Reinhard Uebel has released a new Aperture plugin that allows users to add custom borders to their images as they export them. The plugin, called BorderFX is currently available as a free download in beta form.

BorderFX adds to the small selection of plugins which actually alter your images. Most plugins so far have been developed for the sole purpose of uploading images to web services, so it is really nice to see a new plugin which is modifying the image. Very cool!

If you want more information on BorderFX, be sure to check out Uebel’s blog. Bagelturf also has a short review of his experiences with BorderFX, available here.

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Übermind has released an update to their Aperture To Picasa Web Albums plugin. Version 1.2 of the plugin fixes a number of bugs and adds a change to the upload routine so that images get uploaded in the order in which they were selected.

Übermind’s latest release is available as a free 30 day trial or for purchase at a modest $24.95.

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We saw this on Bagelturf and were immediately interested. Apparently a photographer by the name of Ian Wood has been working on a nifty add-on for Aperture that allows users to embed GPS data into the metadata in Aperture.

This looks like a pretty promising add-on for Aperture users. So we will naturally continue to monitor its progress.

From Bagelturf a-la DPReview.com:

GPS2Aperture is a floating system window which can grab GPS data from either Aperture or Google Earth, let the user edit it and then send the data to either Aperture or Google Earth.

http://ianjameswood.co.uk/aperture/GPS2Aperture_beta.zip (3.2MB)

For instance if an image Version has incorrect GPS info, you can view the location in Google Earth, move around the the right location and send the edited location data back to the image Version in Aperture. Alternatively, use Google Earth to visually pick a location and add it to Versions that had no GPS data in the first place.

Note - GPS2Aperture makes changes directly to Aperture’s SQLite database as the interface gives no way to alter GPS or other EXIF data. It’s been tested on multiple computers and multiple Libraries without problems, but make sure you backup first, just in case!

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Over at Inside Aperture Micah Walter (editor of this website) has posted about David Riecks’s Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalog (or CVKC). The CVKC is a list of over 11,000 organized keywords for Aperture.

If you have ever worked with a stock agency you will know how important keywording can be. Many agencies use their own controlled vocabulary, so it will be interesting to see how David’s list matches up with places like iStockPhoto who ask their photographers to go through a process called disambiguation for each photo they submit.

For more information on David’s keyword list, check out his website at controlledvocabulary.com

To read the post head on over to Inside Aperture.

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Übermind has announced that the Aperture to Picasa Web Albums plugin has left its beta stage.

Currently the plugin is at version 1.1.1 and has received the the following fixes since its initial beta release:

1. Fixed some issues with software update functionality
2. Improved album cover loading time
3. Fixed erroneous quota display when storage space is greater than 1 GB
4. Warns about uploading non-jpeg images
5. Incorrect Username/Password error is more informative
6. Username name is now easier to read when logged in

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Übermind has just released Aperture to Archive, a plugin for Aperture that allows you to export images to a compressed format.

Aperture to Archive supports four of the most popular Apple and Unix compression formats including: DMG, ZIP, Bzip2, and Gzip2. The compression has no effect on image quality.

Note that Aperture to Archive is a BETA product and expires on 7/31/2007.

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ApertureToGmail. was released to the public back in April by Juan Leon, who also developed the iPhotoToGmail plugin.

The goal of ApertureToGmail is to offer seamless integration between Aperture and Google’s Gmail. ApertureToGmail, which was written during Leon’s 30 day free trial of Aperture, has all the features of iPhotoToGmail. ApertureToGmail is now public at version 0.2, and can be downloaded from Leon’s site here.

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Bakari Chavanu from Inside Aperture had an opportunity to interview Aaron Morse from Übermind about plugin development for Aperture.

The interview can be read here.

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Übermind has just announced a plugin for Aperture that allows image export directly to Google’s Picasa Web Albums site.

Aperture to Picasa Web Albums 1.0 is a beta product that expires on July 15, 2007. Until then Aperture to Picasa Web Albums has the following features:

• Ability to create new albums
• Support for Public and Unlisted Albums
• Ability to view album covers
• A status indicator show how much storage you have left
• Automatic uploading of Aperture keywords as Picasa tags
• Support for Mac OS X Keychain

Aperture to Picasa Wed Albums is currently available as a free download from Übermind’s site.

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A student software developer by the name of Sean Farley has just released a plugin for Aperture that allows easy uploading of images to the social networking website, Facebook.com. Sean, a PhD student in Mathematics has converted most of the code for Facebook’s iPhoto plugin, originally developed by Facebook’s own Josh Wiseman.

The plugin allows you to select any number of photos, and tag each person’s face, by clicking in the image. Once you are finished, the plugin uploads the tagged photos to your Facebook.com account.

Sean says the plugin is still largely under construction, although he has made some major improvements, including a fix that keeps Aperture from crashing when displaying the upload progress bar. He has also added functionality to add a ‘Facebook’ keyword to each uploaded image, and the plugin will add facebook tags to your photos via Aperture’s keywords.

Sean is currently leaving this project as open source and you can download his source files from his website at http://seanfarley.org/aperture.

You may need to download and install the framework MKAbeFook in order to get his plugin to work properly. The framework is also available from his website, and you can install it simply by copying the framework folder into your /Library/Frameworks directory.

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