Aperture or alternative ?

[Oktober]

Hi guys,

I wonder if I can get your advice on what I could use to catalogue my photographs that I take.

I do have Aperture 2 which I did not fully get on with. I tried to get into the application - get used to using it and reading tips, how-to's etc.

So what else is out there that I can use to edit, tweak, catalogue my pictures and be able to find them using a key word search.

Most of my pictures are of motorsport events, but there are few holidays and a few days outs.

My dad has Elements 6 (on his PC) that looks to have a really good cataloguing facility and some nice features.

What do all you budding photographers use?

 

[maflynn]

Lightroom from adobe is the 800 lbs gorilla that many photographers use. They still offer a free trial so you can play it to see if you like how it works.

 

[r.j.s]

iPhoto will do all that. If you didn't get along with Aperture 2, then Aperture 3 or Lightroom 4 aren't going to be much better for you.

What exactly was your issue with Aperture?

 

[Gamle]

No question about it. Adobe Lightroom 4.

It is a program intended to be the center of your post processing workflow. Organising, developing, geotagging, slideshow, printning, uploading directly to facebook flickr smugmug 500px.

The developing module is more intuitive and powerfull than apertures. It still doesn't allow you to Work in layers.

There are more tutorials, presets and other ressources around than for aperture, being a multi platform program.

Being a Pro photographer myself i wouldn't want to live without it. But being simple enough for my 7 year old niece to get decent results.

 

[Oktober]

iPhoto will do all that. If you didn't get along with Aperture 2, then Aperture 3 or Lightroom 4 aren't going to be much better for you.

What exactly was your issue with Aperture?

I did not understand the folder/directory on the left and how it worked - Project or not etc....

It just seemed that things where not easy to find and do. thats all. Maybe some tutorial would of helped.

 

[robgendreau]

Both the heavyweights, Lightroom and Aperture, have learning curves. They are pro software, and hence aren't always the easiest for casual users.

iPhoto has beefed up recently, but I find it gets in the way more than it helps.

A lot depends on what else you use. If you commit to Adobe for editing, then I'd lean toward Lightroom 4. Aperture, on the other hand, integrates well with all sorts of non-Adobe applications. If you settle on an editor that may guide your decision (both work with other applications, BTW). And note that you shouldn't buy Aperture 3...4 is probably just around the corner.

There are other ways to go. One reason people use Aperture/Lightroom is preprocessing RAW files and such; if you just use it as an organizer there are other ways.

For example, Leap. It lets you organize by folders and tagging. It's not even a photo, more of a Finder alternative. There's also Lyn, which looks a bit like iTunes.

Or just Adobe Photoshop Elements; it has an organizer that is bare bones but useful, and you can send to Flickr and some other sites.

 

[Oktober]

Both the heavyweights, Lightroom and Aperture, have learning curves. They are pro software, and hence aren't always the easiest for casual users.

iPhoto has beefed up recently, but I find it gets in the way more than it helps.

A lot depends on what else you use. If you commit to Adobe for editing, then I'd lean toward Lightroom 4. Aperture, on the other hand, integrates well with all sorts of non-Adobe applications. If you settle on an editor that may guide your decision (both work with other applications, BTW). And note that you shouldn't buy Aperture 3...4 is probably just around the corner.

There are other ways to go. One reason people use Aperture/Lightroom is preprocessing RAW files and such; if you just use it as an organizer there are other ways.

For example, Leap. It lets you organize by folders and tagging. It's not even a photo, more of a Finder alternative. There's also Lyn, which looks a bit like iTunes.

Or just Adobe Photoshop Elements; it has an organizer that is bare bones but useful, and you can send to Flickr and some other sites.

Thank you for that reply. I am very used to using photoshop and Adobe programs alike, so from what you have said I would be better to use Lightroom. But then if I use PS for the editing then all I am going to need is an organiser like the examples you have mentioned.

 

[maflynn]

I did not understand the folder/directory on the left and how it worked - Project or not etc....

It just seemed that things where not easy to find and do. thats all. Maybe some tutorial would of helped.

There's quite a lot of tutorials on the net for both Aperture and Lightroom. I will say that Aperture has less of a learning curve, it gives you great Asset Management and very good non destructive editing capability.

Too bad apple pulled the trial versions of aperture so you could have tried the latest version to see this is a good fit for you.

 

[snberk103]

Thank you for that reply. I am very used to using photoshop and Adobe programs alike, so from what you have said I would be better to use Lightroom. But then if I use PS for the editing then all I am going to need is an organiser like the examples you have mentioned.

Most photographers find that they can do 80% or more of their editing inside Lr. When you install Lr it will automatically create a link to Ps so that when you invoke the default external editor, Lr will invoke Ps and pass the image to it. When you are done with Ps it passes the image back to Lr where it is cataloged and added to the Lr folder structure.

Hope this helps.

 

[Oktober]

Most photographers find that they can do 80% or more of their editing inside Lr. When you install Lr it will automatically create a link to Ps so that when you invoke the default external editor, Lr will invoke Ps and pass the image to it. When you are done with Ps it passes the image back to Lr where it is cataloged and added to the Lr folder structure.

Hope this helps.

Thats of help.Thanks.

You know, before I posted this I never thought of Lightroom. I need to research it me thinks.