Do you use iPhoto?

[alans17]

We have thousands of pictures and use Lightroom to catalog them all and edit them. Any heavy lifting is done in photoshop. I've got nothing particular against iPhoto except that it's incomplete for my needs. And I don't want to duplicate all my images so I stick with Lightroom and only Lightroom.

Aperture may have been a viable option except I started with Lightroom on the Windows side of things and was able to migrate my entire Lightroom library onto a Mac with no muss or fuss. I would have either had to export all my images or lose my changes, and neither of those was a good potion for me.

 

[gibbie2210]

iPhoto v Apeture .

I like iPhoto when it was first introduced to me, as a relativity new Mac user (3 years) it was a breath of fresh air. I moved on to Aperture which is better for organization and integration with everything else I use. But I still use Photoshop for all my adjustments.
The only flaw iphoto, and aperture has is the inability to veiw photos outwith the application..... having to export them can be both time consuming and a pain.

 

[zonar1982]

Nope, only aperture.

the UI of iPhoto kinda sucks. Even using it on a real mac was a pain. I always felt like they never really innovated the basic UI. It still feels like the very first original iPhoto.
Also plenty of data base errors and lost photo's...

It started to go bad when they introduced faces and places and stuff like that.
Power hungry stuff no one really needs.

You can turn it off in aperture. but not in iphoto...

 

[JRAhlers]

I like Iphoto, but I think there are better programs out there I haven't found (cuz I haven't looked)

 

[mrazster]

I really dislike both iPhoto and Aperture.

For cataloging, library and slides I use ACDSee...and for raw editing and black and white work I use Photoshop.

 

[km389]

Used to use it but then moved to Aperture but now I'm using Lightroom.

The biggest plus iPhoto and Aperture have is that they store all your photos into their own library file. No need to decide on a folder structure because it's done for you.

Really wish Lightroom had that feature.

 

[Madusmaximus]

I use Aperture too and totally agree about Lightroom. It's absolutely abysmal at file organisation with it's folders all over the place in seemingly random order. Typical Adobe lol. Great tool with lots of powerful features, but it's poorly designed (at several levels).

 

[enrobriaffej]

I use iphoto as a picture viewer. Photoshop for heavier editing and pixlemator for various odd tasks. I do like aperture though, if it had a few more controls it could probably replace all three that i use.

 

[DarfWeder]

Well I use iPhoto but only on my MBP and store the images in albums etc, which makes things easier to look up, but I would not mind to have a second index or keywords etc. For instances you could have an 'event' called Carshow, but you may want to also categorise the pictures into 'red cars' or 'convertibles' or whatever. So this is a bit of a drawback in iPhoto for me but for the snapshots made everyday I use it.

Now, when it comes down to get the last bit out of the data, you will find you need to not only start shooting in RAW files instead of (already processed) JPEGs, but also need to get a better piece of software to process the raw image data (basically the data in raw format for RGB red green blue)....

I started with checking out Photoshop but as Lore already said earlier, it's not a simple package (not talking about the 'elements' versions here, but the full blown package). And to me things were made absolutely difficult to follow and understand so I kinda ran into a wall there.

Picasa: just doesn't offer enough (it's been a while I have to admit) for any serious color editing, brightness, blacks, etc... just ain't cutting it.

My tool at the moment is Lightroom 3.4 .I have to say it takes time to get used to the processing flow etc. And I probably still don't use half of the possibilities. But if I want I can recuperate a pretty awful picture that's completely too bright, and adjust the sliders in LR and deepen reds, or blacks, lighten areas, you name it, it is there. Lens correction for most of my lenses are present and 'unbarrel' pictures, and it makes it all a very very powerful package. And yes, I know, it takes time to get good at it.

However LR still lacks a few features but that's nothing Adobe Photoshop Elements can't do. If you're anywhere near serious about some really good editing, you need something like LR. I have not used or tried Aperture. But in all serious editing cases... it also takes a ton of time normally.

 

[mully]

NO ... As a commercial photographer I use Lightroom.... yes it takes a bit of geting used to but it works well with other editing software like Photoshop, Perfect Photo, Nik software. I used to use Aperture and it is quite good but like most things Apple has their finger in I can not rely on it because of the way they handle raw files. iphoto is problematic and avoid it like the plague.