Since starting to use a mac, I've been using iPhoto to process my photos with some extra Gimp manipulation where necessary.

Richard sent me a link to aperture a while ago, and the other day I spotted Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (still in beta), both of which come with free trials. As one of my new year's resolutions is to do more with my photography, I thought I should investigate and work with them both. So, over the next month, that's exactly what I plan to do.

Initial thoughts: Lightroom is very easy to get going with, the 5 stages in its workflow make sense - Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print and Web. Aperture looks like a comprehensive libary management system, but so far I haven't worked out where to start. First point to Lightroom. Both have histograms to help keep an eye on the exposure of the image after various manipulations. I'm going to try and take the same image and manipulate it in both packages (and also in iPhoto I guess) and see how I get on. I'll try and post updates as I make progress and any decision.