which photography software to use

Wow bumping a pretty old post.... but what do I know, I'm a newbie . Honestly in my opinion the best photo editing software out there is Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 or whatever the latest version is. I've tried Aperture and Elements but neither were as good as that. If you are experienced with it go with that. Aperture is only good for photo touch ups but Photoshop can do so much more. Also you can get a 30 day free trial. You'll be hooked,

Ultimately Photoshop would be the ultimate, but

I think getting Photoshop would be great, but I was able to purchase PSE9 for about 49 bucks. i have been using "zoombroser" from canon for many years. It is very limited, but it has a lot of good points. Aperture 3 is very limited. A3 can't stich photos and doesn't have multi layers.

From my understanding. PSE can do about 90% of Photoshop and a lot of the knowledge is transferable from PSE9 to PS. I have a long way to go before I think I would benefit from the professional levee software.

I may never grow my skills sufficiently to warrant PS.

I'm getting the "hang" of Mac X 10.7.1 I'm starting to understand Aperture 3 's structure.

Hopefully I will get into PSE 9 quickly. Then maybe I can take the camera off auto mode and become an amateur photographer.

At the same time I'm trying to do some videos.

I appreciate the discussions on this forum, it has been very helpful for a newbie.

I have to point out that Photoshop CS 5.5 (et al) is, you know, $600. Unless you are a professional photographer, that's probably a bad cost-to-benefit ratio. Especially when you can spend well under $100 on either Pixelmator or Photoshop Elements and, in concert with iPhoto for management, have 99.99% of consumer photo-editing needs met very easily.

chas_m said:

I have to point out that Photoshop CS 5.5 (et al) is, you know, $600. Unless you are a professional photographer, that's probably a bad cost-to-benefit ratio. Especially when you can spend well under $100 on either Pixelmator or Photoshop Elements and, in concert with iPhoto for management, have 99.99% of consumer photo-editing needs met very easily.

Click to expand...

I'd have to agree with Chas here. Full blown Photoshop is quite the bit of overkill for a "photographer" if all you need is management plus editing and then perhaps something on the side for stitching and maybe the type of cloning that goes beyond what Aperture or Lightroom can do.

PS is great for someone who is more into taking a photograph, and turning it into something totally other than what it actually is. At that point, it's not so much photography, as it is "creative artistry" or whatever you want to call some of the over the top stuff that some people like to create.

I'd also like to wholly disagree with those who say that Aperture or Lightroom is limited. I can achieve the results that I need to in order to sell fine art or museum print photography with Lightroom. Aperture could get me there as well, if I preferred it but I don't. And Aperture in fact, has better cloning capabilities than LR.

I do have PS, should I really want to work with it, but I really never want or need to. Layering is cool and the tools in PS are great, but I just don't have the patience (or time) for it anymore. I don't need to make things magically change places, or create things that weren't ever in the scene in the first place. To me, that's pretty cheesy. As a photographer, I much more enjoy telling a story about where I am, and having that story come through as true to life as it can through the lens.

That's all I need.

For the $ I'd second PSE and maybe Bridge for keeping it all together if you don't need database management. But believe me... you WILL probably want a better form of management beyond iPhoto or Bridge at some point.

Doug

While I'll agree with both of you, Pse is generally more than enough for most photographers... I will state that if you're heavily into photo-manipulation, composite imagery etc.. ALL are limited compared to Ps. That said, if you know you need Ps.. you KNOW you need Ps.

Pse, doesn't meet my needs.. it DOES however more than meet my wifes needs (she's not doing any real heavy manipulation). Lightroom is a good place for me to start, it's FAR from the finish for my workflow though. Nice thing about Pse, is it comes for free with so many things (Wacom tablets, Canon scanners etc) that it's an easy no brainer if you're buying this kind of equipment anyway.

photoshop CS5

CS5 and Lightroom
Lightroom for quick touch ups
CS5 for more advanced editing...

Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 has served me well for several years, but I am only using less than 1% of it's capability due to my limited knowledge of the terms used in photography. I would recommend getting it or PS 9 and learn it as you learn your cameras. A very fun and rewarding hobby to me.