Is it just me, or is Aperture...
I do studio and location shooting. I'm a small fry, though. In studio I control the strobes so exposure is dead on. When I get to Aperture there's like nothing to do! I hit the saturation a click, neutralize my whites (my strobes are warm when powered down and give a red cast), and edge sharpen.
Location work: adjust the white balance by the custom target that I shoot. Hit the saturation. Maybe exaggerate the sky or grass through Color. Edge sharpen.
I'm guessing that good technique helps, but I think the RAW conversion is pretty sharp. ACR gave me trouble with its presets and I have to finesse it (turn off the auto correx and stuff). Turning off the noise reduction (I use a 20D at ISO 100. There's no noise!) in ACR gave me grainy-looking skin. I don't have these problems in Aperture!
I think Aperture is doing very well, and it has seriously cut my post time down. Hooray!
(Just a little encouragement for those of us who actually like and use Aperture)
Scott
iMac Intel Core Duo, Mac OS X (10.4.11)