The Best Photo Management System?

[TheSpaz]

What is the best way to manage photos? I have a friend who swears by using ONLY the Finder and preview for storing and viewing all his thousands of Photos but, I would think the Finder is a very bad way to organize your photo collection. I prefer iPhoto because it's easier to use than the Finder and it keeps things pretty well organized. Lately however, I've been reading a lot about Aperture and trying to decide whether or not it is an important upgrade to iPhoto. I already have Photoshop Elements 4 and iPhoto. Do I need Aperture?

Tell me, what is the best solution for someone looking to keep thousands of Photos organized. I'd like to think I'm a decent photographer but, I just got started a year ago with my Canon Digital Rebel.

PS: If you want you can check out my gallery at DeviantArt: http://just-spaztik.deviantart.com/gallery

I'd really like to prove my friend wrong about the Finder though.

 

[SC68Cal]

What is the best way to manage photos? I have a friend who swears by using ONLY the Finder and preview for storing and viewing all his thousands of Photos but, I would think the Finder is a very bad way to organize your photo collection. I prefer iPhoto because it's easier to use than the Finder and it keeps things pretty well organized. Lately however, I've been reading a lot about Aperture and trying to decide whether or not it is an important upgrade to iPhoto. I already have Photoshop Elements 4 and iPhoto. Do I need Aperture?

Tell me, what is the best solution for someone looking to keep thousands of Photos organized. I'd like to think I'm a decent photographer but, I just got started a year ago with my Canon Digital Rebel.

PS: If you want you can check out my gallery at DeviantArt: http://just-spaztik.deviantart.com/gallery

I'd really like to prove my friend wrong about the Finder though.

Aperture would probably replace iPhoto as well as Photoshop Elements, if all you are doing is some simple tweaking to your photos (light balance, sharpness etc...)

Take a look at how Aperture has helped me organize my photos on the web at my website

 

[bousozoku]

There are some old threads on this.

I own Portfolio 7, but I still end up using Finder to create folders to hold my photos. iPhoto is reasonably good and Photoshop Elements 4 and Photoshop CS 2 come with Bridge and it has ways to create collections but, as far as I know, you still have to manage the files somehow. Everything else is pretty much a view, such as the way Portfolio 7 can work across folders to create a collection.

I don't find Finder to be an easy way to manage photos but it works well enough with Adobe's Bridge application.

 

[Flowbee]

Tell me, what is the best solution for someone looking to keep thousands of Photos organized. I'd like to think I'm a decent photographer but, I just got started a year ago with my Canon Digital Rebel.

What exactly would you like to be able to do that you can't currently do with iPhoto? That would help people suggest alternatives.