Addressing a Small Group: Aperture/CS3 Users

KED

Apparently a small group, anyway. I never used PS Elements (not available for Intel-based Macs) so I got my start in image processing with Aperture. I'm only in a trial period for CS3; so far I find it overwhelming, but don't mind the challenge. But if you, like me, are using this combination right now, my questions are (1) how satisfied are you, as opposed to strongly considering a switch to Lightroom; and (2) more importantly, how much (if any) actual processing do you do in Aperture vs. CS3 (including ACR)? Any thoughts on workflow would also be appreciated - such as, to where do you initially download images?

Thanks!

gregneil

KED wrote:

Apparently a small group, anyway. I never used PS Elements (not available for Intel-based Macs) so I got my start in image processing with Aperture. I'm only in a trial period for CS3; so far I find it overwhelming, but don't mind the challenge. But if you, like me, are using this combination right now, my questions are (1) how satisfied are you, as opposed to strongly considering a switch to Lightroom; and (2) more importantly, how much (if any) actual processing do you do in Aperture vs. CS3 (including ACR)? Any thoughts on workflow would also be appreciated - such as, to where do you initially download images?

Thanks!

I use Aperture with CS3... I always download images straight to aperture. I use aperture for most simple post processing - levels, white balance, saturation, etc... and then if I absolutely need something more in depth, I'll open the image in Photoshop directly from Aperture. You need to set photoshop as your external editor of choice. That way when you open the image in Photoshop, Aperture creates a duplicate and keeps track of the original for you. So you essentially have 2 copies, and can always go back to the way it was.

Sometimes if I need to do bulk processing in Photoshop (noise ninja, etc...) I'll export from aperture first to a folder, then do the processing, and then re-import the processed images. I don't know of a way to have Photoshop do bulk processing on a batch of images without having them exported first.

I haven't tried lightroom, and I'm an ex-apple employee, so I'm pretty biased... but overall I really like Aperture. It just requires a ton of horsepower, and the most powerful video card you can get your hands on to run smoothly. I'm hoping for a 2.0 release soon, and some major improvements.

KED

gregneil wrote:

I use Aperture with CS3... I always download images straight to aperture. I use aperture for most simple post processing - levels, white balance, saturation, etc... and then if I absolutely need something more in depth, I'll open the image in Photoshop directly from Aperture. You need to set photoshop as your external editor of choice. That way when you open the image in Photoshop, Aperture creates a duplicate and keeps track of the original for you. So you essentially have 2 copies, and can always go back to the way it was.

Sometimes if I need to do bulk processing in Photoshop (noise ninja, etc...) I'll export from aperture first to a folder, then do the processing, and then re-import the processed images. I don't know of a way to have Photoshop do bulk processing on a batch of images without having them exported first.

I haven't tried lightroom, and I'm an ex-apple employee, so I'm pretty biased... but overall I really like Aperture. It just requires a ton of horsepower, and the most powerful video card you can get your hands on to run smoothly. I'm hoping for a 2.0 release soon, and some major improvements.

Sounds like a very workable arrangement. Thanks!