Jacken’s Blog

It’s been a long time since I looked forward to a program as much as I do with Apples Aperture. I’ve tested C1 Pro and Raw processing with Adobe Photoshop, but none of them feels like they fit in to my workflow habits. The only thing that worries me is that it doesn’t look like Aperture supports plug-ins, so I will not be able to use NIK Sharpener Pro 2.0. And to output anything to print has to go trough NIK Sharpener Pro, trust me.

My normal workflow now is to use Adobe Photoshop CS2 to color correct and to touch up the image. I then use NIK Sharpener Pro 2 to do a raw pre-sharpening. Then I save the image in Photoshop format. This is my finished image. I have stopped printing my pictures on an ink jet printer because of the price per print and all the problems, so I now send all the prints to a processing lab instead. It’s incredibly cheap. There’s a great preset in NIK Sharpener Pro 2 where you select the output to print lab and select the dpi of their service (information that’s not always easy to get hold of). On screen it looks horrible, but the output is perfect. The plug in adapts using the image size and the output media. So make sure you select the output size before using the plug-in. With this you get razor sharp images. For me, the NIK Sharpener Pro 2.0 is the perfect plug-in. It focuses on a specific task, and performs it to perfection.

So hopefully my workflow will be Apples Aperture for selecting, organizing and doing backup and Adobe Photoshop for touching up and make the print ready for printing.

Update coming when I get my greedy hands on the program.