Having taken lots of photos while on holiday, I’m becoming a real fan of Apple’s Aperture software – designed to help photographers manage their workflow. Workflow, by the way, is something that professional photographers apparently have and that people like me aspire to.
Anyway, at $299, Aperture is a somewhat pricey but very nice piece of software. It has a bit of a learning curve, but is blessed with some really good tutorials. You get a DVD in the box with an hour or so’s instruction, there are tutorials on line on the Aperture site, but if you’re considering buying it and want to know the sort of things that make it different from say, iPhoto, I recommend Apple’s introductory on-line seminar, which is well-produced. There’s also an advanced one.
A warning, though; Aperture is one of those few things that makes you realise that Moore’s law hasn’t yet given us all the processing power we could possibly need. Make sure you have a pretty beefy Mac if you’re planning on using it!
Have you tried Adobe Lightroom. It is in beta, but very usable, a bit faster and a cleaner interface.
Hi Richard –
Yes, tried it and liked it, but Aperture was rather further along and had some ideas I liked better. It was also available for sale when I wanted it – I don’t think a price has been announced for Lightroom yet, so I didn’t want to put too much effort into it before knowing that!
Q