trip

They stay in order by date and I use Bridge to open and preview them.

 

If you have thousands of photos, Lightroom is probably better choice.

[fred_hawker]

I have a Mac G5 and a few thousand photos and I use Aperture. The one feature that sold me was the ability to access the same photo

library with two macs over my wifi network. I do most of the work and my wife can make changes from her ibook. This is not available in

Lightroom.

[Brad_]

I use Lightroom on my MacPro. Works great now that 2.0 has been released.

 

I use it for data-basing images, RAW processing, exporting jpegs, printing, and generating galleries for the web and my

blog.

[peterlyons]

I have a Mac Pro Quad Xeon with 8 GB of RAM which I purchased 2 years ago. It's an awesome fast computer (since

you're spending the $ you owe yourself a 30" monitor--you won't go back to anything smaller!)...

anyway, I used to use Aperture, and have since switched to Lightroom. Neither is far superior to the other. At the time I

switched, back around February, I'd been using Aperture for a year, and it had begun crashing on my all the time.

 

So I began using Lightroom, and everything was great for a while, but now that crashes on me too. Both are on version

2, both are great software, but I am trying to maintain a huge catalog (approx. 160,000 images and growing at least

10,000 per month) and I think I stress both of them out.

 

For smaller catalogs i think either is great. Another negative for Aperture... if you buy new cameras when they're first

out, Aperture might make you wait months longer before providing RAW support! That, IMO, is a huge drawback. I don't

think they're offering the same level of support and resources for supporting photographers as Adobe is. Think about it...

Adobe already owns the industry standard photo processing software--Photoshop. And they have Lightroom. Both are

multi-platform, and well-integrated. Apple has only Aperture, which is not exactly the only thing they have going on.

Their updates are infrequent, and the software in only for Mac.

 

Personally, I'm sticking with LR.

[Brad_]

A negative for me on Aperture is how local dodge/burn brush adjustments are done.

 

Aperture creates an intermediate TIFF in the process - and bakes in any local adjustments made. You end up with an

extra file, it takes more time, and the adjustments are not editable.

 

LR 2 doesn't - it's all non-destructive on top of the RAW. No extra files, faster, and fully editable in the future.

[Carl Stone]

"A negative for me on Aperture is how local dodge/burn brush adjustments are done."

 

Whelp, there sure is a limit to the degree of burn that's available under Aperture 2. :o(

 

OTOH, many folks love iView Media Pro for cataloging. :o)

[josheudowe]

Peter - the 30" would be terrific, but for now the 23" is performing well. I'd rather buy a new lens then spend another 1k on

a monitor. But I'm sure you're right!

 

I read a lot about Aperture and Lightroom, are these better/worse than Photoshop CS? Again, I'm really just looking for

excellent, easy cataloging, creating libraries, and some minor photo work (rotations, borders, upload to a blog site, etc).

 

Still feel the same way... that Lightroom seems to be the way to go?

[Craig_Cooper11664875449]

<i>...OTOH, many folks love iView Media Pro for cataloging</i>

<p>

Im on a Mac and I used to be a strong supporter of IVMP but since LR2.0 now supports over 10K pixels (6x7 MF scans) I've full migrated. A bit of a painful process but the biggest issue was that custom data about the image was not stored in the file. Specifically, scanning negs, I had an identifier that told me where the original neg could be found. Not something I want tied to a specific application.

<p>

I looked at Aperture but its just much slower than LR

[patricklavoie]

aperture or lightroom is only a matter of taste; i like ligthroom , my friend like aperture..in the end both suite our need and whe get the best raw file development.

 

As for huge catalogu, both have there limit, and any one who know DAM software will tell you that you should create smaller catalogue than 1 big huge 160 000 one...1 corrupted smaller cat is better than your whole big one : ) and its a faster acces.

 

My friend have devide is per kind; personnal, family, fashion, portrait...its faster and more secure.

[Brad_]

>>> I looked at Aperture but its just much slower than LR

 

Same here, another negative for Ap.

 

Another big plus for LR is the Web Gallery module. Makes it real easy to generate and upload independent web galleries. A bunch of

templates are provided; both flash-based and regular html.

 

Also, there's a handful of third party web gallery providers who provide more options.

 

As soon as I develope the RAW files I'm interested in, and sequence them in a collection, it's one click to generate a Flash-based web

gallery that I

can send others a link to for web access. And which I can simultaneously use in my daily blog - a huge time-saver.

 

I really wanted to like Aperture, being in the Apple camp for many years. But LR won out after using both. The way Aperture handled

dodge/burn by

creating an additional, large, and **uneditable** TIFF in the process (what were they thinking?), pushed me to LR. That was just not

acceptable.