Aperty: How to use Develop RAW tool

aperty Oct 06, 2024

Every stunning portrait begins with the initial RAW development, and Aperty's Develop RAW tool is your foundation for flawless editing. This powerful tool empowers photographers to enhance color accuracy, adjust lighting, and fine-tune the development edits, setting the stage for your creative vision. With intuitive white balance and light controls, you can easily elevate your images from ordinary to extraordinary.

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

📸 Aperty: Find out more about Aperty 👉 Here

What is the Develop RAW Tool

In portrait photography, every exceptional image starts with a solid foundation, and Aperty's Develop RAW helps you to achieve precisely that. Designed for photographers, this powerful tool offers precise controls for initial development, allowing you to optimize colour accuracy, exposure, and tonal range.

With features like customizable white balance and powerful light adjustments, you can ensure your images reflect the true essence of your subjects. Start with the Develop RAW tool to lay the groundwork for a seamless editing workflow and transform your raw captures into stunning portraits ready for final refinement.

📍 Tip: The Develop RAW tool is only accessible for RAW image files. Images in formats like JPEG, PNG, and TIFF will use the standard Develop tool. (Learn more about the standard Develop tool here)

📍 Tip: See the list of the supported RAW files in Aperty here.

Introducing Develop RAW Controllers

Camera Profile

The Camera Profile feature allows users to choose a specific profile that matches their camera model. This optimizes colour reproduction and tonal characteristics based on the camera’s processing style. By default, the Camera Profile is set to "Aperty Default." The software enables real-time previews of how each profile affects the image, helping users make informed decisions based on their desired aesthetic. To access it, simply hover over the individual profiles and preview them on your image.

📍 Tip: Find out how to get access to additional camera profiles in Aperty here.

White Balance

The White Balance feature adjusts the colour temperature and tint of an image to ensure accurate colour representation, making whites appear neutral and enhancing other colours.

White Balance Presets

Aperty offers White Balance Preset options for common lighting scenarios, including daylight, cloudy, shade, tungsten, and fluorescent, providing quick adjustments based on the shooting environment.

White Balance Picker

Use the White Balance Picker to click on a neutral area in the portrait (like a grey card) to automatically set the correct white balance, ensuring accurate colour rendition.

Temperature Slider

The Temperature Slider adjust the warmth or coolness of the image with this slider. Moving it to the right adds warmth (yellow/orange tones), while moving it to the left introduces coolness (blue tones).

Tint Slider

The Tint Slider adjusts the green and magenta balance, allowing for the correction of colour casts from various lighting conditions.

Light

The Light Feature encompasses various controls for adjusting exposure and tonal range, essential for enhancing portrait images.

Exposure Slider

This slider adjusts the overall brightness of the image, allowing users to brighten or darken the portrait as needed.

Contrast Slider

This control modifies the difference between the darkest and lightest areas of the image, enhancing the image's dynamism or creating a more subtle look.

📍 Tip: Curves offer a more advanced way of adding contrast to your images. Read the blog post here to learn how to use the Curves tool in Aperty.

Highlights & Shadows Sliders

Users can fine-tune the bright and dark areas of the portrait separately. Adjusting highlights helps recover details in bright areas while adjusting shadows brings out details in darker sections.

Whites & Blacks Sliders

These sliders enable precise adjustments to the brightest and darkest parts of the image, defining the portrait's tonal range.

📍 Tip: The Histogram and Clipping Mask are great ways to guide and review the edits made with the Develop RAW tool. Find out more about the Histogram tool here.

Getting Started with the Develop RAW Tool

Select your project in the Project Manager and double-click to open it in the Editing module.
Choose the image in RAW format you want to edit from the Film Strip at the bottom of the application.
Navigate to the Main Editing Toolbar and click the icon with three sliders to access the Essentials section.
Open the Develop RAW tool by clicking its name or the triangle next to it.
Start by selecting your Camera Profile from the drop-down box.
Adjust your white balance. Start by testing the White Balance presets or use the White Balance Picker to get close to your desired look.
Use the Temperature and Tint sliders to fine-tune the overall white balance of your photo.
Use the Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks sliders to adjust the overall light of your image.
Review the Histogram and finish the initial development using the Exposure and Contrast sliders.
At any point, click the Eye icon to compare the before and after results.

Develop RAW Tool - Video Tutorial

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