for the mac users - lightroom or aperture and/or photoshop

I have tried both. Before lightroom apeared on the market I was using the trial of aperture. Then the lightroom beta hit so I used that.

I had issues with how lightroom got more and more bloated so went back to lightroom (edited to add - I mean aperture) but I don't like how it stores images. With lightroom it's so easy to just tell it that I want the latest shoot in it's own directory.

Then again - when it comes to fixing sharpness issues I find I get a better result in photoshop. so now my workflow includes that as well.

Now - what do you guys use?

What are the pro's and cons of each app?

Do you use one of them or do you stick to just photoshop?

Do you use photoshop elements or is it the full pro app that is it?

I'm still juggling trials and betas and am trying to figure out where my money should go for licensing.

She

I use Lightroom and The GIMP. Lightroom 99+% of the time LR will handle the issues. Nothing comes close to PS but I get by with The GIMP besides it is free. I think I'll stick with LR because the next version(s) should cleanup some of the deficiencies of 1.0. Pros & Cons I leave to you to search on the web cuz there are many.

I downloaded LR as a trial and felt it was all I needed and purchased it 10 days later. I could have tried others but the time spent would not have been worth it. I haven't regretted my decision to go with LR.

iView Media Pro, DPP, PSCS2.

René Damkot wrote in post #3033388
iView Media Pro, DPP, PSCS2.

Ok, I know absolutely nothing of either of those apart from PSCS2.

shesgotthepic wrote in post #3031031
With lightroom it's so easy to just tell it that I want the latest shoot in it's own directory.

Hi She,

I'm not sure I understand this. Can you explain?

Let's try it like this:
iView.
DPP.

TMR Design wrote in post #3033580
Hi She,

I'm not sure I understand this. Can you explain?

Plug in the camera, make sure you're in library mode in Lightroom, click on import, the popup window has all sorts of settings. You can rename images to what shoot it was and sequence numbers, add meta tags, tell the software where to store the images on your hard drive and what the directory should be called. Then when you run the import it will all be exactly where you tell it to be.

Aperture does not do this. At least I haven't figured out how to sort it.

Thanks for explaining She. Yes, I did know about that but didn't understand what you meant. I don't import from my camera or directly from the card. I like to copy the images to a folder I create and then import that folder, but the naming and renaming file features are outstanding.

On a related note. I just joined NAPP and the tips and tutorials, a well as Darkroom magazine are really going to help use Lightroom to its fullest.

I use Lightroom to import and rename. For printing, I'll use Photoshop Elements to sharpen and maybe adjust with color space. There are pros and cons to everything though, and I've seen many complaints online.

What do you find bloated about Lightroom?

I just recently used Aperture for almost 5 hours in one stretch.
I really liked the smart album, and over all editing process.
The RAW conversion from the Rebel XT was very good quality.

I Use DPP/EOS capture to do my tethered shoot.

I also use Photoshop CS2 for some editing too.
Essentially I can see my self just using DPP to capture and convert RAW files
DPP is truly excellent after all Canon knows it's RAW files, and then do color enhancements in Photoshop.

I used Lightroom during the Beta stages and wasn't too thrilled. from what I see the workflow is the same in the final release and based on that I currently prefer Aperture.

I like DPP and Photshop Elements 4.0

Photo Mechanic and Photoshop CS2.
Works well to identify images and store them. Hard to beat CS2 to edit images. I joined NAPP for the tutorials and the magazine.

i have aperture and LR and the only thing keeping me away from aperture right now is no support for 40D raw files

We use Aperture and CS2. To be honest, at first I had some issues with Aperture but it was more about not knowing the program. Now that I am mastering it a little bit I absolutely love it. In fact, Photoshop is used only for extreme PP.

Regarding the OP, individual files can go on their own folders. Just select to work with referenced files instead of managed. It allowed me to use the same folder for LR and Aperture when I was testing them side by side.

I have aperture and lightroom and PE4 on all my macs. I used to use aperture all the time until lightroom updated to 1:2. Now it's lightroom all the way with effects ect. in photoshop. Lightroom can just do more than aperture (and it's faster...for some reason, even with 2gb of ram, in an equal size gallery, aperture just runs much slower than LR).