Available today as a free update, Aperture 2.1 includes the Apple-developed plug-in, Dodge & Burn, which adds brush-based tools for dodge (lighten), burn (darken), contrast, saturation, sharpen and blur.
Over the coming months, third party software developers will deliver image editing plug-ins for localized editing, filters and effects, noise analysis and reduction, fisheye lens correction and more, according to Apple.
âThe image quality in Aperture 2 has won over the most demanding photographers,â said Rob Schoeben, Appleâs vice president of Applications Product Marketing. âNow, thanks to our open plug-in architecture, users can access an entire industryâs worth of imaging expertise without ever leaving Aperture.â
By clicking on one or more images within Aperture 2.1, users can choose from a menu of installed plug-ins and apply specialized imaging operations to either TIFF or RAW images. Apple is also working closely with key developers to bring the most requested plug-ins to Aperture such as:
- Nik Softwareâs Viveza plug-in, powered by U Point technology, which provides a powerful, precise and easy way for photographers to selectively control and adjust color and light in their digital images
- PictureCodeâs Noise Ninja plug-in that delivers advanced high ISO noise analysis and reduction
- Digital Film Toolsâ Power Stroke plug-in that features a simple, stroke-based interface to quickly mask and intuitively perform targeted adjustments
- The Tiffen Company's Dfx plug-in that provides an expansive suite of creative filters and effects
- dvGarageâs dpMatte plug-in, which is a high performance chroma key tool for creating seamless composites, and the HDRtoner plug-in that enables the selection of multiple photos to create a single high dynamic range (HDR) image and
- Image Trendsâ plug-ins that include Fisheye-Hemi to quickly and effortlessly correct fisheye lens distortion, ShineOff which automatically removes shine from faces and PearlyWhites that automatically whitens and brightens teeth.
Aperture 2.1 is available immediately as a free software update to current Aperture 2.0 users. Full system requirements and more information on Aperture can be found at here. Information and availability for third party imaging plug-ins can be found here, here and at the Aperture community site AperturePluggedIn.
45 Comments
iPhone wallpapers still look like crap when they are synced from Aperture.
I found the trial version of Aperture 2 horribly slow compared to version 1. Sticking with Adobe.
Will these plugins be free, or paid downloads? I didn't know that companies were building these.
I found the trial version of Aperture 2 horribly slow compared to version 1. Sticking with Adobe.
Strange... Pretty much every reviewer has stated the exact opposite, and from personal experience and the people I know who use it regularly (about 8 of us), we've found the exact same thing. General consensus around the internet has people actually using Aperture 2 now that it's been significantly sped up, as Aperture 1 was unusable for a lot of people... *shrug*
I found the trial version of Aperture 2 horribly slow compared to version 1. Sticking with Adobe.
Odd considering that v2 is supposed to be much quicker than v1. Are you sure it wasn't rebuilding the thumbnail and preview databases while you were testing it out? One of the new (?) things about v2 is that it can now do those things in the background instead of making you wait for it to complete. After importing a large number of photos the interface was definitely sluggish (an a MBP) for a few minutes while building the previews. I've never used v1; but once the previews and thumbs were built, in v2 I couldn't really imagine how the application could be faster than it already is.