Aperture 3, It's Not All Bad

Most of my posts on Aperture 3, have been leaning to the negative side, but that does not mean I dislike the application! Using the adjustment brushes sparingly is possible with my system, I just keep activity monitor running with RAM usage showing in the dock, when it gets close to being full, I stop what I am doing and exit the program. RAM is then freed up, I re-enter Aperture and start working again, and repeat the above steps, usually several times. That is somewhat annoying, but at least I can do the editing I want without locking up my system.

300mm, ISO200, 1/800s @F5.6

Generally speaking I am happy with the results I am getting from Aperture 3. RAW support is improved, and I've noticed the improved noise reduction, and RAW conversion is much better than with Aperture 2. Brushes, again when used sparingly, allow you to really improve your photos. I used some to improve the photo in today's post, removing some annoying branches that distracted from the subject, as well as using some dodge to brighten up the Sparrow's eye, to really make it stand out. I could have made the eye stand out with a flash, but I wasn't carrying it with me when I was shooting the other day, so some post processing really helped the image.

One of the strange things I've noticed since reinstalling Aperture 3 is that none of my plug-ins are working, even ones that have been updated specifically for Aperture 3. I tried reinstalling the plug-ins, but that didn't help, which is very odd. That being said, the only one I care about is the Aperture to SmugMug plug-in, since that is my image hosts website. Until I can figure out why they plug-ins aren't working I'll be using the standalone upload tool from my host, which works fine anyway.