I am writing to this forum to ask for help in determining whether Aperture will satisfy my needs when I switch from Windows to MAC in the near future.

Question

 I am writing to this forum to ask for help in determining whether Aperture will satisfy my needs when I switch from Windows to MAC in the near future.  
I am currently using Photoshop Elements 8 on Windows 7.  After several years of use, I am self taught and adequately proficient for an amateur.  What I didn't realize (until I started researching my upcoming migration on the Internet) is that I actually use PE8 for two functions: digital asset management and digital editing. 
Regarding Digital Asset Management: My research leads me to understand that PE on MAC does not provide the same level of organizational capability that I am used to having on Windows, instead providing Adobe's Bridge which does not look very robust.  Furthermore, iPhoto, which come on MAC will not support the hierarchical keyword tagging that I require to organize my library of photos. The two SW applications which I am thinking of switching to are either Aperture or Adobe's Lightroom.  Frankly, I'm thinking that it would be smoother to stay within the Apple product line. 
So the remaining question is whether Aperture will support my digital editing needs. The tweaks that I do to my photos are not very complex (no, I do not want to put people's heads on other animal bodies).  But could someone who uses Aperture tell me whether It will allow me to do the following kinds of edits?:
- If I have a photo where someone's face is too shadowed, can I lighten just that person's face, and leave the rest of the photo as-is?  
- if I have a photo where the background is cluttered (eg, 2 people in front of the Parthenon which is undergoing renovation), can I remove just the construction cranes?  
- Can it splice together several separate photos to give a panoramic?  
If, once I get Aperture, I find that it cannot enable the kinds of editing that I do, I would probably get PE11 in the future. However, if people in this forum tell me that Aperture will definitely not  support the kinds of editing which I've described in the previous paragraph, I would prefer to get PE11 with my initial configuration (since someone will be helping me with my migration).  
Thanks in advance for your consideration and help! 

Answer 1

I am concerned, however,  about using a non-Apple Digital Asset Manager in OSX. I would really like to avoid integration problems. Is using PE11 to import and catalog my digital photos likely to cause conflicts?
Thanks for any insight on this
Amy,
Not so much conflicts as maybe a little less seamless integration with Apple software and perhaps some third-party software providers in the Mac App Store where some programs build in direct access to iPhoto and Aperture libraries for getting images into those programs easily. Typically, there is a manual command to go to Finder (think Windows Explorer) to browse folders.
One caution to mention however, is that the organization you set-up in PE Organizer is unlikely to transfer over to either iPhoto or Aperture if you decide to change at some point.
The only real stumbling block that I see in your opening comment is that you want hierarchical keywording (Kirby or Léonie can go into the details on keywording limitations as I stay at one level). If you can work with the keywording schemes of either iPhoto or Aperture, then using PE for your external editor (either program supports setting an external editor) would probably be ideal since you know PE well. This is the idea with the Mac App Store version of PE (editor with no organizer).
Note - I use Photoshop CS6 (full version) with Aperture and it works really well. The only downside is that Aperture has to make either a TIFF or PSD file to send to an external editor so that the original file is protected by not sending it to the pixel editor. While TIFF or PSD files protect the integrity of the image information without degrading it, they are typically much larger file sizes on disk than either RAW or JPEG files. Therefore, your library size (iPhoto or Aperture) will balloon quite a bit if you send a lot of files to external editors.
One other possibility for an external editor would be a program called Pixelmator. It is pretty similar to early versions of Photoshop, but built for Mac. Other than the panoramics you want, it will do most pixel editing that PE can do. It is not an organizer, so it is built to go with either iPhoto or Aperture. It does have differences in how you complete certain procedures, so there is bit of a learning curve when you are used to doing it the Adobe way.