Aperture Image Adjustments
2006-08-21
While I wasn't intending to get into adjusting much, it turns out that I am doing more and more of it. I know that the images that are coming out of the camera are not same as the scenes that I took the pictures of, so adjusting it is.
Look at the two versions of the image below. The one on the left is the original and on the right the adjusted version (click on these to view the full-size images in a new window):
It did not take all that long to enhance this image, and the results are definitely worth the time. I'm doing this with JPEG images from a Canon S3 IS and using an iMac G5 running Apples' Aperture program. The G5 is slow at doing adjustments, so believe me, I'm not interested in perfection or in doing much to every image.
The original image looks dull:
It must have looked more interesting than this when I took it, otherwise why bother? The clouds have little detail and the trees are all dark. The sky is pale.
I do all my adjusting with Aperture in full screen mode (F) with the adjustment HUD up (H). I pick a thumbnail and hit F H and I am adjusting. I almost never use 100% view (Z) when adjusting. There is no point looking at pixels.
The first thing I notice in the HUD is that the full dynamic range is not used. There are no pixels in the image that occupy either the dark or light ends of the range, as shown by the histogram curve not reaching the left and right ends of the graph:
So the first adjustment is to tweak the levels at both ends to match the range:
That results in an image with slightly better contrast, but darkens the foreground trees:
So I adjust the exposure a little. I move the Exposure slider up by 0.1 and increase the saturation by 0.2:
Now the image is brighter and the colors better, but the trees are still very dark and the cloud is all washed out. So I add the Highlights and Shadows adjustment by selecting it in the + menu on the HUD (or more conveniently by hitting control H):
Then I adjust the highlights (for the cloud) and the shadows (for the trees) as shown:
The highlights slider selectively applies contrast to the clouds in this image, nicely bringing out the detail. The shadows slider isolates its action to the foreground tress and lightens them. Here is the final result:
There is a set of Advanced settings for Highlights and Shadows, but I have not played with those yet. Also notice that I am not sharpening this image. Sharpening is dependent on how the image is output (or reproduced) and at what size, so that is done on a per-application basis, not on a per-image basis. Aperture automatically sharpens on export anyway.
Look at the two versions of the image below. The one on the left is the original and on the right the adjusted version (click on these to view the full-size images in a new window):
It did not take all that long to enhance this image, and the results are definitely worth the time. I'm doing this with JPEG images from a Canon S3 IS and using an iMac G5 running Apples' Aperture program. The G5 is slow at doing adjustments, so believe me, I'm not interested in perfection or in doing much to every image.
The original image looks dull:
It must have looked more interesting than this when I took it, otherwise why bother? The clouds have little detail and the trees are all dark. The sky is pale.
I do all my adjusting with Aperture in full screen mode (F) with the adjustment HUD up (H). I pick a thumbnail and hit F H and I am adjusting. I almost never use 100% view (Z) when adjusting. There is no point looking at pixels.
The first thing I notice in the HUD is that the full dynamic range is not used. There are no pixels in the image that occupy either the dark or light ends of the range, as shown by the histogram curve not reaching the left and right ends of the graph:
So the first adjustment is to tweak the levels at both ends to match the range:
That results in an image with slightly better contrast, but darkens the foreground trees:
So I adjust the exposure a little. I move the Exposure slider up by 0.1 and increase the saturation by 0.2:
Now the image is brighter and the colors better, but the trees are still very dark and the cloud is all washed out. So I add the Highlights and Shadows adjustment by selecting it in the + menu on the HUD (or more conveniently by hitting control H):
Then I adjust the highlights (for the cloud) and the shadows (for the trees) as shown:
The highlights slider selectively applies contrast to the clouds in this image, nicely bringing out the detail. The shadows slider isolates its action to the foreground tress and lightens them. Here is the final result:
There is a set of Advanced settings for Highlights and Shadows, but I have not played with those yet. Also notice that I am not sharpening this image. Sharpening is dependent on how the image is output (or reproduced) and at what size, so that is done on a per-application basis, not on a per-image basis. Aperture automatically sharpens on export anyway.
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