Photo editing/organization options for office. Aperture+iPhoto?

[graphicsward]

I'm looking for a solution for my small office (marketing/graphic design/photography). We have 3 people, two iMacs and one PC laptop running Windows 7. Tell me if what I'm thinking will work in reality not only theory.

I want to buy one copy of Aperture for my iMac and the latest version of iPhoto for the other iMac and PC. I'd like to have one library stored on our network. Since the lastest software versions say "your iPhoto library is now your Aperture library" I should be good right? Any other recomendations?

I use Aperture for my side photography business and love it. It would make life so much easier in this job. But idealy I want an all in one solution in the office (and of course cost is a factor). I want something that can do some edits (more than just iphoto) have a library for easy organization and storage and be able to be used in my mixed network. Not not really thrilled about online things becuase of the speed and upload times but if you use it and love it let me know.

thanks much

 

[flynz4]

I'm looking for a solution for my small office (marketing/graphic design/photography). We have 3 people, two iMacs and one PC laptop running Windows 7. Tell me if what I'm thinking will work in reality not only theory.

I want to buy one copy of Aperture for my iMac and the latest version of iPhoto for the other iMac and PC. I'd like to have one library stored on our network. Since the lastest software versions say "your iPhoto library is now your Aperture library" I should be good right? Any other recomendations?

I use Aperture for my side photography business and love it. It would make life so much easier in this job. But idealy I want an all in one solution in the office (and of course cost is a factor). I want something that can do some edits (more than just iphoto) have a library for easy organization and storage and be able to be used in my mixed network. Not not really thrilled about online things becuase of the speed and upload times but if you use it and love it let me know.

thanks much

I do not think iPhoto is available for PCs. I've almost completely stopped using PCs... so I might be out of date.

/Jim

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Right, iPhoto is not available for Windows. There are several other issues with this plan:

iPhoto does allow library sharing, but that is a view-only solution. If you want to edit photos, then one user must close the library, and the other user can then open the library and edit.

Aperture does not support library sharing, so it could not be the host for a shared library - the library would have to be open in iPhoto. Regardless, Aperture could not view that library.

iPhoto and Aperture are, at their core, databases. A true multi-user database has complex schemes to play "traffic cop" when two or more users are trying to edit the same database record at a time (the same photo, in this case). iPhoto and Aperture were not designed with this in mind.

I don't know if there's another solution that would address your needs at an iPhoto/Aperture price.

Added: I took a quick look at Lightroom - same story, no can do.

 

[graphicsward]

According to apples website iPhoto runs on windows

iPhoto does have a windows version listed on there website. I'm not too worried about the folder being viewed at the same time since there are three people in the office and two work part time.

Does anyone else have any other suggestions? Are there any programs with library sharing? Surely someone has this problem besides me.

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In the newest versions iPhoto can open an aperture library and vies versa. My idea started when I read that on apples website.

 

[flynz4]

There is a big difference between being "library sharing" and "being able to open a database by either Aperture or iPhoto".

I also could not find any reference to a windows version of iPhoto.

Your best bet would be to use Aperture across all three machines. Aperture does a spectacular job of migrating "projects" in and out of the library. I do this all the time between my iMac (my master library), and my MBA. That could be a solution to your problem.

The actual library is not really meant to be shared... but by having A3 on all three of your machines... you could check projects in/out of the main library.

It sounds like you may have a business... so the licensing may not apply... but Apple's licensing model for all apps purchased through the MAS... is that you can run them on every computer that you own.

/Jim