Apple has unveiled a new application that it describes as the first all-in-one post production tool for professional photographers. It is called Aperture, and is based on RAW images. RAW images are used by the software natively, and without any intermediate conversion process. It is a simple matter to retouch them using a suite of adjustment tools designed especially for photographers.
The nondestructive image processing engine ensures that it never alters a single pixel of the original photo so photographers can modify or delete changes at any point in the workflow. As Aperture allows users to create multiple versions of a single image without duplicating files, photographers can experiment without risk of overwriting the master image or using up large amounts of hard drive space. Aperture images can also be launched directly into Adobe Photoshop for compositing and layer effects.