[X4U] Aperature vs. Lightroom & Photoshop CS

[Zane H. Healy]

> FWIW, on my G5 and PB G4 I have been happily using Bridge (which ships
> with Photoshop and the Suites) in conjunction with iView Media Pro
> (v3.1.3) for organization. The latter has been bought by the Dark Side
> but is still wonderful and you can often find it cheaper these days
> (just stay away from Expression, I hear). Bridge is great for initial
> organization, and integration with Photoshop and ACR. And iView is
> wonderful for long term organization and the presence of moderate-res
> proxy files for offline work. So you can free up lots of disk space by
> moving images to externals and optical media but still access, organize
> and work with them via iView <http://www.iview-multimedia.com/>

I'd be a little concerned about moving to iView at this point.  How certain
is its longterm viability?  I already have one long dead product I can't
seem to move off of (ClarisDraw).

I actually like having all of my Photo's online, and am looking into
digitizing more of my negatives.  I'd also like to see about getting the
slides my Grandparents took that I have digitized as well.  I'm inclined to
buy more disk space if needed to keep the pictures spinning.  Though some I
have really should be taken offline as there is no reason to keep them
online, and in the case of a lot of my experimental shots, no good reason to
keep them.

> Lightroom had too many bells and whistles for me with little more
> functionality than ACR/Bridge except a great slideshow creator; I have
> never gotten around to trying Aperture, though there are those who swear
> by both.

I installed the demo of Lightroom last night.  I can see that getting
photo's from my iPhoto library into it will be a serious pain, but I
imported a few hundred photo's last night.  A mixture of scanned 35mm
negatives (historically important photo's I shot 20 years ago with my Nikon
FM2), and JPEG and RAW pictures shot with my Nikon D70 in the last couple
weeks.  I was able to quickly fix several of the 20 year old 35mm shots with
little effort, and I was able to fix some very strange shots taken with the
D70 last week with a lot of effort.  I'm blown away by how you can tweak the
exposure and everything else in Lightroom.  OTOH, what I've seen so far of
its organizational capabilities largely stink!

I'll download Aperture and try it tonight if I have the time.

> The predecessor for Bridge, File Browser, is a part of your CS I
> believe.

I think that is what I use for photo's not in my iPhoto library.  

> If I were you (or you me), I would upgrade Photoshop and buy a tripod on
> eBay :-) 

Well, thanks to the Lightroom demo showing I don't need to upgrade Photoshop
CS, that has definitely been pushed out.  I just might wait on the Creative
Suite upgrade until I upgrade my computer.

The tripod is a different matter, my existing tripod is a piece of junk, I
can only adjust the tilt of the camera on one access, which makes things
interesting.  It is nice and sturdy, so it is a shame the head can't be
replaced. :^(

> As for the camera, I recall a quote by Steichen that "No photographer is
> as good as the simplest camera".

I realize this, and I don't think the Nikon D300 will make me a better
photographer.  It is a case of the D300 being the camera I wanted when I
bought the D70.  The D70 has been a great camera, and I've not regreted
purchasing it.  Besides in the time since I bougth it I've put together a
nice collection of lenses for the types of photography I do (sadly my FM2's
lenses aren't suited to the D70).

Zane