Image management - fresh start.

Empgamer

Empgamer

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I have a D90 now and a Mac Book (Intel 2 Core Duo / 2.16 Ghz) and a Windows desktop (Dell XPS 600) at home and am looking to start afresh with image management etc. My main interest will be photography and not editing but I would like to be able to do something more sophisticated than just red-eye removal and image tinting etc (e.g. above iPhoto capabilities accepting iPhoto may be enough for a while). I really want to limit myself to two or maybe three applications however. I have iPhoto 8 at the moment.

1) First question - stick to the Mac or use the PC for storage/management etc? I could consider a newer MacBook or even a Mac desktop.

2) Which software combination? iPhoto and Elements 8?

I don't plan on using the bundled Nikon software (Transfer and View NX) as I believe they are considered a little cumbersome.

I have also looked at Adobe Photoshop CS4, Aperture, Lightzone, Lightroom etc etc and cant really decide which will give me the best combination (for what I want, not to become an image processing laboratory).

I figure the Mac Book, networked to my NAS for greater storage and use iPhoto for cataloguing and Elements for the level of editing I want to do. Any thoughts? Anything I may have overlooked? Another combination better?

Any thoughts appreciated.
 
If you only have a reasonable amount of images then what you suggest will probably be fine.

I can't think of a reason for you to shell out several hundered pounds on Lightroom or Aperture.

I've got a number of computers, PC and Mac, and I find it easy to to stick to one type when handling images. ( My PC's are now really redundant). I can't think of any justification to use the XPS for storage really when you have a NAS system.

You may want to consider getting an adapter from apple to run the Dells monitor from the laptop. Gives you a bigger screen for editing.
 
Thanks. I am very much a novice and have used a Canon Ixus 850is in the past. I am not so much a hobby photographer but got the D90 to enable taking better pics in more difficult situations and some wildlife/ancient architecture.

My only concern in overload with trying to master everything at once, indeed iPhoto may be enough for a while. It seems that Lightroom is very good for semi-pros with 1,000s of photos to manage (from what I have read) and many seem to use it with Elements or even CS.

On that basis I'm wondering if Elements might be a good first purchase, adding Lightroom after if I need it at all.

Good idea re the screen adaptor BTW - thanks :thumbs:
 
Provided you have a logical way of finding your pictures, and iPhoto will help with that I would think at this stage Elements is going to be fine. You may never need anything more than that.

Take your time, Don't worry to much at the moment about Post Processing use the tools in iPhoto first then when you feel that you need more, or want more go for Elements.

To be honest iPhoto isn't that bad an image processing tool anyway
 
What do you want to do that can't be done in iPhoto? I only really go into Elements for the really detailed edits that require layers etc, it sounds like that is what you want to avoid.

iPhoto is certainly a good start, but if you want to go into more detailed editing I'd look at Elements, or if you want a bit more raw processing power and automation etc I'd look at Aperture, which is quite similar to iPhoto, but more powerful (and cheaper than Lightroom).
 
Thanks. Think I'll just run with iPhoto for now (not sure if the 2009 upgrade is worth it, or even 2010, I'm sure there'll be one) then see if there is anything I cant do then decide.

Once I decide I suppose I can then download a trial, order it, and just 'register' the trial once the software arrives in hard format.
 
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