Suggestions for iPhoto and Aperture Setup

[NomadicTy]

I just got my mbp 15" last week (looooove it!), and I also got Aperture with it. Now I have a little dilemma. I love iPhoto for its simplicity and how it works perfectly with the rest of iLife, iPhone, Mail, etc. I think it would be just perfect for my personal photos, travel pics, etc.

I also played around with Aperture before I installed a new HD, and I decided I would start learning how to use it to edit photos that I think are worthy of showing off. Also, I already paid for it, so I might as well use it right?

So new HD installed and starting off with a black slate. Having mild OCD, and the obsession of getting things right the first time, I started thinking about the best way to set up the two applications - which app to use as default when downloading pics from my camera; in which app's directory to place the photos in. So, to those who have Aperture and iPhoto, how do you have your defaults set up?

I would like to avoid having duplicates of photos between the two apps, but would not rule it out. I probably would only edit a small percentage of my photos. I've thought about going completely with Aperture, but I don't know how good it would work with other iLife apps, my iPhone, etc.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Ty

 

[termina3]

Your conceptions about Aperture seem to be a little off–
IT IS NOT AN EDITOR
the sooner you lose this impression, the better off you'll be. Photoshop is an editor–Aperture only does crop, brightness, contrast, colors, red eye, etc. Nothing complicated.

That said, it's (IMO) the best photo organizer out there. I have Aperture and never use iPhoto. No need. Of course, I don't need to reference to other devices. When I need to use a photo–put it on a forum, email it off, whatever– I export it as a JPEG to the desktop and use it from there.

My iPod can get photos from Aperture; it should work on the iPhone as well.

Of course, the real benefits in Aperture come up if you're processing hundreds or thousands of photos a week. If you'll only take a couple of photos with your point and shoot during the family reunion, aperture is probably too much.

 

[mcarnes]

I use Aperture to store pics I shot. I use iPhoto to store pics other people gave me, or pics I found on the net and want to keep (basically, any pic I did not shoot myself). YMMV.

 

[66217]

I find Aperture to be a much better organizer than iPhoto. It's not that much more complicated really, once you get to know the keyboard shortcuts it is easy to use.

And one thing I love about it is that it does not creates duplicates every time you edit a photo.

And as far as integration with the iLife apps it is great. You can access you Aperture Library also.

 

[M@lew]

Here's my tip for you. Do everything in Aperture and use the thumbnails to move some photos into iPhoto using the built in mover from Aperture -> iPhoto if you need photos iPhoto for integration etc.

 

[ChrisA]

I also played around with Aperture before I installed a new HD, and I decided I would start learning how to use it to edit photos that I think are worthy of showing off. Also, I already paid for it, so I might as well use it right?

In terms of image editing, Aperture is only a very small increment over iPhoto It is not worth buying Aperture over iPhot for it's editing abilty. For editing Adobe PS Elements is far better and only cost about $89. Aperture is best at cataloging and sorting but it does have better facilities for things lke Color corection but it is by no means an "editor".

I'm pretty sure iLife and Aperture get along well. So you have no reason not to replace iPhoto with Aperture but if you want to edit photos get Photoshop or Photoshop elements.

 

[NomadicTy]

I guess I went into buying Aperture blindly thinking it's almost like Photoshop. But it's paid for and registered, so I guess I might as well use it.

I'll take everyone's suggestion and use it as my main storage for photos. The fact that it does not make multiple copies of the photos I edit would help a lot in saving HD space. I'll just export to iphoto library if I really need to.

Thanks, everyone!

 

[babarr]

In terms of image editing, Aperture is only a very small increment over iPhoto It is not worth buying Aperture over iPhot for it's editing abilty. For editing Adobe PS Elements is far better and only cost about $89.

That is not quite true. It is true that Aperture supports only a limited set of editing tools, but with cropping, rotation, red-eye reduction, cloning, sophisticated brightness and contrast controls (for raw files, anyway), a level tool which is functionally somewhere between PS levels and curves, brightness and shadow contrast adjustment, divers color correction tools and sharpening it offers everything I need for some thousand shots with only two or three exceptions, which I send off to an external editor.

Also, opposed to PS Elements, it does all those things in 16 bit per channel, thus achieving more smoothly toned results, and it will keep only one full-sized copy (the original master image). So, if you do not need to make compositions, serious retouching or framing etc., Aperture can do the job nicely.

Cheers,
Bastian

 

[Clix Pix]

I do not upload images from the memory card directly into either Aperture or iPhoto. Instead, I upload them to a folder on the desktop and this provides me more flexibility in handling them afterward. Usually I will then review the images in Photo Mechanic first, toss out the bad ones, and after that I take the ones I want to post-process into Aperture. Although I have CS3 I use Aperture for 99.9% of my post-processing tasks, as it more than sufficiently does the job. I try to shoot the photo correctly in the camera in the first place so that there is little correcting to be done later. Aperture serves well in all the basic PP tasks; I use CS3 when I want to do something beyond basic PP such as using filters or layers or creating special effects. Aperture is my main tool and I am very pleased with it. Right now I'm grumbling because I can't use it for PP my RAW images out of the D300 so am hoping that Apple hurries up with the software update!!

I like Aperture for the ease and efficiency in post-processing, the valuable Vault, the ease in keywording and cataloging images, etc., etc. I like being able to work on an image in RAW, export it to the desktop in jpg (already set in in a preset) and then share it online in forums or with friends in email, and then if I decide I want to print it, returning to Aperture and using a different preset for configuring it for printing.....

In the beginning I did not use iPhoto at all, because I didn't care for the way it handles the files, but after I got the iPhone I decided to experiment with it for the images I shoot with the iPhone (not too many). Now when I've shot a bunch of photos with the iPhone and want to keep some of them I go ahead and put them into iPhoto.

ChrisA, I really wish that you would not continue to spread misinformation about cameras and software that you apparently do not own and have not used.

 

[Cave Man]

ChrisA, I really wish that you would not continue to spread misinformation about cameras and software that you apparently do not own and have not used.

Granted, it's only 8:20 a.m. out here in the Rocky Mountains, but this is the best thing I've read so far today.

 

[Clix Pix]

Granted, it's only 8:20 a.m. out here in the Rocky Mountains, but this is the best thing I've read so far today.

Thank you! This is not the first time I've addressed this issue.....

 

[Cave Man]

Unless things have changed with the '08 version of iPhoto, there are other differences in addition to those listed by Clix Pix and babarr.

Does iPhoto still not employ color management?

Does it have true white balance control (i.e., specify color temp and tint)?

Does it still make a JPEG of every version of an image you create, even from a RAW?

Does iPhoto allow control of highlights and shadows with fine control of contrast and tonal widths?

Can it do changes to individual RGB channels and luminance?

Does it have a loupe?

Can you adjust histograms as with iPhoto?

I haven't used iPhoto since Aperture came out, so perhaps it can do some of these things. There are a lot of others, but these are a few that I can think of at the moment.

 

[Cave Man]

Your conceptions about Aperture seem to be a little off–
IT IS NOT AN EDITOR

Strictly speaking, this is not true. Any change made to an image is, by definition, an edit. Aperture is a raw image editor and image database manager.

the sooner you lose this impression, the better off you'll be. Photoshop is an editor–Aperture only does crop, brightness, contrast, colors, red eye, etc. Nothing complicated.

Photoshop is principally a bit image editor. Its raw manipulation tools are more limited than Aperture's. After all, if Photoshop could do all that raw image editing, there would be no reason for Adobe to sell LightRoom (which is analogous to Aperture).

Overall, I spend about 80% of my time editing images in Aperture and the rest in PSCS3. However, there are some images that get 50/50, and others that get 95/5. I use Aperture much more than I do Photoshop because, as Clix Pix put it, you should control your image before you make the exposure. She's just better at it than I am, it appears.

 

[Clix Pix]

I use Aperture much more than I do Photoshop because, as Clix Pix put it, you should control your image before you make the exposure. She's just better at it than I am, it appears.

LOL!!! Don't I wish..... :smile: No, a lot of images never make it into Aperture for one reason or another or sometimes I'll start to PP one and then think, "no, this just doesn't do it, not worth the effort!" Other times I'll work on one and then think, "this would be interesting to experiment with in CS3," and I'll work on it in there instead.

Operative words: I TRY to get it right in the camera in the first place! Doesn't always happen, of course!

 

[termina3]

I use Aperture much more than I do Photoshop because, as Clix Pix put it, you should control your image before you make the exposure. She's just better at it than I am, it appears.

I define editing as anything beyond the basic darkroom tasks–so contrast, burn, etc. don't count in my definition. These are post adjustments.

I agree on two counts–I use CS3 1% of the time, primarily because I shoot to keep (which is because I'm slow in CS3–it's a viscous circle)