Elements 10, Lighroom 4, or Aperature 4

[RLM]

I have a new very powerful iMac.

Recently we were in Egypt were we took about a 1000 pictures many of them in the desert. I need to lighten faces from shadows caused by hats.

I have used Elements 4 on my G5, but it is not easy to do this.

With all this new software and this new PC I am sure there are Apps that make this easier.

Recommendations have been for the above 3 Products, however Aperature 4 did not get good LIon reviews, bad performance.

What is the best new program for easy of use, and features in the opinion of the forum.

I am ready to buy something for my project.

[Barbara Brundage]

Both aperture and LR have demos available. The best thing is to give them both a try and see what you think.

[Jetset95]

Barbara is spot on, but if you want to find out what you like best about both of these powerful applications, can I recommend that you do a thorough test drive of both of them - something like take half of your 1,000 photos into Aperture, the other half into LR and work them up using the respective tools in each. Only then will you know which one might be best, and even then (in my experience) this might not give you the definitive answer.

Allow me to explain. I switched to a Mac a few years ago, before the Mac version of PSE had the organiser. I migrated my Windows catalogue over to iPhoto and used PSE simply as my editor. I really fell in love with how iPhoto worked so even when PSE got the organiser in a later version I didn't use it.

Since the Mac App Store came along, I've upgraded from iPhoto to Aperture 3, and really found a great workflow that integrates with all of Apertures great professional features. If you were to ask me my opinion of the three applications you mention I would say go for Aperture based on my experience.

I recently got a copy of LR3, free with a new camera purchase, and so have the chance to play around with it at my leisure. LR and Aperture clearly do the same job, great at storing and managing your catalogue, but lighter than PSE when it comes to the editor, layers, masks etc. Now I use Aperture as my main application, and PSE (or Pixelmator on the Mac) to edit photos which need a lot more work. I used to have PS CS4 on the PC, Adobe wouldn't switch that license over to my Mac when CS5 came out, only offered me an expensive upgrade so I've never gone back to PS and really find I don't need it for 99% of what I want to do.

So, why don't I use LR and PSE together? I didn't have to pay for LR, I've got in on my Mac, what's wrong with it? Well, nothing, apart from I didn't get it first. I've built up a workflow from importing my pics, dumping the bad ones, keywording, ranking, tagging, stacking etc. all in Aperture, and I'm really happy with that, and really quick at it now. When I try to do the same thing in LR (which you certainly can do), it's just not as intuitive for me. It takes me longer, doesn't look, or feel as good to my now biased viewpoint, so I stick with what I know.

I hope that makes sense - ask anyone on here with a PC and they will tell you LR is the king, and I'm sure it is - you can't get Aperture on a PC. Even if you could now, I bet most, if not all of them would still say LR was the best, for the same reason above.

So, have fun trying them out, but if you find one that works for you, don't worry too much about the others, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

James

[mrod]

Originally Posted by Jetset95

So, why don't I use LR and PSE together? I didn't have to pay for LR, I've got in on my Mac, what's wrong with it? Well, nothing, apart from I didn't get it first. I've built up a workflow from importing my pics, dumping the bad ones, keywording, ranking, tagging, stacking etc. all in Aperture, and I'm really happy with that, and really quick at it now. When I try to do the same thing in LR (which you certainly can do), it's just not as intuitive for me. It takes me longer, doesn't look, or feel as good to my now biased viewpoint, so I stick with what I know.

Good thoughts, James. I think this is the key paragraph right here, especially the part I emphasized. I went through a very similar process, only decided on Lr, but for the same reason. i had no problem with Aperture, and, in fact, prefered a few things about it to Lr. But, I've used Adobe Camera Raw for so long, it was easier for me to jump to Lr and its similiarties than it was to the overall look and feel of Aperture.

So, it's really a personal choice, and one, I don't think, that has a right or wrong answer.

[baycruisers]

Many of us started photo editing long before there was LR and before RAW became commonplace, so there is a paradigm shift in moving from more pixel-based to globally based processing and it takes some getting used to. I'm one of those who likes both and it's hard to imagine living completely without CS or PSE.