Aperture will likely do 90% of what you need.
Aperture is great but for editing lots of photos. not the best. Eg tool are not infront of you for every thing. meaning you have to go and get it for each photo. if there was some way how to edit this like toolbars then yes it be great.
any other ideas
Agreed, Aperture's output image quality is great, but for productivity LR/ACR is way better.
People who harp that Aperture has better UI design need to explain in what way it is so much better than LR for high volume work.
As of Ap3, it still plays second (or third) fiddle to LR. Pity, as I love the extra detail Ap3 provides over LR/ACR.
I use Gimp, and you can't beat the price, it's free.
What kind of editing are you thinking of because the two broad categories are lightroom/aperture type programs and then photoshop/pixelmator/gimp type programs. What exactly are you doing to the photos that you want to do in batch?
I just scanned 300 photo. Know I will go though them single by single and edit each one. File are tiff. So if I did it in gimp/ photo shop meaning I have to open and save each photo. In LR you don't have to and it alot quicker with big tiff. what I mean by batch is alot of photo need a easy interface and auto save/open and quick.
You seem to have pretty much answered your own question! Either LR or Aperture I think would be best for your needs. I have only used Aperture, but I think both are in a library format, you can just scroll through editing when you please, non destructive, no need to save, lift and stamp etc... set Gimp or Photoshop up as an external and have it save directly back into Aperture.
Sounds ideal really for what you need.