Apple has rolled out Aperture 2.1, which brings in an open plug-in architecture simplifying the job for photographers to use specialized third party imaging software right from within Aperture. Available right away as a free software update to all existing Aperture 2.0 users, Aperture 2.1 incorporates Dodge & Burn, the Apple-built plug-in that adds brush-based tools for dodge (lighten), burn (darken), contrast, saturation, sharpen and blur.
Furthermore, in the next three months’ time, third party software developers will build up image editing plug-ins for localized editing, filters and effects, noise analysis and reduction, fisheye lens correction and more.
Rob Schoeben, Apple’s vice president of Applications Product Marketing said, “The image quality in Aperture 2 has won over the most demanding photographers.” Adding, “Now, thanks to our open plug-in architecture, users can access an entire industry’s worth of imaging expertise without ever leaving Aperture.”
“To date, maybe two percent of my photographs needed to be touched up outside Aperture,” mentioned John Stanmeyer, founding member of the VII Photo Agency and contributing photographer for Time and National Geographic magazines. “Now that I can dodge and burn right within Aperture’s new plug-in, I can’t imagine when I’ll have to open any other application to tone my images.”
Users can choose from a menu of installed plug-ins and apply specialized imaging operations to either TIFF or RAW images by simply clicking on one or more images within Aperture. At present, Apple is working closely with key developers to bring significant plug-ins to Aperture, which include the following: