I notice on the App store Aperture is still under £50, that's a bargain compared with the current version of Photoshop or Lightroom.

Are there any people here using it for RAW workflow, mainly to balance colours / WB, sharpen, tweak exposure and contrast etc, before creating final JPEGs? I currently do this in ACR (via Photoshop/Bridge CS3), but am tempted to move to Lightroom now I have a shiny new Mac, however Aperture is far cheaper...

Currently I'm having to convert my RAW CR2 files with the Adobe converter before my version of PS will read them, as annoyingly my older version of ACR doesn't handle my newer RAW files.

I'm not interested in the cataloguing and other features (or anything like the consumer features of iPhoto), more the RAW balancing, sharpening and other RAW stock controls, and if Aperture can cut the mustard...

I use it for that. It seems perfectly serviceable, although I find the interface a little fiddly.

Jon

I use it. I like it a lot.

The UI is a bit fiddly, but you can customise it to within an inch of its life to suit your own workflow. The only bugbear is because Lightroom is supported on both Mac and Windows, there's much more available from blogs and tutorials. That said, there is plenty of stuff for Aperture out there if you look.

And the x404 Photography forum. (8+)

Mark

I am using Aperture on the iMac and Lightroom on my Windows PC.

Aperture is fine, but I prefer Lightroom. I found the price for Aperture was so low, it was a no-brainer for the Mac side, even if I do most of the heavy adjusting on the Windows side now - I mainly use it for sorting out images and cataloguing, before they get uploaded to my Apple TV.

The iMac is a bit too asthmatic for Aperture - the iMac needs about 20 seconds to open Safari, so Aperture gives it a real hammering, which is frustrating; images can take up to 5 seconds to load.

Don't listen to all these Adobe shills.

Aperture requires RAM, at least 3GB (the max on many Intel Macs) or it will grind agonisingly, and a decent size HDD.

UI is awful, but you kind of get used to it. At least lots of customisation is possible, as HK said.

Thanks all for the comments, as soon as I've set my system up and done some proper tests, probably with a trial of Lightroom over the top of my CS3 install, I'll consider it in detail, for the price it's a no brainer, but the resource hog issues do put me off a little, when you've got 16GB of 30MB RAW files to sift through, you need it to be as responsive as possible...

I run 24MB RAW files on 3GB of RAM on my ageing MacBook Pro. I have to say Aperture 3 will run happily enough, where Aperture 2 bogged down really easily. I used to run in fast preview almost all the time when keywording and so on, but now it will run in full preview.

Received wisdom is it's usually better to let Aperture manage the library by copying the files to its own database, rather than referencing the files stored externally. I started out doing the latter, but eventually got myself so confused I caved in and let Ap do its own thing. I do use an external hard drive for the library, but I've not found that a problem. I also let Aperture create a regular backup using the Vault system, so I have at least one backup of my images.

You can also choose to run different libraries if you want. I'll often take another disk with me if I'm on a trip somewhere, with a view to merge the best shots into my main library later on.

Apple gives you some handy tutorials. http://www.apple.com/uk/aperture/how-to/

Oh, and the integration of Aperture with iPhoto and vice versa, and any other application that uses the system Open dialog, is a wonder. I've been able to place images from my Aperture library directly in page layout or web layout programs without exporting the image first. Handy, unless you use CMYK, but who does that any more when it's easier to use an RGB workflow until final PDF output?

Pretty much the same setup here, Aperture 3 with 3GB of RAM and a 1TB HDD in a 2006 dual-core iMac . It struggled with 2GB, but runs fine now.