Quick-preview mode is a new version of viewing that allows very speedy scanning through libraries. Faster still is the compare mode, in which you drag several images into the main screen to decide which is the best.

Searching is as advanced as the program’s tagging. You can assign keywords, search via metadata, set ratings, and arrange pictures via the time they were taken. This all makes logging and searching easy and fast. The program now also adds background exporting, so you can export a large number of images out to various file formats while you continue to work with your libraries.

Camera tethering is now included — simply hook up your digital SLR to your Mac via USB or FireWire. Just about every major camera from the past several years is supported. Now when you do your photo shoot, every image pops up on your Mac and is automatically added and archived in your project.

I used this recently during a model shoot. The vibrancy of the outfits was very important, and tracking how the light hit was crucial. Not only was I able to able to view the dynamic range of the shots instantly on my Mac’s screen, I could examine my lighting via the levels in Aperture’s HUD and immediately tweak my setup before the next shot.

For one outfit, the red had to pop. After a few shots, I could see onscreen how it looked, and I realized it needed a bit more. So I amped up the color saturation on the camera, took a few test shots, and could see onscreen the newly vibrant results. Not only that, I needed some versions for black-and-white print. I was able to shoot color while tethered, and back at the computer screen, with one click, the pictures were B&W. I received information from the levels and metadata within Aperture that told me to tweak the camera’s ISO and aperture a bit for a slightly crushed black/white point. This helped me produce a more dramatic monochrome image.

Some of Aperture 2’s biggest advances are found in its new image-processing tools. Of course, it can’t do all that Photoshop can do. But now you have all the cropping, adjusting, and touch-up tools you need without having to step out to a separate image-processing program.

Vibrancy is a new version 2 tool that adds punch to images by adding saturation to colors within the picture that needs it, while protecting parts such as skin tones. Recovery is a slider set that reduces blown-out highlights and stops blacks from crushing out all your grayscale dynamic range. Your level controls are still there for white-and-black points, but Recovery now makes it so easy to adjust unbalanced images.

In fact, you can set the program to highlight cold and hot areas (which display as red and blue pixels), step into the exposure mode and move the recovery and black-point slider, and add a dash of vibrancy and a finishing touch of sharpen. That way, in about 20 seconds, you can perform what previously would have taken dramatically longer as you messed around with level and color controls. Making images look professional — quickly — is something version 2 does very, very well.

Also new in version 2 is the ability to add plug-ins to Aperture. Apple just released the Aperture SDK, and already several companies are developing plug-ins — including Tiffen, dvGarage, Nik Software, and Image Trends. You can check out some of the new plug-ins via a link on the Resources page of the Aperture section of apple.com. Plug-in development for other Apple programs, such as Motion, has been slow but steady. Aperture, on the other hand, could create a wave, because there are so many image tools that users want. In addition, during the course of this review, Apple released Aperture 2.1, a patch that further improves performance. The dedication is clearly there.

Aperture 2 is a fantastic program, but is it a good fit, or even necessary, for media artists who do video and film production? Absolutely. Chances are very good that you have stacks of CDs holding thousands of images. Why not move them all to a hard drive so you can quickly search and sort them? Treat your images the same way you archive and bin-sort your video clips. Plus, Aperture can handle any image file, so you can use it to import all your design elements and logos.

Aperture will probably be most useful for touchups. You might have struggled with Photoshop as you tried to make pictures really pop; Aperture can make it happen in a fraction of the time. It might feel natural to use it as a stock photo-tweaking tool for video/film projects before dragging the images into Adobe After Effects or Apple Motion.

Aperture also has great client display options. You can export a gallery of images to a full website or an animated scrolling web gallery. Tight integration with MobileMe (formerly .Mac) is built in, of course, but you can also use your own server. Select a bunch of images and click on a button, and Aperture creates and uploads a polished and professional web gallery — right to your Mac account, all in the background while you continue to work. Apple has a demo of Aperture 2 on its website, so you can take it for a test drive.

At the new price point, with all the new and improved features and with dramatic advances in speed and usability, Aperture 2 is a fantastic tool that just keeps getting better. It’s a must-have for photographers on the Mac platform, of course, but digital content producers will also find much to love in this new version.

Source

Buy this software here:

http://www.softster.net/P2458/Macintosh_Software/Aperture_v2_1_Mac_OsX.html