Choosing An Aperture Raw Converter

Aperture 1.1 actually contains two raw converters. There's the original 1.0 converter, which suffered from some occasional image quality problems, and the 1.1 converter, which addresses the 1.0 problems and includes some additional editing controls.

Rather than simply replacing the old converter with the new, Apple includes both converters in Aperture and allows you to freely switch from one to the other. For new images, you'll want to use the 1.1 converter, but if you have old images that you've already edited to your satisfaction, there's no reason not to keep them in the 1.0 format. Apple's inclusion of both converters means that early adopters don't have to re-edit legacy images.

When you select a raw image in the Browser pane, Aperture automatically displays a small pop-up menu at the top of the Adjustments panel (Figure 6.6). From this menu, you can select the converter that you want to use, and you can freely switch back and forth. After you select a new converter, Aperture will immediately reprocess your image and display the new conversion.

Figure 6.6. The raw converter pop-up menu lets you choose whether you want your raw images converted using the version 1.0 converter or the 1.1 converter.

If you select File > Migrate Images, you can specify global raw conversion rules that automatically convert your images to the 1.1 raw converter (Figure 6.7).

Figure 6.7. The Migrate Images dialog box lets you specify which raw converter Aperture should use by default.