Is there an Aperture equivalent for Windows, or do I need to use both Picasa and Lightroom?

Question

As much as I'd like to work with Aperture, my main machine runs Windows (I only have a Macbook, no desktop Mac). For now, I have been using jointly Picasa and Lightroom for my photo management and editing needs.

Picasa, because it watches my photos folder (I have a flat architecture), has an easy interface, it pretty fast, but mainly because it does face recognition (I am insanely in love with this feature in general, being able to show all pictures of grandma and aunt Lily in two clicks is awesome) and uses geotagging to place my photos on a map.

Lightroom, because it allows me to do very fine tuning of my pictures, has great export functionalities and is more enthusiast-oriented in general.

As far as I know, Aperture has all these features that I am looking for in one single program, which would be perfect. Indeed, using Picasa and Lightroom in parallel is a mess, the edits may be lost, and I have to resync Lightroom often.

Do you know if such thing exists for Windows ? Or will I have either to wait for Lightroom to get face recognition and mapping, or to go to Mac ?

Answer 1

I'd concur with the analysis you've done thus far.

Adobe has added people recognition to Photoshop Elements 9; I wouldn't be surprised to see this added to Lightroom in the future.

There is at least one solid plugin for Lightroom to support geotagging although it's a shadow geotag and not injecting it directly into the "main" GPS fields.

While Aperture has these features, it also is a bit lacking in some areas where Lightroom shines - the editing controls aren't as powerful and it doesn't support smart object integration with Photoshop.

For further thoughts on Picasa/Lightroom, check out this question if you haven't already.