Adobe Lightroom or Aperture or ____?

[tjloeb]

I am a bit of a software junkie, so I use three packages as my primary workflow tools.

1. Photoshop CS3
2. Adobe Lightroom
3. Photoshop Elements

I also have and use DoX Optics Pro 4.0 and, of course the editing package that came with my Canon 30D, Digital Photo Professional.

Sounds like a lot I'm sure, but here is my logic. I use Elements for "quick and dirty" work. Lightroom/Photoshop for serious or complex projects.

DxO has some camera and lens specific tools that can be a help. Most of Canon's bodies and lenses are supported.

Because of its powerful photo database capabilities Lightroom forms the base for all my other software.

Prior to my starting to use Lightroom, I had images all over my HDDs. It took forever to find anything and I'm sure some images are still hiding.

Lightroom brought sanity and organization to this chaos quickly and easily and continues to do so. I can't say enough good things about it.

While Bridge comes with CS3 and is much improved, it is still not as powerful or easy to use as Lightroom.

What can I say about Photoshop that has not already been said far better? Once you get past the price and look at all you get with it, it is the best pixel editing package you can own.

Elements 5.0 is a good second choice and if you continue to be involved with digital photography Elements forms a great learning experience if you move to Photoshop.

Adobe offer free 30 trials for all three packages, so you can see how they preform for you and if they meet your needs.

[MtnTopRebel]

I started using Qimage with my last studio, and liked it because of the simplicy of digital cluster printing. I have an Epson 44" 9500 printer, and wanted to be able to use it to full potential. Well that was nice, but not till I printed some pictures for my granddaughter (a budding photographer) for the judging at the county fair did I really see the potential of this software. I had given her and old HP 1.3 MegaPixel camera to learn on. She needed to present her work in 8x10 print. After cropping and finally printing, Qimage delivered a good clean print that was smooth and not pixelated. She came home with 5 blue ribbons and one Red, while competing with others with much nicer cameras. I found out about Qimage from a article years ago from "Range Finder" as I remember, and downloaded the 30 day demo. I have been using it ever since. The software is reasonable, will work with Linux, Mac, and M$. and has lifetime free upgrades. There software is user participation motivated, with an active group of pro's input on a Yahoo groups format. Gosh what can I say, I love the program, try it you'll like it.... Mtn...

[MtnTopRebel]

Originally Posted by 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.

Humm dumb computer did a windows thing and locked up so here we go again. I also use GIMP, I am teaching photography to some Junior girls and gave them a CD of tools to inspire their imagination. Yes I gave them Picasa, but also the Gimp and a new one called XnView which is also free for the download, and works in Linux, (Mac?) and M$. When you have a number of girls burning digital and mega rolls of home dev film. Which I scan for them, the files add up fast. A group of young girls can out shoot most studios in short order, so to handle the load I am using Deep tanks for film processing and doing 10 to 20 rolls a week which are then scanned to file, to add to their digital images. Picasa is a bit awkward if you are using multi drives, camera cards, thumb drives etc and don't want to load up your personal computer with all those images. That's where XnView comes in. It will view, copy Paste, rotate and sort all the pix you can throw at it, individually or in batch process. It will print proof sheets, and It handles most all formats including video. It builds thumb nail images fast regardless of whether the images are on the home drive, a flash drive, external hard drive or CD/DVD. It also allows large image viewing and has an easy zoom, and full screen viewing. email export etc. You can also view a description, exif, and Pictographs.
I do have one purchased program however that a dearly love called Qimage which is the greatest for quality above and beyond printing. But other than it, all the others are free and will give you as much image power as you want. If you are into panoramic, there are also programs out of the GNU Linux world for Linux, Mac and M$ to do RAW as well I will look them up if wanted too. There is a website and I couldn't find it for this entry might be on another machine, but it is a whole site of download free or open source software for photographers. I'll try and find it too... Hope this helps Mtn...

[JAHphoto]

I currently use a mix of Lightroom and CS3. Since I learned on film (3 years of film, only 1 and a half of digital so far) it really bugs me when I have to do a lot of post processing on my photos, so usually if a lot is required I just trash it.

Lightroom is a fantastic app, I love importing off my card using it instead of copying and pasting in windows. It's kind of slow, but I blame windows Vista, as it was much faster when I used XP. (currently run it on a AMD 64 X2 1.8ghz with a gig of ram, going to get 2, think that will help)
Lightroom really does all the editing I need, and more. CS3 is great, but I really only use it for HDR, I wouldn't have it if I couldn't get it for free.

Before lightroom came out I actually used a program called ACDsee Pro (version 8)
It was blazing fast, there was absolutely no loading time when scrolling through my 5D's JPG files. RAW was understandably slower, but still fast.
ACDsee had pretty decent editing, and had some effects that we kinda fun to play with.. but the effects were mostly useless for serious photography.
It was very simple to use, and clear. Photo editing program for people who want basic editing and don't want to spend hours learning how to use it.
I also used to use Paint.net which was a decent alternative to PS.. a lot like the GIMP.

Would highly suggest all of the above mentioned programs, Lighroom and CS3/2 if you can afford them, ACDsee if you want a simple fast editing program that doesn't break your wallet ($120 for the best version), and Paint.net or The GIMP if you want a decent free PS alternative.

[gjtoth]

I'm on a Linux box (Ubuntu) and it came with the live CD so, I use the Gimp for anything "extensive" and Picasa for the "quickies". I'm anxiously awaiting a native Linux version of Picasa as the version that's out now runs through a Windows emulator. Works nicely but, not as nicely as it could/should. Has yet to fail finding my cameras, scanner or sd cards. So, all-in-all, I'm just as content as I was running PS or PSP when I used to run a Windows box (God... seems like AGES ago!)

[RustySterling]

I was a user of Paint Shop Pro from v.3 up to XII Extreme. PhotoShop always intimidated me both from a user standpoint and price. I've even tried PhotoShop Elements but always found that Paint Shop Pro did a better job for me.

Because I had purchased PSE I received an email from Adobe with a big price break on PhotoShop CS4. So I bit the bullet and bought. The purchase also came with 30-day free trial on Lynda.com, which I took advantage of. Now I'm firmly a PhotoShop user. I love using layers and mask for my editing and I've grown much more comfortable with PSCS4 so much that I don't even open PSP XII any longer.

I believe PSP XII has a lot of the same power and flexibility as PSCS4 but there is a lot more that I feel I can do with PSCS4. And I love Adobe Camera Raw. I really do most of my post in ACR and then only use PSCS4 for tweaks or more advanced and fancy stuff.

[Kistabill]

I use PSP x11 -mainly bacause I got a free PSP9 when I bought my DSLR. I did try an older version of Elements, but at that time it didn't have masl layers ( I've read somewhere that Adobe has fixed this). For converting my Raw files I use Canons own DPP -good for conversion and basic adjustments -brightness/contrast, chromatic aberration and the like. Photoshop, I feel. would be away above my head and way, way, way above my wallet