You are here

App: Apple Aperture

When to Use Auto Enhance in Aperture 3.3

Thomas Boyd's picture
August 11, 2012 - 2:00am

Since Aperture 3.3 hit the streets in mid June, I’ve shot and imported over 29,000 images into my Aperture library. Of those, I rated about 2,000 images with one star or above. Of those 2,000 images I made adjustments on just over 540 images.

I’d say for the first few hundred of those adjusted images, I hit Auto Enhance on every single one of them. From that, I learned when it does and when it doesn’t makes sense to apply Auto Enhance.

Overview

In a nutshell, when there are dark areas in a photo you want to remain dark, do NOT apply Auto Enhance. However, if you have an image you want to look clean and bright, Auto Enhance is the place to start. In many cases it’s all you’ll need to do. This is true if the unadjusted image is overly flat as well. Auto Enhance does a very good job of setting a curve that creates nice blacks and contrast as long as there are not large dark areas in the image.

Auto Enhance moves the Shadows slider to the right and opens up the dark areas. It also brightens the rest of the image. Often, this is a desirable effect.

So, when I see an image I know I want to maintain nice dark shadows I won’t hit Auto Enhance; I will instead start with Auto Levels. This will set the black and white points without opening up the shadows.

On the other hand, if I apply Auto Enhance and it’s really close but maybe a little too flat and bright, I’ll experiment with the Mid Contrast slider and see if that creates a little snap and pop to my liking.

If it’s really close, I’ll even back off the Shadows Adjustment which also works very well.

If it’s not close, I’ll undo Auto Enhance and start over with Auto Levels or create my own curves adjustment manually.

Sometimes Auto Enhance is a bit heavy-handed with the Shadows adjustment for my taste.

The details

With every image, the first step for me is getting the overall exposure set where I want it and in many cases, Auto Enhance is a great place to start. It’s also important to recognize when it’s not going to help and then being aware of when to use the other tools to get you where you want to be.

[more]

Share

Pixelmator on Sale $14.99 (75% Off!)

PhotoJoseph's picture
August 10, 2012 - 4:29am

For those who’ve been procrastinating on picking up Pixelmator, the superbly reviewed (4.5 star average for all versions!) alternative to Photoshop that’s normally $59.99 is now just $14.99 on the App Store

Share

Aperture 3.3.2 Available

PhotoJoseph's picture
July 26, 2012 - 3:21am

Another little update has come along with Mountain Lion this morning.

(see update below: The preset installation error has been fixed and the now work again!)

Share

Mountain Lion… Get Ready to Purrrr

PhotoJoseph's picture
July 25, 2012 - 6:57am

(Thanks for the head’s up, Butch)

Mountain Lion will be released tomorrow (25th July, 2012) according to the Apple, as announced in their quarterly earnings call.

Share

Magical Reappearing Keywords Mystery

PhotoJoseph's picture
July 25, 2012 - 3:11am

Reader Matthew London was trying to get to the bottom of a problem where keywords would magically reappear that had been deleted from the keywords HUD (and therefore all images) after doing a database repair or rebuild. After talking to Apple support, it turns out that there is keyword data stored in the Aperture preferences (.plist file) and therefore this should be deleted before a repair or rebuild.

Share

Ongoing Preset Installation Issue

PhotoJoseph's picture
July 21, 2012 - 2:23am

Hi folks, I’m back!

I’m digging into the presets installation issue right now. I thought it was addressed in the Aperture 3.3.1 update, but now I’m seeing that it either wasn’t entirely addressed, or isn’t addressed for everyone. I’m currently running a series of tests to try to get more info about it.

In the meantime if you’ve figured out anything good or bad regarding this topic (other than “it still does’t work”), please share your experience in the comments below.

Share

Aperture 3.3.1 Update

PhotoJoseph's picture
June 30, 2012 - 7:14pm

A little update to Aperture 3.3 has dropped, as Aperture 3.3.1. You can get it from Software Update or the App Store or from here, as usual.

The only fix it lists is “Fixes an issue that in rare cases could cause Aperture to hang or quit unexpectedly when upgrading libraries”, which was definitely an issue reported here by a few users, so that’s good to see.

Share

Pages

You may login with either your assigned username or your e-mail address.
Passwords are case-sensitive - Forgot your password?