I’m starting out with digital photography as a hobby. In fact I’m just starting out with photo altogether, the digital part it’s just because it’s extremely convenient, and cheap where it needs to be.
I’m on a mac MBP, so for photo editing I could choose between Lightroom and Aperture. I tried both; Aperture more than once and for some strange reason I could never get it to work. Same gear (MBP + external USB drive) and LR just eat my iPhoto collection (without tags or any other iPhoto-related info) while Aperture just crawled along. I had all my iPhoto collection completely reorganized and re-tagged in under two hours while aperture after three could not finish the importing process. After two unsuccesfull attempts, I just gave up.
So it’s LR for me 
Along the way I’ll post any relevant tidbits about my hobby. Today I found that LR (as a pleasant plus) has a way to create, save and export presets and those presets are being actively swapped and posted across the Internet. That’ s really a big plus because in tech-related matters, what’s more important than the features or the price, it’s the ecosystem. The more people use something, the more people network together, ask questions and give answers. Eventually someone provides services and products around that thechnology, and then you’re not alone using something that nobody has ever heard about, but are part of a community. I’m talking about the tools, not the art, of course
Here are some nice spots to find LR related stuff:
I shamefully swiped some of these at Amit Karmakar’s blog: Lightroom Resources
Google for it, and you’ll find thousands more to choose from
** UPDATED Apr 25 **
