Aperture vs Photoshop

Hello I' a new and willing photographer and I would just like to know the differences between Aperture 2 and Photoshop CS3. I am only 13, so I have a large amount of time to learn the ins and outs of photography. Thank you for your time

Aperture is for managing a large library of pictures. It's a workflow based program which enables you to manage and edit thousands of pictures with a few clicks.

Photoshop on the other hand is more one image oriented. There's no organisation scheme. There's no sliders and all that. It's for very accurate image adjustments. A much more complex program than Aperture or Lightroom.

Get a trial of Aperture or Lightroom to see what those apps do. I'm sure you've used Photoshop before...

And please upgrade your RAM to 2GB. Your machine will run much much faster with the added RAM. It's cheap.

Welcome, and congrats on entering the world of photography. The two programs are actually used for different reasons. Aperture is photo managements and RAW proccesing application built for photography. Photoshop is an image editing program. Many, like myself used photoshop for so many years to proccess and adjust our digital photographs, and used adobes bridge program to organize and work on different projects. With aperture, apple has fileld the void that many photographers have been wanting, a photo managemnt software with editing abilities. Aperture 2 is mush stronger than the first version, but photoshop is still way ahead in that department. If you want to stick with adobe, take a look at lightroom, it is adobes verison of aperture.

Personally they way i work is i use aperture to manage and do teh basic editing to the image like curves and exposure. Then if need be i bring the image into photoshop and perform other actions to get a desired effect. An example would be taking a landscape shot, and the processing it aperture. Then taking into photoshop and performing specific actions so eveything is b&w excpet for the blue sky.

Hope this helps and good luck....you will forever be addicted to the workd of photogrphy.

Thanks guys, I think I will be going with Photoshop, I have only used elements before but I assume it is much like that?

goobimama: I will be upgrading to 2GB RAM and might be getting a MacBook Pro Also, I would like to know which cameras I should be looking into, and should i post a new thread about this?

EDIT: gooblimama: I have downloaded Aperture 2 (trial) but it won't run because I only have 512 MB RAM.

Cameras boil down to you. WE can stand here all we want and say nikon is better than canon or sony is better than nikon. Mu suggestion is go to your local store and feel it in your hand. Be comfortable with where the controls are, and find somethign that fits your budget. I personally am a Nikonian, and that is strictly becasue I like the feel of where all the controls are. Though there are times when I think about switching, then i pick up teh D200 and it all goes away

I LOVE my iMac... and yes, it does run nicely on 512 MB RAM

Click to expand...

I have the same mac. I even used it for a year on 512MB cause DDR2 at the time was a little expensive. But I got to tell you that after I did the upgrade to 2GB, it was like I discovered new speed in my machine. Everything was supercharged.

/offtopic
I hate the fact that reps are anonymous. Cause you can't argue back. I don't mind the negative rep, but when it goes plainly against common sense, such that RAM does make your machine faster, it gets on my nerves. I'm sure I'm going to get a coupla more of those neggies for this post, but I will stand by my statement that RAM does indeed make your machine faster.

Whether this is a technical thing I don't care. Real world performance matters. When I'm working on a big photoshop file and I want to open up a finder window with Coverflow, RAM will make this faster. The list of examples is endless.

Hi nymonilc and welcome to the world of photo!



Photoshop does have a steep learning curve but persevere and you'll be fine.

Regarding cameras, it primarily depends on what feels good in your hand and while carrying. Cameras have to be used and you don't want to get stuck with one that you won't want to tote around with you.

I've used the Fuji Digital SLR, Nikon, Contax, and finally decided on the Canon EOS system. I like the way it feels in my hand and the quality of the images it takes. Go to a store and try them out and also try NOT to be persuaded by all the marketing hype. There have been some small point and shoots that have created beautiful images because the photographer knew what and how to shoot it.

Whichever system you go with remember 1 very important point: GET THE BEST QUALITY GLASS YOU CAN AFFORD!
Some people are tempted to go with multiple cheap lenses but you really will see a difference with high quality (Canon calls them "L" series and Nikon calls them "ED") You'll be happy with good glass for a long time and they tend to hold their resale value if you should ever decide to sell them.

Congrats again and welcome.

Kat

goobimama said:

/offtopic
I hate the fact that reps are anonymous. Cause you can't argue back. I don't mind the negative rep, but when it goes plainly against common sense, such that RAM does make your machine faster, it gets on my nerves. I'm sure I'm going to get a coupla more of those neggies for this post, but I will stand by my statement that RAM does indeed make your machine faster.

Whether this is a technical thing I don't care. Real world performance matters. When I'm working on a big photoshop file and I want to open up a finder window with Coverflow, RAM will make this faster. The list of examples is endless.

Click to expand...

RAM does make the machine operate faster by allowing more information to be stored into the memory and not making the computer continuously retreive and process the same information over and over again. In fact, Vista is supposed to have a feature that loads fequently used programs into memory so they open faster, iirc.

OP:
The camera thing boils down to the lenses. There's already like five thread on which camera should I buy from the past two weeks, just check out the topics in the forum or search.

Hey again, I downloaded the trial of Phtoshop and edited a cute picture of a baby into what my friends call the "**** child". I would post it on the forums but it won't allow me since it is over the file limit... MacKat: You are right about the learning curve of Photoshop but I am finding out how to do alot of things with it using good ol' youtube So thanks guys and I will be going into a few shops and just trying out the cameras... I won't be buying something really expensive but I will be getting a good glass lense.. I'm not sure what a good price is but I shall look up on my god google .

Thanks again guys