Adjustments + Presets = Powerful in Aperture 3
One of the most powerful new additions to Aperture 3 is the new Preset system. In a nutshell, any adjustments (alone or in combination, a big change from Aperture 2) can be saved as a Preset and applied on any other image. But Aperture 3’s designers didn’t just stop at the ability to save Presets, they also added the ability to preview a preset. Here’s how.
Start With An Original Image
This image of a bride during her wedding preparations has a lot of problems with it. The white balance is off and the tonal range is off. Several other shots in the collection are like this as well so I’ll fix this one then make a Preset. I’m going to use the Adjustment HUD (press "H") to bring that up to do this, but you can use the Adjustment sidebar panel as well.
Adjust the White Balance
The White Balance here in the hallway is much better now that we’ve adjusted it a bit so next I’m going to head to Curves to adjust the tonal range.
Adjust Curves
For this image I want to adjust the curve rather radically to bring out the right tone in the dress.
Add Another Adjustment
I’m going to later go in and use an Aperture Quick Brush to go in and blur the background, so I don’t mind the hallway details coming out in this shot, but to show off the Presets, I’m going to go ahead and create a Vignette adjustment here.
Save Preset
From the Presets menu select Save as Preset. These combined adjustments have now been saved as a preset. (And that’s why I didn’t want to do the blur first—if I’d painted a blur on it would have been applied to any image I ran the Preset on.
Name Your Preset
When the Adjustment Presets box appears, create a (preferably memorable) name for your preset then click OK.
Preview Your Preset
This is where the powerful editing comes into to play. Now that you’ve created a Preset you can preview that Preset by clicking on any image and the selecting the name of that Preset—a box will appear to the side of the drop-down showing a (rather large) thumbnail of the adjustment. This makes it much, much easier to see how your preset adjustments are going to look before they’re applied.
Canned Presets
Since you can save any adjustments as a Preset and preview any Preset you can easily create a batch of "looks" to apply to your images. There are a number of "canned" looks already in Aperture 3, including this Cross Process effect.
If you select a preset from the Inspector panel then the adjustment will be applied to only the currently focused image, even in a group selection. (The focused image is the one with the thicker white line around it.) However, if you select Photos>Add Adjustment Preset you can add a preset to any number of images.
Exporting Presets
You can also share presets by exporting and importing them, which you can do from the Action menu (it’s shaped like a gear).
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Author: David Schloss
David Schloss is the director of the Mac Create Network and the Aperture Users Network, a professional photographer, writer, editor and photographic educator who specializes adventure sports, travel and lifestyle photography. Schloss is the author of the books Blue Pixel Personal Photo Coach: Digital Photography Tips from the Trenches and Blue Pixel Guide to Travel Photography: Perfect Photos Every Time. Schloss is the former Technical Editor for Photo District News, a position he held for six years.
One Comment
Chris (8 comments.)
March 16th, 2010
“However, if you select Photos>Add Adjustment Preset you can add a preset to any number of images.”
That little sentence there is a great tip, I was wondering how exactly I could apply a preset to a selection of images