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I'm Stayin Home
I suspect that if you’re reading this blog, your use of Photoshop has gone way, way down. Like the friend that moved away, you just don’t get to visit as often and Aperture's growing list of features and plug-in options have given us even less reason to round-trip.
But that’s more than okay, because a few of the following web sites are sure to catapult you back to the safe haven of Aperture.
If you ever saw Conan O’Brien’s “If They Mated” segment, you know what I mean.
There are numerous ethical breaches inspired by Photoshop that are all to common in the visual journalism world and there are also a number of sites out there keeping tabs on when Photoshop goes wrong everywhere else.
One of my favorites is a site called Photoshop Disasters, where a crack crew of loyal viewers, a Photoshop police force if you will, reports on the worst offenders.
And their are no doubt many other sites like this one or this one which will make you proud to do most of your work in Aperture.
And then there are people with way too much time on their hands.
Lastly, just when you think it’s safe not to use Photoshop, Newsweek ignites the fire again by not using it.
You can’t win.
I have seen a big decrease in my photoshop use now I'm fully Aperture. But as brides want certain looks for their pictures I still fall back on actions from Totally Rad and Kevin Kubota for certain pictures. Now if Aperture could access these features I'd sell photoshop tomorrow!
Rock on
Mark
Good news Mark...
With plugins like Nik Color Efex and the upcoming release of OnOnse Software PhotoTools, you will able to either use Kubota's directly in Aperture via OnOne Software Photo Tools and replicate the look of Totally Rads wirth Nik Color Efex within Aperture.
I asked the OnOne Software about inteegrating Totally Rad into PhotoTools and while it is not in their immediate plans, it looked to me that it would be something that they would consider. maybe if we start requesting it...
If you have OnOne Photo Tools and own Kubota's actions, contact Kubota Imaging and they will give you what is needed to integrate all your Kubota actions into Photo Tool and hence, into Aperture.
Just a note to other photographers. It is true that Photoshop has been abused by many shooters even in the press, which is usually unethical. One good place to start is to have a look at the NPPA guidelines on ethics concerning Photoshop. http://www.nppa.org
I have found that if you own Aperture and are proficient with it, the most you need is a copy of Photoshop Elements. It has more local editing capabilities than you will need as a photographer and at 79 euros it's a reasonable addition to your toolbox, while a full version (comparatively overpriced) of photoshop can hardly be justified unless you are an artist doing some heavy image collages or something.
I almost NEVER use photoshop, but when I do (it's usually for layers and text for website gif images) Photoshop Elements is more than enough. With Aperture you can do everything you could do in a traditional darkroom and MUCH more. In my opinion photographers should be working on getting better pictures and not spending all their time manipulating facts. Photography is only as interesting as whatever truth is left in it.