What is Aperture?
Aperture is professional photo editing and management software developed by Apple for macOS. It was first released in 2005 as a competitor to Adobe's Lightroom. Aperture provides photographers with a streamlined workflow to import, organize, cull, rate, edit, and publish large photo libraries with powerful tools built for pros.
Key features of Aperture include:
- Import and organize a large photo library with fast previews
- Powerful RAW support and non-destructive image processing
- Professional color correction tools like curves, levels, white balance, etc.
- Advanced brushes for targeted local adjustments
- Facial recognition and geotagging capabilities
- Flexible publishing options to share online or to physical books/prints
While development on Aperture ceased in 2014, it still has an intuitive interface and robust toolset for managing and editing a large volume of images efficiently as a photographer. Many pros continue to use Aperture in their workflows even though it lacks some newer RAW formats and isn't updated anymore.
Adobe Lightroom, darktable, digiKam, Apple Photos, Adobe Photoshop Elements, ACDSee Photo Studio, Capture One, Shotwell, RawTherapee, gThumb, Polarr, Zoner Photo Studio X are some alternatives to Aperture.