Thoughts on Aperture software anyone?

[myla]

Just recently converted to a mac (drank the kool-aid) & was looking into photo editing software. I'm not a computer savvy person. Tried the photoshop trial awhile back & was completely baffled. So far Apature seems pretty user-friendly, will still take time to figure out a lot of things. Is there anything out there I should maybe try? (other than picnik) Or anything that would be useful to know about Apature?

[Stephen]

I have and use Aperture. You can download it from the App store for a pretty cheap price. it's a solid photo management program. If you pick it up, I strongly encourage you to also buy the plug-ins by Nik software. With that combination, nearly any of your processing needs are met.

[myla]

@agthunderbird thanks, I'll have to check out the Nik plug-ins.

[☮Lee Gordon☮]

Gimp is a pretty awesome editing package (its what I use for a lot of my stuff.) and whats more its free

http://www.gimp.org/

[LisLee]

I downloaded the 30 day Aperture trial and I really liked the program. I went through several of the online tutorials they have on the apple website and was able to get going in about 20 minutes, it seemed very intuitive to me, where Photoshop is not quite as intuitive. I haven't purchased it yet, but I would like to. I have Photoshop through work so that is what I'm currently using and trying to learn. I found using Aperture for a while was a good segue into getting into Photoshop, but I think Aperture is really very nice.

[myla]

@lislee75 I'm using the 30 day trial, & have found the tutorials very helpful too.

[Bob Kaiser]

Check out the attached Link. It is a review of Aperture by Ken Rockwell.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/aperture.htm

[Flamez]

you can find loads of paint shop pro free trials :) thats what i use and its awesome :)

[myla]

@rjkaiser thanks a bunch, looks quite helpful!
@asrai @flamez thanks. I think I'll be keeping busy with checking out lots of free trials & such.. maybe when I've gone through them all, I'll have decided what I like best (hope it's affordable too).

[Ange Caspar]

If you end up going with Photoshop and want a good book to teach yourself some basics, look into Scott Kelby's books. They are on Amazon. Every technique he goes over is step by step with photos. It's easy to follow along and the book is laid out nicely - you can reference it depending on what you are wanting to do, etc.

[Paul]

Heads up if you're buying Aperture, it's $200 in the Apple store but only $80 bucks in the App Store.

[Jeff Drongowski]

I use Aperture for 95% of what I do, with a little CS5 thrown in if I get really creative. I find it to be very user friendly. I mostly use CS5 for composites and HDR. I'm also looking into the Nik plugins as well as Photomatix.