“Looks” is a term borrowed from the film color-grading industry. When a “look” is applied to an image, the mood and impression of the image changes dramatically. Think of the most popular movies you’ve ever seen, and how the way they appear on screen is a far departure from reality. However we immediately become accustomed to the look, and it becomes “natural” for that film. A look may even change from scene to scene, as the story moves in and out of dream sequences, flashbacks, or anything else where the viewer needs to understand that reality has shifted.

Applying these types of looks to your still photographs can invoke the same feelings and moods. Making an image dark and cool, bright and warm, undersaturated, over-saturated, or any other unreal or surreal combination of effects will change how the image is perceived. These Preset Packs include a variety of looks, some inspired by pop culture, some just because they look cool. Many of them contain grain effects built into the masks that were impossible to achieve in Aperture on its own—until now.

NOTE: Many of these presets contain textures masks and are compatible only with photos 5616 × 3744 (21.0 megapixel) and smaller.

• Simple Film Look — rich, contrasty and saturated
• Desaturated Film Look — similar to “simple”, but desaturated
• Hard Grain Film Look — similar to “simple”, but with subtle grain pattern embedded
• Dirty Film Look — similar to “desaturated”, but with a heavy grain pattern embedded
• Movie Look: Dry & Yellow — mimicking the look of the popular Hollywood movie that retold Homer’s epic poem “The Odyssey”
• Movie Look: Dark & Green — mimicking the look of the popular Hollywood film where machines turned people into batteries
• Dreamy Look — bright, airy and soft
• Dreamy Look with Edge Blast — similar to “dreamy” with the edges blown out

Don’t forget — each adjustment can, and should be, further modified to suit the photo it’s been applied to — and mostly likely will benefit from some tweaking to get the most out of it! If the default appearance doesn’t work for your photo, hit the sliders and see what happens.

Here are a few examples…

Original photo

Desaturated Film Look

Dark & Green Movie Look