After a year of bouncing rumors and requests among friends and watching Adobe erode Apple’s marketshare, Aperture 3 is finally out. As far as I’m concerned, the people who are disappointed in the update probably shouldn’t have bought Aperture in the first place.

One of the things in the new Adobe Lightroom that is implemented (and improved on) in Aperture 3 is the concept of presets. This is one step closer to having me abandon my insanely slow Photoshop workflow for something that is fast, can be undone, and doesn’t chew up disk space. But the thing that was bothering me was, will it blend? Can I really get away with not leaving Aperture unless I really, really have to.

Let‘s see what I can create in a few minutes of fiddling around.

Vintage Film

The Fallout75’s Vintage Film effect tries to mimic the fading that occurs when a photo starts to fade over the years: the process is outlined here. Here is what I get in Aperture when I try to follow the same rules:

Paul Kim -Terrys Vintage
Automattic, Embarcadero, San Francisco, California

Leica M8, NOKTON Classic 40mm f1.4 S.C.
1/750sec, ISO160, 40mm (53mm)

This is my Vintage Film preset. Mouseover the image to see the original.

Here is the output in Adobe Photoshop CS4 when the action is run:

Paul Kim -Fallout75 Vintage Film
Automattic, Embarcadero, San Francisco, California

Leica M8, NOKTON Classic 40mm f1.4 S.C.
1/750sec, ISO160, 40mm (53mm)

This is Fallout75’s action. Mouseover the image to see the original.

You can see that Fallout75 has two undocumented effects: a brightening of the center region and a vignetting on the edges. I can emulate this, but I didn’t know what I created the current version of the action. I suppose that’ll be for later.

Here is another comparison:

Raynox’d Flowers — Terry’s Vintage
South of Market, Embarcadero, San Francisco, California

Olympus E-P2, Panasonic LUMIX G VARIO HD 1:4.0-5.8/14-140 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S, Raynox M-250
1/100sec @ f/5.8, iso125, 114mm (229mm)

This is my vintage film effect on the flowers. It needs a little work. Mouseover to see the original, and click to see Fallout75’s version or: original, vintage, Fallout75 Vintage Film.

You can see, The center-light adds a nice wash effect that’s missing from mine. Also might has too much darkening overall. Looks like I need to do some more work!

CHLomo

My favorite effect of all time is the Lomo Effect. Unfortunately, I don’t have the CHLomo.js around so you’ll have to trust me.

Paul Kim -TCHLomo
Automattic, Embarcadero, San Francisco, California

Leica M8, NOKTON Classic 40mm f1.4 S.C.
1/750sec, ISO160, 40mm (53mm)

This is my CHLOMO preset. Mouseover the image to see the original.

and…

Raynox’d Flowers — TCHLomo
South of Market, Embarcadero, San Francisco, California

Olympus E-P2, Panasonic LUMIX G VARIO HD 1:4.0-5.8/14-140 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S, Raynox M-250
1/100sec @ f/5.8, iso125, 114mm (229mm)

This is my CHLOMO preset. Mouseover the image to see the original.

Scrumptious!

Download

Of course, you can have these actions if you like: Click here to download them.

All I ask is that if you happen to beat me to fixing them (or have some of your own you’d like to contribute), please contact me and get the changes back to me so I can update them.

Keep shooting.