Last week I wrote about a new edit plugin for Aperture called Silver Efex Pro from Nik Software. I am still having a great time using this plugin. I read some of your comments and am trying to find out more information about the performance issues, but I did hear that the toning filter preview in the Aperture version is not yet enabled.

Anyway, I am sure they will work it out. I personally have not seen any performance issues as of yet. It seems to work at about the same speed that I am used to working on my first generation MacBook Pro for any other plugin.

In the week that I have been playing with this incredible plugin, Nik Software has released another companion edit plugin for Aperture called Color Efex Pro. This plugin is a little more elaborate than Silver Efex, but the concepts are the same. I downloaded and tried it out last night when it became available on their site. Converting from my Canon 20D RAW files to the look of Kodachrome 64 is pretty fun! It seems like a great plugin so far, but I have only begun to experiment.

There are now well over a dozen edit plugins available for Aperture. This is pretty impressive considering how long the SDK has been publicly available. So, I wanted to stop and talk for a moment about how to incorporate edit plugins into your existing Aperture workflow.

There has been plenty of talk in the forums about the way Apple has implemented the edit plugin architecture. Many feel that these plugins should be working in the same way that Aperture does via database calls, and in a non-destructive manner. Well, we could argue this point all day, but I thought it would be more constructive to talk about how we can use the tools we have!

In case you hadn’t noticed, whenever you use an Edit plugin, the plugin creates a new TIFF or PSD ( your choice in Aperture’s prefs ) and connects it in a stack with your original master image. The point here is that Aperture and the edit plugin are working together to keep your life organized.

This new file is stored right next to your original master image, regardless of whether or not the original image was a managed or referenced file.

So now, you are in your plugin, you do your edits and click Save. The thumbnail in Aperture is updated and you have two master files, and what looks like two version stacked together. Well, what next?

Let’s say for example, that you want to do some more editing to that new file. Maybe you want to open this file with a different plugin for some additional special effects, or you might want to open it in the same plugin and add some more control points. Whatever the case may be, when you open the image a second time, the plugin will simply use the previously created TIFF or PSD file. This is essentially the issue with a non-non-destructive workflow--you can’t go back!

Well, there is a pretty simple solution to this, but it will require a few more pennies worth of disk space. After you click save the first time in an edit plugin, and once you are back in Aperture, right click your new image and select Duplicate Version. This will create yet another copy of that PSD or TIFF file on your hard drive, but now you can try another plugin, and be assured that your previous edit is still there. In case you are worried about disk space, once you are happy with the result, feel free to delete the intermediate version.

If you haven’t already checked it out, I recommend downloading the 15 day trial version of Nik Color Efex Pro. I have already spent way too much time playing with my old images and Silver Efex Pro. Like I said before, these plugins can be very addictive.

Also, I would be really interested to hear what your favorite edit plugins are for Aperture. Over at Aperture Plugged In, and here at Inside Aperture I am going to try and start reviewing these apps in a little more detail, so any input would be greatly appreciated.