I'm going to vote for Aperture. I've been using it for around a year and it actually inspired me to switch platforms to Apple.
As was suggested, perhaps trial both before deciding what works best for you.
The great thing with Aperture, apart from its image processing, is that you build up a fully searchable database as you go on. Its a great system all in.
I find that for around 10-15% of the time I export images from Aperture to Photoshop for any selective work that needs to be done; you may want to consider adding that to the shopping list too!
Edmond, thank you. This issue of the incompatability of Leopard with Lightroom has me a bit hamstrung. None of the Adobe reps I've spoken with ( or tried to speak with ) can offer a projection of a resolution date. Hmmm. decisions.
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
All things considered; I'm a Mac user through and through with plenty of Windows experience (not necessarily happy).
I was sold on Aperture to begin with simply because I like Motion and FCP and figured Apple's Pro solution would be amazing. It was. Honestly, though, after a year of Aperture I tried LightRoom and found it more intuitive especially when learning efficiency features and key commands. I'm blown away by the fact we're on version 1.1 or 1.2 and still such a great program. Now all my previous Aperture disciples have changed lanes. Somehow Adobe took what was already great and made some major improvements. I'm sure updates to both programs will prove to be amazing but for the meantime, I launch LightRoom before Aperture every day (also much faster too).
I still also use iview for basic organization of files since none of the others offer as many color labels and renaming flexibility.
My 2¢
Dan T.
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
Thanks Daniel...I'm developing a stategy of sorts which involves dragging my feet a bit to see how the Leopard/Lighroom issue is resolved. I've also located a pro photo shop in Baltimore ( Service Photo ) which is also an Apple re-seller. Inching toward resolution/LT
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
I know fairly little about Macs, but one possibility is to run Windows on the thing, I believe. Last I heard the Macs are running Windows in many cases better than purpose-built Windows machines.
I'm not suggesting you do this, but just tossing it out as an option you may not have considered.
A second recommendation for the Luminous Landscape Tutorials. Also check out the Lightroom podcast from the itunes store and LightroomNews. Martin Evening's book is good, but not great. There's an update for 1.1 available for download on the web somewhere.
Linear Mode
