Photokina: Apple Releases Aperture 1.5

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Photokina: Apple Releases Aperture 1.5

Sep
25

By: switchtoamac at: 11:03 AM on September 25, 2006 | Comments (0)

At a special event today prior to the start of Photokina 2006, Apple Computer announced Aperture 1.5, the latest version of the company's professional all-in-one post production tool for photographers. The new version contains enhancements that photogrpahers will use across the entire workflow process.

Along with a new open flexible library that allows users to store images within the software library or on other disk locations (such as external hard drives or media), Aperture 1.5 integrates seamlessly with Apple's iLife Digital Lifestyle Suite and Apple's iWork productivity software, adds XMP metadata support, and includes powerful new adjustment tools, and an export API that will allow the Aperture workflow to be extended to take advantage of third party applications and services.

Rob Schoeben, Apple’s vice president of Applications Product Marketing states:

“Aperture has given photographers around the globe the confidence to work in exciting new ways,”
“Now with Aperture 1.5, we’ve opened the library and extended the workflow to provide a solution that is as flexible as it is powerful.”

Aperture 1.5 is able to manage and work with RAW, JPEG and TIFF images from today's popular cameras. Aperture 1.5 is incredibly flexible as the new version can now generate previews at various sizes and quality levels. This added flexibility will allow photographers to take those previews along with them as they keep their original images in a safe location.

Other enhancements according to Apple:

"Aperture 1.5 dramatically streamlines the process of adding metadata to photo shoots with new pre-filled IPTC Metadata Presets. Captions, credits and other critical metadata that photographers rely on can be added on import automatically or via a batch process at any point in the workflow. Another major enhancement to metadata support within Aperture is the ability to export RAW images with IPTC data stored in XMP sidecar files for easy use with other applications like Adobe Photoshop and even the ability to generate XMP files automatically through AppleScript®."

"Powerful new adjustment options in Aperture 1.5 include a sophisticated luminance-based Edge Sharpen filter for extremely high-quality sharpening results and a new Color tool that lets photographers tune the hue, saturation and luminance of specific color ranges within each image. Aperture’s popular Loupe magnifier has been dramatically enhanced with a set of onscreen controls, smooth zooming with up to 1600 percent magnification and a new option that enables it to be detached from the cursor while making adjustments. Individual image adjustment settings can now be saved as presets that can be automatically applied through a menu command, so that photographers can quickly and easily make standard adjustments."

"An innovative new export API plug-in architecture in Aperture 1.5 allows third party developers to tap into the expanding Aperture user community with plug-ins that seamlessly connect Aperture’s workflow to complementary applications and services. Plug-ins from industry leading companies, including Getty Images, iStockphoto, Pictage, Flickr, PhotoShelter, DigitalFusion, Soundslides and Connected Flow, will be demonstrated at photokina 2006. These plug-ins will demonstrate a range of printing, publishing and storage workflows that take advantage of this new architecture."

Current Mac owners will be glad to know that Apple has extended support to the all Macs, including the Mac mini. By integrating Aperture with other Apple software, photographers can now edit and take their edited JPEG photographs to iWeb, Keynote, or iDVD. Syncing to an iPod and access via iTunes 7 is also possible. Beyond the Apple integration, Aperture's new export API plug-in architecture will allows photographers the ability to easily share and publish their work.

Aperture 1.5 will be available later this week in English, French, German, and Japanese versions as a free update to current Aperture customers. The update can be downloaded via Apple's Mac OS X Software Update utility. New customers can purchase Aperture 1.5 for a suggested retail price of $299 (US) via the Apple Store, Apple’s retail locations, and via Apple Authorized Resellers.

Apple's Aperture page can be found here. Be sure to view the Aperture Quick Tours (Quicktime 7 required).

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