Yep, I'll use whichever fits the bill - Aperture for day to day workflow; C1 if I'm really trying to tweak the best out of an image, and very occasionally I'll play around with Lightroom and try and persuade myself to like it...
I bought C1 years ago, and Aperture when I added the Mac. Lightroom is a 'freebie' from having bought RawShooter. Breezebrowser is too clumsy to develop more than a single image at a go, and I've just never played around with ACR/Bridge due to it being an under-performer and buggy in it's early days. Having used Breezebrowser for browsing, I found Photomechanic to not be as fluid...so again use it very little.
What works really depends on how you process images, and in what quantity. While I do one-off shots for uploading to UKNP, most of what I do means I deal with a quantity of shots at once - C1 is king for that, Aperture is a close 2nd, but lacks the background batch processing of C1 (ie the workflow is stopped when you develop a batch in Aperture. In C1 I can carry on working on other images.)
Posted by Sean Bolton on October 5, 2007 at 9:08 AM
Adobe Lightroom for RAW conversion
Breezebrowser for casual browsing and the odd one-off RAW conversion. Breezebrowser is still excellent for rapid viewing and has some good batch processing facilities.
Sean
Posted by Tim Munsey on October 5, 2007 at 9:40 AM
Hi,
Nikon NX for conversion, viewNX for browsing, CS3 final touches.
Tim
Posted by Rob Ashton on October 5, 2007 at 10:33 AM
Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw and occasionally Canon DPP.
Mostly though I use Lightroom but the new Camera Raw does a good job too.
Bibble pro, Nikon Capture NX ,C1, capture4.4.2, viewNX & nikon view 6.2.7 I donot use ARC as its not very good with the NEF & CS2 to finish & save for the web. There is a few others that I have but don't use any more, I use Bibble pro and capture though the most.
Phillip.
Posted by Brian Irving on October 5, 2007 at 11:22 AM
HI paul
Just changed from Aperture to Lightroom, it runs faster it is less cluttered and does everything I want. For unsharp mask I use elements 3 for the mac.
Posted by Tony Anderson on October 5, 2007 at 12:31 PM
Hi Paul
I use lightroom 1.2
the more I use it the better it gets, keep finding new ways to do the same job
maybe i just easily impressed
Tony
Posted by Mark Sisson on October 5, 2007 at 1:18 PM
Capture One for everything - just have a workflow that works now, good quality and pretty efficient too so in an attempt to try to stop spending just for the sake of it have persuaded myself to stick with something I'm more than happy with.
When I'm shooting RAW I'll use Aperture.
If you are finding that you are doing most of your files in large batches with the same settings you should really look to be shooting in Jpeg. It is miles faster to transfer and can be opened in any photo software w/o the need for another step.
As to image quality being better in RAW? I'll concede that there's a slight loss in data, but in any practical application I've ever used a digital photo for I'll be blowed if I can find a difference in the end result.
Most folks that I know who spout that there is a huge difference in image quality between the two then go off and sell prints via Photobox or some other online service
Just my opinion.
Posted by Andy Astbury on October 5, 2007 at 2:55 PM
CapOne+CS3 and Photo Mechanic for viewing RAW only.
Shooting jpeg is fine if that's what you want to do, but if ever you wanted to put images with agencies the majority of them will want 16 bit TIFFs - and you can't make good TIFF's from jpegs.
Jpeg is only an 8bit per chanel image whereas a 16bit TIFF is 16bit per chanel.
Shooting RAW just means you have an awful lot more colour and tonal info in the file than shooting jpeg direct - but it's all a question of 'horses for courses' really - it's just that if your images ever need to go to commercial print then TIFF would be the prefered format.
Posted by Nigel Blake on October 6, 2007 at 11:34 AM
I have used Breezebrowser Pro mainly for a few years, and Bibble Pro, but I have been getting more used to ACR, I now always use CS3 for PP work.
Discussion
15 repliesI'm a Nikon user, and have capture 4.4 but just dont like the UI.
So just interested in what people use.
I bought C1 years ago, and Aperture when I added the Mac. Lightroom is a 'freebie' from having bought RawShooter. Breezebrowser is too clumsy to develop more than a single image at a go, and I've just never played around with ACR/Bridge due to it being an under-performer and buggy in it's early days. Having used Breezebrowser for browsing, I found Photomechanic to not be as fluid...so again use it very little.
What works really depends on how you process images, and in what quantity. While I do one-off shots for uploading to UKNP, most of what I do means I deal with a quantity of shots at once - C1 is king for that, Aperture is a close 2nd, but lacks the background batch processing of C1 (ie the workflow is stopped when you develop a batch in Aperture. In C1 I can carry on working on other images.)
Breezebrowser for casual browsing and the odd one-off RAW conversion. Breezebrowser is still excellent for rapid viewing and has some good batch processing facilities.
Sean
Nikon NX for conversion, viewNX for browsing, CS3 final touches.
Tim
Mostly though I use Lightroom but the new Camera Raw does a good job too.
Rob
Phillip.
Just changed from Aperture to Lightroom, it runs faster it is less cluttered and does everything I want. For unsharp mask I use elements 3 for the mac.
Brian
Alan
I use lightroom 1.2
the more I use it the better it gets, keep finding new ways to do the same job
maybe i just easily impressed
Tony
Mark
If you are finding that you are doing most of your files in large batches with the same settings you should really look to be shooting in Jpeg. It is miles faster to transfer and can be opened in any photo software w/o the need for another step.
As to image quality being better in RAW? I'll concede that there's a slight loss in data, but in any practical application I've ever used a digital photo for I'll be blowed if I can find a difference in the end result.
Most folks that I know who spout that there is a huge difference in image quality between the two then go off and sell prints via Photobox or some other online service
Just my opinion.
Shooting jpeg is fine if that's what you want to do, but if ever you wanted to put images with agencies the majority of them will want 16 bit TIFFs - and you can't make good TIFF's from jpegs.
Jpeg is only an 8bit per chanel image whereas a 16bit TIFF is 16bit per chanel.
Shooting RAW just means you have an awful lot more colour and tonal info in the file than shooting jpeg direct - but it's all a question of 'horses for courses' really - it's just that if your images ever need to go to commercial print then TIFF would be the prefered format.