Using Adjustment Brushes in Apple’s Aperture 3

by Snapper Earl

Posted: September 28, 2011

I am a Mac user. Using  Apple’s Aperture rather than Adobe’s also excellent Lightroom  seems a no brainer for me. Aperture is integrated into all of my apps that need access to image media and is optimized for OSX Lion, which I am happily running now.

I’ll skip the introductions and go right to one of the coolest features in the Adjustments section of Aperture.

Here’s a cornfield that I thought was pretty interesting when I took the shot, but now seems rather flat and lacking in depth. I’ll use some brushwork to punch it up.

Here’s the photo opened in Aperture showing the Adjustments panel.

I’ll select the Color panel, choose the blue square and increase its saturation.

Then click on the little gear symbol on the upper right to get Brush options.

After I select Brush Color In the brush options for Color are revealed, along with the cursor style for the brush, showing its size and area of full and softer application. I could also choose Detect Edges and the brush would only apply in the areas similar to the first application.

I’ll start my brush work and continue to work with color areas that need some help, in this case brightening the faded background.

In the same manner I will edit the border between the corn and the trees to increase the contrast between them, using the Enhance palette and Brushes.

After brushing in my various adjustments, I can go back to the palettes and fine tune my  additions further. Aperture allows me infinite flexibility with non-destructive editing and leaves my master image untouched. When I’m finished I can export the version into whatever application I need…  and voilá, the final enhanced image!