I finally got the chance to update and migrate all my photo libraries to the latest version of Aperture. Along the way, I was able to review some of the images I edited using an earlier version.

One particular image that I used to think looked great, a macro of an orchid, now seemed somehow bland. I thought it needed re-editing. Largely because I was curious with what the new Aperture can do now, I decided to attempt a quick re-edit. In less than three minutes, I came up with something new. Comparing it to the previous edited version, I was surprised to see a huge improvement. I felt I was able to quickly come up with a much better final image using the editing tools available in the latest version of Aperture.

I was thinking that it's probably because my aesthetic, artistic and creative sense, as well as my editing skills, may have since improved. Still, I can't help but think that I wouldn't have been able to do it without Aperture's new and much improved editing tools. Aperture, in other words, was able to more accurately render my true photographic vision of the orchid macro shot. It's either me, or Aperture. But really, because Aperture keeps on improving, we can now perhaps logically expect from ourselves that we will engage in constantly keep coming up with better and better final images, even from out of any previously edited versions.

Even if before the photographic paradigm can be described as somewhat linear -- photographers make a final print, sign it, and then that's it, nowadays, with constant development in software such as Aperture, we are somehow doing thngs a little bit (or a whole lot) differently. In the paradigm that shifted, and where we are now, we are able keep on creating something new and something better from out of previously edited shots. It's one edit on top of another. We can now lock ourselves into a never-ending edit mode. In a way, this echoes something that I read, and vaguely remember, about Ansel Adams. If I not mistaken, he was lamenting the fact that, in his lifetime, he already had more than enough shots to print pictures. In today's digital age, and if we are so inclined, we can actually now also "lament" about the very thing same condition -- with the almost never-ending advancement in digital technology, we can, creatively and technically speaking, make better and better edits on the same images. We can just keep on improving on any of our previous work, and there won't be an end to it.

Looking at the bigger picture, a digital tool such as Aperture is unavoidably and essentially changing how most photographers are doing their work. The change is no longer simply on the workflow level, but on a much fundamental way. There is a shift going on. Subtle or unnoticed it may seem, it is, for the most part, over-arching.

And so, caught up in this ongoing fundamental shift, coupled with the availability of ever-increasing higher capacity cards and more affordable storage, I ask myself two questions: Should I no longer delete awful images, because somehow, with the constant improvement of digital tools (such as Aperture), and because of my evolving artistic, creative and aesthetic sense, I can eventually work my digital magic into these bad shots and turn them into stunning artistic creations? And, does it also mean that I should no longer delete totally black shots, since I will now be able to hope, and can expect, that sometime in the very near future, a brilliant and hard-working engineer will somehow discover a new algorithm that can draw out pictures from totally black shots?

Right now, from where we are standing and looking, we certainly cannot predict if these would ever happen. But enough to say that whenever something new comes our way, something that improves upon our old way of doing things, such as, being able to create really dramatic images with the Gamma vignette, we cannot help but think that, at some point in the all-digital future, the impossible will be possible.