Photoshop vs Aperture (need opinions)

Question

I would really appreciate the opinion from users of Both. While I have become more proficient with Aperture than I ever thought possible, I find myself struggling in trying to achieve certain results in my photo post processing. Things like desaturating layers is quite impossible on Aperture and I have been told by many of Photoshop's rich feature set for such things (not to mention other keen tools). I think that Aperture remains one of the best tools for cataloging and level of post processing.
*What are your thoughts people?*
Thanks,
Pierre - Toronto

Answer 1

In an earlier post I analyzed thusly:
Group A
Aperture is Apple's pro app for RAW images capture management. Lightroom is Adobe's pro app for RAW images capture management. iPhoto is Apple's free entry-level app for images capture management.
Group B
Open-source GIMP or inexpensive Adobe Photoshop Elements are for basic to intermediate image editing, adequate for most photogs. Very expensive full Adobe Photoshop is for pro graphics work and very advanced image editing. Other free and/or low cost editors are also available. Many folks consider the open-source GIMP a superior app to PSE.
Two apps are needed. Digital photographers ideally should own and learn reasonable competence with one app from each of groups A & B above. Note that Aperture and GIMP/PSE are in different groups.
IMO the evolution of a digital photog is to start with iPhoto and quickly outgrow it. After that I recommend that the next step is to own both Aperture and GIMP or PSE.
If one advances to the point of doing really advanced graphics work the upgrade from GIMP/PSE to full Photoshop is easy enough, just expensive and with very substantial additional learning curve. I use the full Design Premium Creative Suite, and the upgrade to CS4 from CS3 is so expensive I am staying with CS3.
Bridge is Adobe's pro app that comes with full Photoshop and manages files handling within the Creative Suite. I do not include it in Group A above because it is far inferior to Aperture and Lightroom for digital photographers managing DSLR image capture.
Bridge is a file-management app, not a database. The folks who like Bridge are usually very experienced Photoshop graphics folks (often coming from a long history with film scans, which involves totally different workflow than modern DSLR capture) rather than primarily digital photogs.
Note that PSE should not be used for RAW image conversion because the RAW conversion engine in PSE is a compromised version of ACR, not the complete version of ACR found in full (very expensive) Photoshop. Use Aperture or camera vendor (e.g. Nikon) software for RAW conversion prior to PSE edits if PSE edits are necessary. In my case for 98% of pix Aperture does it all, no external editor required. Like e2photo said, Photoshop has become a giant plug-in for Aperture .
-Allen Wicks