How To: Improve a Digital Photograph in Apple's Aperture

Meet Aperture 3.1.1, Apple's powerful photo post-production tool with the Amazing Shrinking Price Tag. First released in 2005 for $500, Aperture is now available in the Mac App Store for a measly $79.99—a price reduction of 83.67%! That means a lot of new buyers and, as a result, a lot of new users.

As a courtesy to those new users, we've poured over our sizable collection of Aperture 3 tutorials and selected one which presents the best general introduction to the program

In this clip, we learn a basic digital photography workflow, one which will enable you to enhance your favorite digital photos with both ease and speed. (Note: To follow along, you will need to have Aperture 3 installed. Learn how to download and install the Mac App Store here.)

The first stop when editing any digital photograph in Aperture 3 is the Adjustments panel (also known as the Adjustments tab).

Here, we can straighten the image, adjust white balance, change exposure settings, tweak levels, alter highlights & shadows, and make enhancements by altering contrast, definition, saturation, vibrancy, sharpness and color settings.

Want to see the effects of your adjustments up close? The Loupe tool, selectable in the upper right corner of the application, makes it easy to view any portion of your image at full size.

Ready to share your image with the world? Export it by right clicking on your photo and selecting Export Version. (If you'd like to make adjustments to the default image exportation presets, select Image Export from the Presets menu under Aperture in the Apple Menu Bar.)

That's it! You're done! Interested to try something a little more advanced? Search WonderHowTo for more great Aperture 3 video tutorials.