Aperty: How to use Curves tool

The Curves tool in Aperty is your secret weapon for transforming dull photos into vibrant works of art. With just a few clicks, you can brighten, darken, and add contrast while fine-tuning colors to achieve that perfect look. Whether you want to enhance skin tones, create dramatic highlights, or emphasize the mood of your shot, the Curves tool gives you precise control over every detail. Get ready to elevate your editing game and bring your creative vision to life!

🛒 TIP: Speed up your portrait editing with our Professional Portrait LUT Bundle 👉 Learn More

📸 Aperty: Find out more about Aperty 👉 Here

In this article:

• What is the Curves Tool
• Introducing Curves Tool controllers
• Getting started with the Curves White tool
• Aperty

What is the Curves Tool

The Curve tool in Aperty is one of the most powerful features for adjusting your portrait images’ tone. It allows you to brighten, darken, add contrast, and shift colors. Curves can be applied to all color channels together or to each color channel individually, helping you manually fine-tune the brightness and contrast of a portrait. 

Introducing Curves Controllers

Understanding the Graph

The Curves tool features a graph with two axes:

• Horizontal Axis: Represents the input brightness levels of your image, from black (left) to white (right).
• Vertical Axis: Represents the output brightness levels after adjustments.

The Diagonal Line
The graph starts with a straight diagonal line from the bottom left to the top right. This line shows that input brightness levels match output levels—meaning no adjustments have been made yet.

Adding Control Points

You can add up to 10 control points along the line to customize your adjustments. Here’s how:

• Dragging Points:

  • Up: Brighten specific tones (e.g., raising the lower point brightens shadows in skin tones).
  • Down: Darken areas (e.g., lowering the upper point darkens highlights for a dramatic effect).

• Creating an S-Curve:
  An S-curve involves placing one point in the shadows and another in the highlights. This technique increases contrast, darkening shadows and brightening highlights, resulting in a more dynamic portrait.

Colour Selectors

You can use the white, red, green, and blue selectors to adjust all channels together or focus on individual channels.

Red Curve:

• Enhancing Skin Tones: Boost the red channel to warm up skin tones, making them look vibrant and healthy.
• Creating Warmth: Add points in the lower section of the curve to deepen shadows and add warmth to the image.
• Correcting Color Casts: If your portrait has too much green or blue, lower the red curve to balance skin tones.

Green Curve:

• Adjusting Skin Tone Balance: If skin tones look too yellow or red, reduce the green channel to neutralize those hues.
• Adding Life to Greens: For environmental portraits, adjusting the green curve can enhance natural elements in the background, allowing the portrait to stand out without overwhelming the subject.
• Creating Cool Tones: Pulling down the green curve gives the image a cooler, muted feel, which can suit specific artistic styles.

Blue Curve:

• Cooler Skin Tones: Adjusting the blue curve can create cooler, more sophisticated skin tones or help balance warm colours in the image.
• Emphasizing Backgrounds: Boosting the blue curve intensifies the blues in the background, adding depth and separation between the subject and the background.
• Correcting Color Issues: If there's an unwanted yellow or green tint, lowering the blue curve can help restore balance to your portrait.

Getting Started with the Curves Tool

1. Select your project in the Project Manager and double-click to open it in the Editing module.
2. Choose the image you want to edit from the Film Strip at the bottom of the application.
3. Navigate to the Main Editing Toolbar and click the icon with three sliders to access the Essentials section.
4. Open the Curves tool by clicking its name or the triangle next to it.
5. Start by adjusting the White Curve.
6. Click on the line to add control points. Drag a point up to brighten or down to darken specific tones.
7. To start creating the S-Curve, add one point into the shadows and one in the highlights to increase the contrast.
8. Optionally, use the Color Curves to adjust the individual colour channels.
9. Fine-tune your edits by adding or moving control points as needed.
10. At any point, click the Eye icon to compare the before and after results.

Aperty Portrait Editor

Aperty is an advanced portrait photo editing software designed to simplify and accelerate the process of retouching portraits. It features AI-powered tools for tasks like blemish removal, skin smoothing, makeup application, and facial reshaping, all while maintaining natural beauty. With its user-friendly interface, batch editing capabilities, and support for plug-ins, Aperty allows photographers to achieve professional-quality results quickly. Developed in collaboration with photographer Julia Trotti, Aperty offers one-click presets, precise human detection, and automation, making it an efficient solution for high-volume portrait editing workflows.

Learn more about Aperty here.

Get professional portrait LUTs here.

Written and published by: Jakub Bors | #BorsPhotography | www.borsphoto.com