Aperture or Photo Shop for RAW stills?

[Dave Partington]

Aperture over photoshop at the moment for one very simple reason. Unless you keep paying the Adobe tax and updating Photoshop it won't be long before you buy a new camera that Photoshop won't open. I'm still on CS3 and it won't open any of the current camera raw files without going via a DNG converter. Aperture opens them all, although you do usually wait a couple of weeks longer for Apple to support new cameras than Adobe - assuming you have the latest Adobe revs.

Also, Aperture will work as your library and provide searchable results - Photoshop won't.

Having said all that - I still use Photoshop for manipulation and post-processing.

[Paul Cronin]

Dave, why would you use Photoshop to manipulate and post process RAW when you have Aperture 3.1.1. It works fantastic and I only bring in full size RAW from the 5D MKII.

[Luc De Wandel]

Of course it's JONES. Typo! She's quite funny and still in perfect shape for her age. John Fogerty was in the same show (see attachment).

I always shoot in AV-mode (aperture priority), with full open aperture and accept whatever shutter time that gives me. I can still get sharp results down to 1/15th of a second. If the subject doesn't move too fast, that is :-)

I also have the 17-40, the older 28-70, two 70-200's (one IS and one without IS, which is the sharper one of the two) and a 300 mm f2,8 (the sharpest photolens Canon ever made). Plus some macro-lenses. But the 24-105 is still my favourite lens, by far. It's only f4, but the IS on it accounts for two stops.

I also have both convertors: 1,4 and 2x. I can advise the 1,4x convertor, but I find the 2x too lossy as far as sharpness is concerned. But perhaps the new type is much better. I hope so.

[Paul Cronin]

I have heard Nora is great on stage. Great shot of John Fogerty, had the chance to see him years ago.

Makes sense in AV mode to control the DOF, as long as you have enough shutter speed. And it looks like you have a nice steady hand to help that along. Must seem easy compared to a moving deck.

I have heard the newer 28-70 is nice and sharp. The new version II of the 70-200 is excellent. And the new 2x converter III is designed really for the new 70-200 so I will go for the 2x once it is out.

[Tony Davies-Patrick]

Originally Posted by Dave Partington

... I'm still on CS3 and it won't open any of the current camera raw files without going via a DNG converter...

I don't see any problem in using any of the earlier Adobe Photoshop CS on the 5D files, right up to the very latest CS5 version. In fact I prefer using the older CS2 for stills. I simply open the images in Canon Zoom Browzer EX to quickly check at 100 % ratio for sharpness throughout the frame, then click "Save as" on all the very best images to Tiff files.
Photoshop works nicely with Tiff files (Tagged Image Format) and is a very quick and efficient workflow that does not affect or degrade the original image with each different adjustment and 'save' to file. If lower resolution Jpegs are needed, I save them directly from from the pre-adjusted Tiff files.