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Aperture Book Free Chapter - What Tools Can I Use To Make My Images Better?
NOVEMBER 10, 2012

You can download chapter 6 from the Aperture 3 Portable Genius book. From the intro to Chapter 6, What Tools Can I Use to Make My Images Better?:

Although it’s always wise to take the time to make the best photos possible while shooting, Aperture has a lot of tools that you can use to make your images even better.

By clicking a button, setting a few sliders, or applying a few brushstrokes, you can optimize your shots and add impact without spending excessive amounts of time on your computer.

That way you can make the most of your images and still have time to go about your life!

Excerpted with permission from the publisher, Wiley, from Aperture 3 Portable Genius, 2nd Edition by Josh Anon and Ellen Anon. Copyright © 2012.

Aperture offers a full range of tools to help serious photographers organize and manipulate images and manage workflow. This little guide is packed with hip tips, secrets, and shortcuts that help you get even more functionality from the software. Find out more than you ever knew about vignetting, RAW fine-tuning, Quick Preview mode, Command Editor, and using the integrated iPhoto Browser. Learn new ways to streamline your workflow, get tips on publishing albums online or as customized photo books, and take advantage of many more Genius techniques.

Designed for the Apple enthusiast, this handy, colorful guide is packed with ingenious and innovative tips for getting the most from Aperture 3, and the latest version 3.3. Aperture 3 Portable Genius, 2nd Edition gives you the professional tips and tricks that help you squeeze all the functionality from this cool software.


Perfect Layers Preview For Photoshop Lightroom - Create And Work With Layers In Lightroom - Free Download

onOne Software today introduced the Perfect Layers Public Preview. Perfect Layers gives photographers the ability to easily create and work with layered files in their workflow application of choice. Perfect Layers supports the creation of layered files that can be opened and edited by Adobe Photoshop software and can be used directly from within Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software, Adobe Bridge and, with the shipping version, Apple Aperture.

“The impact Perfect Layers is going to have on photographers using Lightroom makes it a game changer!” said Scott Kelby, Editor-in-Chief of Photoshop User magazine. "This is the must-have plug-in for Lightroom."



Add Layered File Functionality to Lightroom
The ability to have multiple layers in a single file is a great benefit and provides unlimited creative options when enhancing an image. With the Perfect Layers Public Preview, from directly within Lightroom, photographers can create or open layered files. This means photographers can combine multiple images from Lightroom into a single image. They can also open existing Photoshop documents from within Lightroom.

Uses of Perfect Layers include merging two or more exposures of the same scene into a single image and masking in the desired portion of each exposure. Compositing multiple images, such as action shots, becomes a simple task with Perfect Layers. Also with Perfect Layers, Lightroom users can now have access to the power of blending images together with blending modes. Blending layers together is a great way to stylize and enhance a photo as well as to retouch a portrait. Files created with Perfect Layers can be opened by Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements later for additional editing if desired.



Masking Brushes: Control how much of each layer is visible by using the Masking Brush created originally for PhotoTools 2.6 and FocalPoint 2. Similar to using a layer mask, the Masking Brush can be used to reveal or hide selected areas of a layer. The Masking Brush is non-destructive and can even be re- edited with Photoshop.

Blending Modes: Perfect Layers brings the power and creativity of blending modes to Lightroom. Blending modes determine how two layers interact with each other. For example, you can blend a black and white version of an image with a color version to get a very dramatic and stylized look. Perfect Layers includes the following blending modes: Normal; Lighten; Darken; Screen; Multiply; Overlay; Soft Light; Hard Light and Color.

Adjust Layers: The streamlined interface in Perfect Layers contains all the controls needed to size, align and reorder layers. A number of useful blending modes offer the ability to dramatically alter images by changing the brightness, altering the color or even creating special effects. All the adjustments can be easily modified.

Perfect Layers Public Preview allows photographers to start experimenting now with a subset of the features that the complete, shipping version of Perfect Layers will provide. The complete shipping version of Perfect Layers will add more features including:

• Support for Apple Aperture
• The ability to adjust the image/canvas size
• The MaskingBug control from PhotoTools 2.6 to create smooth gradient masks
• Color fill layers and several other new features

As a public preview release, similar to a beta release, the Perfect Layers Public Preview is not indicative of the final performance and quality of the forthcoming complete shipping version. Technical support is not available for the preview release. Users can submit their feedback on this public preview from within the application.

Perfect Layers Preview is available immediately at www.ononesoftware.com/perfectlayers. The shipping version will be available, with additional features, by mid 2011 as a standalone product for $159.95 and as part of the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5. Owners of Plug-In Suite 5 can upgrade to Perfect Photo Suite 5.5, which will include Perfect Layers, at no additional cost. The Perfect Layers Public Preview is a time limited release and will expire on June 30, 2011.

Get 15% Discount At onOne With Our Exclusive Coupon Code
Enter our exclusive discount coupon code - PSSPPT06 - during the checkout process at onOne Software for an instant 15% discount on any onOne product. This includes their amazing Photoshop Plug-In Suite 5.

Apple App Store Selling Aperture For Only $79

You can buy Apple Aperture at the Apple App Store for only $79.99. Aperture includes powerful tools for refining images, showcasing work, and managing massive libraries on a Mac. Enhanced Faces and Places provide new ways to organize images. Nondestructive brushes with built-in edge detection make precision retouching of photographs intuitive and fast. Choose from dozens of built-in adjustment presets, or create your own to give your photos a custom look. Advanced slideshows in Apple Aperture support HD video and give you complete control over text, transitions, and timing. And stunning full-screen views let you use every inch of your Mac display to navigate and browse your entire library.



Apple Aperture 3 - Faces, Places, Brushes
February 01, 2010

Apple has introduced Aperture 3, the next major release of its powerful photo editing and management software, with over 200 new features including Faces, Places and Brushes. Building on the innovative Faces and Places features introduced in iPhoto ’09, Aperture 3 makes it even easier and faster to organize large photo libraries.

Aperture 3 introduces new tools to refine your photos including Brushes for painting image adjustments onto parts of your photo, and Adjustment Presets for applying professional photo effects with just one click. Stunning new slideshows let you share your work by weaving together photos, audio, text and HD video.

Aperture 3 allows you to organize large photo libraries with even more flexibility using Projects and the new Faces and Places. Faces uses face detection and recognition to find and organize your photos by the people in them. You can view faces across your entire photo library or view just the faces that appear in selected projects.

In a new view that speeds up the organization process, Aperture 3 displays faces that have been detected but haven’t yet been named. Places lets you explore your photos based on where they were taken, and like in iPhoto, Places automatically reverse geocodes GPS data into user-friendly locations. In Aperture 3, you can assign locations by dragging-and-dropping photos onto a map or by using location information from GPS enabled cameras, tracking devices or your iPhone photos.



The new Brushes feature allows you to add professional touches to your photos by simply painting effects onto the image. Aperture 3 includes 15 Quick Brushes that perform the most popular tasks like Dodge, Burn, Polarize and Blur, without the complexity of layers or masks. Brushes can automatically detect edges in your images to let you apply or remove effects exactly where you want them. Aperture 3 includes dozens of Adjustment Presets that apply a specific style or look to the entire image with just a click. You can create your own custom presets or explore the techniques of other photographers by importing theirs.

Aperture 3 makes it easy to share your work with stunning slideshows that weave together photos, audio, text and HD video. You can select one of six Apple designed themes or choose your own transitions, background, borders and titles, and even add your own soundtrack. You can export your slideshows directly to iTunes to take with you on your iPhone or iPod touch. You can also share photographs as beautiful prints, create custom-designed hardcover books and publish to online photo sharing sites like Facebook and Flickr, right from Aperture 3.

Aperture 3 is available through the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) and existing Aperture users can upgrade for a suggested retail price of $99 (US). A downloadable 30-day trial version is available. Aperture 3 runs as a 64-bit application on Mac OS X Snow Leopard on Macs with Intel Core 2 Duo processors.

What's New in Aperture 3
Faces - Faces automatically detects faces in your photos. Once a face is detected and identified, Faces can recognize that face and then scan your entire library--or individual projects--to find others just like it. It can even find a specific face in group shots. The more you use Faces, the smarter and more accurate it gets, making it easier to find shots of a particular person.

When Faces shows you an unidentified face, simply type in the person's name. When you export your final images, the name is embedded as a keyword. Aperture 3 expands on the power of Faces in iPhoto '09. Not only can you view the people you name across the entire library, you can now see them in individual projects. And the new Show Unnamed Faces pane displays all the detected-but-not-yet-named faces in a project to help you easily add names.

Places - Now you can use GPS location data to explore your photos by the places they were taken. Better still, find them on an interactive map. If you're shooting with a GPS-enabled camera, Aperture 3 uses reverse geocoding to convert location coordinates into familiar location names, then displays those locations on the Places map. If you're using a separate GPS tracking device, the path of your photo journey appears on the map when you import a track log. You can even extract locations from iPhone tracker apps or your iPhone photos. Which means you can instantly find all your Yellowstone photos, for example, without typing the word "Yellowstone." Photos can be organized by country, state, city, or a point of interest such as Old Faithful or the park visitor center.

If a photo doesn't include GPS metadata, simply drag the photo to the spot on the map where you shot it. A pin appears. Then, when you're searching for photos, use the map's navigation menu to quickly find the location. When you click the pin, Aperture displays all the photos taken there. If you need to change the location of your shot, drag the pin on the map across the street or across the country. The GPS data associated with the photo updates automatically, so you know where your photos are at all times.

Brushes - New nondestructive, edge-aware brushes let you selectively apply powerful adjustments to photos. Brushes let you paint in a wide range of effects to selectively fine-tune your photos. With precise control of the size, softness, and strength of each brush, you can adjust only the parts of the image you want, leaving the rest untouched. For example, you can burn the green of a palm leaf lying on a beach to decrease the exposure and make it darker, without touching the rest of your photo. Or you can dodge just its shadow to increase the exposure and bring out the detail of the sand. No matter how much you change an image, you can always go back to the original.

Never before have so many special effect options been so easy to use. Smooth skin, change the color of the sky, blur the background, sharpen lines, intensify colors, and more. Fifteen Quick Brushes handle the most common touch-up jobs with just a few strokes. Dodge and burn, for example, or add a polarizing effect. Smooth imperfections in skin, reduce saturation, or sharpen detail. All Quick Brushes are easily accessible from the tool strip.

The Detect Edges option helps you make adjustments exactly where you want them. Say your image is of a dark mountain skyline against a red sunset. The brush actually sees the edge of the mountain, so you can brush color into the silhouetted mountain without splashing color into the sky. Or darken the red of the sunset without affecting the mountain. Detect Edges makes retouching easier and saves you time.

Dozens of new adjustment presets give your photos a wide range of looks. In just one click. Ready-to-use Quick Fix adjustment presets sharpen images, pump up vibrancy, perform quick exposure shifts, make easy white balance changes, and recover blown highlights. You can also experiment with a variety of effects, from sepia to cross process color shifts to black-and-white in different contrast grades. Apply any combination of adjustments with a single click. And because adjustments are nondestructive in Aperture 3, another click can remove effects and return your photo to its original state.

How would your photo look in sepia? Or in high-contrast black and white? What if the shot had been taken with a toy camera? Adjustment presets let you apply these effects and others instantly to a single photo or across an entire project. It's easy to see how different adjustment presets will change your image. Move your cursor over the different preset options, and a pop-up window previews the image in each effect as quickly as you can scroll. If you've created just the right look for a photo and want to apply it across a project, Aperture 3 saves you hours of work. Just save your refinements as an adjustment preset and apply it wherever and whenever you like. You can also import adjustment presets created by other Aperture users or export your own to share.

Browse through your entire library in the full-screen Browser, quickly moving from project to project without leaving full-screen view. Make selects and compare them side by side. Zoom from 25 percent to 1000 percent to study details. Even browse your video. All on your brilliant Apple display.

You want to see your photos, not control panels. The Aperture 3 Vanishing HUD feature lets you temporarily hide the Adjustments inspector so you can work on your photos full screen, with nothing in the way. Just select the control you want and hold down the Shift key. Everything but that control melts away, leaving you an unobstructed view of your work. With Aperture 3, browsing through your library becomes a visual feast. Use the Library Path Navigator to instantly move between projects, then view resizable thumbnails using every inch of your screen. Not only is it easier to find what you're looking for, you get a beautiful view of all the great shots you've taken.

Create spectacular multimedia shows with photos, HD video clips, titles, layered soundtracks, and professionally designed themes. If you're moving from iPhoto '09, the slideshows you created with themes such as Snapshot and Shatter are preserved in all their brilliance. Aperture 3 includes all iPhoto themes and two new themes: Watercolor Panels and Photo Edges. Each theme gives you a professionally designed layout, title treatment, and transitions to create a distinctive backdrop for your photos. Choose a theme, drop in some photos and HD video clips, and produce amazing slideshows in seconds.

If your camera records video, you can import it into your library along with your stills and include it in your slideshow. Just drag a video clip into the slideshow as easily as you add a photo. To personalize your slideshow, just add music from your iTunes library (DRM-free only). Then drop in audio clips stored in your Aperture library--voiceovers, narration, or other sounds recorded on location--for a multilayered soundtrack. If you're including video in your slideshow, you can add the audio from the video, too.

Talk about fingertip control. With Aperture 3, you control the pace of your slideshow with the tap of a finger. As you watch the slideshow, press the Return key to determine when each slide begins and ends. As you tap out each slide change, Aperture 3 records your custom timings. When using the Classic and Ken Burns themes, you can add titles anywhere in the slideshow in your choice of font, size, and style. Choose borders and background colors. Scale photos. Even control fades and adjust transition times. You've taken a great shot. Now you're ready to make it even better. Aperture 3 gives you all the tools you need to turn your photography into so much more.

The fun begins even before you finish importing your photos. Double-click thumbnails in the Import window to view images, play videos, and hear audio files before they're fully imported. If you're on a deadline, you can begin adjusting an image even if it's still being copied from your memory card to your Mac. While the files are importing, Aperture 3 grabs data like shutter speed, aperture, lens, and focus points and starts sorting it right away. You can even add your own keywords and automatically apply an adjustment preset on import.

For extra flexibility, Aperture lets you store your images wherever and however you like--directly in Aperture 3, on external drives, or in their original folders. Choose to import RAW and JPEG images together or as separate images so you can work with them individually. And Aperture 3 can automatically back up your master images to a second drive during import.

The popular Faces feature in iPhoto '09 comes to Aperture 3, where it has even more power. As in iPhoto, Faces uses face detection technology to find faces in your photos. Once you identify a person, Faces quickly scans your library, or an individual project, to find more photos of that person. Let's say you want to find photos of the bride's father in the O'Rourke wedding project. Once you've identified his face in one photo, Faces finds other photos he appears to be in. You simply confirm the suggested matches to apply his name to those photos.

There's no easier way to organize photos than with Places. Places converts location data from GPS-enabled cameras and geo-tracker devices into common location names. Then it displays those locations as pins on the Places map. If your camera doesn't capture GPS data, you can assign locations by dragging your photos to the map. Later, when browsing your photos, just click the location pin on the map and all the photos shot there are instantly displayed.

Group your projects by year or organize them in hierarchical folders to bring order to even the largest photo library. Add descriptive keywords, captions, or information such as copyright and contact details to any of your photos. Then use the powerful Aperture search engine to find photos based on almost any criteria. You can even search for photos based on the image adjustments applied to each photo.

Use every inch of your beautiful Apple display to make selects and compare images side by side. Browse your photos at high speed, instantly navigating between projects. When it's time to make selects, use ratings, flags, and color labels to organize your best shots. Use the Loupe to examine detail, or zoom and pan multiple images at once.

Dozens of ready-to-use adjustment presets let you apply professional-style imaging effects to a single photo or across an entire project. Quick Fix presets can take care of common problems including blown highlights and low contrast. Other adjustment presets apply processing techniques and styles, such as a toy or vintage camera look. You can also create your own adjustment presets or import presets from colleagues. And since all adjustments are nondestructive, you can revert back from the changes you make at any time or even restore your original master images.

Nondestructive brushes let you make selective adjustments to specific parts of your image without creating masks or layers. Control brush size, softness, and strength while you dodge and burn or apply effects such as blurring, skin smoothing, and polarization. Fifteen Quick Brushes handle the most common touch-up jobs with a few strokes. Detect Edges makes it easy to retouch areas with greater accuracy--deepening the colors of a mountain range, for instance, while leaving the sky untouched.

Create impressive multimedia slideshows with photos, custom titles, HD videos, and layered soundtracks. It's as easy as dragging your photos and videos into one of the themed slideshow templates in Aperture. If you want a more customized slideshow, you can choose the Classic or Ken Burns theme and control transitions, background and border colors, and the font, size, and style of your titles. Sharing slideshows is simpler, too. Aperture exports your slideshows to iTunes so you can sync them to your iPhone or iPod touch, then share them anywhere.

When you're ready to share your photos, you can send them to Flickr or Facebook with a couple of clicks. Or take advantage of a variety of export plug-ins to upload photos directly to sites including SmugMug, iStockphoto, and PhotoShelter. Because Aperture is integrated with the Mac OS X Media Browser, you can easily include photos from your library in iLife or iWork documents. Or make them "to go" by syncing them to your iPhone, iPod, or Apple TV.

Aperture offers fully integrated MobileMe Gallery support, so you can publish your photos using your MobileMe account. Simply select the photos you want to share and click the MobileMe button. Keep your gallery private, make it public, or share it with select people. Visitors can download JPEG or original RAW files directly from your site and even contribute their own photos to your gallery.

Create and order premium-quality photo books right from Aperture. You have the tools and professional book templates to design books in small, medium, large, and extra-large 13x10-inch formats. Use one of the 11 themed templates, or customize a template by adding, removing, and resizing text and photo boxes to create a one-of-a-kind book. For a professional touch, all hardcover books come with a full-bleed, satin-finish cover with a wraparound dust jacket. Aperture 3 includes two new book themes: Photo Essay, a simple, elegant, photojournalist-style layout; and Journal, which includes scrapbook-style borders and large spreads.

Use either of the new themes to illustrate your photo books with customizable maps, showing the locations of any or all the photos in your book. If it's a book of your travels, you can drop in a map that uses the location data stored with your photos to map your journey. You have many printing options with Aperture 3.

Customize the margins, crop on the fly to match the aspect ratio of your paper, and add borders in custom widths and sizes. Create a sheet of wallet-size prints or passport photos. Take advantage of the color-managed print engine for reliable color rendition. Adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, and sharpness to fine-tune your images. Add metadata to large prints or contact sheets with your choice of font, size, and style. Include watermarks or your own header--including a logo--on every printed sheet. And when your settings are just the way you want, save them as a preset for future prints.

Buy Directly From Adobe's Online Store
Find upgrade options and Creative Suite deals at the Adobe USA Store. See pricing in UK currency at the Adobe United Kingdom Store. Visit the Adobe Special Offers Page to find the latest offers. Get up to 80% off at the Adobe Education Store.

Photoshop CS5 Tutorials & CS5 Resources
See our Photoshop CS5 Resource Center for Free Photoshop CS5 Tutorials, and the upcoming Free Photoshop CS5 Trial Download (check for availability).

Photoshop CS4 Tutorials and Resources
See our Photoshop CS4 Resource Center for Free Photoshop CS4 Tutorials, the Free Photoshop CS4 Trial Download and Free Photoshop CS4 Training.

Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium
Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium combines Adobe InDesign CS4, Photoshop CS4 Extended, Illustrator CS4, Flash CS4 Professional, Dreamweaver CS4, Fireworks CS4, and Acrobat 9 Pro with additional tools and services. Download a free 30 day trial.

New Aperture Site - Inside Aperture
Scott Bourne alerted us that a new site focused exclusively on Apple's Aperture photo application has launched, and will carry a lot of Scott's excellent resources. The site is called Inside Aperture and is operated by computer book publishing giant O'Reilly and is sponsored by Apple.

Here's a little bit more from the site: "O'Reilly Media's Inside Aperture site draws upon community expertise to provide you with tips and real-life experiences from professional shooters who use Apple's premier photo management application to organize, edit, and output their images. This site features weblogs, articles, podcasts, and tutorials — all focused to help you improve your digital photography workflow."

Check Inside Aperture.
For tips and tricks visit Aperture Tricks

New Apple Aperture Book By Ben Long, Orlando Luna
Apple Pro Training Series: Aperture is a new Aperture title from digital photo expert Ben Long. From the book description:

This is the only Apple-certified guide to Aperture, Apple's revolutionary application for managing, editing, and archiving digital photographs! This comprehensive book-DVD combo starts with the basics of image management and takes you step by step all the way through Aperture's powerful photo-editing, image-retouching, proofing, publishing, and archiving features.

It delivers comprehensive training — the equivalent of a two-day course — in one project-based book. You'll learn time-saving techniques for sorting, ranking, and organizing images for use in different jobs, and effective ways to display images for client review, apply metadata, keep your online portfolio up to date automatically, color-manage your workflow from input to final print, and much more. Real-world exercises feature professional photography from a variety of genres, including fashion, sports, wedding, commercial, and portraiture. All the files you need to complete the exercises are included on the DVD.

Buy Apple Pro Training Series: Aperture at Amazon.com (special offer - 37%)

Exclusive onOne Software 15% Instant Discount Coupon

Enter our exclusive discount coupon code - PSSPPT06 - during the checkout process at onOne Software for an instant 15% discount on any onOne product. This includes Genuine Fractals and their amazing Photoshop Plug-In Suite.

onOne Software's Plug-In Suite combines full versions of six essential software tools — Genuine Fractals Print Pro, PhotoTools Pro, PhotoFrame Pro, Mask Pro, PhotoTune and FocalPoint — an affordable combination that includes everything a photographer needs to make their images look their best.

Why do you need plugins? Photoshop is an amazing image editing application that has forever changed graphic design and digital photographic editing, but like any tool, if you don't have time to fully learn it, you can't get the most out of it.

Plugins for Photoshop allow you to either do something that you cannot do with the features included in Photoshop or they allow you to do something easier, faster or better than you could do in Photoshop without the plug-in. Whether it is color correction, resizing, masking or creating an effect, you can find a Photoshop plug-in that can help you be more efficient with your time.

Photoshop Masking Plugin Fluid Mask 3 - Price Drop And Exclusive $20 Instant Discount - Now Only $129

The 4 1/2 out of 5 star review of Fluid Mask 3 at MacWorld begins by saying that this "Photoshop plug-in takes the pain out of extracting backgrounds," and goes on to recommend the latest version, stating that "Fluid Mask 3.0.2 is a very effective tool for separating objects from their backgrounds. It offers a variety of useful features for tackling almost any difficult image, from wispy hair to complex foliage. Online video tutorials and live training sessions help ease the learning curve."

Our friends at Vertus, the makers of Fluid Mask 3 Photoshop Plugin, have set up a special exclusive discount for PhotoshopSupport.com. Buy now for only $129. Just follow this discount link and instantly get $20 off your purchase of Fluid Mask 3.

Fluid Mask 3 is designed for photographers, image editors, graphic designers and all those who take digital image editing seriously. In a streamlined interface and workflow, Fluid Mask 3 instantly shows key edges in the image and provides comprehensive easy to use tools that work with difficult-to-see edges and tricky areas like trees & lattices. Fluid Mask will also preserve all-important edge information for a professional quality cut out. Simply follow this discount link and pay only $129 for Fluid Mask 3.

Nik Software 15% Instant Discount - Exclusive 15% Coupon

Enter our exclusive discount coupon code - NIKPSS - during the checkout process at Nik Software for an instant 15% discount on any Nik Software product. This exclusive discount coupon code can be applied to all the latest Nik Software Photoshop plugins, including Silver Efex Pro, Color Efex Pro, Viveza, Sharpener Pro, and Dfine.

Color Efex Pro 3.0
52 photographic filters with over 250 effects for professional quality images. Completely Original. Completely Indispensable.

Nik Software Color Efex Pro 3.0 filters are the leading photographic filters for digital photography. The award-winning Color Efex Pro 3.0 filters are widely used by many of today's professional photographers around the world to save time and get professional level results. Whether you choose the Complete Edition, Select Edition, or Standard Edition, you’ll get traditional and stylizing filters that offer virtually endless possibilities to enhance and transform images quickly and easily.

Patented U Point technology provides the ultimate control to selectively apply enhancements without the need for any complicated masks, layers or selections. Control color, light and tonality in your images and create unique enhancements with professional results. With 52 filters and over 250 effects found in Color Efex Pro 3.0, you can perform high quality retouching, color correction, and endless creative enhancements to your photographs. Download a free Trial version.

Viveza
The most powerful tool to selectively control color and light in photographic images without the need for complicated selections or layer masks.

Two of the most important factors in creating great photography are color and light. Mastering the art of selectively correcting or enhancing each of these is now possible for every photographer without the need for complicated masks or selections, or expert-level knowledge of Photoshop. Integrating award-winning U Point technology, Viveza is the most powerful and precise tool available to control light and color in photographic images.

U Point powered Color Control Points, placed directly on colors or objects in an image (such as sky, skin, grass, etc.), reveal easy-to-use controls that photographers can use to quickly adjust brightness, contrast or color in a fraction of the time needed by other tools. With Viveza you’ll spend more time shooting photographs and save hours of image editing. Download a free Trial version.

Silver Efex Pro
Complete power and control to create professional quality black and white images in one convenient tool.

Silver Efex Pro from Nik Software is the most powerful tool for creating professional quality black and white images from your photographs. For the first time, all the advanced power and control required for professional results have been brought together in one convenient tool.

Featuring Nik Software’s patented U Point technology to selectively control the tonality and contrast of the image, Silver Efex Pro includes advanced imaging algorithms to protect against unwanted artifacts, a comprehensive collection of emulated black and white film types, a variable toning selector for adding traditional toning techniques, over 20 one-click preset styles, and a state-of-the-art grain reproduction engine that help produce the highest quality black and white images possible from your color images while providing more freedom to experiment. Download a free Trial version to use Silver Efex Pro.

Enter our exclusive discount coupon code - NIKPSS - during the checkout process at Nik Software for an instant 15% discount. This exclusive discount coupon code can be applied to all the latest Nik Software Photoshop plugins, including Silver Efex Pro, Color Efex Pro, Viveza, Sharpener Pro, and Dfine.

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Topaz Labs Photoshop plug-ins are specifically designed to expand a photographer's creative toolbox by harnessing powerful image technology developments.

Photographers everywhere are now taking advantage of the creative exposure effects, artistic simplification, unique edge manipulation, and top-of-the-line noise reduction offered in Topaz products. The Topaz Photoshop Bundle includes the following Topaz plugins:

Topaz Adjust optimizes image exposure, color, and detail strength for stunning image results.

Topaz DeNoise offers a complete noise reduction solution that removes far more noise and preserves far more detail than other solutions.

Topaz Detail gives full control over all aspects of detail manipulation and micro-contrast adjustment without creating any edge artifacts or halos.

Topaz Simplify provides creative simplification, art effects, and line accentuation for easy one-of-a-kind art.

Topaz Clean integrates unique smoothing capabilities with stylized detail manipulation to add refreshing flair to photos.

Topaz ReMask quickly creates detailed masks and extractions from even the most difficult images.

Topaz DeJPEG drastically improves the quality of web images and other compressed photos.

READ ABOUT THE TOPAZ BUNDLE OFFER.

Did You Know You Could Create An Entire Website In Photoshop?
SiteGrinder Photoshop Plugin - Create Websites Instantly

There often seems to be a strict division of labor within the world of web design and development. Creative professionals tend to stick to the Photoshop domain, while those well-versed in scripting are left to the task of implementing their work. Indeed, the two realms are quite different from each other, to which any of us even vaguely familiar with either can easily attest.

Essentially, Photoshop is a no-holds-barred design studio, offering the artist a seemingly endless array of creative options. On the other hand, HTML, CSS, Java and the like follow strict rules of engagement, requiring the developer to take any number of esoteric concerns into consideration in order to ensure that designs are properly displayed on the web.

Turn Photoshop Into A Complete Web Design Tool
SiteGrinder seeks to bridge this gap between design and development. Basically, this program turns Photoshop into an easy-to-use and fully functional web design tool. With SiteGrinder, designers will now have the freedom to totally let their creativity loose and then, without skipping a beat, transfer their designs to the web. Bringing esthetic concerns together with more practical considerations, this program is an amazingly powerful tool that would make a fantastic addition to any web designer's bag of tricks.

Generate Your Web Pages Directly From Photoshop
By generating web pages directly from Photoshop, you'll be able to spend much more time on the creative end of the spectrum, since you'll know right off the bat how well particular designs will translate to the web. No more going back to the Photoshop drawing board after getting a phone call from your development team, telling you that what you had envisioned doesn't have a chance of being displayed on the web. You can immediately visually and interactively test your designs, which permits you to then make changes to either esthetics or functions while it's still relatively early on in the design process.

Pricing and Availability
Mac OS X and Windows versions of the SiteGrinder unlockable demo are available now via download. SiteGrinder can be ordered from Media Lab's online store.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Available At The Adobe Store

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software is the photographer's essential toolbox for managing, adjusting and presenting large volumes of digital photographs. With new enhancements such as dual-monitor support, radical advances in non-destructive localized image correction, and streamlined search capabilities, Photoshop Lightroom is a compelling upgrade that simplifies photography from shoot to finish. Visit the Adobe site to download a free 30 day Photoshop Lightroom trial free download.

As Adobe’s first application to support 64-bit for Mac OS X 10.5 Macintosh computers with Intel processors and Microsoft Windows Vista 64-bit operating systems, Lightroom also provides improved memory performance for dealing with large scale images. Find the latest Lightroom 2 tutorials on our Photoshop Lightroom 2 Tutorials page.

Aperture, Lightroom, Bridge, Photoshop And iPhoto
There are so many different workflows available for digital photographers right now that we decided we would ask Aperture expert Scott Bourne some questions about how he sees the different software coexisting.

You do not seem to be a big fan of Lightroom, but being totally objective, do you see it as going into a different direction than Aperture, or competing head on?
I am not a fan of Lightroom in its present form. And I don't think anyone can honestly say what Lightroom's future direction will be. It's in beta so we don't know which commands, interfaces, functions, etc. will survive the beta period. In my opinion, there's no question that Adobe sees Lightroom as Aperture competition. And that's fine by me. I think the more software we see, the better it will all become. Each company will force the other to get better and better and as photographers we'll all benefit.

What does the drop in Aperture's price from $500 to $300 tell you about the product launch? Are pro photographers the ones who are being stand-offish, or is the price reduction an attempt to get a share of a wider, non-pro user base?
The price drop tells me that I was right when I said Apple's marketing and position of Aperture was all wrong from the start. In my earliest reviews I said I thought it was too expensive. Maybe Apple listened to me for once:)

I am guessing that their sales numbers were below expectations so they reduced the price to open the market. That's just a guess on my part. I have no inside information. As for non-pros using Aperture, even though Apple targeted the program at professionals, it's obvious from the Internet forums that many amateurs were using the program so if they want to buy it, I guess Apple decided to push it more in that arena.

Ben Long Review Of Apple Aperture 1.1
Creativepro.com senior editor Ben Long has written an extensive review of Apple Aperture 1.1. From the intro:

Only five months after releasing Aperture 1.0, Apple's breakthrough new digital photography workflow product, the company has come out with a fairly major update in the form of Aperture 1.1. The free update offers dramatically improved raw conversions, new raw editing tools, a new RGB color sampler, performance improvements, and full compatibility with Apple's new machines with Intel processors. All these improvements, yet Apple has also cut the retail price by $200 to just $299.

Many critics will claim that the many improvements prove that Aperture 1.0 wasn't ready for prime time, but that's unfair. While Version 1 had some rough spots, it was a usable product for many professional photographers. Most importantly, the program has shown many photographers that there's a better way to manage their workflows than the document-centered, destructive editing approach they were used to.

Announcing Aperture Library Spanner
[From creativepro.com] Although Apple's Aperture confines its internal library to a single drive, you can use a little under-the-hood trickery to span the library across multiple volumes. Ben Long has released a simple, free application that performs this trickery for you, allowing you to increase the size of your Aperture Library.

With a single click, the Aperture Library Spanner reconfigures your Aperture library so that it is stored across several currently-mounted volumes. If you later decide you want to return to a normal, single-volume library, you can easily undo the change from within Aperture itself. The Aperture Library Spanner is available for free at Ben Long's Complete Digital Photograph site.

Lynda.com Offers Training For Apple Aperture
(From MacMinute.com) "Lynda.com today announced a new training video for Apple's Aperture photography software. Veteran trainers Scott Bourne and Derrick Story taught the world's first public Aperture class in January at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. Bourne is the publisher of the only Web site exclusively devoted to Aperture, www.aperturetricks.com. Story writes about Aperture and other digital photography-related subjects at www.thedigitalstory.com. Bourne and Story also contribute Aperture-related articles at www.macdevcenter.com. Production on the series starts in March, and the title will be available for sale in the second quarter."

Apple Releases Aperture Update - Bringing Aperture To Version 1.0.1
(12/23/05) Apple has released Aperture 1.0.1 Update — which addresses a number of issues related to reliability and performance. It also delivers improved image export quality and metadata handling. Among the key areas addressed are:

• White balance adjustment accuracy and performance
• Image export quality
• Book and print ordering reliability
• Auto-stacking performance
• Custom paper size handling

The update is recommended for all Aperture users.

New Blog Offers Apple Aperture Help
(12-19-05) Scott Bourne, a professional photographer, author and educator has created ApertureTricks.com to help photographers who are trying to adjust to the new paradigm introduced by Apple. Bourne, who moderates the blog and has created most of its initial content, hopes others in the Aperture community will contribute to help make it a valuable resource site.
"Any time you have a new software program, there's just no way one person can know it all right away," said Bourne. "I want to create a community where people who are interested in Aperture can come and share their thoughts, concerns and tricks for using the software."
Bourne is giving away prizes for the best tricks posted on the blog.
If you submit an Aperture Trick, (which automatically grants them the right to publish it) your name will be entered into a free drawing for a Lensbaby (Nikon or Canon version only). The drawing will be held January 28, 2006.
For more info visit ApertureTricks.com

(12-07-05) Roundup Of Latest Apple Aperture Reviews
From Jennifer Apple: I've found some very different views of Apple's Aperture software surfacing on various websites. If you're pretty sure this software is not for you and need to validate that, you can start with a rather negative Aperture review from Ars Technica. For a review of the review that is full of impassioned responses, read this Aperture thread at Slashdot. (Read the rest of this article on our Reviews & News page.)

(11-29-05) Apple Aperture Support Center Opens
Apple has posted some support documents and manuals for Apple Aperture. There are also some PDFs available for download, including Aperture Getting Started, Late-Breaking News, Frequently Asked Questions, Installing Your Software, Aperture Quick Reference, Ordering Books and Prints, and Photography Fundamentals. On the right side of the page is an Apple Community Discussions area with a link to an Aperture Discussion board.

Apple Aperture - Press Release
First All-in-One Post Production Tool for Photographers

Apple has introduced Aperture, the first all-in-one post production tool that provides everything photographers need after the shoot. Aperture offers an advanced and incredibly fast RAW workflow that makes working with a camera's RAW images as easy as JPEG. Built from the ground up for pros, Aperture features powerful compare and select tools, nondestructive image processing, color managed printing and custom web and book publishing.

"Aperture is to professional photography what Final Cut Pro is to filmmaking," said Rob Schoeben, Apple's vice president of Applications Marketing. "Finally, an innovative post production tool that revolutionizes the pro photo workflow from compare and select to retouching to output."

"Until now, RAW files have taken so long to work with," said Heinz Kluetmeier, renowned sports photographer whose credits include over 100 Sports Illustrated covers. "What amazed me about Aperture is that you can work directly with RAW files, you can loupe and stack them and it's almost instantaneous — I suspect that I'm going to stop shooting JPEGs. Aperture just blew me away." continued...

Read the complete Aperture Press Release.

For more Aperture reviews visit our Aperture News & Reviews page.



Our Aperture Tutorials page contains links to the latest Aperture tutorials and tips and tricks, including 5 very informative Aperture Quick Tours:

In Advanced RAW Format you'll see how Aperture makes RAW as easy as JPEG, and how to work in the native RAW form throughout your workflow.

In Powerful Compare and Select Tools you'll see how to quickly identify "selects" using unique and versatile compare & select tools.

In Versatile Printing and Publishing you'll discover how to create high-quality prints, customized contact sheets, unique bound books, and stunning websites.
 
In Professional Project Management you'll see how to manage thousands of projects: organize flexibly, enjoy deep metadata support, powerful search.

In Nondestructive Image Processing you'll see how native, nondestructive RAW image editing means your digital "masters" remain untouched.

You'll also find some links to pages that describe the power of Aperture with an overview of key features of Aperture. For more tutorials visit our Aperture Tutorials Page.



Find the latest news, reviews and articles about Apple Aperture on our Aperture News & Reviews page.

Read what Rob Galbraith has to say about Aperture. This is an extensive article that is as close as we have right now of a full review of Aperture. Read Rob Galbraith On Apple Aperture - "Bringing Aperture Into Focus".



Apple Pro Training Series: Aperture
This collection of Apple Pro Training tutorials will get you up and running in no time. You’ll learn how to sort, rank, and manage images with unparalleled efficiency; display onscreen proofs and contact sheets in compelling ways for clients; edit and retouch your selected images professionally; publish proofs, portfolios, and final images on the Web and in print; and archive images in a way that’s easy, secure, and intuitive. These hands-on tutorials provide a great overview of an indispensable application for digital photographers.

Find out more about new Aperture books on our Aperture Books Page.


The Photoshop Blog offers the latest Photoshop and Digital Photography news and software updates, tips and tutorials, and random thoughts from graphic artist, digital photographer and Photoshop expert Jennifer Apple.


PHOTO CREDIT: Full moon as seen from the International Space Station.