What photo editor software should I use with iPhoto

[Skibsted]

I Use iPhoto as my main place to view and store photos.
Sometimes I need more editing power and options than iPhoto can offer.
Can any of you guys recommend some software I can use seamlessly with iPhoto.
Aperture? Photoshop?

Looking forward to your answers
Thanks in advance

Skibsted

 

[MacDawg]

Depends on what you want to do...

Photoshop has a hefty price tag
Aperture is less so, but do you need the full functionality

You might want to try Photoshop Elements
or even the Gimp, it's free

Woof, Woof - Dawg

 

[disdat]

I use Lightzone (not to be confused w/ Lightroom) - it isn't seemless, but I am used to it now that I have a good workflow going!

I like that it's non destructive.

http://www.lightcrafts.com/

 

[Skibsted]

Depends on what you want to do...

Photoshop has a hefty price tag
Aperture is less so, but do you need the full functionality

You might want to try Photoshop Elements
or even the Gimp, it's free

Woof, Woof - Dawg

Money is not really a problem. Photoshop seems to require a lot of CPU and hard disk space. Is Aperture good at basic photo editing?

 

[mkrishnan]

Money is not really a problem. Photoshop seems to require a lot of CPU and hard disk space. Is Aperture good at basic photo editing?

Even if money is really not a problem and you're willing to dish out $1000 to get PS CS3 Extended just to do basic editing, PS and Aperture are probably still both overboard.

PS is a good choice for you if you wish to do professional level work and you're doing really heavy editing and post-processing (i.e. particularly if your work is really more mixed-media than photography -- where you're doing a lot more than sharpening and boosting colors on your photos -- or perhaps if you work in glamour and so need to do a lot of airbrushing and things like that). Aperture (or Adobe's erm... what's it called? Light Room?) is primarily a good option for you if have a very high throughput -- if you're processing hundreds at least or thousands of photos per week.

PS Elements is outstanding -- besides being a lot less expensive than PS/CS, it is also somewhat more compact and focused on your typical tasks. It's really quite powerful. If you go to forums like FredMiranda, it's used quite routinely by very good amateur photographers.

I personally don't care for GIMP, although I use it in Ubuntu. It's good but I find the learning curve too steep and it's less built around the photography process model, to me, than other options.

Another native piece of software is Pixelmator -- I think it has potential, and you might try a trial of it, but as of the last time I tried it, it wasn't really ready.

So my advice would be, unless you literally have tens of thousands of dollars of immediately disposable income and you just don't care (or you are doing professional / high volume work), get PSE, and if you really need to spend the rest of the money, spend it on lenses instead of spending it on PS/CS.

 

[blackstone]

Money is not really a problem. Photoshop seems to require a lot of CPU and hard disk space. Is Aperture good at basic photo editing?

Aperture's functions overlap significantly with iPhoto -- it's there to organize your photos and do a bit of editing. It is not a standalone editor. If you're just looking for some additional editing capabilities, you should be looking at Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Lightzone, or Pixelmator.

 

[Skibsted]

Thanks for all of your responses.
So it seems that I should pick Photoshop Elements or Lightroom.

My next question would then be, what would be the best workflow?
Lets say I import my pictures from my camera and I want to do some editing before I organize them into my iPhoto library.
Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[AlaskaMoose]

Agree with others: PhotoShop Elements 6 is an outstanding application. It does a wonderful job with RAW images, too.

 

[mkrishnan]

Thanks for all of your responses.
So it seems that I should pick Photoshop Elements or Lightroom.

Lightzone, not Lightroom (don't feel bad, everyone keeps confusing them). Lightzone is another new photo editor, but it's one that seems really focused on tasks photographers need. Light Room is Adobe's competitor to Aperture.

As far as your process for importing photos, if disk space is not that big an issue, one good option is to just import everything into iPhoto, set your editor as your external editor in iPhoto, and then use iPhoto to wade through your photos and select one for editing. That'll open it up in PSE or Lightzone or whatever, and then iPhoto will also automatically archive the original version of the photo so you can always go back. This uses up more disk space, but again, if disk space isn't at a huge premium (i.e. you aren't taking several gigs of photos every few days, and since an extra terabyte costs a lot less than Photoshop does!) then this way you have everything and you can always go back and do re-edits.

 

[Skibsted]

Lightzone, not Lightroom (don't feel bad, everyone keeps confusing them). Lightzone is another new photo editor, but it's one that seems really focused on tasks photographers need. Light Room is Adobe's competitor to Aperture.

As far as your process for importing photos, if disk space is not that big an issue, one good option is to just import everything into iPhoto, set your editor as your external editor in iPhoto, and then use iPhoto to wade through your photos and select one for editing. That'll open it up in PSE or Lightzone or whatever, and then iPhoto will also automatically archive the original version of the photo so you can always go back. This uses up more disk space, but again, if disk space isn't at a huge premium (i.e. you aren't taking several gigs of photos every few days, and since an extra terabyte costs a lot less than Photoshop does!) then this way you have everything and you can always go back and do re-edits.

Thanks for your very informative comment.
Sorry about the confusion
So if I set Lightzone as my extternal editor in iPhoto then both iPhoto and lightzone will save a copy?
Disk space is not a huge problem since I just upgraded my MBP with a WD 320 GB internal hard drive

 

[mkrishnan]

The way it works is that iPhoto will send the image to Lightzone and then backup the original. Lightzone will overwrite the copy of the image, so that when you save it, the edited image will show up in iPhoto, but you can right click on it and ask to revert back to the saved original. I think iPhoto still only saves the original plus latest (two copies total, so if you edit, then re-edit, you lose the first edit but keep the original, if that makes sense). I think lightzone has the non-destructive option, where you can keep saving new copies of your image so that you can backtrack.

 

[Skibsted]

The way it works is that iPhoto will send the image to Lightzone and then backup the original. Lightzone will overwrite the copy of the image, so that when you save it, the edited image will show up in iPhoto, but you can right click on it and ask to revert back to the saved original. I think iPhoto still only saves the original plus latest (two copies total, so if you edit, then re-edit, you lose the first edit but keep the original, if that makes sense). I think lightzone has the non-destructive option, where you can keep saving new copies of your image so that you can backtrack.

ahh ok I see. That's pretty clever.
And why is it you would recommend lightzone instead of Lightroom?

 

[anubis]

I wouldn't discount Aperture so quickly.

Aperture's photo editing is also fully nondestructive. You can add or remove any of your edits at whim. And because Aperture and iPhoto are both made by Apple, anything that you do in one shows up in the other (for example if you make an album in one it shows up in the other). Aperture's integration with iPhoto is seamless and absolute. This is all automatic... you don't have to do anything extra or complicated to set it up.. (the way people are describing how to get iPhoto and lightroom or lightzone to play with each other seems like a lot of work to me).

Aperture's photo touch-up tools are second to none.

All of the things that people are suggesting are unique to Lightroom or Lightzone only (such as nondestruct editing, the ability to create copies of one picture to apply different adjustments, the ability to "step back in time" with adjustments.

The absolute best way to decide if Aperture is for you is to try viewing a few video tutorials on how to use Aperture. Then you can decide if Aperture's workflow is for you. For example try viewing the "Using Aperture and iPhoto together" video.

http://www.apple.com/aperture/tutorials/