One of the things I'm struggling with is images where I've exposed for the highlights (i.e. a partly cloudy sky), and the shadow areas get all blocked up. Aperture's Highlight/Shadow sliders sometimes don't do it justice. PS CS6's Adobe Camera Raw can do a better job opening up the shadows without having them start to wash out.
Outside of flipping those images direct to PS, any suggestions as to what other Aperture tools to use to pull out the shadows, or an optional plugin?
Curves.
You’ll have to learn a little about how curves work in general, but Aperture makes it a little easier than some to work at the Shadow or Highlight end specifically.
Have you tried the Black Point slider in the Exposure brick?
Thomas
Yep…still doesn’t come close.