Buy Aperture or Photoshop??

Hi all,
I am about to purchase a new maxed out iMac along with an Adobe Creative CS 3.3 (w/my academic discount), as well as a few other things I need to update my software for the Intel processor.
My question is this: I worked w/Photoshop and Illustrator for years, professionally and for my personal projects.
I also plan on purchasing a new digital SLR (undecided on brand, but probably the latest Canon Rebel version.
I am NOT a professional photographer, but have taken tons of photos w/my old Canon G2 (not to mention my old trusty film SLR that I had forever...) I guess I'd rate myself as a fairly knowledgeable amateur photographer, and w/a good sense of composition from my art and design background...
Point is this: having worked in graphics (my life career). I've done tons of photo & color correction, used layers, filters, curves, etc., etc., etc., in Photoshop, and am comfortable with it. Yet, I use iPhoto quite a lot for it's ease of organization and quick fixes for little projects.
How does Aperture compare to Photoshop? Are they at all comparable? I will most likely buy the CS suite, as I can hardly pass up the savings, esp since it is bundled with Illustrator,etc., so here is the question:
Should I buy both Adobe CS AND Aperture???
I appreciate any/all suggestions!
Thanks-

Aperture and Photoshop aren't really the same thing.
Aperture is more of a DAM program with a great ability to adjust photos. It's really the only thing that I use 99% of the time.
But then again, I don't edit my photos with layers/masks etc. Which is where Photoshop excels and where I need to dabble in that 1%.
But that's me. I have both and try to use the right tool for the job.
Just one word or caution don't buy Aperture on the Education discount, it's not eligible for an upgrade. So when you're done with school you'll have to pay the full price anyway. If I bought the full version when I was in school I would have saved money in the long run.

Similar Messages

Should I buy Aperture in July 2014 even though it's EOLing?

I appreciate this may seem a bit like asking 'should I buy a house when the government has just announced the new freeway is going to run through the back garden', but…..
I'm not a professional, just a hobbyist with a bit iPhoto library and some Photoshop knowledge. I was planning to buy Aperture when Apple next updated it because I liked the idea of being able to do more sophisticated Photoshop-esque tweaking of levels, curves, filters etc whilst still only having one unified photo library for iPhoto and Aperture. It's important in my household to have photos accessible in iPhoto too.
But then Apple announces that instead of updating Aperture, it's ceasing development. So now I'm torn.
So should I buy Aperture now - seems like there will be one more update for Yosemite - because it will still do what I want it to do? Or should I adopt Lightroom on the grounds that at some point in the future, as with FCP 6, later versions of OS X will stop supporting old apps like Aperture and I'll be forced to switch to Lightroom or find another solution anyway.
Better to do this now than before I learn the new app and have a ton of images with changes that won't cross over.
Thanks for any advice/insight.
Andy

Have a look at Capture One Pro as well - IMO it is the most Aperture like tool out there, it doesn't have as big a feature set as Aperture, but what it does have is very good quality some of it better than Aperture. There is a free trial avaialble, and its on for half price right now.
There are a number of comparisons recommending the quality ofCapture One's raw convertor; I personally like it much better than Aperture's raw convertor (admittedly only checked with my own Panasonic raw files). I also like its gradient brush, the ability to copy masks between edits (and invert them), and the ability to assign multiple edit functions to the same mask. (I miss the ability to control levels, curves, highlight and shadow modification with a brush or mask)
After a week of evaluation I purchased a copy - I'm tired of waiting for feature upgrades, and don't like using a market trailing raw convertor on every image. I have a choice (not made yet) of doing some of my work, mostly organization and sorting, in Aperture, and RAW conversion in Capture One, or of making a clean break and doing everything from here on in Capture One.
But one thing is clear - I'll have to wait an uncertainly long time (but at least 6 months) before I get new or improved editing features or an improved RAW convertor for Aperture replacement (and then I'll be faced with an undefined cost to transition my images from Aperture to Photos), whereas companies like Capture One, DxO and Adobe can provide those improvements today, and are continuously providing more improvements to customers.
IMOthose other companies will see their revenues and R&D budget pickup as they acquire new users from the Aperture diaspora.

Prints from Aperture vs Photoshop Different

When I make a print from Aperture the color is off and the print is too light. When I take that same photo and Open With External Editor to Photoshop, the print comes out nearly perfect, and nearly exactly what I see on my 30" ACD.
When printing I turn off System Management of color, so I don't think that's the issue.
I shoot Raw with a Nikon D2x. I calibrated my Epson 4800 and 30" display with Eye-One. The profile of the photo is Adobe RGB 1998. When soft proofing in Aperture I use the printer profile I created with Eye-One and the image looks fine on my display.
I've read various threads where people have solved this problem by making sure they use Adobe RGB 1998 across the board, which I think I am doing.
One huge concern is that I'm ready to have a wedding book published via Apple and I don't know if the images are going to look like they do printed via Aperture, or Photoshop, or something altogether different.
Greg
Mac Book Pro 17" Mac OS X (10.4.9) 30" ACD, Epson 4800 printer, Dimage Scan Elite 5400II

David,
Thank you for enlightening me about the Nikon/color space.
What is frustrating is that I've calibrated my Epson 4800 and 30" ACD. In Aperture the color and exposure looks fine when soft proofing, but my prints come out with a magenta tinge and are too light. When printing the very same file in Photoshop (via Round Trip from Aperture), the image looks the same on my monitor as it did in Aperture but the print comes out very close to what I see on the screen. There has to be something else going on. I turn off the System Management of color, what other settings do you set? However, I set the printing settings the same for Aperture as for Photoshop.
Since you have much of the same set-up as I do, I'd like to turn to another question. I'm trying to order a wedding book via Apple. When I click the "Buy Now" button, all the following dialog boxes have a combination of French, English, Dutch? - and when I reach the final dialog box I see in English, "Please correct the following issues". The item on the list that I should correct is in Dutch or Swedish. Has this ever happened to you and how can I fix the language issue. I searched the threads and see people with the same problem, but no remedy.
Another question if I may... When I click "Buy Now" the first dialog box says that there is a blank text box (which I suspect is the issue that the Dutch sentence is proclaiming). I've tried finding the blank text box by Select All, but only the photo fields are highlighted. Do you know how to find a blank text box?
Thank you for your suggestions. I've asked about the foreign language and text box issues but haven't received an answer yet.
Greg

Newbie asks: Aperture and PhotoShop - why have both??

Though this is more of a general question regarding photo editing, I'll post it here as this seems to be where most of the shutterbugs hang.
I just bought my wife a Nikon D200 for Mother's Day. Though she's definitely not an expert photographer (she barely knows how to use her current Nikon N60 film camera), she seems to have a real knack for taking beatiful shots of the kids, vacation vistas, etc.. I bought the D200 not because I felt she needed all of it's features, but more because I wanted something that was built like a tank, and would hold up to years of use in a variety of outdoor/indoor environments. Though very expensive, I thought the D200 was worth it if it lasts longer than the more affordable offerings. ..I mention all this only to avoid being criticized for "over-buying".
Anyway, what is the ONE essential picture editing software package that we should buy to take advantage of this wonderful camera?? I say one, because I don't think my wife will be too keen on moving images through three or four different applications to make fairly minor adjustments. ...She may take 30 pics/month, so were not talking huge project sizes. ..Perhaps a starting point would be if someone could briefly explain the differences between Aperture and Photoshop and why someone would have both. ..And if forced to pick just one of them, which would you chose? The iPhoto that came with our new iMac is outrageously cool! ..But it offers very limited adjustment tools.
IMAC (early 2006) Mac OS X (10.4.4) 1.5 G Ram
IMAC (early 2006) Mac OS X (10.4.4) 1.5 G Ram

I'll relate how I use both Aperture and Photoshop and why I do what I do so you can come to your own conclusions. I have been using Aperture since it first came out and Photoshop for 10 years.
Though Aperture was originally thought to be a Photoshop competitor (back when it was first released), it is not. Rather, it is a very good front-end to Photoshop. I use Aperture to read in my digital photos from my Nikon camera so I can easily go through them and pick out the ones I want. I should note that generally when I go out and do a "shoot", it is not uncommon for me to run through 200 or more pictures. So I have a significant sorting and selecting process when I get home to my computer. Photoshop is NOT good at this, that is why Adobe added Bridge a couple of years ago. Aperture is more of a competitor to Bridge (though Bridge comes free with Photoshop). I should note that though I like Bridge, Aperture has it beat hands down when it comes to letting me review my photos.
As I have learned to use Aperture, it has taken over many of the front-end adjustments I used to make in Bridge and Photoshop. Things like adjusting the saturation, brightness, contrast, levels, cropping, leveling and sharpening were what I formerly did with my Adobe products, but now instead very easily do with Aperture. I prefer doing these adjustment in Aperture since they are non-destructive to my original file, and the adjustments are kept in a XML sidecar file so the adjusted image file is very small and saves me lots of disk space.
If I like what I see in Aperture, then I can easily publish (books or web) or print from there. Aperture has some great web generation features in it. But, these features are not flexible with their format styles and are geared for use by professional photographers who want to show their work to their clients. But still, it is fun to easily create a web site. And if you have a .MAC account, there is a very nice fit between the two productions. (Note: you can also get this same functionality with more page creation flexibility with Apple's iWeb and to a certain degree with iPhoto).
Aperture has also helped me organize my photo library so that I can easily find that one photo, or set of photos, I want, when I want them.
So, if I'm using Aperture more-and-more, what am I using Photoshop for? As good as Aperture is, and it is getting better, it is no competitor for what Photoshop does best. I wouldn't think of using anything but Photoshop when I need to do "serious" work on my photos. Image repair and restoration, patching, touchups, very fine adjustments, special effects, application of filters, noise reduction, to name a few things, are (to me) Photoshop only. Also, for now, Photoshop has a much better zoom and image inspection feature than does Aperture. Though the loop in Aperture is useful, I find it to be a bit more klunky than the zoom feature in Photoshop.
Both programs are pricey, though Apple has made Aperture a lot more attractive with the recent price reduction from $499 to $299.
And, I agree. Elements is also an excellent choice, though I'm not sure if it supports RAW files the same way Photoshop does. I'm sure the Adobe site will have that information.
Good luck, and congratulations on the new D200. Your wife will really like it.
Jeff Weinberg

Need to Export All Images from Aperture to Photoshop. Can anyone help?

I'm new to Mac. Just got my iMac in January. I wanted to buy the Mac version of Photoshop Elements 8, but the Apple salesperson convinced me that Aperture 2 would be much easier. After three months, I've discovered that Aperture is just not for me. I just purchased and installed Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac today. I would like to move all of my images from Aperture to Photoshop and delete Aperture from my computer. I cannot figure out how to do this. Whenever I try to export, the Aperture "library" appears as a big block that won't open or prompt for subfolders. Please help!

Pvonk has good advice. I just want to make sure you understand the Aperture has a Master and at least one Version of each image file. The Master is the original -- never touched. The Version is at first a copy of the Master, but as soon as you make any changes it holds those changes. So you have to decide whether you want to export the Masters, the Versions, or both (which you'll have to do separately, afaik). Aperture gives you the choice. Click "Photos" in the Library tab of the Inspector, then select all, then "File>>Export". If you want to maintain your groupings (e.g.: Projects), you will probably have to select the images in each group and export them as a unique set.
Note that Aperture is a very powerful image database (pros refer to this as "Digital Asset Management") in addition to (w. v. 3) being a very powerful digital photograph development lab. Photoshop Elements does none of the former, and a very different kind of job than the latter.

Aperture Vs Photoshop CS

Hi All - Complete newbie to these forums.
I have been considering buying Aperture for my MacPro laptop. Now I've currently got the trial version which I'm quite impressed with - But I keep thinking do I really want to fork out £200 for the full version where I already have Photoshop?
I'm guessing Aperture's file management system is one of the bonuses - is there anything else that you believe makes Aperture Superior?
Thanks
Rich.

Photoshop vs. Aperture has been discussed here and in every corner of the photography world since the day Aperture was released. You can find endless threads just by scrolling down a few days' worth of posts.
Nutshell: The application do different things. Aperture's paradigm is not based on imaging editing as much as what Apple markets as a workflow management. I find it adequate and fun. Many other pros dislike Aperture with the same deep passion with which I detest Photoshop. But those are my personal hangups.
The working professional photographer needs both of these applications, and may others, to handle his clients' needs and expectations. If you can run PS with your eyes closed and like the Adobe Way, you probably do not need Aperture's new paradigm. It's weirdly Apple-ish.
bogiesan

Aperture or Photoshop Elements?

I am an amateur photographer and photography is a keen hobby of mine. I have recently been pondering the idea of purchasing a photo-editing package from the app store and have come across both Aperture and Photoshop elements. I enjoyed using iPhoto but it felt a little limited. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Aperture and Photoshop target different needs - if you are a serious photographer you should get them both, see Re: how to combine breketed photos in one like in photoshop
Aperture serves two purposes:
It is an excellent tool to manage and organize huge photo libraries for fast retrieval, tagging, geocoding, and efficient storage of different versions of the same photo.
And it has excellent image processing tools to develope high resolution photos (raw, tiff, jpeg) into a rendered version and to adjust the photo (noise reduction, contrast, retouche, white balance and color color correction, sharpening, ...).
But Aperture deals only with image files taken with a digital camera, not with graphics. It does not support transparency for example. For this the program offers an interface to use plug-ins or external editors, like Photoshop or the free Gimp.
Photoshop is a graphics compositing program; it offers basic image processing tools, but you can use it to add graphics annotations to your image or two combine parts of different images - it is great to work with transparency, layers, arbitrary shaped selections.
I use Aperture do organize my photos - my Aperture library now includes all images I own, reaching back to 1910, the including the first photos my greatgrandparents have taken. Developing the raw images or adjusting jpegs Aperture is very intuitive and easy to do. And if I need to do compositing I use a plug-in or Photoshop.
You may want to have a look at Gimp. It can do similar things as Photoshop, but is free. Also, have a look at the Aperture tutorials on the Aperture Support page: Aperture Support
Regards
Léonie

I didn't buy aperture but it's already installed on my mac but wont open

I wanted to find out the price of aperture in the mac app store but instead of seeing the price under the app as usual i saw "installed". Funny thing is I am most certain i have never bought aperture and it doesn't come up on under the list of my purchases. Decided to check my applications folder and it was there but when i tried to open it says it cant open aperture and I need to check with the developer to see if it works with my current mac os version. What does this mean?

I did buy Aperture V3 last year. Yesterday I upgraded from OS 10.5.8 to 10.6.6 and now I get the same message. I tried reinstalling but that did not help. I can not get Aperture to open and desperately need to get some images out for a client. Does anyone have any ideas?

Considering buying aperture. Have raw images processed in NIK NX2 software. What happens to those files when imported into Aperture?

Understand NiK is discontinuing Capture NX2. Therefore would like to buy Aperture as host for image management. If I do purchase and import RAW files previously processed in NX2 into Aperture. Is old processing retained? Doubtful. Or is new processing required? Have an iMac with iPhoto 10 etc.

Richard and Beverly wrote:
If I do purchase and import RAW files previously processed in NX2 into Aperture. Is old processing retained?
You can import the image files converted from RAW and edited by NX2 but they will no longer be RAW NEF files they will be non-lossy TIFF files or lossy JPEG.
Or you can import the original RAW NEF files into Aperture for Aperture to do the RAW conversion.
To my eyes/brain with the Nikon cameras I use (D2x, D100, D5100) I find that NX2 provides the most pleasing RAW conversions, but I still use Aperture for its great workflow.
HTH
-Allen

What are some things i need to know before buying Aperture 3? because i know a little about digital photography

Help please

Your Mac seems to be compatible with Aperture (http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1657), but is your camera? Here is a list of cameras, that are supported by Aperture, see: Apple - Aperture - Technical Specifications - RAW Support
If your camera is not on the list, you can work in Aperture with jpegs, tiffs, psd images, but not with raw images.
because i know a little about digital photography
That is a bit ambigious - do you want to say that you have some experience with digital photography, or nearly none at all? Have you tried iPhoto and do you like it? iPhoto comes on every newer mac included for free, so you could give it a try. Aperture and iPhoto are related, they are both supporting a lossless workflow - you can always undo all edits and your original images are preserved, and both are compatible. Each application can open the photl library of the other app.
Only Aperture has advanced editing tools and more possibilites to organize and search your images.
To elaborate on Kirby's question: To help you decide, it would help to know, if you have used any software for organizing a photo library previously, and and what you are looking for. If not, give iPhoto a trial run - it should be on your Mac. If you see, that you need more advanced features than the basic set in iPhoto, check, if Aperture will give you those and then buy Aperture. You can continue right where you left off in iPhoto.
-- Léonie

File size growth fr Aperture to Photoshop and back. Why?

When i take a 15Mb file from Aperture to Photoshop, work on it in photoshop them save back into Aperture its grown to about 56MB back in Aperture, BUT why when i open the Adjustments HUD for this new file in Aperture does it make a new copy of the image and make it 150MB size in Aperture.

This is because Aperture converts the file to a TIFF wrapped as a PSD file to import to photoshop, which gives you the initial size increase. When photoshop saves the file, it is also saving (in the PSD) any layers you have created, so several layers will increase the size of the file several times.
Nothing wrong with Aperture - just a fact of life when storing native Photoshop files (PSDs) to disk - they're huge!
Hope that helps.
Dave.

How to buy aperture when having a test version installed

i´d like to buy aperture in the appstore but after pressing the "buy" button there´s a message telling me that aperture is already installed and i should try to search for updates via the built in software update feature in mac os. Yes, i´ve got the test-version installed, but how do i go on now? Thanks...

Delete the Aperture app from the Applications folder. Then you'll be able to buy it from the App store.
Any libraries you have will work (after upgrading them) with the paid app.

Tried to buy Aperture 3 and got an error message Aperture can't be installed on "Macintosh HD" because Mac OS X version 10.7.2 or later is required. You can update Mac OS X using Software Update. Problem is, I had already updated my IMac to Lion OS

Tried to buy Aperture 3 and got an error message Aperture can’t be installed on “Macintosh HD” because Mac OS X version 10.7.2 or later is required. You can update Mac OS X using Software Update. Problem is, I had already updated my IMac to Lion OS

iPhoto 9.3 requires OS X 10.7.4 now. You can use your actual version of iPhoto or upgrade to Lion (or wait to Mountain Lion)

I have been considering buying Aperture 3 but the numerous, negative reviews are making me wary. Should I buy the first version - Aperture 2.1.1 instead?

I have been considering buying Aperture 3 but the numerous, negative reviews are making me wary. Should I buy the first version - Aperture 2.1.1 instead?
I have a 2009 MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard. I do not think I will upgrade to Lion because I was warned that it may conflict with some of my applications.
There have been so many reviews that talk about how Aperture 3 is so slow and spends too much time searching for Faces and eventually crashes. And, many reviews mention that you need to add to your RAM which I can't do right now, especially on a 3 year old computer.
There are some copies Aperture 2 on Amazon. Would that be a good place to buy a copy or a used copy?
I would appreciate some good advice. Thanks, Taf Schaefer

Obviously you haven't read the reviews of Aperture 2
FWIW I use Ap3 on both a 2010 MBP (8 gigs of Ram) and an 2008 iMac (4 gigs) and I have no crashing issues whatever. Remember, you can disable Faces if you don't want to use that feature.
Elv07 wrote:
I used to use iPhoto and I will probably revert to that (although it has fewer function like no RAW import etc.)
Just an FYI: iPhoto supports exactly the same Raws as Aperture.
Regards
TD

Massive colour variation from Aperture to Photoshop

Hi there
I have experienced a startling colour variation when exporting an image form Aperture to Photoshop 3 (for a bit of tweaking).
Please see this screen grab which shows the variation - particularly the desaturated reds in p/shop:
http://www.white-adams.co.uk/white-adams.co.uk/ScreenGrab.tif
(although the screen grab is less dramatic varied than the reality on screen here).
Some background:
File is a raw file with some basic adjustments made in Aperture
I then right-clicked on the version made in Aperture and selected "edit with" Photoshop CS3
Can anyone help me explain the variation?
If I want to get this image printed and I export it from Aperture will it retain the lovely saturated reds - or look more like the photoshop version?!
Help!
Kind regards
Robert

have checked soft-proofing is off in Photoshop
Configuring Photoshop for compatible assumptions is complex. The first ICC-enabled version was 6 and it introduced dialogues including Colour Settings, Proof Setup, Proof Colours, Print with Preview > Colour Management on top of the old PostScript colour management model and the even older PostScript level 1 model where transfer curves and frequency algorithms get programmed into Encapsulated PostScript and change the calibration of the raster image processor at runtime.
The controls are here and there technically non-sensical. A couple of critical controls are Simulate > Paper White and Simulate > Ink Black. The English is non-sense, so the localisations are non-sense. If EU localisations are inverted back into English, they read Simulate > White Paper and Simulate > Black Ink - including the German localisation that one would suppose the good people at Heidelberg, FOGRA and Bundesverband Druck und Medien would have had their beady eyes on.
Why is the English technical non-sense? Because in a colour test chart there is a null colourant patch where the spectrophotometer measures the colour of the paper itself (its L* lightness and its ab hue and chroma); a patch where the colourant combination is C100 M100 Y100 K100 which is where the spectrophometer measures maximum process black; and a patch where the colourant is K100 where the spectrophotometer measures black solid and solo.
Process black in C100 M100 Y100 K100 is what Photoshop uses in Simulate > Ink Black and the colour of paper measured in the null colourant patch is used in Simulate > Paper White. There were discussions with Adobe in 2004 and again in the following, but I stopped trying to get them to change either their localisations or their source English - let alone the multiple modal dialogues for controlling rendering intent configurations.
With regard to Aperture, the idea of allowing the enduser to apply a gamma correction on top of the colour management input-output is not a good idea. It helps the one person who doesn't have proper studio lighting for a display-print match, but it does not help the colour management process with other people in a workgroup.
/hh

Buy Aperture or Photoshop??

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