While looking around at Aperture tutorials (since it is so cheap, right now) I came across lots of info from people who are real photographers, apparently, that's who Aperture. Who'd a thunk! While that leaves my wallet 80 bucks lighter, I did find something useful
AND inexpensive
AND low-tech! And it just might help some do-it-yourselfer's get started on the "real photographer" career path!
It seems to me that Aperture is a photo 'adjustment' tool rather than an 'image' editor. From the tutorials I saw, the first thing you need is a beautiful picture! Probably one taken with a great camera, saved in RAW and that somehow didn't get the desired white balance/color tint/exposure/etc. perfect. And, perhaps one that needs a slight amount of cropping. If I could take pictures/capture images like the ones in the tutorials, I'd be more than happy with just those!
OTOH, one fellow downloaded 50 odd images that represented an average shooting session. Most of the time, I'm lucky to get three snapshots to work with! And, I'm not above taking parts of a body in one shot and pasting it into one of the other images!!
Sometimes it's impossible to get six people to have their eyes open at the same time!
It is great if I can just get them all to look at the camera at the same time!
Of course, these are not 'candid' shots, more of an archiving project, but everyone is always in a hurry...