Is Aperture even worth having?

[The Eye in the Sky!]

If I'm getting the Adobe Creative Suite? I've had people recommend it to me but doesn't Photoshop do just as much and more? All I have right now to handle my hundreds of photos is iPhoto... and it isn't that great.

Also, I haven't had Photoshop since CS... but do the newer versions read RAW files? I have a bunch of photos that I hadn't been able to open since I had been shooting in RAW.

[Kid_A]

I'm fairly certain Aperture reads RAW files. The design is amazing, I promise. You can still download a free trial of Aperture from apple.com to check it out. If you're into photography (not just point and shoot, take pictures now and then), it's a phenomenal tool. Try it out for yourself :)

http://www.apple.com/aperture/trial/

[Singin Hobo]

Photoshop CS can open RAW files, you need to download a plug-in update to open quite a few camera/file types, though.

Aperture is a great companion to Photoshop for professional photographers... you can watch a video demo (http://www.apple.com/aperture/quicktours/) of and get a gist of all the great things it can do with large workflows. It's not a replacement for Photoshop and it's specifically useful for large workflows... if you shoot events and stuff like that you can adjust hundreds of photos at once with the push of a button and you're all set.

You can't make major changes or touch-ups, the color adjustments aren't as great... I personally only use it when I have a lot of groups to sift through or when I need to do comparissons.

I'd download the demos of Photoshop CS3, Aperture, and Adobe's photo-management program Lightroom and use those for the demo period to really see how they work. Lightroom and Aperture are complex enough that watching the video tuts are going to be incredibly useful to you to get started... but don't take our word for it, every photographer uses everything to different ends, so you need to find what's best for you... especially when you're talking about $800 programs.

[The Eye in the Sky!]

Oh, sweet, I love the 30 day trials for random things (I have abused the Illustrator CS2 and InDesign CS2 trials for the past six months to finish off college on 6 different computers). I should probably check those out as I have a ton of amateurish shots from my many photo courses and random event shoots that I really need to get organized and fixed up, not to mention a few on my DSLR that I haven't yet imported due to not wanting to use iPhoto.

(I'm basically in a transition period of getting everything organized to present and work with for when I jump into the photography or graphic design field... while working full days doing labor work.)

[Singin Hobo]

Aperture is arranged a lot like iPhoto, but it sucks a little less... it's organization system is like iPhoto for people who aren't retarded.