I'd recommend starting out with Lightroom since that's the gold standard for organizational/cataloguing software, and can do some really nice editing as well. It's complex but the interface is reasonably self explanatory and if you obey a few cardinal rules you'll be just fine. I also vote for Photoshop Elements rather than full-blown Photoshop, because Elements has very nice "starter" modes to enable you to get your feet wet with very little pain (plus it's very powerful in its own right) and then you can move into Photoshop itself if you want, but depending on how much editing you want to do there may not be a need for that. Elements has a much better interface for newbies and it interfaces very nicely with Lightroom. Photoshop can do anything you can think of but the interface can be very intimidating at first.

Lightroom is available either in stand-alone mode or as part of the Adobe subscription package. You can probably pick up Elements 14 for a very good price, or wait until black Friday to get a good deal on the current version (15). Depending how much use you'll make out of these software packages, the $10 a month may be good deal or not. I have stand-alone Lightroom and Elements and I'm fine with that: I'm not a heavy user and I don't always want or need the latest/greatest version.

How much of an improvement is there to Version 2 of Aurora HDR over the original? I have the first version but never really got into it, and am now busy exploring HDR Projects by Franzis. If you join StackSocial, there's a screaming deal on the latter software for anybody who's interested. But that being said, I am interested in hearing people's opinions on the added/upgraded features of Aurora HDR.

I do a lot of traveling with my MacBook Pro and have never had a problem. But don't put it into a suitcase - get a dedicated laptop bag (either backpack or briefcase) and *never* *never* put it into checked luggage! There are a lot of good computer bags out there with a special padded sleeve just for the laptop. Get a good bag and you'll be fine.

I'd go for the biggest, baddest, meanest Mac Book Pro you can get as that will have the oomph to handle any processing task that you throw at it. Yes it's a bit bigger and heavier than the 13" or Mac Book Air, but Photoshop/Lightroom/etc really benefit from a more powerful computer. A good carrying satchel/backpack will minimize the carrying discomfort. Remember to max out the memory as that will make a huge difference in how fast it runs. I'm satisfied with my old-fashioned spinning disk drive but some people swear by the SSD's.

Then, pick up an external (big !!) monitor, mouse and keyboard and you have the best of both worlds: a complete set-up for when you're at home, but you can still pick up your computer and take all your photos and software with you which is handy for both personal trips and also trips to the Genius Bar if anything should happen.

Catherine

You can't build a catalogue *without* importing the images first! No photos, no catalogue ... Look up the difference between the three import options of "move, copy and add". If you already have a file/folder structure that you like just use add. If you're importing directly from a card, use copy. If you're building up a LR catalogue piece by piece in a new structure, use move or copy. Remember that LR will work with literally any organizational structure you can dream up.

I have my top-level folders named by place (/Europe/Germany/Cologne for instance), then I use LR to automatically generate <yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd> folders underneath that top-level. Then I use keywords for stuff like "people, animals, sunsets, cathedrals", etc. But this is just a suggestion that works well for me. Think about how you want to organize your photos and then go from there.

Good luck!

Catherine

Lev29: Yes, "Exporter for Aperture" is what I was referring to. I couldn't do without this, as it allows me to break my Aperture Library up into pieces and re-assemble them into LR in a totally different (and much better) organizational structure. From what I can tell, LR's built-in Aperture-to-LR converter just puts everything into one big folder with subfolders by date. Since I travel a lot and take most of my pictures on trips, I have my library organized by place at the top-level, rather than by date.

Catherine

Give the Mac a bit more time. Once you get used to it, you'll never give Windows a second glance. If you're brave, learn a bit of Unix and tcsh to operate from the command line - now that's real power for you! I would have thought that LR would appear the same on Windows and Macs (never used LR on Windows so no personal experience there).

There are a lot of Mac people on this list who can help out with all things MacOS related. And if you're near an Apple Store take a few "intro to the Mac" classes. They will help get you up to speed very quickly.

Catherine

Lev29: I recommend checking out ApertureExporter available from the App Store. It's proved an indispensable tool in my own Aperture to Lightroom migration. The LR built-in importer is very crude, but ApertureExporter allows you to structure your LR catalogue any way that you like.

Catherine

I disagree. LR is both a gold-star organizer plus a raw editor. To discount its organizational/cataloguing capabilities is to cut yourself off from a lot of its power. Plus the seamless integration with PS/PSE and pretty much every other editing software on the market plays well with LR. I do very little editing of my photos (hopefully that will change one day) but I absolutely depend on LR for keeping everything organized.

Catherine

I agree, "save" is the wrong terminology to use. To be more precise, the link to and preview of the edited image will be added to the LR catalogue so LR therefore "knows" about the edits that were made. The edited image still lives exactly where you told PS/PSE to *save* it. LR doesn't contain your images - it just maintains a database of all the images that have been "imported" to it including previews, keywords and other metadata, and then a link to the actual image itself. This is why it's best for you to do all your work (editing, folder re-organization, file-renaming, etc) from within LR so the catalogue is always current. LR is always the starting point for any photo work.

When you open Photoshop or Elements, are you calling it from Lightroom (right-click, "edit-in") or are you starting PS/PSE indecently without going through LR? I'm not sure of your exact problem, but I'm wondering if the edits are not getting back into LR because LR doesn't know that you're editing the photo to begin with. My advice is to do *everything* through LR. Open up LR, call PS/PSE from LR, and then the edits will automatically get saved back to LR. Apologies if I've totally misunderstood your problem!

I'm using PSE 14 and LR 5.7 and sometimes have difficulties with edited files from PSE not opening up in LR because LR thinks the file is corrupt. In that case, I go back to PSE, and save the file again and that usually fixes the problem. I never close a file in PS/PSE until I'm sure it got back to LR correctly.

Catherine

I'm an old veteran of iPhoto and Aperture and am kicking myself for not moving to LR immediately. Both Aperture/Photos/iPhoto hide the actual internal folder structure from you, whereas it's out in the open with LR, and customizable to boot. I would advise not even looking at Aperture/Photos/iPhoto and moving straight to LR. Now granted there are a few gotcha's to be aware of, but if you follow a few simple rules LR is a far superior product. And almost every 3rd party photo editing program plays well with LR, which I don't think is the case with Photos. LR can be complex but you can take your time and learn it in stages. I suggest reading Victoria Brampton's "LR Quick Start Guide" (free on the internet) to get a quick overview of how LR works.

Catherine

Actually one of the beauties of Lightroom is that it will work with literally *any* organizational system you have. There is no need whatsoever to reorganize your photos for LR. All you need to do is select "add" when importing your photos and it will insert links to all your photos into the catalogue but it will *not* change your folder/file structure at all. I would recommend trying this, as you're missing out on a lot of LR's capabilities by using your workflow.

Catherine

Good to know. I'm running LR 5.7 (I don't make enough use of it to justify the subscription costs) and Mac OS 10.10. Guess I won't be upgrading my OS for a while!

Which email client are you using? I'm using LR 5.7 on a Mac running 10.10 and it (LR) worked fine with Apple Mail but refuses to recognize Outlook 2016. I'm guessing that my version of LR came out before Microsoft renamed Entourage to Outlook. I did a thorough web-scouring and posted on the Adobe support sites but to no avail. I'm hoping that LR 7 will work with Outlook. When is LR 7 due out anyways?

Catherine