Okay, right now I use iPhoto to view and manage my photos, but I, being the perfectionist I am, wants to purchase Aperture. Whould this be overkill for a non-professional such as me? Whould it be worth all the cool features?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Wanting to buy Aperture, advice needed
- Thread starter ghall
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
ghall said:
What is it you are a "perfectionist" about?
I could think of several ways you could mean that. If you are one of those who spends "forever" postprocessing each image then I'd think you'd be the Photoshop type of person, not the Aperture type. PS offers much more control over the image while Aperture does not allow you to do any selective changes
Or are you the kind of "perfectionist" who carfully frames and composes each shot on a tripod, fusses with lighting, the subject's hair and hand possition and so on then takes many images. If so then maybe you would want Aperture because all you wil be doing is selecting the best shots out of many and doing minor "tweeks" to color and crops. Aperture is best suited to a high volume shooter who mostly "gets it right" in the camera.
Well I find Adobe Lightroom to be infinitely more useful than iPhoto, and I shoot predominantly in JPEG. The only reason I take a photo in RAW is if the lighting is weird and I know I'm gonna fark up the white balance or anything else, and want to make all necessary adjustments myself.
Despite this, I'm not going to switch everything over to Lightroom until I know the cost of the software, as I won't be switching if the software costs more than US $200. As a student without an infinite amount of disposable income, I just can't afford it.
The camera and 2 lenses I own, camera backpack, and everything else cost enough already.
And out of curiosity, I only use (my brother's copy of) Photoshop CS1 to use the magnetic lasso to select the area I want to edit, and edit as needed. That's all I use it for. What else do most people use it for?
Despite this, I'm not going to switch everything over to Lightroom until I know the cost of the software, as I won't be switching if the software costs more than US $200. As a student without an infinite amount of disposable income, I just can't afford it.
The camera and 2 lenses I own, camera backpack, and everything else cost enough already. And out of curiosity, I only use (my brother's copy of) Photoshop CS1 to use the magnetic lasso to select the area I want to edit, and edit as needed. That's all I use it for. What else do most people use it for?
ghall said:
What kind of camera gear do you use? How large are the files? Do you shoot .jpg or in RAW?
I see by your profile that you're using a 12" PB with only 768 MB RAM; I don't believe that Aperture will work on this machine. You would need to update your computer and amount of RAM before you could use Aperture.
manic said:
If you go look on Apple's web site it says "No." You need a Mac Pro, macbook pro or an iMac. They basically say it will not run on a Mini or a Macbook. See this page
http://www.apple.com/aperture/specs.html
But if you try it will in fact work. Many reports of people getting it to run on the low-end Macs
Clix Pix said:
Oh, I have to update my profile, I'm using a MacBook Pro now.
Thanks for the advice everyone. I guess I'll be sticking with iPhoto for now.
OK, if you're using a MBP, if you max the RAM to 2 GB you should be good to go with Aperture.... No problems here with it, anyway!
Well if you don't know if Aperture is useful for you, why don't you just download Lightroom and see if THAT's useful? Many of the features are supposed to be the same, but Lightroom does have more editing features, I believe. If Aperture isn't useful for you, then I wouldn't gamble $250 US (or whatever the cost is) that Aperture would be useful either.
Well, I can't afford to max out my computer AND buy Aperture, so I guess I should just forget about it for now.
ghall said:Well, I can't afford to max out my computer AND buy Aperture, so I guess I should just forget about it for now.
Don't worry - you're not missing much.
^^Adjustments you can't make in something like Adobe Lightroom?
I just think that for myself, I can pretty much do 98% of what I do in Lightroom (highlights, shadows, prevent clipping, changing specific colour saturation...) which is why it's so enticing to purchase even though I really can't afford it. Photoshop is for when I want to edit just a part of the image without editing the entire thing.
Anyway, like I said, just download Lightroom and give it a try before you buy Aperture, just to see if it's useful. It has much lower system requirements as well.
I just think that for myself, I can pretty much do 98% of what I do in Lightroom (highlights, shadows, prevent clipping, changing specific colour saturation...) which is why it's so enticing to purchase even though I really can't afford it. Photoshop is for when I want to edit just a part of the image without editing the entire thing.
Anyway, like I said, just download Lightroom and give it a try before you buy Aperture, just to see if it's useful. It has much lower system requirements as well.
I have aperture and lightroom and I happen to like lightroom alot more. Its alot easier to use and its not as complex and confusing as Aperture is. Theres alot of un-neccesary features in aperture.