New to digital

[socagee girl]

Hello, I am new here and to digital. I have a Nikon D80 and I really love the camera. I am in the market for a laptop with photo software. I have read alot of the threads and I am leaning toward a MacPro. Is the Aperture program good for me to edit and store my pictures?
Please help.
Linda

[Photo-John]

Linda-
I'm not as familiar with the Apple computers. But do you mean the Macbook Pro? If you're really serious about photography, I would recommend a desktop over a laptop. Laptops are definitely more convenient. But the screens don't come close to the accuracy of a good desktop monitor. And for photography, color accuracy is critical.

Aperture is a professional workflow program. It will work very well for managing your photos and some editing. The full version of Photoshop is still the professional standard for image editing, though. Nothing comes close in terms of real power and versatility. But a lot of us use either Adobe Lightroom or Aperture along with Photoshop. Workflow programs like Lightroom and Aperture serve a different purpose than Photoshop. They manage photos, do simple batch processing, and convert RAW files better than Photoshop does. I can't imagine living without Lightroom now.

But if you're just getting started, my recommendation would be to buy the computer and see how the built-in iPhoto program works for you. It might suit you just fine and give you some time to figure out what you really need.

[reverberation]

Photo-John is exactly right, I have a mac and run aperture and photoshop. Aperture does have correction tools and the layout is easy to learn and the tools are relevant, all dealing with corrections that you make most often. The power of aperture is in organizing photographs. Personally, I find i-photo to be useless, but I have been using photoshop since 2.5 so I have always relied on it for editing. Here is what i-photo does: it has an enhance, red eye, and retouch button that appear to be scripts in the first two cases with parameters you can change and a very destructive "retouch" option that appears to be a pen type tool that is activated at the end of your cursor with no explanation of the effect that will be implemented when you press the mouse button and drag it over the picture. It also has an effects and adjust menu next to these three and these two are the really useful menus. Under effects you will find B&W, Sepia, Antique, Fade Color, Boost Color, Matte, Vignette, and Edge Blur buttons that implement each of these effects. The adjust menu includes Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Temperature, Tint, Sharpness, Straighten, and a levels graph all with sliders that change the settings. Any changes implemented are visible immediately and need to be saved with the same name to alter the original file. I guess it is not as bad as I think, I just find photoshop to be a necessity. You could easily get a cheaper pc laptop and a full version of photoshop for the same money as a mac.

[Photo-John]

You could easily get a cheaper pc laptop and a full version of photoshop for the same money as a mac.

Good point. I politely restrained myself. I am not one of the Mac faithful. I do appreciate Apple's work. But I just can't ever bring myself to pay for it. Buying an inexpensive PC, Photoshop Elements, and a monitor profiling setup would be my recommendation. And a desktop - not a laptop.

[socagee girl]

Now I really have some learning to do. My next question is how and what is the best way to get quality prints made from my shots? I have been reading about cibachrome prints but I am not familiar with this process or the expense.
Thank ya'll very much for you help.
Linda

[mwfanelli2]

Now I really have some learning to do. My next question is how and what is the best way to get quality prints made from my shots? I have been reading about cibachrome prints but I am not familiar with this process or the expense.
Thank ya'll very much for you help.
Linda

Cibachrome is the old name for what used to be the gold standard for prints. It has gone the way of the Model-T Ford. I am not sure that Ilford even makes it anymore.

Any of the digital methods, such as LightJet, are much, much better.

[fx101]

Now I really have some learning to do. My next question is how and what is the best way to get quality prints made from my shots? I have been reading about cibachrome prints but I am not familiar with this process or the expense.
Thank ya'll very much for you help.
Linda

Yes, a desktop will be far better than a laptop. I have an iMac, macbook pro and PC and I have to say that even though my "on the road editing" is done on the mac, I prefer Lightroom and Photoshop to Apperture and Photoshop.

Anyhow, unless you are very experienced with profiling, careful photoshop work, and are shooting the best glass available for your camera you aren't going to really notice the improvements of Cibachrome over other methods. Cibachrome is only exposed digitally (rather than from slide film as is the norm) in a few places in the world. Elevator Digital in torronto is one of them. Unless you're selling a large print for a lot of money it's not worth it. Because trust me, it's REALLY REALLY expensive.

For a lot less, you can get what is called a lightjet or chromira print from Calypso Labs, West Coast Imaging, or your local professional photo lab. The Lightjet is a machine that uses red, green, and blue lasers to expose your photo onto real photographic paper. If you want prints that look so close to Cibachromes that even many framers can't tell (and they have really good eyes) have your images exposed to Fuji Crystal Archive Supergloss. This paper is unlike any glossy paper out there. Normally, glossy paper is just shiny. This stuff, like Cibachrome, has a very thick and smooth glass-like upper layer. Look at it straight on and the colours just jump out. The thickness also seems to give images a 3d look.

So then what's a Chromira? Recently, a company developed a product to try to out-do the laser based lightjet. Instead of using lasers, they chose to use LED's. The LED's permit far lower light output, which lets blacks turn out black, greys turn out grey, and lets shadow detail preserve itself. The colours are similar though. I usually buy my prints from West Coast Imaging since they are helpful and usually do a great job with my prints. For a rough estimate an 8x12 is usually around $12, with subsequent prints from that image at a little more than half that.

Don't go out and just buy one. A good print needs proofing, otherwise you just wasted $12+ on a print. A cheap place to proof is at your local walmart/supermarket/target/wherever you shop. Just make sure to sign a print release since I've had them not want to print pictures if they look "too professional". Print your picture there, see if you like how it looks. Tweak it, print it again at your supermarket. Once it turns out how you want, then you can get the good stuff from the lightjet or chromira. FYI, you want at least 200dpi, preferrably 300dpi from your pictures when printed. To find out, take the horizontal pixel dimensions of your image, divide them by the horizontal inch dimension of your target print size. The resulting number is the dpi count at that print size.