Is Aperture a fit for me?

[twoehr]

I've been using a Mac for a little over two years, and I've been happy with iPhoto, but there are quite a few things that I could do using Microsoft's various free photo editors that seem pretty basic to me that I miss and will occasional fire up Fusion to get into Windows and do. Namely, stitching together multiple photos to create a panorama, setting a portion of a picture transparent, overlaying photos, and manually creating a collage. All of which I don't think iPhoto does.

Does Aperture do any of these? Is it simple to use? I honestly find Photoshop, on Windows, too much, and I like using the iPhoto database too, so it would be great if Aperture does what I want, instead of using a third party tool.

Thanks in advance.

 

[BJMRamage]

no. Aperture doesn't do any of what you are looking for (at least that I know of)

Aperture is like iPhoto on Steroids. For those you will need a 3rd party app...that you can easily use as the External Editor for iPhoto/Aperture.

Aperture takes the stuff you can do in iPhoto and extends their capabilities, allows you to fine tune rather than a few simple presets. It allows you to turn off the effects, and never actually affects the actual photo but more like Smart Edits to a photo. I really like aperture but I don’t frequently use it for what you are looking for. Actually the last time I wanted to do a panorama I decided to scrap it instead.

 

[MiniD3]

Do you shoot raw?

What brand of camera do you have?
....Gary

 

[r.harris1]

Photoshop Elements has a pano feature, not sure about everything else you are trying to do. Not free, but maybe helpful to what you are wanting to accomplish. You might also want to check out Pixelmator - it's a fantastic little app and will definitely allow you to do collages, overlays and the like, though no pano feature that I am aware of.

 

[OreoCookie]

You should look into Pixelmator which can do most of the things on your list. I don't think it can create panoramas, but other than that, it's a pretty good photo editor with a great UI. They have recently updated it to v3.

 

[snberk103]

I've been using a Mac for a little over two years, and I've been happy with iPhoto, but there are quite a few things that I could do using Microsoft's various free photo editors that seem pretty basic to me that I miss ...
Does Aperture do any of these? Is it simple to use? I honestly find Photoshop, on Windows, too much, and I like using the iPhoto database too, so it would be great if Aperture does what I want, instead of using a third party tool.

Thanks in advance.

Keep in mind that iPhoto and Aperture (and Lightroom) are Digital Asset Managers (DAM), not editors. That is to say, their purpose is to help you organize your images - and to do basic editing. To do anything else you need an editing application. A DAM supports these by allowing you specify an external editor in the preferences, and which can then be called up from within iPhoto, Aperture, or Lightroom.

I'm not sure how iPhoto and Aperture work in this regard, but I can select multiple images in Lightroom, and then have them opened up in Photoshop as either separate images - or - as layers within a single Photoshop image. My suggestion is to trial Photoshop Elements to see if you Aperture (or Lightroom) will allow you to do what you want to do.

If not, there are a bunch of cheap/free Mac apps that will do panos etc etc. I have a folder of aliases for 'small photo apps' because sometimes it's just easier and better to go to one these single purpose apps than to fire up Photoshop. My suggestion, though, is to import the finished photo back into whatever DAM you're using and not keep it around outside the DAM. For instance you could have a folder set up for each pano, that includes the finished image plus the images used to create it.

Luck

 

[ChrisA]

I've been using a Mac for a little over two years, and I've been happy with iPhoto, but there are quite a few things that I could do using Microsoft's various free photo editors that seem pretty basic to me...

Both iPhoto and Aperture are best used for organization and adjustments. Not for what you want. BUT,....

You can, in preferences specify a "default image editor" and then when you double click an image from inside of either iPhoto or Aperture, the image is brought up inside that editor. When you close the editor the image is returned to the library. It is mostly transparent, as if the editor is built-in. But it takes a few seconds to load.

I would recommend Adobe Photoshop Elements as the default editor. It will certainly do what you need. Pixelmator may do what you need too. There is no reason on Earth to be using Windows software to edit photos on your Mac.

Aperture does have a plug-in system and there are some very good editor plug-ins and panorama plug-ins and many others. You have to select the image then pick "edit with plug-in" from the menu then select the plug-in. It is not quite as clean as the "default editor" but you get to select the plug-in each time. I have about a half dozen of them.

Switch to Aperture if you want better organization and adjustments. It will directly access your iPhoto library. But it is Aperture's editing ability is very limited, that i just not what it does.

 

[twoehr]

Thanks all for the replies, they are very helpful. I'll take a look a Pixelmator. I'll also look for my Photoshop box, I think it was good for both Win and Mac, but it was an "SE", or otherwise "light" edition. Hopefully that will integrate with iPhoto. I recall on the PC it wanted you to put all the photos into Adobe's DAM. (One of the reasons I didn't like it.)

 

[bakechad]

For panorama photos I have had great luck using Hugin:

http://hugin.sourceforge.net/


For general photo editing, I have been using Gimp for many many years. The learning curve can be steep, but the price and the features make it worth looking at:

http://gimp.lisanet.de/Website/News/News.html

 

[killwilly]

Thanks all for the replies, they are very helpful. I'll take a look a Pixelmator. I'll also look for my Photoshop box, I think it was good for both Win and Mac, but it was an "SE", or otherwise "light" edition. Hopefully that will integrate with iPhoto. I recall on the PC it wanted you to put all the photos into Adobe's DAM. (One of the reasons I didn't like it.)

I am in a similar position as you and can't decide which PP app to get for my recently purchased Mac. I use Canon DPP for raw processing on both my Windows and Mac laptops, with Faststone as my preferred PP app on Windows, but sadly it's not compatible with Mac.

You can purchase Pixelmator, Elements 11 and Aperture from the App Store at very reasonable prices. I have a £70 voucher to spend at the app store, which came with my new Retina Pro, so would be sensible for me to purchase there, once I have made a decision what to buy

 

[snberk103]

...
You can purchase Pixelmator, Elements 11 and Aperture from the App Store at very reasonable prices. I have a £70 voucher to spend at the app store, which came with my new Retina Pro, so would be sensible for me to purchase there, once I have made a decision what to buy

[Emphasis Added]

Just keep in mind that Pixelmator & Elements are editors, while Aperture (and iPhoto, Lightroom, and Capture One) are Digital Asset Managers. In most cases you will combine a DAM with an editor...that is, one app from each category.