An amateur photographer plays with Aperture

Apple's Aperture was certainly designed for the professional photographer. Does that mean talented, eager amateurs can't benefit from using it? Of course not. Using his great educational discount ($249 vs. $499), Tom Bridge at O'Reilly bought himself a copy and really liked what he found. He said that, in contrast to iPhoto's "digital shoebox" feel, Aperture is "...a working photographer's office: full of space, a light table, boxes of slides and all manner of accoutrements."

Starting with a fresh batch of images (he didn't import from iPhoto), Tom did some basic editing, and explored both Aperture's album feature and built-in project manager. His initial reaction: "Immediately, I prefer Aperture [to iPhoto]. iPhoto may run better on my 1.5Ghz Powerbook G4, but when I attach an external display, it's like iPhoto's speed no longer matters, as Aperture was designed from the bottom up to be more useful in a larger space."

It's a good overview, written by an admitted intermediate photographer (read: most of us). Check it out.