Photography Software?

[Stetwin]

I get my iMac in 2 weeks time and I cant wait, they only thing I have forgot to think about is software for my photography, what would you guys recommend for an amateur photographer who would like to try and do more with there hobby?

 

[goobimama]

Have you tried Lightroom or Aperture? Those are specially made for photographers. I think both have a 30 day trial so you could try them out.

Lightroom is supposed to be lighter on resources while Aperture is more powerful. I have only used Lightroom though (and I love it!)

 

[Stetwin]

Ah cool, I didn’t realise that they offered a free trial, I guess there would be no harm in testing them to see what I find the best or more suited to what I need to do, my only fear is that I will like both for different things,

Also is it worth looking on eBay for past/older versions of them for cheap or is it not really worth it?

 

[cheetahastra]

What does lightroom and aperture do? I just sourced a copy of Photoshop CS2 thought that would be enough to start with.

 

[goobimama]

Lightroom and Aperture are designed in a way to make the workflow of a photographer after taking a shot.

So at first you import the pictures into its library. Much like iPhoto, but much more powerful. You can do tagging, collections and such. iPhoto has its uses as a family picture repository, but Lightroom is for storing all your stock images.

Then you have to do the developing. Here you can adjust virtually every aspect of the image and it is all done in a way as to keep the picture in focus. Seriously, I'm not just talking here. It is all focused on your images.

Then of course there's options for exporting, web galleries, printing and such in the following steps.

The best part is, your original image is untouched. All the editing is non-destructive. So if you adjust the brightness to +20, you can always reduce it back to zero. There's no "Apply settings" which makes a permanent change to your image. So every time you view the image, the settings are applied in real time.

Photoshop of course has its purpose, that is, image editing. It should be used to produce one final image while lightroom is for your entire collection of digital photos....

Sound like a salesman? I am!

 

[mac57]

If you are just getting into digital photography with your Mac I would opine that the first order of business is a good digital image editing program. Without reservation, I would recommend Photoshop Elements. VERY powerful and a very reasonable price. Of a similar ilk is GIMP, which is free, but is not quite as "polished" or easy to use as PE.