Photography on Mac

PoleStar

Hi hi!

Right so, from being a hardened PC user for many years, now have bought an iMac.

Still have my work laptop.

So anyway, any Mac and PC users out there? Whats a good system. I had mainly used Bibble on my laptop which is pretty good.

Now Im wondering, wait for new version of bibble which from previews look good? Or is Aperture that good that it would be worth giving up photo editing on the PC and confining to Mac (as obviously no cross platform compatibility).

Any good websites out there on photo editing with Macs and whats good workflow etc eg iphoto for organisation and then something else to edit.

Or just buy into the adobe hype and buy lightroom ha ha!

ulick-magee

well done for buying a Mac.. great machines

bmcgrath

I mainly use Aperture for everything when it comes to my photos. I do have Adobe PS for the more serious work that needs to be done, but I find that adjusting levels, contrast, colour etc Aperture plays just nicely.

You really won't need to use your PC at all anymore when it comes to photos.

As for information on Aperture. www.google.ie is your friend

Passenger

Aperture for Mac is really the professional way to go.

Adobe also have a program called LightRoom. Check out a trial version online.

houseoffun14

I use Lightroom on a Mac, well worth the investment. Bibble lags so far behind in terms of Raw processing that I would advice steering well clear of it. Capture One is also good for Raw processing - it gives ACR a run for its money.

bmcgrath

Yeah Lightroom is a fantastic piece of software too.

But what sold me over onto Aperture was the fact that it is integrated with the OS.

PoleStar

I am so new to Macs and the info on the Apple sites are a bit slim.

Aperture is basically the Mac version of Lightroom yes?

Does it have the same functionality in terms of RAW editing or is it really lagging behind the new version of lightroom 2?


And hey as for bibble, I have stuck with it for windows. It might have a crappy interface but actually the quality of RAW conversion with it seems to surpass lightroom. And the new version seems to add usability and also layers! (BTW I dont work for Bibblelabs ha ha!)

bmcgrath

When it comes to RAW Aperture does a fantastic job. I know on my Macbook Pro it processes 10mb RAW files very quickly and I've been extremely happy with the results.

It's got good sharpening and noise removal tools built in for RAW files. When it comes to comparing it to LR (having used both) I actually find Aperture to do a better job.
Then again it's all down to personal preference to what you feel is best and what your images are turning out like.

PoleStar

Dammit its such a hard decision.

I guess maybe I should be sensible and go with the MASSES ie lightroom ha ha.

If I get this, can this integrate with iphoto?

Here is why I might need this.

My new masterplan is to keep my raw files on external hard-drive and then conversions on Mac. I would be happy to use lightroom but need some dumbed down photo software for my wife who shall also use the same machine and need also to access some of these photos. I.e. lightroom will probably not be fore her who will just want to maybe do a simple crop or B&W and be able to shrink for web/email etc. Is this practical?

bmcgrath

Well she could even use Aperture if she wanted. It's so so easy.

But she can use iPhoto with no problem. It does the basic stuff you need from a photo app. If you ever wanted to do more with them yourself, Aperture gives you the option to import really easy from iPhoto with 2 clicks nearly.

Draupnir

With a Canon 450d kit and a 16gb memory card ordered and on their way, I am currently trying to figure out which software I am going to buy myself. I can get a hold of Photoshop CS3 for Mac, which might well cover me but wouldnt be my own and could be hard to source again if my iMac dies and needs restoring.

I have an iMac with MobileMe at home so could use iPhoto for publishing to MobileMe and PS CS3 for processing photos if I go that route, but there is something really tempting about Aperture and it's integration with the OS and MobileMe.

Any limitations to Aperture as a photo editing suite that I would need to know about?

bmcgrath

Well I've come across no limitations.
And with the release of Aperture 2 during the year Apple allow plugins for Aperture.
I've come across some excellent plugins for Aperture such as Noise Ninja (for cleaning up the noise on images) and Tiffen DFX (which is very very cool! It allows you add old film affects, gives you grads and other useful bits and pieces) and there are a lot more plugins out there.

I don't know if lightroom has a backup feature built into it, but I know Aperture has "Vault" built into it which is a really easy way of backing up your photo library onto various different external hard drives.

I like to keep 2 backups of my photo library on 2 seperate external drives and "Vault" on Aperture allows me back up really easily.

jpfahy

Why not download the trial versions of Aperture and Lightroom and try both? I'll bet you'll stick with Aperture

Draupnir

jpfahy wrote: »

Why not download the trial versions of Aperture and Lightroom and try both? I'll bet you'll stick with Aperture

That sounds like a plan! Cheers for the help guys.

Hugh_C

coming late to this but I'm a Lightroom fan, not too keen on Aperture

WildWater

I have just gotten a MacBook with Aperture2 and have recently purchased a Canon 450D so I'm quite new to all of this but my question is this:

When importing pictures should I
A) save them on the hard disk and import to Aperture using the leave in current location option or

import directly to Aperture directly from the SD card?

Advice much appreciated.

Gozo

bmcgrath wrote: »

Yeah Lightroom is a fantastic piece of software too.

But what sold me over onto Aperture was the fact that it is integrated with the OS.

Hi,

just wondering when you say "integrated with the OS", what exactly do you mean?

thanks,

pete4130

I use both equally happily. I've got a macbook (2.16Ghx 1GB RAM version) and a 5.5 year old Dell Dimension 8300 PC (2.4Ghz and upgraded to 2GB RAM). The mac is great for when out and about and travelling.
I actually prefer to use my PC because its CRT monitor is better to work with regarding colours. It's just getting used to either machine. I use Nikon's Capture NX for all my RAW editing. It is a RAM intensive piece of software (Capture NX) but both machines handles my 25MB RAW files just fine. My PC is probably a little faster with the extra RAM it has (the PC was dire before the RAM upgrade, it only had 512MB).
I then use CS2 on the PC and CS3 on the macbook. Little difference between the 2 for my needs.

I've never used Lightroom or Aperture so can't comment on them.

PoleStar

Maybe I will just have to teach the other half to use lightroom ha ha.


Just wondering though, as this is my masterplan.

I will work with my raw files off an external HD and export jpegs to Mac.

As I understand, lightroom leaves them all in folders whereas iphoto has them all in a single library.

Can you use the 2 together so my wife could use iphoto to access the photos in the folders which I have on Mac or will iphoto grab them and put them into a library and thus duplicate the files?