Aperture (software)
Aperture is a discontinued image organizer, once developed by Apple Inc. for the macOS operating system, first released in 2005, which was available from the Mac App Store. The software handles a number of tasks common in post-production work such as importing and organizing image files, applying corrective adjustments, displaying slideshows, and printing photographs.
Features of Aperture include non-destructive editing; organization of photographs by keyword, faces, and places ; brushes for applying effects ; and exporting to Flickr, Facebook, SmugMug, and iCloud.
On June 2, 2014, Apple announced Photos as a replacement for Aperture and iPhoto. Aperture 3.6, a final update adding compatibility with OS X Yosemite, was released on October 16, 2014. Aperture was discontinued and removed from sale on April 8, 2015. Mojave is the last version of macOS to run Aperture.
Features
- Complete raw image format support from import to export.
- Supports tethered shooting from Nikon and Canon DSLRs.
- Master image files may be kept in place on import or migrated into the Aperture library.
- Raw Fine Tuning, allowing versions of raw decode to be managed over time and conversion parameters adjusted.
- Many image adjustment tools including specific color retouching, a luminance based edge sharpener, and spot repair.
- Lens correction tools, such as chromatic aberration.
- Project management, with extensive metadata and searching support.
- Autostacking, a way to group photos based on the time between shutter clicks.
- Stacks and Versions.
- Multiple display spanning.
- Loupe, allowing viewing of images at zooms from 50% to 1600%.
- Light Table, a type of freeform workspace.
- Native support of the Adobe Photoshop PSD, PNG, JPEG and TIFF formats.
- Nondestructive image editing.
- Customizable printing and publishing.
- Supports importing from USB and FireWire memory card readers or directly from a camera connected via USB.
- Ability to simultaneously zoom and pan multiple images.
- Read and write support for IPTC image metadata.
- Heavily customizable book creation.
- Web gallery and blog creation, uploadable via FTP or Webdav.
- Full-featured full-screen mode, for editing and sorting images.
Aperture 2.0
- Streamlined interface.
- Enhanced performance due to database optimizations and interface improvements.
- Enhanced image processing with updated raw support.
- Improved integration with macOS, MobileMe and various software packages including iLife and iWork.
- Support for editing plug-ins, including Apple's own dodging and burning tool.
Aperture 3.0
- 64 bit application, able to handle huge files such as very high definition scans.
- Face detection and recognition tool, called Faces.
- Place pictures on maps using Places. It is compatible with GPS metadata and manually editable through an interactive map.
- Native Flickr and Facebook integration.
- Nondestructive, edge-aware brushes to apply adjustments to photos.
- Dozens of new built-in adjustment presets. Some photographers created custom presets available for download.
- Advanced slideshows.
- Handling and editing of video and audio files.
Version history
| Version number | Release date | Changes |
| 1.0 | November 30, 2005 | Initial release. |
| 1.0.1 | December 21, 2005 | Fixed bugs with shadow blocking in 8-bit images, Exif export issues, and improved performance in keyword searches. |
| 1.1 | April 13, 2006 | A significant update that includes new features such as universal support, improved raw image quality, raw fine tuning, auto noise compensation, a new color meter, enhanced export controls and other more minor improvements and bug fixes. |
| 1.1.1 | May 4, 2006 | Addresses several issues related to performance, stability, color correction, and display compatibility. |
| 1.1.2 | June 21, 2006 | Addresses issues related to overall reliability and performance. |
| 1.5 | September 29, 2006 | A significant update with many new features, including Flexible Library Management, iLife '06 and iWork '06 integration, Automatic Metadata Export, Edge Sharpen and iPod photo syncing. Also now officially supports all Intel-based Macs with at least 1 GB of RAM. Price dropped from $499 to $299. |
| 1.5.1 | November 2, 2006 | Improves overall reliability and performance in many areas of the application, including keywords, the Loupe, cropping, previews, metadata presets, file renaming, iPhoto library importing and watermarks. |
| 1.5.2 | December 11, 2006 | Addresses issues related to overall reliability and performance in a number of areas, including: Contact sheet printing, Smart Albums, watermarks, lift and stamp, image export, versions created using an external editor. |
| 1.5.3 | April 19, 2007 | Aperture 1.5.3 addresses issues related to overall reliability and performance in a number of areas, including: Generation of thumbnails for adjusted images, entering and exiting Full Screen mode, working with large sets of keywords in the Keywords HUD, restoring from a vault. |
| 1.5.6 | October 26, 2007 | Aperture 1.5.6 addresses issues related to performance, improves overall stability, and supports compatibility with Mac OS X 10.5. |
| 2.0 | February 12, 2008 | Aperture 2.0 includes 100+ new features and addresses performance and stability. New features include a streamlined user interface and entirely new image processing engine, new imaging tools for highlight recovery, color vibrancy, local contrast definition, soft-edged retouching, vignetting and RAW fine-tuning. Reduced price to $199 in the US. |
| 2.0.1 | March 3, 2008 | Aperture 2.0.1 addresses issues related to the performance and overall stability of Aperture 2. |
| 2.1 | March 28, 2008 | Aperture 2.1 introduces editing plug-ins including a Dodge and Burn tool developed by Apple and addresses issues related to the performance and overall stability of Aperture 2. |
| 2.1.1 | July 28, 2008 | Aperture 2.1.1 addresses issues related to performance, improves overall stability, and supports compatibility with Apple's MobileMe service. |
| 2.1.2 | October 20, 2008 | Aperture 2.1.2 update improves the printing quality of books, cards and calendars ordered through the Aperture printing service. |
| 2.1.3 | March 14, 2009 | Aperture 2.1.3 update improves overall stability and addresses minor issues in a number of areas, including the display of thumbnails on import and image rotation. |
| 2.1.4 | August 27, 2009 | Aperture 2.1.4 update addresses general compatibility and overall stability in the following areas: Creating books, Ordering books/prints and Slideshows |
| 3.0 | February 9, 2010 | Aperture now requires an Intel-based Macintosh. Version 3.0 includes 200+ new features including: faces, places, brushes, adjustment presets, full-screen browser, audio and video support, and advanced slideshows. |
| 3.0.1 | February 24, 2010 | Aperture 3.0.1 update improves overall stability and addresses a number of issues in Aperture 3, including: upgrading libraries from earlier versions of Aperture, importing libraries from iPhoto, importing photos directly from a camera, memory usage when processing heavily-retouched photos, face recognition processing, adding undetected faces using the Add Missing Face button, printing pages containing multiple images, editing photos using an external editor, display of images with Definition and Straighten adjustments applied, zooming photos in the Viewer and in the Loupe using keyboard shortcuts, accessing Aperture libraries on a network volume Selecting and moving pins on the Places map, adding and editing custom locations using the Manage My Places window and witching between masters when working with raw+JPEG pairs. |
| 3.0.2 | March 25, 2010 | Aperture 3.0.2 update improves overall stability and fixes issues in a number of areas. The key areas addressed include: upgrading Aperture 1.x and 2.x libraries, importing libraries from iPhoto or from earlier versions of Aperture, importing hierarchical folders of photos into a library, adding names and confirming matches in Faces, reordering snapshots on the Faces corkboard, creating and saving print presets, duplicating metadata presets, adjustments using Curves, Straighten and Retouching, navigation of photos in the Viewer using scrolling, importing ratings, color labels and GPS data from XMP sidecar files, IPTC metadata compatibility, deleting photos when emptying the Aperture Trash and exporting versions and libraries. |
| 3.0.3 | April 29, 2010 | Aperture 3.0.3 update improves overall stability and fixes issues in a number of areas. The key areas addressed include: applying adjustments such as Retouch or Chromatic Aberration, creating and using Raw Fine Tuning presets, viewing, adding and removing detected faces, switching target printers and paper sizes when printing, duplicating Smart Albums, repairing and rebuilding Aperture libraries, reconnecting referenced files, working with GPS track files in Places and searching for keywords in the Query HUD or Keyword Controls. |
| 3.1 | October 20, 2010 | Aperture 3.1 update greatly improves the overall stability and performance while fixing many major issues, most especially in Libraries and Adjustments, while making the application compatible with iLife '11. The key areas addressed include: displaying a progress bar when opening, switching and exporting libraries and masters, improvement in performance when opening large libraries, corrections on rendered previews and thumbnails used in Faces or while in zoom mode, importing and relinking referenced iPhoto libraries from a Mac, iPhone or iPad, improvements in face detection and addressing "blank" faces, corrections in search query performance, export of GPS metadata and correction of TIFF dpi setting, and performance improvements of many default adjustments. |
| 3.1.1 | December 9, 2010 | Aperture 3.1.1 update improves overall stability and performance issues, and also includes specific fixes that: Address compatibility with the iLife Media Browser, improve reliability when upgrading existing Aperture libraries, address issues with publishing photos to MobileMe, Facebook and Flickr. |
| 3.1.1 | January 6, 2011 | Aperture 3.1.1 was re-released in the Mac App Store, with a price drop to $79.99. |
| 3.1.2 | March 23, 2011 | Aperture 3.1.2 update improves overall stability and performance, including specific fixes in the following areas: Importing iPhoto libraries, Reliability and responsiveness when using brushes to apply adjustments, Reconnecting referenced master images. |
| 3.1.3 | July 13, 2011 | Aperture 3.1.3 update improves overall stability and performance, including specific fixes in the following areas: library rebuilding, file import issues, multitouch gestures, Faces and Places views, adjustments, web sharing, A/V, raw+JPEG pairs. Drops support for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Requires Mac OS X 10.6.6 Snow Leopard. |
| 3.2 | October 12, 2011 | Aperture 3.2 adds support for iCloud and iOS 5, and addresses stability, performance and compatibility issues. |
| 3.2.1 | October 28, 2011 | Resolves an issue that could cause Aperture to quit unexpectedly at launch on Macs with Core Duo processors. Addresses problems that could cause the Crop tool to switch to the incorrect orientation or resize incorrectly. Resolves rendering issues when cropping images with Onscreen Proofing enabled. Location menus are now displayed correctly on the map in the Places view when “Photos” is selected in the Library Inspector. |
| 3.2.2 | December 8, 2011 | This update resolves an issue that could prevent auto-imported Photo Stream images from being displayed in the library after your Photo Stream hits 1,000 images. |
| 3.2.3 | March 13, 2012 | Aperture 3.2.3 update allows photos to be deleted from photo stream and addresses minor issues related to performance and stability. |
| 3.2.4 | May 24, 2012 | Improves stability on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Addresses an issue that could prevent the Viewer from updating correctly after editing a photo using an external editor. |
| 3.3 | June 11, 2012 | New unified photo library for both iPhoto and Aperture; no import/export required; Faces, Places, slideshows, albums and web sharing work across both applications. Support for AVCHD video has been added. Aperture now lets you use camera-generated previews for faster browsing of RAW files immediately after import. Highlights & Shadows tool has been updated to deliver higher-quality results and work with extended range data. A new Auto Enhance button has been added to the Adjustments panel. White Balance tool now includes Skin Tone and Natural Gray modes to simplify color balance. Auto button has been added to the White Balance tool for one-click color balancing. Set Desktop command has been added to Share menu so you can set a desktop background from within Aperture. A new Manual option allows you to drag and drop projects to customize sort order in the Projects view. New preference allows you to set the background brightness of the full screen browser. Facebook, Flickr, and MobileMe albums are now displayed as thumbnails in the main window when accounts are selected in the source list. Minor terminology changes, including "Original" instead of "Master" and "Info" instead of "Metadata." Source list includes a new "Recent" section, showing Last Import and recently viewed projects. Raw Fine Tuning is no longer displayed in the Adjustments panel by default. Faces can now be named by dragging them from the Unnamed Faces browser to existing snapshots on the corkboard. The Faces corkboard now includes a menu that allows you to set the order of face snapshots. Newly designed monochrome source list and toolbar icons. Addresses numerous issues related to overall performance and stability. Requires Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. |
| 3.3.1 | June 28, 2012 | Fixes an issue that in rare cases could cause Aperture to hang or quit unexpectedly when upgrading libraries. |
| 3.3.2 | July 25, 2012 | Supports compatibility with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Addresses issues that could affect performance when entering and exiting Full Screen mode Auto White Balance can now correct color using Skin Tone mode, even when Faces is disabled Projects and albums in the Library Inspector can now be sorted by date in addition to name and kind Includes performance and stability improvement. |
| 3.4 | September 19, 2012 | Adds support for Shared Photo Streams on OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion A new File menu can be used to open the current library in iPhoto Includes performance and stability improvement. |
| 3.4.1 | September 28, 2012 | Addresses an installer issue that could cause the application to quit unexpectedly on launch Improves the reliability of syncing photos to iOS devices via iTunes Resolves an issue with downloading and viewing photos synced from Facebook albums Addresses other stability issues |
| 3.4.2 | November 1, 2012 | Photos received via My Photo Stream or shared streams can now be added directly to other shared streams Multiple email addresses can now be copied and pasted in the "Shared with" field for shared streams When more than five subscribers "Like" a photo in a shared stream, all their names are now displayed correctly The Info panel for a shared stream now includes an Unsubscribe button The status line in the toolstrip now displays the number of new photos added to a shared stream Faces are now properly detected on photos imported into a library from a shared stream Adjusted photos added to shared streams are now published with EXIF metadata properly preserved Addresses the reliability of Shared Photo Streams when switching between iPhoto and Aperture with the same library Custom keyboard shortcuts are now properly preserved when upgrading from earlier versions of Aperture Double-clicking a photo in Viewer-Only mode now correctly toggles to the Browser view Addresses a problem that could prevent the Viewer from displaying images with correct color after Auto White Balance and Auto Enhance are applied Addresses an issue that could cause JPEGs exported with a custom ICC profile to render incorrectly A dialog now displays progress when deleting large numbers of photos using the Empty Aperture Trash command Fixes a problem that could cause duplicate detection on import to fail when the "Auto-Split Projects" option is enabled RAW files are no longer displayed in the Import window when the "JPEG files only" option is enabled Key photos made from panoramic images are now displayed at high resolution Addresses a problem that could cause the Info panel in the Inspector to display the wrong metadata view Fixes an issue that could prevent Microsoft Outlook from being used to email photos from within Aperture Improves stability when working with AVCHD video files Fixes a problem with using the Zoom navigator on a second display Addresses issues that could cause web journals to export incorrectly Includes stability improvements |
| 3.4.3 | November 15, 2012 | Addresses an issue that could cause a licensed copy of Aperture to prompt for a serial number every time you open it. Addresses an installer issue that could cause the Mac App Store version of Aperture 3.4.2 to quit unexpectedly when you open it. |
| 3.4.4 | April 16, 2013 | Shared Photo Stream invitation lists now scroll correctly. Fixes an issue that could cause multiple warning dialogs to appear when syncing web albums after waking from sleep. Changes made to the Aperture library are now more reliably reflected in the iLife Media Browser. Two fingered scroll now works in the To field of the Shared Photo Stream dialog. Addresses an issue with library upgrades that could cause Aperture to incorrectly display a dialog stating "To open this iPhoto library in Aperture, it first needs to be upgraded." Resolves an issue that could prevent images captured from a tethered camera to a user’s Pictures folder from being written to disk on computers with Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5. Nikon P7700 RAW images are now displayed correctly in the Import window. The eyedropper for the Color tool now works correctly when you select either the Crop or Straighten tool in the Toolbar. Thumbnails with version names longer than 250 characters are now displayed correctly. This update also addresses stability issues that could cause Aperture to quit unexpectedly in the following cases: Moving photos from one project to another Uploading photos to Photo Stream Attempting to access a vault Connecting a second display to a computer while in Sleep mode, and then waking it from sleep This update also addresses stability issues that could cause Aperture to become unresponsive in the following cases: After canceling a print job When adjusting white balance |
| 3.4.5 | June 5, 2013 | Addresses an issue that could cause Aperture to quit unexpectedly when deleting items from a camera or memory card after import. Memory cards are now ejected correctly when using the Delete Items option after import. Includes stability improvements |
| 3.5 | October 22, 2013 | Adds support for iCloud Photo Sharing, including the ability to post videos to shared photo streams and to have multiple subscribers contribute to a shared stream The Places feature now uses Apple maps to display photo locations New integration with SmugMug, with support for publishing and syncing galleries directly to a SmugMug account Adds support for iOS 7 camera filters applied to photos imported from iOS devices Support of MacBook Retina display Requires OS X 10.9 Mavericks. |
| 3.5.1 | November 14, 2013 | White Balance now works as expected when using the Temperature & Tint eyedropper tool Fixes an issue that could cause the rectangles indicating detected faces to appear incorrectly When a metadata field is selected, the cursor now remains active in that field when using the Command and arrow keys to move between photos Includes stability improvements |
| 3.6 | October 16, 2014 | Stability improvements and compatibility with OS X 10.10 Yosemite |