lev29 Loc: Born and living in MA.

I'm forced to phase out my Aperture program on my Mac laptop. I never used iPhoto. I'm using Photos currently, but I haven't read up on its capabilities yet. I'm looking for a program that I can use for importing, filing, sorting, and exporting photos PLUS the ability to do "some" photo manipulations, e.g. working with both RAW (which I've never taken pics with yet,) and JPEG, swapping color channels, altering colors, "stitching" photos together, creating cine-loops, etc.

I've heard Adobe Photoshop is excellent, with the noted qualifier that it's complicated. I'm looking for something that's simpler to learn "from the hip." I've heard that Lightroom might just be that. Opinions? Other options and how they stack up vs Apple Photos would be most informative. At this point, whether the program recommended also works on my iPads is not important. The program must be able to function on my Apple laptop, currently a MacBook Pro RD with 8GB RAM & a puny 250 GB SSD. Certainly, I'm willing to purchase a 3rd external HD.

Thank you.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

1. Lightroom works well for that.
2. Lightroom won't work for that. You will need something like Photoshop.
3. Everything Adobe makes works on a Apple.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Most every thing has a 30 day trial.... try on shoes til you find a comfortable fit.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Look at Macphun, recently released new edition currently selling for $89. Several of us have bought it.

http://macphun.com/creativekit

Mac Loc: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia now Hernando Co. Fl.

Affinity Photo is specifically for MACs, don't know about how it works with iOS.

warrior Loc: Paso Robles CA

Photo Shop Elements 14 for the MAC :thumbup:

Capture48 Loc: Arizona

First MAC OS and IOS are two different operating systems, and you would never want to inventory your photos on an iPad. Viewing your photos, or a subset of your photos is fine on IOS. The Creative Cloud photographers version includes Lightroom and Photoshop for $10 a month. The two programs compliment one another. LR is a cataloging and editing software. Most find it fine for about 95% of their editing. PS is a pixel pusher including layers. Layers is something you will need to do some of the things you mention.

Both programs have a learning curve so get a month subscription to Lynda, and study up on LR & PS. Any program that does the things you want will have a steep learning curve. There is no free lunch here, you will get out what you put in!

****EDIT BELOW****
IMHO stay away from Apple photo. This from a MAXC guy.

Alfresco

I'm not certain but I think you might want to try Apple Photos out a bit to find out if it fits your needs. I realize the "consensus" at the UHH is that it's not worthy but it actually works quite well, just saying.

bweber Loc: Newton, MA

I had the same question about 6 months ago. I switched to Capture 1 and I am very happy. I find it easier to use than adobe products, it meets all of my needs, and although it does not use NIK plugins, I can accomplish everything within the program that I did with the plugins. In addition, Capture 1 has an extensive library of free webinars regarding all of its features that are really instructive. You can down load a free 30 day trial.

Good luck.

Nisolow

I am in the minority here but I really prefer ACDsee as it is fast, intuitive, and very easy to use as a browser and editor. I am not sure about video and stitching with it. It boots up fast and other less technically oriented family members can easily use it for browsing, emailing, etc. It is a full function non-destructive editor these days.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

For ten bucks a month, you can use the latest Lightroom and Photoshop bundle together.

Lightroom (Lr) is much like Aperture was. It is designed for importing, cull-editing, cataloging, and otherwise managing a database of images. It offers NON-DESTRUCTIVE EDITING of JPEG (and raw) images. It allows you to adjust most of the overall parameters of images (brightness, RGB color, hue, saturation, white balance, sharpness, profile, etc.) before either exporting, printing, or posting to the Internet.

Lr also connects to Photoshop (Ps). Photoshop is really not at all like Aperture. It is a very powerful and complex pixel-level editor with some overlap of features with Lightroom. Use it for retouching, layering and compositing images, dodging, burning, adding type, making color separations for graphic arts printing... In some ways, Photoshop is "bloatware", since it has grown and grown in capability since 1990.

There are many other useful applications, too, such as the free/donation-ware GIMP, Fotor, and one I'd take a LONG, CLOSE look at in the App Store: Affinity Photo.

Don't forget Thorsten Lemke's excellent, inexpensive shareware program, Graphic Converter, which I've used since 1994. It is indispensable if you need to batch-convert images from one format to another. It also has one of the coolest slide show features around.

RichieC Loc: Adirondacks

Photoshop is like an onion you can can use the first layers pretty intuitively and perhaps never feel the need to peel off the the lower levels of atributes, perhaps in certain areas- you can learn them as you feel the need. But the program has them, and it is so far out in number one for a reason- it can perform miracles, and it will never hold you back.

PhotoShop does things that Lightroom doesn't- they work best in tandem. However, there is a learning curve to get the most out of them. I'd subscribe to Lynda.com for two month's which is the cost of a book, and watch their tutorials on these...and every software title you could think of. YOU get unlimited access to them all tutorials in their monthly subscription- you'll learn more, quicker then some will ever know this way.

Photoshop CC an Lightroom is available for $10 month together. If you were to purchase them like the old days, you'd be looking at around $1000...by the time you spent the same money the software would have had many major updates- meaning you'd have to purchase again. The $10 month adds up to a much better deal in the long run- though I have to admit, I don't like it much.

Once my CS6 suite gets antiquated enough, this is what I will do. Though I will have to do the entire suite in my business at $50 month or so.

Meives Loc: FORT LAUDERDALE

[quote=lev29] Most members use some version of Photoshop. I use Photoshop Elements. By using one of them you can get specific advise on your post process. David

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

You can get both Lightroom and Photoshop (CC versions) for one subscription price of $9.99/month. (Is that still the case? I use a stand alone Ps CS6.) Lightroom for cataloging and simple editing, Photoshop for layer and pixel level editing.

GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

(My turn to speek.)

No questions. For easy of use and fast, you have to try out Capture One Pro. It's got the best RAW converter out there, as I said it's fast, and pretty darn easy to use.

CO1 lets you load it directly on you computer (no cloud stuff and if on location where there is no internet, it still works!) It has very good tethering abilities, should you use that ability. It often comes with what other people seem to love and that it plug-ins (that they often need to pay for.)


There are many You Tube showings with just about anything you can think of and many "podcasts" etc. from the factory to lets you see what it can do.
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Another program is Paint Shop Pro. This is similar to Photo Shop except you can load it directly on your computer. Again no cloud stuff and a one time buy, no leasing it.
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Many pros in the model/magazine/advertisement world use both Capture One and Photo Shop. They both are wonderful programs. Capture One lets you switch to either program seamlessly so you can get the best from both worlds.

Many other 3rd party editing programs are great also, but most only let you buy the newest plug-ins. With that you can build up the cost in the long run. If you like that, wonderful.

To my knowledge, Capture One Pro has never had a problem transferring photos to and from different storage mediums.

I'm still using an older copy of CO1 and it still has a bunch of things that users of other programs are just starting to add in their program. Right now, de-hazing come to mind. Although every program will title it differently, I've been "de-hazing for a couple years when I need to. (To be honest, every post editing program "barrows" from other programs to a degree.)

After you perfect a photo to one style or many different styles or a complete event, it lets you send all of them to clients or someone else to evaluate even if they don't have the main program. From that they can make their final decision as to what style of the one or many photos they want.

(Can you tell I like CO1?)

Right now my post editing consists of mainly of CO1 and a little bit of Paint Shop Pro. My PS rarely gets used.

Like most every post editing program out there, CO1 offers a trial period. Try it you'll like it!
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FYI: Just about every good post editing program out there is now using your computer's graphic card to speed thing up.

I highly recommend you don't skimp on the one for your computer system, that is if you care about any of them having any kind of speed!