Post-Picture Processing on a Mac? Which software??

well i could help a little... Adobe makes photoshop and CS4 is the latest version, i think that Adobe also bought LR with in the last 4 years i think.
the problem for me is aperture and LR do all the things you want to do and they are both good software programs. as far as pricing goes... you need to either get a student friend or a friend that is good with computers in that way that is frowned upon by the above listed companies. other wise it looks like adobe Lr is running 300ish and apple aperture is running for 200ish it looks like adobe Lr is currently beta testing a newer version so that may not be the best buy right now.
 
I know CS4 pretty well and was hopping that there might be the similar op system benefit of going with LR, I am assuming that it uses the classic adobe keystrokes that i am already used to, that would be a huge plus.

Only some, but not all. For example, command+z for undo is the same, but command+E is different. Of course with CS4 you can put custom hotkeys but LR still doesn't have this functionality.

Cs4, Lightroom, Photoshop, Aperture,Bridge,elements, Adobe???????? I am lost, can someone make this simple to understand. What company makes what? Adobe makes? Apple makes Aperture? Photoshop makes cs4????

Adobe is a software company. CS4 is the whole "suite" of programs made by Adobe Systems. Photoshop is made by Adobe and it specializes in layers, masking, etc. Lightroom is the "photographer's version" of Photoshop - there is no layers, just quick "paint and adjust". Bridge is Adobe's image browsing software (like ACDSee) It's mostly useless. Sometimes you'll hear "ACR" too and this is Adobe Camera Raw, which is a "raw processor" -simple way to describe it.

Apple Aperture is made by Apple Inc.


I shoot in Raw and need to be able to adjust the white balance, sharpen, crop, brightness, contrast,and convert to jpg 800 x 600. I also need something that just works and is easy to organize the photo's. The software that came with my camera just seems a little off to me, not working fast and has some bugs, although They all might be like this. I don't know thats why I'm asking here. Thank you all that have replied I'm trying to go through it all

I'll make this short and simple... LR will do all of those above.

well i could help a little... Adobe makes photoshop and CS4 is the latest version, i think that Adobe also bought LR with in the last 4 years i think.

Adobe developed LR (not bought)
 
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You should give GIMP a try (as spencers suggested above). It's what I use for all my post-processing. It really is very powerful, and is free! One thing I'm not sure of though, is the Canon DNG import support, which I'm sure is available, but I just haven't used it as I shoot Nikon. It has great Nikon NEF support, though.

I also have Photoshop Elements, but I have the Windows version, so I run it within Parallels, but I still use GIMP. The kids use Elements because that's what they're taught in school. :-)

http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/
 
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