Can someone just give me a quick crashcourse on these three programs, like a workflow or something that I should be doing. I usually do most of my novice editing in Photoshop, but now I've just been getting into Aperture. Do I have my "library" to browse my photos, group them, and quick edits. And then edit intensly in Photoshop? And is there really a need for iPhoto at all as you get more "professional"? Thanks guys
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Aperture vs. Photoshop vs. iPhoto
- Thread starter Blazer5913
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i generally import everything into aperture. i then use that to log info and organize images. from there, they move into photoshop where image and corrections and enchancements are performed. i can then store corrected albums of images back into aperture.
i photo is basically a stripped down version. its a great app, easy to work with, but its correction tools are barebones. its still ok for importing and creating albums, and maintaning a library.
i photo is basically a stripped down version. its a great app, easy to work with, but its correction tools are barebones. its still ok for importing and creating albums, and maintaning a library.
yeah, i mean i love iphoto, but I want to get more serious with photography. Therefore, I'm moving more and more towards Photoshop and Aperture. iPhoto can enhance/fix photos a bit, and has the storing capabilities of albums and all of Aperture, but I think I need to ditch it. The taggging abilities in Aperture are incredible, for basic editing, can't Aperture help out as well? And for more intensive editing, take it into Photoshop? How do you then get the edited Photoshop images back into Aperture with the changes made? I'm sure its easy, but I just don't understand it. Does it automatically change in Aperture, kind of like when you edit a clip in Final Cut with Motion, and when you switch back to FCP, the changes made in Motion are already applied? thanks alot guys!
Aperture is pretty much pointless if you aren't shooting RAW.
That said, I'm looking into trying it out myself.
That said, I'm looking into trying it out myself.
I shoot RAW. First thing I do is to upload images from the CF card through the card reader to the computer into a folder in "Pictures." Then I upload the same CF card full of images into Aperture. Once that's done, while still in Aperture, I look at each image, sometimes deleting immediately and at other times holding off for a second or third look. I'll often rank them then if I've got a little time. If I'm in a real hurry I'll look for the image or two that I need to process immediately and will do them right then. Aperture has a good set of basic editing tools. I rarely need to go into CS2 now, only occasionally if I want to or need to do a little additional polishing. Once I've decided the image looks satisfactory, I then click "output" and send it to a folder on my desktop. I've got a preset which does this automatically and also puts it into srgb format and 800x800 .jpg. If I'm in a real hurry to get the image somewhere, I'll then jump out of Aperture and go to Smugmug and upload the .jpg there so that I can then share it wherever it is I am planning for it to be seen.
You can use Aperture for working on jpgs, too, and I've still got a lot of images that I shot in jpg before I finally began going with RAW. From the very first day I had my first Mac I didn't use iPhoto, as I do not care for the way it arranges the folders and such; I prefer my own system, which is why I have that "Pictures" folder. That, by the way, is as a protective safety mechanism in case something goes wrong or Aperture burps on one of my images. I also periodically back up everything on to one or more external drives.
You can use Aperture for working on jpgs, too, and I've still got a lot of images that I shot in jpg before I finally began going with RAW. From the very first day I had my first Mac I didn't use iPhoto, as I do not care for the way it arranges the folders and such; I prefer my own system, which is why I have that "Pictures" folder. That, by the way, is as a protective safety mechanism in case something goes wrong or Aperture burps on one of my images. I also periodically back up everything on to one or more external drives.
Doesn't Aperture back up everything, like all the master images, so is there really a need to import all the pictures to a Pictures folder? Also, I will probably start shooting in RAW so Aperture will come into play much more. My one question still stands though: What if I have an image in Aperture that I want to edit in Photoshop. How do I "export" the file for editing in Photoshop, and then take the edited photo back into Aperture with the changes made? Maybe I am just being a noob about this one, but any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
I have aperture, but actually use lightroom because i feel it melds better with my workflow. Just substitute aperture for lightroom in my comments.
I import from CF to lightroom and let lightroom work on them for a while while i rsync the directory to a backup server. Once in lightroom I go through them all and rate:
5 = must use
4 = can use
3 = try not to use
2 = last resort
1 = ignore
I then color correct and crop if needed and export the 5's and usually 4's out to a flash gallery and ftp it to my site for client review. Once I get the go ahead for the selected images I then do more intense editing in PS if needed and output a final review if the client desires. Once that's done, I do exports in tiff and jpeg at whatever size they choose and hand them off.
You can set up your external editor in the preferences. AFAIK, Aperture exports 16-bit tiff for editing. Also, it doesn't automatically backup your libraries. You will have to set up vaults to do that. The original RAW files are always intact, but if your aperture library disappears with no backup, you are sunk my friend.
I import from CF to lightroom and let lightroom work on them for a while while i rsync the directory to a backup server. Once in lightroom I go through them all and rate:
5 = must use
4 = can use
3 = try not to use
2 = last resort
1 = ignore
I then color correct and crop if needed and export the 5's and usually 4's out to a flash gallery and ftp it to my site for client review. Once I get the go ahead for the selected images I then do more intense editing in PS if needed and output a final review if the client desires. Once that's done, I do exports in tiff and jpeg at whatever size they choose and hand them off.
You can set up your external editor in the preferences. AFAIK, Aperture exports 16-bit tiff for editing. Also, it doesn't automatically backup your libraries. You will have to set up vaults to do that. The original RAW files are always intact, but if your aperture library disappears with no backup, you are sunk my friend.
Blazer5913 said:
You have to set up a specific schedule to back up your Aperture files to the Aperture "vault." For obvious reasons an external drive is recommended. I prefer to still also have a separate folder in "Pictures." Also, if you've got a backup system that backs up all of your files and folders, your Aperture library will be included in that as well.
In its preferences Aperture offers the opportunity to specify an external editor. When you do that then you can quickly work on an image and then shift it into CS2 (or whatever other external editor you've designated), work on it there and then save it as a .tiff or .psd and then return to Aperture.
Blazer5913 said:
There is nothing wrong with iPhoto when it comes to serious photography by the way. I'm doing a degree in photography and iphoto is perfectly fine for what it does. If you shoot RAW (which I don't yet by the way) then go for aperture and make sure you got a machine to run it as well.
In my photography arsenal I use: Photoshop, iPhoto, DoubleTake and I'm playing with Lightroom at the moment.
Importing Photoshop pics in iPhoto
Hey CrackedButter,
I also use iPhoto and photoshop, althought i'm stuck right now... I'm having difficulties when:
1. I import with iPhoto, open the pix with PS, edit and save... but then I can't re-open that saved file in iPhoto.
2. I tried importing directly from the camera in Finder, edit and save in PS and still it won't let me export the file to iPhoto.
Would you (or anyone) know how to solve this issue?
Cheers,
Cancun Lord
Hey CrackedButter,
I also use iPhoto and photoshop, althought i'm stuck right now... I'm having difficulties when:
1. I import with iPhoto, open the pix with PS, edit and save... but then I can't re-open that saved file in iPhoto.
2. I tried importing directly from the camera in Finder, edit and save in PS and still it won't let me export the file to iPhoto.
Would you (or anyone) know how to solve this issue?
Cheers,
Cancun Lord
I do something like this....
I first import the images to a folder in "Pictures" and I name the folder by the date and main justject like ".../Pictures/2007_01_15_VetsPark". I will then look at this folder in Finder and trash any really bad images. That means any image that is so bad I can see it's bad even in the thumbnail.
Next I copy this folder to a CDROM. This CD goes into a fire safe and is (hopefully) never touched again.
Next step is to import the folder into iPhoto. Here I will enter data, comments, keywords and rate the images and I'll make a second pass and delete more of the images. I do basic cropping and color/exposure correction here.
Some of the images get more treatment in Photoshop elements. PSE integrates well with iPhoto. All I have to do is double click an image to start PSE and then I do a "save" in PSE to put the editied image back into iPhoto
I backup the entire iPhoto library periodically
I also use "retrospect" to make incremental backups to a file server I have on my network. This lets me go back to almost any point in time and recover files. I like retrospect.
Future plans are to upgrade the computers. I have a G4 Mini now and will buy something bigger this summer. (Either a Mac Pro or a 24 inch iMac but I'd prefer it if Apple makes a "Mac", a machine to fill the gap between the mini and MP.) After the upgrade I will replace iPhoto with Aperture and PSE with CS3. I will wait for CS3 before I upgrade my Mac.
Actually if you are only doing photography there is very little the CS2/CS3 will do that PSE will not. I've asked a number of photographers what they use in CS2 that is not available in PSE and I don't hear much
I don't know what you are doing but I just re-import anything that I've worked on in Photoshop. I can't be any more useful than that.