DXO Vs Lightroom Vs Aperture Vs ?

Hi All,

I am looking to buy one of the above (or something else) to manage the photos taken during my earlier cards project. I am using a Mac BTW.

I have a demo version of Lightroom at the moment, but am wondering if it is worth investigating the other two more? A friend who used to do pro photography recommended DXO, but admitted he had not tried the other two. The obvious advantage of DXO Optics Pro is that it's about half the price of Lightroom. Aperture I have no idea about, but would appreciate any advice.

Thanks

Not sure about DXO or Aperture but they probably have free trials so why not try them out and decide for yourself?

Aperture I find very nice to use and adequately powerful without trying to be a replacement for photoshop, on the downside, it's never been the fastest big of software in the world and it's particularly slow processing NEF raw files off Nikon bodies (so slow that I now convert all my NEF files off the camera into DNGs before importing them). Lightroom seems alright (and a lot of people swear by it) but I've never found it as easy to use myself...