Adobe Lightroom or Aperture or ____?

[photofixation]

Am I the only one using Picasa.

[photofixation]

Originally Posted by McNicks

Image Capture pulls photos from my SD card into an 'incoming' directory

Is it necassary to use some software to fetch images from my DSLR. I connect through USB and copy directly to my hard disk. Am I doing something wrong with my D40

[EricF]

I use a combination of Lightroom and Photoshop CS2.

As I see it, Lightroom has two functions: Workflow and general adjustments. I've heard the adjustments you make in Lightroom are to get the "perfect negative" which you then process in Photoshop. If you need to make localized modifications (like dodge and burn) then you need to use Photoshop or other similar program.

It helps a lot with Lightroom if you follow the many tutorials online (I'm not sure what comes with it, I haven't checked) or get a book. I had gone through some tutorials and some presentations so I had some idea of what can be done and how. I also got a book (Scott Kelby's book), which I haven't made it all the way through yet, but describes very well how to use Lightroom for workflow, so it makes sense, especially since there seems to be 7 ways to do almost everything (so you just pick the one you like).

The one gripe I have against Aperture, and why I didn't try it, is that it won't run on my Mac. It's specifications are too rigorous for my graphics card, and I wasn't ready to upgrade. But Lightroom runs just fine for me so I'll probably stick with that.

That's my $.02

-Eric

[Englishteacher]

Photofixation, nothing wrong. These other guys are doing post production work to "improve" their photos. I use Photo Shop CS2 myself to fix the things I did wrong when I took the shot, but I prefer to make good shots in the field, so I minimize my time in PS. I much prefer "taking" pictures over "fixing" pictures.

I shot a prom a couple of weeks ago. Didn't do any PS work other than a bit of "auto adjust" to lighten some dark pix. Minimum time. Sold CDs of all photos for $15.00 US each. Not bad.

[filips01]

Been using Lightroom since the second Beta release. Love it. Great workflow application. Only letdown I feel is the sharpening does not even compare to Aperture. Photoshop CS3 for all post production work. =]

[TAJ]

I use Picasa2 too. Someone asked if there was anything cheaper than Lightroom. This is free, and works great. I used it, then thought I'd go more advanced and purchased Lightroom. But, I find the viewing not as nice as Picasa2, and overall features of Picasa2 are intuitive and well laid out. For us amateurs, I think P2 is fine.

[Nieton21]

I've already said that I'm using aperture...(wish it was as fast as lightroom)... but I also do CS2 alongside it for healing and more powerful adjustments.

[photofixation]

Originally Posted by Englishteacher

I shot a prom a couple of weeks ago. Didn't do any PS work other than a bit of "auto adjust" to lighten some dark pix. Minimum time. Sold CDs of all photos for $15.00 US each. Not bad.

Thats cool !
can you share it here with us ..

[ShadowyFigure]

I use photoshop CS2 because well I use it for all the other stuff I do with graphics.

Its a nice program and I got it for free

[ELAY]

I am an enthusiastic amateur on a PC platform, too cheap to buy Photoshop CS3 (and I suppose too timid or upstanding or something to pirate it). I have been using The GIMP, which most of the forum readers probably know is an open source image editing platform which works in Linux and Windows environments (maybe Mac too?).

The big advantage is of course that it is absolutely free to use. The main drawbacks are probably that the Windows interface is a bit unusual, in that everything sort of has its own window, which can mean lots of time on the Task Bar finding/opening Windows (I gather there is something of a fix for this in a program called GIMPShop); there is only support for 8-bit colour at the moment; there really isn't native support for adjustment layers per se (you can still do the adjustments, but you either have to do them on your background copy, or do them on separate duplicate layers); and there are fewer third party resources available (though there is a reasonably big library of "script-fus" which are very similar to PS plug-ins, and there are lots of GIMP photo tutorials out there).

I know there is something of a philosophical/political debate between the GIMP nation and the PS nation, but I am not really trying to ignite that feud in this forum. If I had the dough, I would probably spring for CS3 myself. I don't though, and even with its drawbacks it is a great resource which allows me to do things with my photos that I would otherwise be unable to do.