This is the second part of an ongoing series of articles that will hopefully shed some light on developing an Aperture Edit Plugin. This series is not meant to be a tutorial, but more of a documentation of my personal efforts to create a plugin for use in a two year long art project I will begin working on this fall. This art project is also going to be documented over at my website called Entropy Art. Please feel free to check it out, sign up and participate in any way that you would like. Also, I am making the source code for this plugin available as open source. As it is still just basically a template, I haven’t felt the need to choose a license for it yet, but I will eventually. For now, please feel free to download the code and contribute any ideas you would like.
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Before

PictureCode has released this week an Aperture plugin version of their very popular Noise Ninja. Noise Ninja provides users with high quality, camera specific noise reduction. The plugin will be available for download on their site as a free demo and a software key for the full version can be purchased for $79.95. Customers who bought earlier versions of the Pro Bundle can upgrade for $20.

When I heard about this new plugin I immediately got excited about one very specific thing–my Nikon D2H files! A few years ago I was one of the unlucky individuals who bought a brand new Nikon D2H. In hand the camera was remarkable. It shot at 8 fps, and had a seemingly never ending buffer, even when shooting Nikon’s raw format. It was built like a tank and could withstand just about anything I was able to throw at it.

However, the original Nikon D2H suffered in one area that was a deal-breaker for me–NOISE!!! This camera was simply awful at high ISO. It was especially bad in mixed, artificial light. As a Washington D.C. photographer, covering politics on Capitol Hill, I was nearly ALWAYS working in these types of situations.

To better illustrate what Noise Ninja can do for my old D2H files, check out this set I have created on flickr.com. I have posted 5 screen shots displaying a quick edit on an image I liked of former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry. Here he is speaking at a podium just after being sworn in as a D.C. Council Member–go figure.

In each screen shot I have added a short commentary about the noise issues and how Noise Ninja was able to help me solve them. If you are logged in to flickr, you can also see larger versions by clicking “All Sizes.”

After

So far I am pretty impressed with this plugin. The price is pretty reasonable, and the simplified interface is very welcome compared to the Photoshop version.

For more information, please check out the press release after the jump.
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