Photo Workflow Software
The tools we've looked at up to this point are primarily editors that manipulate individual items. Another type of photography software is a workflow tool that manages photos in bulk. Two of the best-known photo workflow applications are Apple's Aperture and Adobe's Lightroom. Neither is cheap, but both applications are available for a free 30-day trial. Aperture only runs on a Mac, whereas Lightroom works in a Windows and Mac environment.
Tip
The trial for Aperture can be accessed at http://www.apple.com/aperture/. The trial for Lightroom can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/. Aperture has fairly restrictive requirements for the application, and I could get it working on only one of my machines. Lightroom is more flexible in its machine requirements.
There is ongoing work on an open source, freely downloadable workflow application that goes by the name of blueMarine (found at http://bluemarine.tidalwave.it/). Like GIMP and UFRaw, it will be available on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux and will make a nice companion to these other two pieces. However, the functionality for this tool is very much in an alpha state, and I'd recommend waiting for a more stable product before trying it.
The purpose of workflow software is to manage a group of photos, not specifically edit any individual picture. The software can take photos directly from your digital camera, provide a means with which to review and discard members, adjust the remaining, ...
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