The RAW Deal

For all of you who shoot in RAW, there are two programs designed specifically to make working with your photos easier, faster, and more intuitive. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, and Apple Apeture.

Lightroom is available from Adobe. I’ve been using Lightroom since its beta period, and I love it. Editing, sorting, and printing is drop-dead simple.  It runs on my 3 year old laptop, and accomodates screens of all sizes, with is a huge plus. **Lightroom works on both Mac and PC.

Apeture is Apple’s more elitist take on the same concept. While Lightroom will run on pretty much any Mac or PC, Apeture is hardware-hungy and will only run on very specific machines.  I’m told by people who know that while you can use it on smaller setups, Apeture is optimzed for dual-monitor, or very large screen use.
**Apeture works on SOME MACS.
Download the Apeture Compatibility Checker to see if your computer makes the cut. Apple keeps expanding hardware support, but I still can’t run it on my 12″ Powerbook G4.

If anyone has any first-hand experience with Apeture, please put it in the comments. I’m sticking with Lightroom, at least for now.
Happy shooting.

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