Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
For Print Resolution, Auto automatically determines the best resolution for your print based on
the print and image sizes, but you can also pick a standard size (Aperture uses 72, which is typically
too low for high-quality prints) or type a custom resolution such as 360 for high-quality printing.
Image Adjustments
The Image Adjustments group provides two useful functions. The first is that sometimes, despite
your best efforts at color management and soft proofing your prints, you'll find that your prints
look a little better if you boost the brightness, contrast, or saturation before printing them. While
you could make a new version, make those changes, and then print this new version, using these
three sliders in the Print dialog is far easier.
The second part of the Image Adjustments group is the sharpening settings. As you've probably
heard, you want to sharpen the image you're going to output after it's resized to the final print
size. If you sharpen it before resizing, then your image won't appear to be sharpened properly
because it's going to be scaled from the size you used to pick your settings. By selecting the
Sharpen check box and setting the desired Amount and Radius settings (click the Loupe button to
the left to open the Loupe tool so that you can zoom into your image and pick appropriate sharp-
ening settings), Aperture sharpens your image appropriately now that it's scaled to its final print
size. Similar to settings in Photoshop, Radius controls the size of the area around each object's
edge that will be affected, and Amount controls how much the contrast in each edge will be exag-
gerated. Be careful not to set your Radius too high, as you might see halo artifacts around each
object, especially with higher Amount settings.
While Aperture's sharpening is quite good, it doesn't provide as much control as you
might want for the highest-quality prints. We recommend using an Aperture plug-in
like Nik Software's Sharpener Pro before printing (and then not using Aperture's
sharpen tool) to achieve the most precise, targeted sharpening.
Genius
Image Options
The last set of image and color options that directly affects how your image is printed is called,
appropriately, Image Options. We recommend always leaving Rotate to Fit selected so that if you
have a landscape image but your layout settings are set to portrait, Aperture will rotate your image
to fit on the page. The border size and color controls will let you add a solid line border around
your image. Lastly, to add a watermark to your image, select it from the pop-up menu, or if it
doesn't appear, select Choose and browse for your watermark.
