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Using the New Adjustment Tools in Aperture 2.0, Part Two

by Ellen Anon
03/11/2008

Editor's note -- In this second of two parts, Ellen Anon (Aperture Exposed and Inside Aperture) takes you through the bottom half of the Adjustment palette brick by brick. She picks up with the Enhance brick and continues down through the rest of the palette.

Using the Enhance Brick

The Contrast slider is now part of the Enhance brick, but it works the same as before. Move it to the right to increase contrast throughout the image and to the left to decrease contrast. It works by moving the majority of pixels and making them closer to the midtones (reducing overall contrast) or forcing the pixels closer to the extreme values, increasing contrast.

 

The Definition slider is an extremely effective tool that can give your image that extra “pop" to increase its impact. It adds localized contrast which visually gives the sense of increased detail and sharpness. The effect is similar to using Unsharp Mask in Photoshop with extremely low amounts and high radius settings. At least with nature photographs I'm finding that most images benefit from using this tool. It can be helpful to check your settings while using the Loupe tool set to 100% magnification.

The Saturation slider increases or decreases the saturation of all colors equally. The new Vibrancy slider differentially increases saturation. It's designed to protect some skin tones while increasing the saturation of other colors. In practical terms it has very little effect on yellows and oranges but will increase or decrease the saturation in other colors. If you need more specific control over which colors are affected, use the Color Tool. In the following example, I reduced the Vibrancy to zero just to demonstrate which colors are affected by this slider.

The Tint wheels are unchanged. Use the eyedroppers to neutralize a colorcast in the blacks, midtone grays, and/or whites or manually adjust the values by dragging the circle in the middle of the corresponding color wheel. Double click within the color wheel to return the tint to the default position.

The Levels and Highlight/Shadow tools have not changed. Use them to further refine the tonal adjustments you made in the Exposure brick.

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