Have you ever modified a file and instinctively hit command-S only to realize that you’ve just overwritten your original file? You can’t Undo. You just have to live with the results. If you remembered to backup, you may have another copy of your original. But what you really need is an application that lets you freely experiment with your images while still providing you a built-in safety net. What you really need is Aperture.
With Aperture, you never have to worry about retouching images or trying out different image adjustments because Aperture makes protecting your RAW images job one. Designed to protect your images from the moment they’re imported, Aperture identifies your original images as digital “masters,” and it has built-in safeguards to ensure that you can’t accidentally overwrite or modify them.
In fact, it’s physically impossible to alter a single pixel of a digital master. Instead. Aperture takes a novel and completely nondestructive approach to image editing.
Powerful versioning
To make adjustments to an image, you first create one or more “versions” of the photo. For example, you can create multiple versions of a “master” image with 1/3-stop or in 50-degree color temperature increments. Completely desaturate or apply Sepia to one of the images to see if you like the effect. Or use the built-in quadtone control to modify levels on one or more image “versions.” Though it remains a click away, your digital “master” remains completely unaffected by these experiments.
Indeed, thanks to Aperture’s no-regrets retouching policy, you can experiment freely without fear or concern, creating as many “versions” as you’d like with different exposure settings, image croppings, color temperature modifications, level adjustments, or any combination thereof until you achieve the exact results you’re after. And you don’t have to worry about making a mistake. You can modify or delete any adjustment at any time and with no consequences.
Unlike the duplicate files you need to create in other applications, image “versions” take up virtually no storage space, so you don’t pay an overhead penalty. And Aperture automatically keeps track of all your image versions for you, sequentially numbering them on the fly and connecting them to the “master” image as part of a Stack. How helpful is that?
Essential image adjustment tools
Offering native RAW image editing and breakthrough speed, Aperture puts the most essential adjustment tools at your immediate disposal via either the Adjustments Inspector or the Adjustments Heads-Up Display (HUD).
Using these tools, you can fine-tune exposure; tweak RAW decode settings on an image-by-image basis (or even create a custom, camera-based RAW decode profile); use a Histogram to check and adjust Levels; sample pixel values with the built-in Color Meter; set White Balance; or modify highlights and shadows. If you need to crop, straighten horizons, reduce noise, correct red-eye, or eliminate dust, you’ll find intuitive tools available to you.
In fact, if you use any of the adjustment tools to modify or retouch an image, you can use Aperture’s unique “Lift & Stamp” tool to apply those modifications to any number of additional images. Now, that’s handy.
