Cropping Photos in Aperture 2.0

Shown above are two photos that I shot of the San Diego skyline.  The first one is the original, and the second one is a crop of the second one.  There are two ways to crop a photo in Aperture.  If you select "Constrain to Master Aspect Ratio" your cropping cursor will adjust to the same ratio as your original photo.  So if your photo was originally say the "pixel size" was  3000 by 4000 pixels your cropping options will be along the lines of 1500 by 2000, 750 by 1000, and so on.  This would be a 3:4 ratio.

If you choose to deselect this, as I have here, you can crop to more of a panoramic format. The top photo was 5616 by 3744.  This is similar to 4:3 ratio.  After cropping and resizing, by exporting to a smaller, more manageable size 2808 by 903.

San Diego Skyline

San Diego, CA, United States

Canon 5D Mark II

Focal Length 55

Aperture 20

Shutter 30 sec

ISO 1000

Shooting Conditions at Night

Ferry Landing
Coronado, CA, United States

Canon 5D Mark II
Focal Length 28
Aperture 20
Shutter 13 sec.
ISO 200

This is a photo that I shot at the Ferry Landing shopping center in Coronado, CA.  The below photo is the original.  The biggest problem with this picture was that light was trapped in what I hoped would be a nicely contrasted black sky.  There are a number of reasons that this may happen.  In this case there was a higher than normal level of humidity in the air.

I try to keep my photoshopping to a minimum but in this example more drastic, but simple, changes were needed.  I did all of my post-production in Aperture 2.0 (For Mac) and enhanced the black point.  This is a great basic way to darken the sky in night photography.  This is best used sparingly however because the rest of the scene will also be darkened.  You could also adjust the contrast, but this may have a dulling/flattening effect on certain parts of the scent.  By using the black point adjustment I feel that a smoother, more luminous image is obtained.

A better technique would have been to stand from farther away and crop the shot after the fact.  This would have greatly reduced the lens flare.  There would have been a loss in resolution (depending on how much cropping was needed) but it would have yielded cleaner image that would have needed less post-production.  By excessive adjustments to black point you are running the risk that your image will look overproduced, as in my opinion, is the case here.  Far from comprehensive, but an easy, quick fix none the less.

Capturing Light Trails From Cars

1st Street, 

Coronado, CA, United States

Canon 5D Mark II

Focal Length 105

Aperture 16

Shutter 8 sec.

This is a picture looking westward on 1st Avenue in Coronado, CA.  The light trails were captured by having a shutter of 8 sec. which recorded the car headlights as they passed.

Correcting Exposure in Aperture 2.0

Orange Avenue

Coronado, CA, United States

Canon 5D Mark II

Focal Legnth 47

Aperture 18

Shutter 20 sec.

ISO 400

A picture of my cab.  For this photo it was impossible to get the scene evenly exposed so some post production was needed to be done.  For my post production (which is typically minimal) I use Aperture 2.0, which is much more user friendly, but a little less comprehensive than Adobe Photoshop (whatever version).

In this case i found that it was best to meter the scene for the road and the street lights/lighting and use the shadows function of Aperture to evenly expose the side of the cab.  Care is needed when doing this as noise/grain is added when the Shadows function is used.  Aperture uses an algorithm to determine the darkest parts of the scene and isolates them, letting you manually adjust the brightness in certain sections of the picture.

Conversely there is a highlights function that isolates the brightest parts of the scene and allows the user to manually dim/darken those spots.  The downside of this is that if used in excess halation (a halo effect around the edges, which is more noticeable in highly contrasted subjects) often occurs.  Also, when used excessively there is a dulling/flattening effect on colors in the section of the scent that is being altered, resulting in an artificial look.  Both these adjustments are best used sparingly.