How Would you Spend your $199? Upgrade CS, buy new Aperture, DxO Bibble, OnOne??

[thebeave]

HI,

I'm considering spending $199 to upgrade from CS2 to CS5 for Mac ( have yet to take the plunge)

I have iphoto for organization + CS2, and the main editing tasks are
resizing,
B&W conversion,
noise reduction,
Raw conversion (increasingly),
stitching,
HDR,
color, levels, and exposure correction,
blemish touch up?

I'm moderately proficient in CS2, and don't generally go more than a dozen layers deep in CS2 .

Would you go for the upgrade or consider using that money to buy a different , edit "lite" program like Aperture or Lightroom or to even buy a set of bundles or niche program (s) from Bibble , OnOne, Nik etc.?

Thanks for your advice

 

[VirtualRain]

Aperture is now $80 in the Mac App store. I think it would do most of what you need and probably speed up your workflow or make it more efficient.

 

[Scuby]

If you were going to move to Aperture then to be worthwhile you need to be willing to change how you work and use it properly - if you were just going to use Aperture to edit photos but not manage them in there then there are far better alternatives. But if you're willing to move management over to Aperture, it'll do everything you need (except HDR and stitching) and improve your photo management /editing workflow a lot. I use Hugin (which is free) for HDR / stitdhing jobs, and that works very well.

David

 

[Ruahrc]

I second using Hugin. It is a much more capable stitcher than photoshop.

As I use Lightroom I tend to favor that package. It would cover all your listed uses of CS2, with the exception perhaps of HDR. But there are LR plugins for HDR that can be had for only a few dollars too (LREnfuse or something like that).

Also LR3 has some features that Aperture currently lacks, like perspective correction. (am I right? I haven't checked Aperture in a while)

Going with LR would keep you with familiar tools since it's Adobe, you would still be able to keep CS2 integration with LR, and you'd also get a significant upgrade to a newer cameraRAW converter.

Ruahrc

 

[rebby]

Buy Aperture in the app store for $80.

Hang on to the additional $120 and keep a close eye on Amazon. I've seen the CS5 upgrade as low as $125 (I should have bought it then). Pull the trigger when it hits a price point you're comfortable with (it's often in the $150 - 170 range).

 

[Hisdem]

I would say buy Aperture, but what Mac are you using? I found Aperture to be extremely slow on my MBP (2.66GHz C2D, 4GB DDR3). Works like a charm on my base i3 iMac though.

 

[compuwar]

HI,

I'm considering spending $199 to upgrade from CS2 to CS5 for Mac ( have yet to take the plunge)

I have iphoto for organization + CS2, and the main editing tasks are
resizing,
B&W conversion,
noise reduction,
Raw conversion (increasingly),
stitching,
HDR,
color, levels, and exposure correction,
blemish touch up?

I'm moderately proficient in CS2, and don't generally go more than a dozen layers deep in CS2 .

Would you go for the upgrade or consider using that money to buy a different , edit "lite" program like Aperture or Lightroom or to even buy a set of bundles or niche program (s) from Bibble , OnOne, Nik etc.?

Thanks for your advice

I'd upgrade PS, you're getting to the point where you'll not be able to do an upgrade if you go another version or two aren't you? I'd also pay $20 to register RPP and use it as my raw converter, because I think it's the best raw converter on the planet.

CS5 is very good, and every release gets better tools, it'd be a shame to lose that investment IMO.

Paul

 

[thebeave]

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Thanks for the insights everybody. I had no idea of the discounts out there - 80 for Aperture, 150 for CS upgrade.

I also hadn't heard of some of the Other plug ins, so that's helpful too.

All very good advice to consider. Decisions decisions. Thanks everybody

I have a one to one service membership that expires in six months, so i could get some hands on training with the trial version of Aperture to see how I like it.

 

[ChrisA]

HI,

I'm considering spending $199 to upgrade from CS2 to CS5 for Mac ( have yet to take the plunge)

I have iphoto for organization + CS2, and the main editing tasks are
resizing,
B&W conversion,
noise reduction,
Raw conversion (increasingly),
stitching,
HDR,
color, levels, and exposure correction,
blemish touch up?

I'm moderately proficient in CS2, and don't generally go more than a dozen layers deep in CS2 .

Would you go for the upgrade or consider using that money to buy a different , edit "lite" program like Aperture or Lightroom or to even buy a set of bundles or niche program (s) from Bibble , OnOne, Nik etc.?

Thanks for your advice

I think Photoshop Elelments does everything on your list so why CS5?

Also you have to think about workflow. Moving to Aperture or especially lightroom mmeans yu have to change the order of the steps you do. cs2->cs5 is mostly transparent