Aperture Photography Workflow

Or, “How I Took It”

I thought it might be interesting (hopefully) to outline my photography workflow, from the moment the shutter opens and closes to the final processed image. This should highlight how I end up with amazingly fantastic images (cough splutter wheeze etc.)

The shot I’ve chosen is Westminster Bridge, which I took at the weekend (amongst a throng of eager tourists, I hasten to add…the pain I go through just to get a shot, I don’t know…)

The image straight out of the camera looks like this:

Here’s the technical details of the shot:

• Camera: Canon 400D
• Lens: Sigma 10-20 @ 18mm
• Aperture: f16
• ISO: 100
• Shutter speed: 45s
• Conversion software: Aperture 3, sharpened in Photoshop CS

It’s a nice shot, but there’s plenty that could be improved:

• It’s slightly underexposed
• There’s a chuffing large smudge above and to the left of the lights in the centre of the bridge
• Some detail has been lost in the shadows
• It’s too warm

Here’s the list of adjustments in full, all done in Aperture 3:

• Removed the sensor smudges using the Repair tool
• Increased the exposure by half a stop (I prefer to nail the exposure when taking the shot, but had to make an exception this time.)
• Adjusted the white balance from 5114k to 4685k to “cool it off” a little bit
• Corrected barrel distortion using the PT Lens plugin
• Adjusted the Devignette slider to brighten the corners (Intensity: 1.0, Radius: 0)
• Recovered the shadows with the Shadows slider (8.85) and the Black Point slider (-5.0)
• Recovered the highlights using the Recovery slider (0.36)
• Converted to Black and White (Red: 1%, Green: 59%, Blue: 40%)
• Added a Sepia tint (Intensity: 0.46)

I then exported the image as a TIFF into Photoshop, added a small amount of dodge and burn to the bridge and Big Ben, and then sharpened using the High Pass Filter. And we’re done…finally!

I hope this has been of help to you – the settings above will vary depending on the image you’re processing, and of course there’s one hundred ways to skin a pixellated cat, as it were. Hopefully this will get you up and running.