New adjustment tools

Aperture now has a curves adjustment  tool in professional digital photography. It can punch up colors, put contrast in the right places, and add pop to even the most stubborn of shots. Better yet, Apple’s implementation of it here is brilliant, with the ability to focus in on the shadow part of the range, zoom out to an expanded view, and even create multiple curves adjustments for a single image.

But curves is just the beginning of how Aperture’s adjustments have changed. There are 14 new Quick Brushes tools that let you non-destructively paint in adjustments like Skin Smoothing, Contrast, Halo Reduction, Noise Reduction, etc. In addition, many of the normal adjustments can now be brushed in or out, not just applied globally. This approach is much better than having to round-trip an image into an external editor like Photoshop—adding the Photoshop file to Aperture takes up a lot of disk space, while image edits performed in Aperture are stored as space-saving metadata. A series of preset adjustments (from simple exposure fixes, to sepia filters, to basic cross processing) and the ability for users to make their own presets, is a nice touch for pros and amateurs alike.

Visit the Apple website for full information