Aperature

If you mean Aperture, the photo management application by Apple, the views are always divided, some prefer Aperture, some prefer Adobe Lightroom (I do).



PS: Have you tried Aperture yet, since you asked about it almost two years ago and before it became only available via the Mac App Store (MAS)?

For the low entry cost of $79, you might want to try Aperture as it shares the photo library with iPhoto. Unless you find a special deal, Adobe Lightroom will cost twice as much.

I tried both Lightroom and Aperture. I hated the Lightroom interface. It feels more like a windows program than a Mac. I downloaded trials of both and finally went with Aperture. Where Aperture really shines is in it's photo management abilities.

Aperture is a good enough program that it single handedly is justification to switch from a PC to a Mac.

It is an extremely powerful program. I suspect that the vast majority of negative reviews are from people who have never learned to use it.

There are some people who prefer Adobe LR. Feature wise... LR and A3 leapfrog each other. Each do somethings better and worse than the other. For example... LR has better noise reduction and lens correction. A3 has features that it does better. I think that trying to figure out the two on a feature by feature basis is a fools mission.

If you are going to be multi-platform (PC and Mac)... then LR is the obvious choice. For those of us who do all our photograpy on the Mac... I really like the integration of A3 into iLife and iWork. It just works better.

Overall UI architecture... I like A3.

/Jim

Its a great app, though like apple's other offerings the question of their dedication to the product, i.e., its been a while since it saw a major update.

With that said, for the price its an extremely powerful DAM that does some pretty powerful non destructive editing.

Does A3 allow plugins say from NIX?

Yep. Have used the Nik plugins with no issues at all.
Occasionally I resort to photoshop for a special need, but the range of adjustments and effects in aperture are plenty for cropping and touch ups to my photos. The photo library management interface is perfect for me. Lightroom is too convoluted. Though that's personal preference, but I've used both.

For the money I'd be looking at aperture vs photoshop elements. Given the library management of aperture I went that way. However there some editing needs that i still need to resort to photoshop. Wound up with both, but aperture is my goto app.

Not just Nik, but also OnOneSoftware suite and maybe Topaz and others. And PS Elements is a very good less expensive substitute for full PS. PSE 11 is less than $100.

Ebvette said:

Does A3 allow plugins say from NIX?

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After Aperture... Nik Software is my most used photography tool. I own the entire suite.

Nik Software suite is available in two versions.
1- Aperture + Lightroom ($300)
2- Aperture + Lightroom + Photoshop ($500)

Both are generally offered with a 15% discount if you use codes available in most of their numerous (hundreds) of training videos on their site.

/Jim

jw3571 said:

What are people's opinions on Aperature? reading the reviews in the app store there are quite a bit of bad reviews. SHould these be ignored or should I look for something else.

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I'd suggest that you search for detailed reviews from respected photography or computer sites rather than relying on the very cursory reviews in the App Store. You also could play with it at an Apple Store, as it's almost invariably installed on the computers there. The program is expensive enough that it's worth making sure it works for you.

That said, I personally love Aperture. Lightroom is great as well and somewhat more powerful in its editing capabilities, but I find its interface clunkier and its organizational paradigm weaker. Lightroom does have the advantage of offering a free trial, though, which sadly is not available for Aperture. Though opinions vary as to which of these programs is preferable for various specific tasks, most of us would be perfectly happy to use either of them if the other weren't available.

bluespark said:

I'd suggest that you search for detailed reviews from respected photography or computer sites rather than relying on the very cursory reviews in the App Store. You also could play with it at an Apple Store, as it's almost invariably installed on the computers there. The program is expensive enough that it's worth making sure it works for you.

That said, I personally love Aperture. Lightroom is great as well and somewhat more powerful in its editing capabilities, but I find its interface clunkier and its organizational paradigm weaker. Lightroom does have the advantage of offering a free trial, though, which sadly is not available for Aperture. Though opinions vary as to which of these programs is preferable for various specific tasks, most of us would be perfectly happy to use either of them if the other weren't available.

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I agree with the bolded section above. I own both... I use Aperture... but both are great programs.

/Jim

flynz4 said:

After Aperture... Nik Software is my most used photography tool. I own the entire suite.

Nik Software suite is available in two versions.
1- Aperture + Lightroom ($300)
2- Aperture + Lightroom + Photoshop ($500)

Both are generally offered with a 15% discount if you use codes available in most of their numerous (hundreds) of training videos on their site.

/Jim

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I got LR4 + Elements 11/Photoshop PREMIERE for $145.00 Amazon but they were Upgrades because I have been using LR3 and Elements 8.