mediaman123 Loc: Poulsbo, WA

I am an intermediate MAC user and just about to dive into RAW processing. Anyone using Aperture successfully for PP with RAW? Would I be better to go Elements or Lightroom? Pretty happy with aperture for jpg PP. Appreciate your opinions.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

I shot raw for quite awhile and used Aperture fine to process all my Nikon raw images - the raw conversion engine is built into OS X, so Aperture, iPhotos and Photos all make use of the same raw conversion engine. As new camera's come out, Apple updates the raw conversion engine, so the Apple Apps will be able to process the images.

Adobe products use their own raw converter, Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and if you switch to Adobe products then it becomes Adobe that will need to provide the updated raw conversion engine.

Of course, Aperture was discontinued some years back by Apple (At that point I switched from Aperture to Lightroom and Photoshop for the 9.99 a month subscription of Creative Cloud), but so far Aperture still works in OS X - at least up as far as El Capitan, but it does not mean it will always continue to function with new versions of the OS.

If you upgrade your OS like I do you might want to consider Lightroom & Photoshop or at least Photoshop Elements at a minimum - If you are comfortable using Aperture than a move to Lightroom as an organizer/editor makes sense, especially at 10.00 a month for Lightroom, Photoshop and Bridge.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I'd recommend Lightroom and Photoshop. Adobe Creative Cloud Photographers' package at $9.99/month (plus sales tax if applicable). In my opinion, Lightroom alone is worth it. It's a pretty basic editor, but it has some pixel level functions without going into Photoshop. And since you get Photoshop thrown in with the package, it will allow you to learn new things in postprocessing. There are plenty of online (free and/or paid) tutorials out there that can get you started.

And one of the primary reasons that 100% of my photos go into Lightroom is the organizational functions of Lightroom. The photographers' package gives you all the updates with the subscription.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Aperture was great but it has been a dead end product for two years. Get out while you still can.