Aperture 2, Apple's groundbreaking photo editing and management software, gives photographers powerful tools to manage massive libraries, speed through photo edits, make essential image adjustments, and deliver photos online or in print with ease. Whether you're a professional photographer or a photo enthusiast, Aperture delivers a simple, integrated workfl ow that takes photos from import to output with uncompromising quality every step of the way. With more than 100 new features, Aperture 2 delivers advanced, next-generation RAW image processing, signifi cantly faster image handling, powerful new image adjustment tools, a streamlined interface, and an integrated Mac workflow, making it the ideal workflow tool for people who are passionate about photography.
 Aperture 2, Apple's groundbreaking photo editing and management software, gives photographers powerful tools to manage massive libraries, speed through photo edits, make essential image adjustments, and deliver photos online or in print with ease. |
The Essential Tool from Import to Output
Aperture 2 has been designed to help photographers import, manage, enhance, and deliver photos in a single, integrated workflow that dramatically streamlines every aspect of digital photography.
Import images fast--manage them professionally
Aperture starts its flexible, fast image import the moment you attach a camera or memory card to your Mac. It instantly displays thumbnails of every image and offers streamlined ways to add copyright, keywords, and other metadata during import. You can also import photos from cameras, card readers, memory cards, DVDs, and hard drives, or pull shots directly from iPhoto.
Once the images are in your library, you can organize them logically by using Aperture projects, folders, albums, and Smart Albums. Find images quickly with powerful search tools that let you search by any metadata field or image adjustment. And the flexible and open library system lets you store your images wherever and however you like--directly in Aperture, on external drives, even on a network storage device. The robust file management tools allow you to easily move your original photos to a new storage location at any time, so you'll never run out of space for your library as it continues to grow.
 Find images quickly with powerful search tools that let you search by any metadata field or image adjustment. |
 Aperture adjustment tools help you make your best photos look even better. |
Make selects quickly and easily
After adding hundreds of new photos to your library, Aperture provides the fastest and most efficient way to review them all and pick the very best. Aperture lets you edit photo shoots using tools such as Quick Preview mode for rapid-fire image review and Compare mode for easily evaluating images side by side. With Aperture, you can even zoom and pan multiple images at once for tight comparisons before making a pick.
You can use the stacks feature to automatically group images shot in a sequence, and speed through big projects using keyboard shortcuts to apply ratings and keywords.
The Light Table gives you a freeform space for grouping images visually, letting you resize, overlay, compare, and organize images into comp layouts.
Adjust and enhance images precisely
Aperture adjustment tools help you make your best photos look even better. Aperture takes you far beyond the basics of straightening, cropping, and improving exposure. Powerful toning controls let you correct exposure, fix white balance, set black point, enhance colors, and recover blown highlights and shadow detail. The soft-edged Retouch Brush removes spots, dust, and blemishes precisely. The new Vibrancy and Definition tools let you selectively enhance detail and saturation in specific areas of an image.
Copying adjustments from one image to another is simple using the Lift and Stamp tool, which allows you to batch-process adjustments on multiple images with one click. And because all adjustments are nondestructive, you don't have to worry about damaging your original master images. Aperture never touches them. Aperture's plug-in architecture lets you extend adjustments even further, allowing you to take advantage of third-party plug-ins for additional image editing.
Take the final steps and showcase your best work
Aperture makes it easy to deliver professional photos online or in print. With flexible export options and integrated online and print publishing capabilities built into Aperture, showcasing your work has never been easier.
Flexible export option
Save finished photos as JPEG, TIFF, or PSD. Output at exactly the size and resolution you want, embed ICC color profi les and metadata, and protect your photos with a watermark when you publish. Send photos to colleagues via Mail. Include the photos in iLife or iWork documents, taking advantage of the direct integration of Aperture with iMovie, Keynote, Pages, and other applications. Sync them directly to your iPhone, iPod, or Apple TV. Or use an Aperture export plug-in to send photos to Flickr, SmugMug, Gallery, Zenfolio, or Picasa.
Publish online
Aperture offers fully integrated MobileMe Gallery support, so you can publish a portfolio using your MobileMe account in minutes. Use your password-protected Gallery to deliver photos, letting others download JPEG or original RAW masters directly from your site. With the effortless HTML-based Web Page and Web Journal options of Aperture, photographers have the tools they need for instant, effective web publishing.
Professional-quality books to order
Aperture provides all the tools you need to create custom-designed books in small, medium, and large formats. You can place, resize, rotate, and mask photos, so your book looks exactly the way you want. Hardcover books include a full-bleed, wraparound dust jacket. Choose from eight elegant designed themes, adjust to your own specifications, then place your order--all from within Aperture.
High-quality printing
With new built-in support for 16-bit printing, Aperture lets you produce high-quality prints with smoother gradients and better color fi delity. The new Print dialog also features print sharpening controls for fine-tuning sharpness for print. You can also order traditional lab prints directly from Aperture in a variety of sizes (wallet size to 20 by 30 inches).
 The new Quick Preview mode in Aperture is a lightning-fast way to speed through high-quality image previews, browse and compare photos, and make selects with virtually no lag time. |
Optimized for Speed
With Aperture 2, virtually every photo management task across the workflow is faster, thanks to powerful new preview and search options, a more streamlined user interface, and a more responsive database.
The new Quick Preview mode in Aperture--combined with its unmatched compare and select tools, Loupe, multi-image zooming, and Smart Albums--provides the fastest and most efficient way to edit a photo shoot. Switching between projects, scrolling through thumbnails, and searching for images are all dramatically faster. Exporting images is now a background operation, allowing you to keep working as Aperture renders your finished images. In addition, Aperture significantly improves the performance of certain processor-intensive adjustment tasks such as noise reduction, and Highlights & Shadows.
Quick Preview
The new Quick Preview mode in Aperture is a lightning-fast way to speed through high-quality image previews, browse and compare photos, and make selects with virtually no lag time. Quick Preview simply tells Aperture to load only the preview of each photo when it's selected, rather than decoding and loading the full-size master image. This means photographers can scan through a shoot rapidly, make preliminary selects, and sort photos, edit metadata, and build albums faster than ever. The feature takes advantage of the embedded JPEG previews that are created in-camera by most cameras when shooting RAW images, or uses the preview that Aperture generates after import. Quick Preview is easy to toggle off whenever the full-resolution image is needed (to make image adjustments, for example).
 The revamped database in Aperture 2 is the key to dramatically faster searching and sorting, even when working with very large libraries. |
 Sophisticated Aperture metadata tools make metadata tagging and editing rapid and effortless, at any stage of the workflow, even in full-screen mode. |
 The visual keyboard interface for the Command Editor makes it easy to modify shortcut keys or create new ones. |
Faster and More Powerful Searches
Rebuilt from the ground up, the revamped database in Aperture 2 is the key to dramatically faster searching and sorting, even when working with very large libraries. Powerful new search features, unavailable elsewhere, include the ability to search for images by adjustment (find all black-and-white images, for example) and to perform complex searches based on any combination of metadata fields. This gives photographers incredible flexibility in sorting their libraries, allowing them to quickly locate any images that have had a specific filter, adjustment, or metadata tag applied to them.
Advanced Metadata Support
Sophisticated Aperture metadata tools make metadata tagging and editing rapid and effortless, at any stage of the workflow, even in full-screen mode. New features include the ability to embed IPTC metadata directly into master RAW files on export. And photographers can now precisely adjust the time and date stamps of images by a specific off set, to easily correct in-camera errors or to sync multicamera shoots.
Background Export
Aperture now exports images in the background, so photographers can continue their work uninterrupted while their final images are rendered and exported--an enormous time-saver. Clicking the Activity indicator in the Viewer toolbar opens the Activity window, which provides the status of all background operations in progress.
Customizable Keyboard Shortcuts
Aperture speeds tasks even more by letting photographers create their own keyboard shortcuts. The visual keyboard interface for the Command Editor makes it easy to modify shortcut keys or create new ones. And the ability to save an unlimited number of shortcut sets for diff erent users or tasks, and to easily switch between shortcut sets, means that multiple users can work in the way that's most efficient for them. The Command Editor can also be used to look up existing keyboard shortcuts.
Faster Navigation and Scrolling
Major database improvements and a revamped thumbnail browser optimized for speed provide dramatically improved performance across the workflow. Photographers will notice incredibly fast thumbnail browsing and scrolling, minimal load time when switching between projects, as well as performance improvements when applying certain processor-intensive adjustments such as Noise Reduction and Highlights & Shadows.
Tethered Camera Support
The new Tether command in Aperture lets users of popular Nikon and Canon digital SLRs tether their cameras to a Mac and capture images directly into Aperture without relying on third-party software or scripting. It's easy to set up and provides studio photographers with immediate, full-screen feedback while they shoot.
 The Show iPhoto Library command makes it easy to browse your entire iPhoto library from right within Aperture, and drag selected iPhoto images--or even entire albums or projects--into Aperture projects. |
Intuitive and Accessible
No other professional workflow application offers the ease and depth of Aperture photo management and editing tools, including a streamlined interface that's easy to navigate and puts tools where you need them. The new, all-in-one Inspector makes it easier than ever to work effi ciently in Full Screen mode, while the simplifi ed browser lets you scan through photos and switch between viewing modes more efficiently. The innovative All Projects view gives photographers a quick visual overview of their entire library. And to help Aperture newcomers get up to speed fast, Aperture ships with a set of useful sample projects and 50 online video tutorials.
Streamlined User Interface
The simplified user interface of Aperture is more intuitive and makes it easier to switch between viewing modes, so that your workspace is always optimized for the task at hand. A new Hide Browser option gives you maximum screen real estate for images, books, web pages, and light tables. You can cycle through the three remaining viewing modes--Viewer Only, Browser Only, and split Viewer/Browser--with a single keystroke for maximum efficiency. And the new Filmstrip view in the browser makes shuttling through thumbnails of large photo projects easier than ever.
All-in-One Inspector
The new consolidated Inspector brings together the Projects, Metadata, and Adjustments Inspectors into one tabbed panel, maximizing screen space and making it easy to work effi ciently in Full Screen mode. You can switch to the panel you need with a single keystroke and stay in Full Screen mode while you add and edit metadata, switch between projects, and apply corrections and adjustments.
Innovative Project Skimming
In the new All Projects view, each Aperture project appears as a single thumbnail image--similar to the Events view in iPhoto--for easy visual skimming of all the projects in your library. You can slide your mouse pointer across a project to quickly skim the photos inside, defi ne a Key Photo for each project to serve as the "poster" image, and double-click a thumbnail to instantly open a project and go directly to the selected image.
iPhoto Browser
Aperture also makes it easier for iPhoto users to dive in and get great results with their images. The Show iPhoto Library command makes it easy to browse your entire iPhoto Library from right within Aperture, and drag selected iPhoto images--or even entire albums or projects--into Aperture projects.
 The simplified user interface of Aperture is more intuitive and makes it easier to switch between viewing modes, so that your workspace is always optimized for the task at hand. |
 Switch to the panel you need with a single keystroke, and stay in Full Screen mode while you add and edit metadata, switch between projects, and apply corrections and adjustments. |
 A true soft-edged brush tool, the new Retouch Brush removes blemishes, dust spots, or other unwanted elements with precision. |
Sample Projects
Aperture ships with four complete sample projects of professional images--including full-resolution RAW files--that are perfect for experimentation and learning. Some of the projects include adjusted images to help you understand how the adjustment and enhancement tools can be used most effectively. In addition, the projects include sample books, web pages, Light Tables, albums, and Smart Albums, so you can explore your output options by experimenting with these ready-made professional examples.
Online Video Tutorials
Aperture includes a direct link to 50 video tutorials, each focused on a specific task in the Aperture workflow--from importing photos to making final prints. With nearly two full hours of video content, the targeted tutorials bring newcomers up to speed fast and help existing Aperture users get the most out of the new features.
 Aperture introduces an unparalleled level of quality to RAW image handling, with an all-new RAW decode engine that delivers superior images with less noise, better detail, powerful highlight recovery, and improved color rendering. |
Powerful Image Processing
Aperture provides all the essential tools that photographers need to get the highest quality out of their images, whether shooting RAW or JPEG. The application has been built around an all-new RAW processing engine that delivers remarkable quality that can be further enhanced with an arsenal of simple but powerful adjustment tools. These new image adjustment and enhancement tools give photographers what they need to correct exposure, adjust tone, and refine images in more precise and powerful ways, all nondestructively. For even more control, innovative RAW fine-tuning controls let photographers perfect their renders on an image-by-image basis. Opening up even more possibilities is the new Image Editing Plug-in Architecture that makes it easy for photographers to use specialized third-party imaging software from developers like Nik Software and PictureCode, right from within Aperture.
Next-Generation RAW Image Processing
Aperture introduces an unparalleled level of quality to RAW image handling, with an all-new RAW decode engine that delivers superior images with less noise, better detail, powerful highlight recovery, and improved color rendering. You can selectively migrate existing images from the 1.x to 2.0 RAW decode, so you control which images in your library are re-rendered. Aperture supports 100 different RAW formats from today's leading cameras--including Adobe's DNG format--plus JPEG, TIFF, and PSD files. And the new Baseline DNG support means that even users of cameras with RAW formats not natively supported in Mac OS X can work with their images in Aperture.
Highlight Recovery and Black Point
Powerful new tools let you correct exposure and enhance images with precision, giving you a wider range of artistic control over how your images are rendered, and rescuing previously unsalvageable highlight and shadow detail. The new Recovery slider off ers remarkably effective recovery of "blown" highlights. A new Black Point slider on the Exposure brick speeds up toning, making it easier to set a black point and adjust the shadow areas of an image independently from the midtones and highlights.
Vibrancy and Definition
Two new adjustments add remarkable detail and punch to your images. Vibrancy applies saturation selectively to unsaturated hues only and protects skin tones for more pleasing and realistic results. Definition adds superb clarity by applying local contrast to images to accentuate detail.
Vignette and Devignette
The new Vignette filter lets you apply either gamma- or exposure-based vignettes around the edges of your images for artistic effect. Exposure vignettes simulate lens-created vignetting by reducing exposure at the edges of an image. Gamma vignettes apply a gamma adjustment to pixels in the vignette area, resulting in a more pronounced effect. Devignette lets you easily correct existing vignetting problems, removing unwanted optical vignetting where dark or shadowed areas appear at the periphery of images.
Retouch Brush
A true soft-edged brush tool, the new Retouch Brush removes blemishes, dust spots, or other unwanted elements with precision. You can specify the brush softness and opacity for precise control over the desired effect. A Detect Edges option helps you preserve image detail when repairing spots adjacent to hard edges. In Clone mode, you can easily clone pixels from one portion of an image and paint them over problem areas to make perfect visual repairs with multiple undos.
RAW Fine-Tuning
An expanded set of RAW fine-tuning controls give photographers even more control over tuning Apple's RAW decode on an image-by-image basis. Hue Boost, which lets you control the degree to which hues are preserved when the default tonal response curve is applied, can be particularly useful when rendering saturated highlights such as sunsets. The Moire control reduces unwanted color fringing and patterning that can sometimes appear in RAW images due to a moire effect.
Highlight Hot and Cold Pixels
Highlight Hot and Cold Pixels is a new overlay option that makes it easy to see exactly which pixels in an image are completely white or black, so you can adjust tones and set a perfect black point. Aperture also includes out-of-range pixel overlays, which can be invoked on the fly by holding down the Command key while using the Exposure, Levels, Recovery, and Black Point tools. Photographers can choose between Color or Monochrome overlays.
Customized Default Adjustment Set
You can now specify which adjustments appear by default in the Adjustments Inspector/HUD. Include only the tools you use most frequently to save time setting up adjustments. This customized default adjustment set helps reduce screen clutter and makes navigating through adjustments faster and easier.
Plug-in Architecture
The open plug-in architecture in Aperture makes it easy for photographers to use specialized third-party image editing plug-ins for localized editing, filters and effects, noise analysis and reduction, fisheye lens correction, and more. By selecting one or more images within Aperture, you can choose from a menu of installed plug-ins and apply specialized imaging operations to either TIFF or RAW images. Apple is working with key developers to bring the most requested plug-ins to Aperture, such as Nik Software, PictureCode, Digital Film Tools, The Tiffen Company, dvGarage, and Image Trends.
Aperture 2.1 includes Dodge & Burn, a sample plug-in developed by Apple, that adds brush-based tools for dodge (lighten), burn (darken), contrast, saturation, sharpen, and blur. You can set the brush size, the softness of the effect, and the strength of the effect produced by the brush.
 New integration with .Mac Web Gallery means photos can be published from Aperture to a password-protected photo web gallery on .Mac with just a few clicks. |
Enhanced Output
This seamless integration of Aperture with the rest of the Mac platform makes it a complete output solution. With built-in support for 16-bit printing and integrated print sharpening, Aperture produces superior-quality prints more easily than ever. Plus, the expanded book features let you design and publish one-of-a-kind, professional books with new sizes, themes, finishes, and layout tools. And Aperture gives photographers the tools they need for instant, effective web publishing, as well as essential access to their portfolios on their iPhone, iPod, or Apple TV.
Publishing to .Mac Web Gallery
New integration with MobileMe Gallery means photos can be published from Aperture to a password-protected photo gallery on MobileMe with just a few clicks. Visitors can view photos, download high-quality JPEG images or even RAW master files, and post their own images from any computer on any platform. One-click syncing makes it easy to keep published web albums completely up to date. When combined with the effortless HTML-based Web Page and Web Journal options that Aperture offers, photographers have the tools they need for instant, effective web publishing.
16-Bit Print Support
Aperture produces superior-quality print output more easily than ever. Built-in support for 16-bit printer drivers from leading manufacturers means high-quality print output with smoother gradients and better color fidelity. And integrated print sharpening lets you dial in the exact amount of sharpening your printer needs, giving you sharper prints with more detail.
Custom Book Options
Aperture has expanded its photo book layout tools to make it easier to create one-of-a-kind photo books, professionally printed and bound by Apple and delivered to your door. Choose from eight professionally designed layout themes--two of which are new--as a starting point, but make the book your own by customizing the layout and adding your own borders to photo and text boxes. Books are available in three different sizes. New finishing options include foil-stamped hardcovers and dust jackets. Publishing your images as high-quality books was never easier.
