Epson R2400 prints from Apterture and CS2 are VERY close.

Question

Using the same NEF file that Frank donated, I printed an untouched(cropping only) print from Aperture to my Epson R2400 on premium lustre paper.
I took the white balance temp(4906 K) and tint(-14) from the HUD and applied these into Bridge(temp/tint for the same NEF), with default values for everything else default(exposure:0, shadows:5, brightness:40, contrast:+25, saturation:0, sharpening:25), and color space sRGBIEC61955-1, then opened it in CS2 and printed it.
NOTE: I am using PowerRIP-X V7.2 from iProof Systems for my print driver, it is installed like a printer and shows up as a printer on the selection list. IMHO, the $200 I spent on the R2400 RIP was money well spent. Between the RIP and the calibrated monitor, my color matching from screen to print is dead on, regardless of the paper type.. no more wasted prints and frustration. They also sell a RIP for the Epson 4800.
The prints from both are very, very, close. I have been shooting digital since 1997 and therefore do not own a scanner, so this is my visual review. Although I might shoot em tomorrow with my D2X on a tripod while lighting with a 47" Octabox... we'll see.
The CS2 print has a very slight bit more saturation of the skin tones(reddish) than Aperture. The shirt in the Aperture print is a very slight bit darker than the CS2 print.
If you look very closely and angle the light just right you can see a slight bit of the earlier mentioned blocking in the shadow on the subjects left shoulder.
I suspect the slight darkening of the shirt color may be due to the same reason for the aforementioned blocking in the shadow areas.
There is no appreciable difference in print quality.
I calibrate my 20" Cinema Display with a Spyder2PRO device and these slight differences are seen on screen as well, therefore on hardware calibrated displays the following screen capture should represent the differences..(I have no idea what this will look like on a windoze monitor!)
To see this full res in Safari, right click and select 'Open Image in New Window'

Answer 1

There seems to be two issues here. For output, using
the same output profile, Aperture and Photoshop
should be pretty close however, keep in mind that
unless you set Photoshop to use the Apple CMM (not
ACE) there could be a tiny bit of difference.
Hmmm.
I'm trying to remember what Bruce Fraser said about CMM choice the last time I attended on of his lectures. If I have it correctly he had reservations about all of them but the Adobe CMM was the best of the lot.
This was over a year ago so conditions may have changed and my memory may be faulty....
But I imagine that their might be negative consequences to using two different CMMs to process your data. Photoshop allows you a choice of CMM's, which is consistent with an application "designed from the ground up for professional photographers."
Aperture limits many choices, both basic and esoteric.
fp