Replace iPhoto and Elements with Aperture?

[mrjosh]

Hi all,

Couldn't find a thread that answers this question. Right now I've been using iPhoto and Elements 10. I'm thinking of replacing both iphoto and elements with aperture.

If anyone has made this switch, are you happy?

My usage is not very heavy - canvas resizing, light re-touching and 'save for web'*.

I think Aperture may give me more organizational control (I especially want my photo library spread across at least 2 drives) than iPhoto.

*I've read some complaints regarding Aperture quality / saving files at different resolutions. I know complaints are easy to find in forums, but is this something I should concern myself with?

 

[CrazyNurse]

I only keep junk photos (web downloads) in iPhoto.

I use Lightroom for organization and have kept PSE around as my editor. I have an enormous collection of photos (thousands of digital pix and a dozen scanned family albums) that are a snap to manage now.

Lightroom or Aperture will help you organize things better and also help you make quick edits.

 

[glenthompson]

I switched from iPhoto to Aperture in order to get better organizational capabilities as well as more editing capability without having to round trip images to PSE. I also never liked Adobe's user interface and preferred to stay with the Apple product. Been using Aperture for about 3 months and have been completely satisfied.

If you like the Adobe products, consider Lightroom. Much easier to stick with a single vendor.

 

[ChrisA]

Hi all,

Couldn't find a thread that answers this question. Right now I've been using iPhoto and Elements 10. I'm thinking of replacing both iphoto and elements with aperture. ...

Aperture is a good replacement for iPhoto. They can both share a library. but Aperture is not even close to Photoshop Element as an image editor. What I would suggest is just replacing iPhoto and continuing to use Elements as you do now.

Aperture does have better organization. What you heard about image quality can't be true. Aperture NEVER CHNGES an original image file. If it NEVER makes a change it can't degrade the quality. Aperture stores a list of all the edits you made to the file and every time it needs to display the file the edits are re-played and the edited image is re-created on the fly (OK there is a cache where it keeps the most recent re-creations and thumbnails are stored so you ca browse quickly but the camera files are kept 100% untouched.

BTW iPhoto also stores original image files.

 

[ChrisA]

I
If you like the Adobe products, consider Lightroom. Much easier to stick with a single vendor.

There is a selection in Aperture's Preferences where you can give the name of the app that is to be the "Default Image Editor". If you select Photoshop Elements then when you double click an image in Aperture theat image will come up inside Elements. It is saved back in Aperture when you exit Elements.

Makes it very seamless

 

[glenthompson]

There is a selection in Aperture's Preferences where you can give the name of the app that is to be the "Default Image Editor". If you select Photoshop Elements then when you double click an image in Aperture theat image will come up inside Elements. It is saved back in Aperture when you exit Elements.

Makes it very seamless

Except that you are dealing with two different user interfaces. You can do the same with iPhoto. It also takes more space because you have the original copy as well as he edited version. In Aperture, it's just the original and the changes applied.

 

[mrjosh]

Thanks!

CrazyNurse, glenthompson and ChrisA - Thank you all for the comments. I plan on purchasing aperture, but will hold onto my copy of elements as well. I'm not a huge fan of the adobe interface, but it does elements does what I need it to do.

ChrisA - Thanks for the info on saving files.

 

[mtbdudex]

I'm a happy Aperture camper, and also a PSE 9 "sometimes" user for things that Aperture can't, like Panoramas, or the scene cleaner, etc.
Basically when I want to combine multiple files into 1 in some manner.

Now, I also own CS5, and use that for some "heavy" editing here and there, but for the most part 98% of editing I can now do in Aperture.

So:
file organization, 98% editing, and sending out (email, facebook, flickr) done in Aperture as 1-stop method.

 

[MiniD3]

Hi all,

Couldn't find a thread that answers this question. Right now I've been using iPhoto and Elements 10. I'm thinking of replacing both iphoto and elements with aperture.

If anyone has made this switch, are you happy?

My usage is not very heavy - canvas resizing, light re-touching and 'save for web'*.

I think Aperture may give me more organizational control (I especially want my photo library spread across at least 2 drives) than iPhoto.

*I've read some complaints regarding Aperture quality / saving files at different resolutions. I know complaints are easy to find in forums, but is this something I should concern myself with?

Hi There,
I bought a new iMac a couple of months ago, bought Aperture straight up after watching many youtube videos
I have a Nikon and did come from using Nikon CaptureNX2 as my only editing software

Now using Aperture and loving it, had a few glitches along the way but that was due to operator error, and like always, the guys here got me back on track

What do I like about the program, I mean App!

-Manage all my images, and I have zillions, took a while, but now sorted
-have two vaults
-I like the fact that you can backup to a selected drive on import, I then just drag that file into another folder on the second drive called import_backup_2013_2
-The editing software took some getting used to but now I have the hang of it, its a lot more powerful that I envisaged
-Now Aperture will not do everything, no software does, so keep the PS elements for those little PS tricks when required
-Is Aperture 4 coming out? Who cares, the price is great anyway
-Resizing images for the net or email is almost a one click operation,
-Depending on personal use, you may need extra software like, distortion correction and HDR etc
-If you shoot RAW, you have a mile of adjustments
-I also have the free app BorderFX, got it from the app store, bit "clunky" but does the job
Regards,
Gary

 

[phrehdd]

While I use other software, Aperture would be a much better choice than iPhoto. There are various add-ons (filters) that make it a rather robust software for both managing/catalogueing and general edits. It might be a good exercise to see what add ons are out there and if any would meet your needs.

As for editing beyond Aperture, PSE of course is out there but so is Pixelmator, GIMP (free - a bit cumbersome but powerful) and on Windows side there is Corel's offerings. I have Photoshop CS6, Lightroom and Capture One.

The Capture One is for my own work as it handles a rather tricky RAW file that comes from my camera and I use Lightroom for other people's files that comes from scans of their photos, negs and trans for photo restoration. Lightroom is for catalogues and Photoshop is for the heavy lifting of restoration and retouch.

As for Aperture, it would have served (in my opinion) just as well for my unique needs and I remain in the minority among my friends as they all use Aperture and love it. - I can understand why as it does exactly what they want and seems to be a relatively robust product. Perhaps the only negatives I hear is everyone has a wish list of changes/improvements that they want and hoped Apple would be more forthcoming on updates and upgrades but then again, Apple does things in its own time and in the meanwhile we all seem to get along well enough with what we have.

 

[mrjosh]

mtbdudex, MiniD3 and phrehdd - I really appreciate the feedback. It helps a lot.

Thanks!