4 April 2008 Aperture 2.1
The software I use for photo organization and basic editing, Aperture, recently recently underwent a major upgrade that makes playing with pictures and gadgets (and isn’t that what this is all about?) all the more fun. Aperture 2.0, which came out a little over a month ago, speeds everything up on my computer enormously. I can now zip through libraries of thousands of thumbnails with virtually no lag-time.
Aperture 2.0 also included lots of new image editing capabilities. One of these is vignetting. A vignette is a halo of black around the edges of an image, originally created by lenses that weren’t good enough to create a uniform image circle. Most modern lenses no longer vignette, but ironically we are now adding the effect to our pictures because it helps create a certain mood and draw attention to the central subject.
Here is the effect added in a completely dramatic, over-the-top way. This is almost corny, but it actually fits this image because it gives the impression that you are looking at this gorgeous bird through the same kind of ancient brass telescope Gallileo used.
Here are two more subtle uses below, using original and vignette-ed versions of two photos I’ve posted here recently. In these examples I think it adds to the impact considerably. (In fact, the day I played around with this for the first time I noticed that the photo on the front page of the New York Times website did the same thing, emphasizing a lone Hillary poster in a see of Obama posters. I should have saved it for this post.)
The final picture uses another capability new to Aperture 2.1, namely the ability to make localized changes to saturation, sharpness, brightness, etc. Before you had to export the image to something like Photoshop to do this, which meant I never did it. Here I’ve added some saturation to the girl’s face, the pink cabage behind her, her jacket, and her rollerblades. This, in addition to the soft vignette, completely improves the image compared to the old one.
Finally, here is one earlier post I used the vignette effect on. That’s it. From now I’m keeping my secrets and you’ll have to guess.