Aperture 2.0 vs. Abobe Photoshop Elements 6.0

[clayj]

So Aperture 2.0 is now out... and Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 (APE?) comes out next month. I need some new photo-editing software (I've been using APE 3.0 and Microsoft Digital Image Studio on Windows), but not sure which to get. Aperture is more expensive ($200 vs. $70-$80), but it looks like it might be more powerful (which doesn't necessarily mean easier to use).

Any opinions from anyone who does more photo editing than I do?

 

[tersono]

It depends on what you want to do - they're not really comparable applications.

Aperture is more of a 'digital darkroom'. You can correct exposure, colour and all of those kind of things, but it's not intended for heavyweight editing of the sort that you might do in Photoshop (removing elements from an image etc).

Most of us who do a lot of photo manips use both Aperture and Photoshop - I'd be hard pushed to choose just one - but, if it was just to help me present my own photography more effectively, then I guess Aperture would be the one...

 

[mntbikejack]

A better comparison would be to compare Aperture to Adobe Lightroom.

 

[clayj]

A better comparison would be to compare Aperture to Adobe Lightroom.

Ah, OK. So basically Aperture and APE have a fair amount of overlap in terms of functionality, but they're really not too similar to each other. I'm used to APE and it does most of what I need, so it sounds like Aperture might be too specialized for what I need... all I really do is color correction, picture cleanup, cropping, and resizing. I'm not any kind of professional photographer.

Thanks!