Workflow Software

[MassJester]

Ok, it's official I'm confused.

I've read reviews of various software packages (Aperture, Lightpro and PhotoShop), and I'm not sure how they tie together (or not). My first impression is that they stand alone, but the Lightpro review confused me as the writer discussed that he used them both.

I would be very interested in the opinions of folks that use these (or other) products.

Cheers,

 

[extreme8]

I've never heard of lightpro, could you mean Lighroom?

If so, Lightroom is primarily a RAW converter, although it does work with JPG's as well.
It performs many of the more basic tasks involved in editing, ie; color correction, curve & level adjustments, some sharpening and noise reduction, etc. It does this all non destructively - the changes aren't permenant and you can always get back to your original image.
Once you get your image "in the ballpark" it can be saved as-is or sent to Photoshop for additional edits.

It does lack some of the most sophisticated features of Photoshop like advanced masking, layers, channel adjustments, filters and a whole host of others so it is by no means a Photoshop replacement.

It also lets you catalog, rate, archive & search your photos by keyword if you need that capability.

Basically Lightroom (and Aperture if you're a Mac user) will do the basic adjustments on the average photo, but to do more advanced editing you're gonna need Photoshop or Elements.

Hope I've helped.