I have been cataloging photos for nearly 15 years, starting from very first version of iPhoto mostly by scanning photos, film and negatives  in a Canon and Epson scanner. After that  years I finally felt comfortable with Aperture and had very good way of naming and importing things. I tried  Lightroom on a regular basis, never felt comfortable of using it. I forced myself to use only lightroom for a year, till when I went to Aperture, it felt much easier.  When Apple finally pulled plug on Aperture, tried few software and finally selected the Capture One. Realized Capture One is not perfect, so I found a way to combine all five programs into a workflow that incorporates each of their strength.

Why Use Multiple Software

The answer is simple, each has its strength and we fell comfortable with the one. Only decision

Aperture

All my pictures till the year before are in there, so need to use it for quick view of existing photos. IMHO it still beats the organizing and searching capabilities of Capture One and Lightroom. It’s also much quicker for comparing . For editing it’s ions behind as Apple stopped enhancing it.

Lightroom

Biggest strength is very tight integration with the Photoshop and the camera raw adjustments. No matter how many times I forced myself to use Lightroom I am very disappointed with the slow responsiveness and the lack of easy search and organization. I keep trying every time Adobe releases an update, but always finding it years behind the competition.

Apple Photos

Extremely fast navigation, auto grouping of photos into events, moments, years. The biggest strength available everywhere concept with the iCloud integration and sharing. Not strong enough for advanced edits or strong enough for advanced tagging and search. Started using exclusively for an year, but has to move on, though the plugs in help little bit in editing, lack of organizing, tagging, comparing is too tough.

Capture One

If I can sum it up in one word, it is responsive. More intuitive than Lightroom. Navigation and search can be improved little bit, but the filter is very powerful. I liked many things  better than Lightroom, first being just one place instead of having to switch between develop and library module. Then much easier to create layered brush adjustments. Better keystone correction.

Photoshop

Though I tried doing changes  like cloning without photoshop, certain image edit can only be done photoshop, like Panaroma edits, HDR merge. Or instead of spending few minutes in Photoshop, hours need to be spend in other. Though I don’t know much in photoshop, still the few changes I do nothing beats it. For me it is  for printing, and for selective editing.

Raw Developer, Affinity Photos, DXO Optics…

They have certain strength for certain images, I do occasionally use them

A Image Workflow that uses strength of all the software

I developed a workflow that uses  Capture One as primary, Light room for selected catalogs and book printing, Photoshop for advanced edits and large size prints, Aperture for backward compatibility and Photos for sharing.

Now on to… how I  use multiple applications

Or Like to jump any of the topic.

My Capture One, Lightroom, Photos, Photoshop and Aperture Workflow

Part 1 – Basic Rules

Part 2 – Organizing Convention

Part 3 – Working with the multiple Applications